Tradition vs Innovation: Hotel Sacher's Honest Answer | Ep. 001

But uh yeah, that has been quite uh quite fun. For me it was very unusual because I had breakfast today. Normally I don't eat breakfast during the week, but we had breakfast with 80 days, so it was very nice. So today we had a Zaher in Vienna with my friend Paul Sorantin, uh the commercial director of this machine.

And today we want to tackle one of the main questions around innovation, AI, and at the same time heritage and tradition which can coexist. That's the main topic and the main question I want to tackle today. But before we we move on, um we are in this beautiful suite at the Zarar. Paul, do you have any story to tell about this uh this um this suite here?

Yes, so right now we are in our suite 210, um, which is actually called the Wiener Staatsoper suite, which we rebranded this year. And you will find in the suite little accessories from the Startsoper around it. Excellent, and we have beautiful artwork. I'm not sure if you if you can see, but it's gold everywhere, which I don't want to touch anything.

Um, but very happy to be here. My name is Thibaut Catala, I'm the founder of Catala Consulting, and this is HXT212. HXT212. All right, Paul, thank you so much for for being here.

Um, can you tell me a bit more about yourself and uh what you do here at the Zahar? Sure, so thank you very much for this opportunity. Um right now I'm I'm holding the role as a head of commercial performance and in my department I oversee all the activities around revenue management, e-commerce, distribution, and digital marketing for the hotels, as well as for the organization for the online shop. Okay.

Can you uh maybe explain what is um revenue management for anyone who has no idea of revenue management? Let's say like you have to explain to your kids what papa is doing, or you would explain what the revenue manager is doing. Um what our revenue managers are doing right now is they try to figure out which price they need to sell at any time to which customer that it generates the best result for the hotel. Okay, I like it.

But my my kids, I think they will be a bit uh lost if I say absolutely. Although for for the for for kids, I would say it's determining determining a price which a customer is willing to pay. And if you look on kids on the playground, everyone is willing to pay a different price for a certain product. And this is what the revenue manager is trying to do to find out.

Okay. I I like to when I when I try to to show off with my friends and uh or even with my family, when they ask me what do I do, I say like I'm uh you see the the the uh the traders in uh in a bank? I'm uh I'm the kind of trader for for hotel. I make more money for them.

That's kind of the main one. But for my kids, I tell them like I'm a I'm um I'm a treasure hunter. I'm trying to find clues, I'm trying to find uh different ways uh for the hotel to make more money. That's kind of off my way to put it.

Um yeah, but revenue management, do you feel that uh revenue management has evolved in the last few years, or do you think it's still the same? Um I would definitely say revenue management evolved because when I started in revenue management in 2012, there was no year which was the same as the year before. Because every year new topics came up, new challenges, new KPIs, and that's what makes revenue management so interesting. Um, it's constantly evolving, and from what I've seen right now is it is evolving so fast right now that I'm really curious to see in which direction it will go in the next years.

So, do you believe the job of a revenue manager will still exist in five years? I believe it's gone in five years. Boom. I'm pretty sure it's it will be gone in five years because the way how we did revenue management in the last ten years, I would say, it's not necessary to do it in the next five years because systems will can do it.

Okay. The role need definits to change um in the next years. It's more about the person who can generate revenue. Okay.

That's the revenue manager, but it's not the person who is spending endless hours on Excel sheets or in a revenue management system and tweaking rates and stuff like that. I should disagree that the job will disappear. It will not disappear, but it will just change dramatically from probably we have seen in the last 10 years or 13, 15 years. Yeah.

Yeah, it will from what I see right now is a lot of tasks our revenue managers are doing at this stage are those which are not automated are at those tasks where just systems are not speaking to each other. Yeah. Um, but as soon as all systems will start speaking to each other, then you can automate them. I see.

Yeah, we we we we talk about it quite uh quite a few times, even together off records. And um I believe it it won't disappear, but we are now at a tipping point where it will change. It needs to change. Uh, and the Review Manager, we were stuck in uh in a on the Excel spreadsheet and doing pricing and so on.

These days are gone for sure. Yeah, uh, but now I do believe it needs to evolve into a strategic direction, into this kind of experimentation, uh, to leverage technology and innovation and AI to focus on the most important, which is a strategy and experimentation. And then you have some consolidation, maybe like your position now, into more commercial uh elements, which I believe maybe the future of revenue management. I I definitely agree on that.

But as mentioned earlier, it's gotta be the person who can actually find ways to generate revenue. Um my opinion, it also doesn't need to be that like the revenue manager. It can be also your your your sales director or your marketing director. You just need the person who can understand the data and communicate it and communicate it.

Do you need a revenue management background or a marketing background or a sales background? It won't matter that much anymore. Makes sense. Okay.

At least for for properties which are which have a developed sales marketing team. Yeah, for sure, in smaller properties or in the countryside, you will do things different than in branded hotels. That's very interesting because um I mean we are here in a at the Zahrach, which is it's all of 150 years, is it correct? Yeah, the Hotel Sachavin is going to celebrate the 150 years anniversary next year.

Okay. Happy birthday, the Zahrach. And um do you believe tradition and heritage is it a blocker or an enabler of innovation and um um advancement? Like can you embrace technology as much or as fast as other smaller property, for example?

Yes, I would definitely say. Um because it's actually the reason why we are still here since 150 years. Um, without the innovation, we would not be able to stay relevant for the last 150 years and hopefully for the next 150 years. I I believe there is many people have this me com misconception that luxury five-star hotels are not really embracing technology, AI, or even advanced review management because it's a luxury, it's an heritage, you have um a lot of um yeah, not old school, but they have this kind of misconception that heritage is a bit more old school.

Um, but I understand with the Zaher, you have been experimenting, you have been trying uh some new tools and new innovation, and you believe that's uh that's kind of things which uh make you relevant and uh survive as well. Yes, I can give you an example. Um, for instance, Sacha was one of the first hotels in Vienna which had electrified chandeliers. Okay.

Back in the last year. Last year. Yeah. Um, but back then probably it was also innovation, and people thought, okay, why would you need it?

Yeah, and I mean now we're not talking about electrified lights anymore, but we talk about okay, implementing tools which can help us to automate repetitive tasks. Okay. Yeah. I understand as well.

You have been using do you use AI as a daughter? Yes, we use AI on in different fields. Um we use it on the website um where we have a chatbot, of course. It's already in the second chatbot um which we are using right now.

Um I can give you an example. In the last two years, the chatbot handled more than 60,000 conversations. 60,000. 60,000 conversations.

So if you think about you have uh an employee answering all those conversations, it's quite some time which you would need. Yeah, and this those 60,000 conversations were handled with an automation rate of 96%. Yeah, so only a fraction of it actually um needed a human interaction. Okay.

Um right now everyone is talking about AI and chatbots and stuff like that, but actually, revenue management systems, AI plays a bigger role before it came fancy or being popular because the machine learning concepts are used for forecasting and for pricing principles. And of course, we also use a revenue management system, and of course, we're also running it on an autopilot since two years. So our prices are defined and yielded by the system automatically for all our room categories for the next 365 days.

Yeah. We can't do this on our own, especially if you say you have two properties, um, you pile it up to 16 room categories, doing it for 365 days, defining every day the right price for the right uh customer. Yeah. It's just not possible anymore.

So you're saying those tasks were they were need to be automated years ago. Like uh that's the kind of thing that you are actually happy to be automated. And now that those tasks are automated, does it give you more free time to do some other task? And if so, which task are you focusing much more time on or your team as well?

Um the team can focus now more on the strategic part. Yeah, also but the revenue manager is not digging into every day to optimize just this single day for all room categories. They all try to try to work with the bandwidth, with the min-max bounds, and stuff like that to help the system to understand, uh, to optimize it. And to work more on the strategic part, to see okay, what can I what can I get out of the data and what do we need to do right in the future.

Yeah, we spent a lot of time on forecasting, um, on also predicting the upcoming months. We know a lot of systems are very good on forecasting for the next 30 days, but with our lead time, if we see for the next 30 days, we might not hit budget, it's too late to to react. So actually, we need to forecast six months, nine months out um to def to actually change the direction, for instance. So, this is where we are right now spending more time on to see on what can we do for those longer periods.

That's interesting. Um, because well, your um your job and your and your team, they look at a lot of um data spreadsheets, a lot of uh BI tools and uh and uh other online tools. How do you make sure to still make it human on the on this field? Because it's very easy to get lost into the into the the tech and into this kind of data and so on.

But do you have any techniques or any recommendation to make sure, even if you look at data, to make sure you you keep the human element into it? Especially in the in the part of revenue management and all or in the commercial part. You will only succeed if you are able to trend to tell the story. Yeah, so the storytelling part is the most relevant one.

If you start explaining too much details on technical stuff and on pricing strategy and what you do here and there, why is it why is your SEO campaign running, or why do you work on these keywords? You will lose the people. Yeah, so it's more you need to work on the storytelling part. And I'm also super happy to see that actually also in this industry, storytelling for revenue managers or actually storytelling is becoming a much bigger or playing a much bigger role now.

Uh that's also getting trained. Yeah. Okay, you mentioned about storytelling. Is there any other skills that you believe are super duper relevant in the next uh 10, 20, 50 years for commercial expert and resume management?

If it still exists, by the way, but in uh in commercial. I would say it's the the the the ability to analyze data and to understand the data and to create an action out of it. Because I would say we are very good in analysing things, but it's very hard to get into the into the action part. But this is actually the part where the fun part uh will start.

Okay. And this will stay also for the for the future. You might have any tool, you name it, I don't know, which will give give you an idea of what happened. Um, but if the tool is not able to to to create also the action which you would need, then you need to create the action.

Makes sense. And if you don't get the learning out of it of your analysis, nothing is going to change. Because then you will have run into the same problem which you had in the previous month, in the next months. You will always be able to analyze it, but still no learning out of it.

And I would say right now that's the the most tricky part is to actually get into this going part to see, okay, this is what we've learned, this is what we should do differently. Let's focus on doing it. And then it's not only about the revenue, it's not about the pre-pricing part. Pricing is just one part.

You need all the other departments on that one. Because if your message is not clear, or if you're transmitting a completely different message on social media, it might be tricky. Also, you need to align with your sales team and your reservation and events team. So those actions need to be communicated across the whole sales marketing function and also within the hotel.

Generating revenue is not only a task of a sales marketing team. Basically, everyone who is dealing with guests can actually generate revenue. I love this when people are saying like uh um, oh yeah, but you are the revenue manager, revenue manager, revenue is down, revenue is up, is because of you. Actually, even better.

Revenue is down, is because of you. Revenue is up thanks to the sales team. Thanks to everyone. Thanks to everyone.

Thanks to everyone. That's very often that we have this kind of I call it the revenue manager dilemma. There you go. But uh I I fully agree with what you you just mentioned uh about storytelling, looking at the data, and making sure we extract the juice, what is the most important, and to act on it, because a lot of people they have the data, the right data, but they don't know what to do with it or they don't act.

And even sometimes even more important, they don't know how to communicate it, as you mentioned. Um so I do believe those kind of skills of communication, presentations, uh, influence are super duper relevant in the future. Even more important than any kind of technical uh aspect to it. Or we communicate with each other, or do we interact with each other, or do I convince you that my ideas are worth it?

And that's that I believe are more the soft skills are needed in the future in the hospitality industry, any position, more than the technical aspect, I believe. You agree with this? I would say yes, because the technical part is then gone. Or in a perfect world, all the systems are talking to each other.

Um, you get the data which you need, and then you just get into this into this action part. Yeah. And right now I would say we are so occupied with actually having all our systems up and running and making sure they speak to each other and the information is shared, that probably we spend too less time on the action part. That's true.

But uh with the help of AI, it should help us to free us and to to work more collaboratively um across not uh across all departments in the in a hotel. Do you have any example of because I'm always a bit scared of um of tech and AI, that it makes the experience colder. Um, do you have any exp experience or any example of any tech or AI um processes that you put in place that makes the experience actually warmer, that leverage the guest experience um in a different way? Not colder, but warmer, better.

Um I would say going back to the chatbot. Yeah, um the chatbot frees up our teams to the to to to to to to stay in touch with the guests. Yeah, so the repetitive tasks just keep providing an answer is done by the chatbot. But this means actually someone else has more time to focus on the guest.

So I would not specifically tie it on a specific tool. I would just say whatever tool you're using, it is giving you time, which you can can which you can use to stay relevant to your guests, um, to listen to your guests, to to to have a longer conversation, maybe. Uh, because the transaction maybe is done, and you can really focus on the guest experience. Um, that makes sense.

I understand as well. You have you have used um some type of uh voice AI, Cesar? Yes. Or did you go with this?

Um we we tested a voice bot, um, which we implemented for in-room calls. So for guests who picked up the telephone and and pushed the operator button, they were actually able to speak with Franz. Franz is uh the Airbot. Yeah, Franz was the virtual assistant and he would also disclose it.

Um at any time you were able to also get uh to speak with uh with one of our employees. Franz, for instance, this year handled 4,000 calls uh for both properties, for the property in Vienna and in Salzburg. 50% he handled on its own, and 50% he handed off to the other departments. Okay.

Um what we realized there is there is a limitation. If you want that Franz creates an action, um, you need to connect it to the collaboration system. Okay. Otherwise, he cannot uh handle a request.

He can give you an answer, but if you ask him, can you bring down my luggage, he will forward you to the concierge team. And then probably this is not satisfying for the guest that he has to repeat the same request once again. I love how you humani or humanize the friends the the the bot. I'm sure you're the type of guy who say thank you and uh and so on to Chat GPT, right?

Uh of course. We never know. We never know at some point if they wake up. But um very interesting.

And sometimes or has it been perceived perceived by the guest, those kind of of bots uh overall quite well, or because I understand as well the the the guest expectations have changed like in the last few years. Um do you believe it's a well received? And do you believe that's kind of very interesting? Do you believe those kind of of AI bots in the luxury space are still have a space in the luxury space, or do you believe it can be the limitation?

I would say there is space. Yeah. Um as long as it works, and this is also the feedback we got. Yeah, so as long as the guest gets what he wants, he is not going to complain.

Okay. But if he has to repeat the request two or three times because France could not handle it, yeah, and he needs to forward you to the right person, then of course this is annoying people. Yeah. Um or if he gave you the wrong information.

But I would say it's the same thing with an employee. If we don't train our employees, they will also give you a wrong information. So it's uh I would treat the the AI as an employee. That's an interesting point because when I talk to teams and I when I talk to different hotels, a lot of people are actually quite scared of tech and AI.

How do you make sure you you make your team trust AI and trust the tech that you put in place? From what we with the implementations we did so far, we have seen once they see that actually what we are doing or what we try to achieve here is going to help them, then they are on board. If they don't see the purpose, then it's going to be tricky. Okay.

Well, I would still say it or it for me, it comes back to the training part. Yeah, it if I put uh a new employee on the first day out to a guest without the training, yeah, the probably information might be wrong. And just a quick question, okay, where is the breakfast, or where when does breakfast start? Yeah, if it did not tell you, you can't know it.

And the same with the AI. So if you're not teaching it, from where should the should uh should the information come? We talk uh we talk on off-record on on this because you can have the best tech, the best system, the best AI, but if your team and the people behind are not on board with it, that would be a big failure. Yeah, and we have been through um PMS changes, uh Rev Mavericks changes.

Um it's always quite a stressful time. Do you believe people are are are resisting change because of the tech or because of the uncertainty? I was there's uncertainty and it's um and of the fear. Yeah, that that's the thing.

That you don't know what is happening. But it's something different to what I did for the last uh ten years or twenty years. Or things are different to what I've uh to what I've seen or what I've learned. Yeah.

So far, we tried to address this with trainings. We also have not seen that AI reduced our team numbers. So we have now AI tools and the teams are increasing. Also, the teams realize that the expectations from guests are increasing.

So for them, it's very nice help if they can focus actually on the on the more interesting part, the interaction with the with the guests instead of just doing the repetitive task, which they did for, I don't know, the last 20 years, the same way they did it, just because we were not able to do it or to to automate it. If you involve it, yeah. For instance, with the chatbot on the website, we got every week a report on questions which the chatbot could not answer. As we had the teams to actually go into the system and provide the information.

This definitely could uh or help us a lot. At the end of the day, it's all about uh leadership, it's all about communication. We go back to this one, and those kind of um because we're all um emotional creatures, so we all have emotions, we all have fears, and we may be scared that uh tech and AI may replace us at some point. Uh, and that's why I believe we need to find ways to embrace the change uh and to make everyone align on this kind of thing.

I think that's the most important. But when we when we implemented um those tools, we also had the operational teams on board because we showed them in the beginning before we decided to do it, we we they got a demo, and they also had the chance to um to tell us their opinion to say, okay, yes, makes sense or no, it's not making sense. Yeah, so if I think it's uh it makes more sense to involve everyone, especially for those who need to work with that, instead of okay, this is a I don't know, corporate decision.

This is your tool, you need to work with that if you no matter if you don't like it or like it. Yeah, um, so as long as you involve everyone and everyone has uh the the chance to speak, that's most important, that's the most important thing, and then it will work or will work, but at least you have a baseline where you say, okay, hey, we all agreed on we are gonna do that one. Let's make it happen. Yeah, I see.

And um, because you have been with Zara for six years now, and um is there any um any things that you add to because now you evolve as well from revenue management to a more uh commercial uh position. Is there anything that you had to unlearn to be successful in your current position in the last few years? Uh definitely communicating. Okay.

Communicating, communicating across multiple uh departments, um also presenting the ideas, okay, uh convincing and getting the alignment from everyone. Okay. In this or at least for for Zahadis, definitely. I would not say that this skill was required in my previous positions.

That was your big biggest uh learning curve. Yeah, that was I think the cake is here, like that's something which uh we couldn't go to the to the Zarer without eating uh Zarer torte is someone coming. Yeah, I can come in, you can forget so much. Too sweet from you.

Thanks so much. Amazing, thanks so much for look at that. So can you tell me a bit more about the the Zavertart? Take one, take a bite.

Of course, that's um where it all started. What is it in 1832? Even before the hotel? Even before the hotel, was it?

Yeah, it was before the hotel. Okay. So it started with um with the cake? I didn't know I think it was the hotel and then the the tunnel.

No, it was it all started with what you're gonna try in a second. Very good. And um, what is the recipe, Paul, of the Zaire turned? That's a secret, but I can tell you that it's still handmade um from based on the original recipe from 1832.

Okay. The only difference right now is that we we ship it worldwide compared to compared to 1832. Okay. Like um how many okay, I'm not going to ask how many Zarer tort you you sell a year, but how many Zarer tort you made a year, which is the same question, by the way.

More or less. Like uh, what is your um the number of Zahir tort that you have? Um around 360,000. 60,000?

360,000. 360,000? Yeah. My god.

It's becoming kind of an icon of uh of Vienna. I will even say like Austria. I would say it's already. It's already correct.

I would say it's uh it's already. Do you think the Zahertort is more known as a hotel, or the hotel is more known as a tort? Like, I don't know if you understand my question. No, I understand your question.

Um I would say it really depends on which countries you are. Um there might be markets where you the hotel is very well known, um, and on the other side you still have the cake. Okay, and you ship it worldwide. We ship it wherever we can.

Excellent. Um that's really cool. Yeah, but you know, I had to come to the Zarer and uh for sure I had to try the Zaher thought, which is very good, and the shanty and so on, yeah, very well done. Um excellent, but that goes very well with my next question, by the way.

Um, what do you believe makes the Zaher experience so special? What do you believe is the Zarer experience here? Um what makes it so special is the way how we connect with our guests. Okay.

And the way how we treat our guests, and that we we listen to them, we read them, we try to create experience for them, which they will not find somewhere else. Um, which also requires that we train our staff in a way that they can do all those things. Yeah. Okay.

Do you have any um moment or um or any kind of um guest uh request that you recall which you find that was oh, that's a real the Zara experience. Yeah. I for instance I remember a story from someone who wanted to attend the Opera Ball. Okay.

Um it was Opera Ball late afternoon, um one, two hours before all shops were closed, and there was a problem with the trust. Okay. And um it ended up that um one of our managers would go for the next job because she she had uh the same body or appearance like a guest. Um she would go to the shop, would buy it, and bring it to the to the guest so that she can attend the Opera ball.

Very cool. Okay. And um I think that yeah, that's what makes uh the luxury experience much more uh human and much more um personalized as such. And um yeah, any kind of um I mean I don't know about this room, but any uh celebrities or anything that you're uh that you you remember at this like a something which I can stay with me so normally in this in the in the lobby we have a statue from an angel um which is doing like that.

Okay, there you go. Um so we're not doing that. No, uh that's part of it because people who come uh the stairs are day they appreciate um confidentiality, uh privacy and the privacy, definitely. Very good answer.

I was testing you here. But um okay, okay, excellent. And in terms of uh of um understand about the the experience creating those moments uh for for the guest and um again going back to our topic, um, is there any tech that you leverage to make those moments even more special or even more personalized for your team and for your guest? I would say what we what we will what we're gonna try is is to see how the how a new CRM can help us to create um those personalized moments.

Um at this stage it is where a lot of manual work um of how we create those moments for our guests. Um but I'm very sure that there will be ways to automate but to get more information about guests in a more automated way, to see about the preferences and to come up with that one as well. That's also an interesting one because I found the line being personalized and making sure you uh proactively anticipate the needs and expectations of the guest, and the line between between being creepy, you know what I mean?

Yeah, what do you mean? Definitely I think I would say yes, there it is. The line is pretty thin. Yes, um, but when you read the guest, um I would say there's a difference between stalking.

Um but when you can read the guest, when you can anticipate what he wants, she wants, you it will not feel creepy if you create a very nice moment. Yeah. I don't know, like you see, for example, like um with machine learning and so on. I feel that at some point some CRM will be able to tell me something that I need or I want, even before I know that I want this kind of thing.

You know what I mean? I find it at the same time exciting and creepy at the same time, you know what I mean? So I think like there is this kind of line of balance between finding the those kind of moments and uh yeah and but it's happening already around us. I mean, probably hospitality just is again a late adapter to that one.

But Amazon already knows what we should buy without us knowing and will uh is suggesting us what we should buy. Yeah, they're already doing it. That's true, that's true. So now the next step would be in hospitalization.

It just would be just in hospitality, probably, yeah. The next step. Yeah, or Google or also Instagram and Facebook uh advertising. It's pretty good.

They know what you need. That's true. I was reading somewhere uh um uh a quote which I I I I really liked. It was about AI won't be a won't be able to replace a smile, but it can anticipate when you will need one.

You see what I mean? Yes, and it's a very nice saying, I would say. Yeah, um, I would still say this the smiling will come from a human employee. So do you believe on tech and human can AI, tech and human can coexist?

Or do you think it's one one other? No, I think um I would say um especially for luxury hospitality, um, you will have this this this human interaction. You need this human interaction. The most interesting part is okay, can we get out, can we get the the friction away what we have right now on those transactions through AI through technology that our staff, our employees able to purely focus on the guest and not making sure that it did the checklist that I have all the information I need for the check-in and stuff like that.

So it's more like um using go ahead. Yeah, it will be more like a bit like acting as a host, and not like okay, you go to the reception desk because you need to check in. Yeah, and you need to present your passport and you need to sign it. I see.

So it's uh it's not um following our discussion as well, is not AI or tech as a replacement of your team, is more like an extension of your team to do something better and to do things um to focus on much more the fun part of your job. Yeah, I would definitely agree on that one. Yeah, probably fast forward 15 50 years, it might look different. Yeah.

Yeah. Um for the next couple of years, I would still see AI as a as a support um of the team or of the of the departments to actually focus on on the human interaction. That's that's something which is um very deep because I do believe whatever happened, AI, tech, um whatever next at the yon we have no clue of. We all come back to the same human element.

We're not into the B2C, we're not into the B2B. I believe we are in this edge-to-edge, the human-to-human. And that's something we should never forget. Luxury, non-luxury, any hotels should still remain human-focused.

We are working with the human, your staff is human. We are serving guests who are human, our partner, everyone is human around it. Yes, we have tech as an enabler, but we should never forget that we are human, walking, talking, and yeah, living with other humans. And that's I believe where is the future of hospitality and uh and the society.

Yeah, that's what Sacha is saying, that Sakha people enchant people. Yeah, we have these humans. I think that's important to say it again. Uh at Sakha, people enchant people.

Very good. That's uh actually super important. This counts for the for our guests, but also and uh for our employees the same way. So we are not enchanting AI bots or other to never forget that we are human, we are people.

Yes. Yeah, I think that's uh that's uh what the same time also humans are working for humans, and the AI will support them, and they will give them the the the the time and the ability to actually focus on the guest. Yeah, that's and have the ability to read and listen to them instead of just doing a check-in or doing a transaction. Yeah.

We uh my opinion, we need to move away from the general uh this transactional part. And also the commercial teams, you're so buried with your operational daily parts if you get out of this remove the friction, then you can get into this going part, you can get into the action part. And this is then where the fun part started, because then you can work on things, you can improve test things. I think that's uh that's um that's very important, yeah.

Very important. And um what do you believe is the biggest challenge in aligning those uh human together? Um, because we we all have different ways of working, we all have different um education, different um backgrounds. How do you make sure they're not like um silos?

How do you make sure we all work together towards the same direction? Um I would say for Zach, it's pretty easy because we have company goals. And actually we have company goals on 20 until 2030. 30.

Until 2030. Yeah, so we have a goal which we need to achieve until 2030. Okay, and from this company goal which we need to achieve to 2030, this is broken down then of course to years and to the all different departments. But this makes sure that actually it doesn't matter which department you are, because every one of us is contributing to this goal.

That's amazing. Kind of your north star of the big direction, the vision of the hotel, which is shared with everyone, and you all know the direction to go. Yeah, we've from this from the company cut from those goals, they are broken down to the teams, and from the teams they go broken down to the individual targets and goals, um, the individual um positions have. I have to tell you this uh this kind of technique brings you into the top 1% of hotels I know, um, because most of the people, if they have any, they have a budget for the year after.

Um, but when you ask them like what is your vision for the next five years, ten years, um, now even sometimes more, they don't know how they don't know exactly what uh where to go. Um so I believe this one is a very good um way of aligning the team. Yeah. I I I I worked for the company when in a time where we did not have those goals, and I can tell you it significantly changed the way how we work.

Because before that, like you had those silos. Yeah, and every every department has it uh probably a different goal. Okay, ultimately, in or in theory, we all have the same goal because we have a budget to achieve, but not everyone feels aligned on the budget, I would say. Uh, but since we have company goals, yeah, um, it is much more clearer, and you also know as long as you are working within this framework, you have a lot of flexibility.

Interesting. No, I I love this uh long-term vision, like thinking long-term and to make it happen in the short term, but still keep in mind the big goal. That's very important. And is there anything that um um that you have um learned in the last six years at the Zahra?

Because you have been here for six years. What are your top three key takeaways that you will say like that that you have learned um to do differently in your in your in your leadership, in your um yeah, in your in your life as a as a as a commercial director? What are your top three key takeaways here? That you should have that you believe you should have learned even earlier um that I need to step out of my comfort zone much more often.

Okay. And I should have done this probably in my previous roles as well. But those were the moments which were the difficult ones, but also the most rewarding ones. If you have an idea you can back it up with data, you need to learn how to convince people and to really work on the strategy around that to convince people.

Okay. One last one. One last one is Sacha proved me that there is definitely no point of stopping to grow and to learn. You need to stay curious, you need to stay resilient, you need to work on especially Sacha is a family-run business.

We are not part of any big corporation. Yeah, so whatever we do, nobody else is doing. We don't have a headquarter somewhere who will tell us you should do this or you should work on that topic. And that was for me the biggest change from coming from a chain into a family-run environment that you need to be the one who is actually driving it.

If you're not doing this, then it's going to be pretty difficult. Super interesting. Do you have any um advice for the new generation of hoteliers, like a new student and so on? What would you recommend them to do or to focus on?

To to try it out, to to test it, to see that hospitality is a such a great industry. Um, it is so great to work with people. Even if you have no idea what you want to do in five years, it is okay that if you drop out of or um when you graduate, if you want to do it, you give it a try. You need to take the opportunities when they are there, even if there is risk involved, it will be worth.

It is worth if you step that you step out of your comfort zone. Um, definitely. And if you think you've learned everything on university, I'm very sorry, you're very wrong. I love this.

You will need to keep on your personal growth to learn. And maybe it's um things which they don't teach you or you didn't um learn on hospital uh on university. Uh maybe it's about convincing people, fighting for ideas, um those things. What makes us human?

That's the most important. Those kind of uh of uh human interaction you cannot learn in school. I mean they can give you the theory on it, but you have to experience it. That's very different if you if you if you learn about front office on a book, and if you go at the Zahrach and do the check-in-check-out at the Zahar.

That's a totally different experience. So yeah, I I love the the angle you have, and I I'm actually quite inspired by what you just mentioned, because a lot of students, for some reason, they they they want or they don't want to go into the hospitality industry. Um, but I believe it's such a beautiful industry to be in. Uh, and sometimes people forget how beautiful and how inspiring it can be.

You can meet a lot of people, you can travel, and I think we need more of those kind of advocates of of the hospitality industry because yeah, it's a very beautiful industry, and I and I and that we are missing out a lot on this, I believe. And I would also say, because there is also this misunderstanding, okay, you always work long hours. I would say it's just you work. You just need to work smarter.

There we go. Especially for the commercial teams. No one asks you to work seven days a week. Right now, with all the tools, you can achieve so much more in a shorter time.

As long as you're smarter or work smarter than other ones, you will do well. And I would say the generation which is coming up from university, they do much better with AI tools than we do. 100%. 100%.

Yeah, yeah. They they will outperform us on whatever task you will give them. Which is good and bad at the same time. Which is But it's it's different.

It isn't just a different, it's just different. They're they miss on experience. Yeah. Um experience you can't buy, I would say.

Yeah, you need to make your own experience. And also your your ChatGPD or Gemini will not help you on that one. Uh you need to see it and you need to feel it. Yeah, makes sense.

Um but those tools definitely. can help you if you're able to master it they can help you in so many ways where ra where we are right now a lot of people are not taking their possibilities yeah so before we we we wrap up um I would like to do a small game with you. Can you describe the future of the hospitality industry in three words only no no explanation needed just three words. Experiences change technology excellent and if you had a big billboard in uh in Vienna that everyone can could see but I would say like um any student could see in hospitality industry what would you write on it?

Come in and win. Come in and win I love it come in at Zahr and win together. Of course there we go. Excellent but thank you so much Paul for for having me today.