Beyond Barriers: Building Belonging at Hotels | Alejandro Boucabeille

Speaker A: Being a leader, uh, in hospitality you deal with a lot of people from many nationalities. You understand quite much better the persons because it's not only to have an employee there, but to connect with the person. My first big uh, hotel, uh, traineeship, it was the Ritz Carlton in Cancun. I was just 16, I was there four months and this hotel was the best in all Americas. It had three five star, a triple diamond awards. Having this uh, encounter with this high quality and being like just 16 and seeing this and then I said wow, this is totally something different. One of the most important and probably many would agree is listening. Listening not only from position wise, like I am the boss or I'm the manager, but really listening not only abstract, but also with the heart. When the people feel heard, even if it's unconscious, they respect this. Nowadays a, uh, big connection. And when people get connected, not only will with the team, but also with themselves, then they can do great work. Because sometimes you're motivated two weeks and then you come to work, oh fuck, it's Monday. So that they can reconnect, that they can understand again from the hotel, but also their personal mission. Some people want alpha, uh, some people want to just be in the background. Some people want to make a career. Some people say no, I'm fine, uh, being a breakfast cook. It's fine, I think to reconnect them with themselves and with the hotel mission. That we all talk the same language, that we all have of course the same needs, but at the same time we are all different, we are not all the same. And to do this in a multicultural 25 plus countries, nationalities 22 plus languages, it is not easy.

Speaker B: Hello Chillering and welcome to another episode of the podcast Chillering Hub. Talking hospitality. And today we are speaking one of the most important characteristics of our industry. That is the multiculturalism. We have people from so many places. The bigger the hotel, the highest the amount of people from different locations that gather together in one place. Beautiful as it is for us as human beings to collaborate and understand different cultures, it is very, very complicated and challenging for management to organize such multicultural teams and organize training. So today we are going to talk about multiculturalism. Today we have the deputy general manager at Mercury Grand Hotel Biedermeyer, uh, Yen. He's also a consultant, a lawyer, a journalist, a writer, a podcaster, himself a lecturer, and even an athlete coach. I will ask about that after. Alejandro Bukabe, welcome to the show.

Speaker A: Thank you very much, Mauricio. Nice to be here. And my podcast, uh, is not that good. As yours. So I'm also sure that I will learn also in this side from you.

Speaker B: Now you're being humble here. And please, thank you for being here, for sharing with me. We've been talking about this podcast for quite some time. We met first time in nice, uh, in 2025. It's more than a year ago.

Speaker A: January 20th.

Speaker B: Yes, exactly. We've been aligning uh, this podcast and I'm very happy to finally have you here because when it comes to multicultural, you are a multicultural person yourself. You lived in Mexico, France, Australia, and now you are in Vienna. And how this multicultural life that you have lived has shaped the way that you lead your teams.

Speaker A: Well, I think uh, it's very similar to yours. Uh, of course it helps. Uh, my mom is Mexican, my dad is French. Uh, I had a Swiss stepfather so we moved around, especially Mexico, France, Switzerland and Austria mainly, but also other countries from Greece, South Africa, Sweden, Spain, uh, Argentina. So uh, as a person it enriches you a lot. And of course, uh, being a leader in hospitality especially, you deal with a lot of people from many nationalities, especially in Vienna, as you know and ah, to understand these little nuances, this little, uh, no, how to say this, uh, you understand quite much better the persons because it's not only to have an employee there, but to connect with the person if it's a dishwasher, if it's uh, whatever, if he's from Pakistan, if he's from Argentina, if he's from Nigeria or if he's Austrian. So I think it helps a lot. Not only because I'm quite interested in languages, so I try to learn always a little bit and also about the culture, history, literature. But if you have traveled a lot and if you have lived in several countries. I have lived in more than 10 countries, ah, actually quite more. So you interact with the locals, you appreciate the cuisine, the tastes, the flavors, the costumes. So I try to always be with the mindset of an apprentice to go and learn from them. Of course, in the end I'm responsible for the hotel, I'm responsible for the restaurant, for the operations. But I think it's a mutual, uh, trading off. I have my role, but I like to enrich myself from all the histories, from all the personal stories.

Speaker B: That's like such a great. You leave what I believe it is the most rewarding thing about hospitality. I don't know from your childhood, you live so many places and uh, that's amazing. But one thing that I really love about hospitality is that ability to take you to places, to Live in different locations and to get to know the cows culture and as you said once you leave that, once you experience that you can relate to people from anywhere because you know what they are feeling right now, you know, you know what they are going through.

Speaker A: And I think you have also like the main characteristics know that every human is uh, looking for tranquility, to be happy, doesn't matter if Muslim, Hindu, Christian, etc. No. And this perspective of no like nationalism, not too many borders. I consider myself also like a citoyen du monde, like a uh, world citizen. So it's not that I'm Austrian, I'm Mexican or something. And this I think also communicates to the people.

Speaker B: That's awesome. And you now you work in a hotel with 26 nationalities. It's speaking 22 languages.

Speaker A: How more than 20 languages?

Speaker B: More than 22 languages. Uh, how it is to work in such a place? How is it with training, how is it with onboarding? And how do you get the team to work together?

Speaker A: Well I think uh, it's a ah, challenge everywhere especially we have like it depending on the seasonal but like 80 to 90 employees and then of course some trainees etc. And in the end in several areas for us it is very important that they speak also German. So for example in front office or guest relation manager of course because like 50% of our guests are coming from the Dach region. So Germany, Switzerland, Austria and many local Viennese people, they want to not only speak German, even to understand the Viennese dialect. But in the other areas like in the back office, like in kitchen etc. There are several people that only speak English and the native language. And it's quite a challenge and very enriching. But to organize this we have to be of course uh, very sensible with the cultures. When we do the recruiting we try to look for persons of course that want to integrate, that want to learn the language, the culture. But we try to focus on mindset and we train them. We also organize language courses. English, German of course, when we just had two days ago a uh, training for housekeeping. And our housekeeping team, it's mostly Hungarians and they do a great job. They travel every day like uh, two hours one way from K to Vienna and there's a lot of traffic. And then after work again two hours, doesn't matter if winter, doesn't matter which weather. And of course most of them, they don't speak neither English or German. So we had this course, we had to reorganize it with a Lot of images. And we tried with, uh, somebody from the back office who speaks also Hungarian. He helped us translating. So you have to be very flexible. But there's always a way, you know, to communicate the most important.

Speaker B: That's awesome. That's awesome. And I love that you are using a lot of imagery as well to assist you in training your team. Can I speak a little bit about the hotel as well, please? Uh, I'm very curious about the hotel.

Speaker A: Well, our hotel is very nice because it's like almost 200 years old. The building itself, we have at the moment198 Ah, rooms, seven room categories. We have, uh, two restaurants, one Weissgeberstube, that is like a local Viennese restaurant where mostly the local people come. We have, uh, big universities, like music universities, big companies. Here we are like 10 minutes from the center of Vienna. And then we have the Sunhof. It's named after the founder Robert Sun. Because we have a famous passage. In many pictures of the hotel, you see like umbrellas in different colors, etc. Of course, because we are very inclusive and many people pass through this passage. So it's not only the hotel guests. And this restaurant is more like Austrian cuisine with an international touch. And then we have a bar, we have a, uh, wine cellar for like 75 persons. We just used it yesterday for a very nice event about, uh, biohacking and longevity. It was fully booked. 75 persons. Then we. And by the way, because we are Latinos, also this Saturday there is a salsa, ah, night. We do it once a month. And it's also running very good with, uh, dancing lessons, etc. And then we have of course four conference rooms for mice. And we have international guests. Uh, because as you know, Vienna is a big mice destination. We are not a mice hotel, but, uh, we are actually rebranding the hotel. So it will probably happen next year. We already started last year in the first quarter, uh, changing all the windows. And this is protected heritage. So we cannot just, uh, eliminate something. No, you have very strict criteria from the state, from the government, and uh, of course we are planning. I cannot tell the brand, etc. But it will be different because we are from grape hospitality. We actually have the brand of Mercure. We are four star hotel, but it will be premium hotel. So it will go up. And the history is also very interesting because around us, uh, you had so much culture. That's why I tried to push also with readings, with concerts, etc. Also for the hotel guests, but also for local people. And next to Us there was this famous. The musician you probably know, Ludwig van Beethoven was our, uh, neighbor back then. He wrote the Ninth Symphony like 100 meters from us. And opposite us there was Honore de Balzac, the famous French writer. He was living there. So many other writers, Ada, Bert Stifter, Ludwig Tieck from especially German Austrian writers have lived here. So it is amazing for us to have this hotel where we, as a franchise hotel, we have a little bit more flexibility and we can play with these playgrounds, uh, culture, classic hotel, the local people. We do. We have many initiatives there. And of course we have. We, uh, are part of crepe hospitality. They have like hundreds hotels, mainly in France and Spain. So there is also a lot of, uh, French touch here in Austria.

Speaker B: Very exciting. Like, so excited because you are really focusing on creating some type of local feeling as well so the locals can come and experience all the history and all the culture that the hotel brings on.

Speaker A: And m. For me, this is very important because the hotel is not just the vision. It's not only a place where you go and sleep when you're not from Vienna, but it's like a cultural space where there are encounters between the natives, the local people, the tourists. You know, Vienna is, uh, the capital of Austria, a very touristic place and similar to Prague. And um, so we tried to open up spaces. We had also a passage party where the local people could interact. We had like little stands that we tried to push to help them. And yes, uh, from readings from concerts, from cooperations with local wine. As you know, Vienna is one of the only cities, capital cities, that produces wine in the capital itself. And I mean, not hundred bottles, but I mean a significant amount. So there's quite a lot to say and to. To offer in this hotel.

Speaker B: And one question when it comes to. Before we get into the training, because I got super excited with what you're telling me when I discussed with. They do struggle with, uh, food and beverage here in Prague and the concept of food and beverage and how to make the hotel appealing to the local people. When it comes to revenue, what is the revenue share that the local people bring to the hotel?

Speaker A: Well, uh, in the hotel segment, let's say it's not so much, of course, mainly for the families or business partners, maybe it's uh, a 5%. But in the restaurant especially, as I mentioned, our second restaurant, restaurants. And there's advantage because many people don't think it belongs to the hotel. So we also try to keep it like this because there's, uh, I think A little bit. I think this is international, a little, uh, prejudice that people say, ah, I don't go to hotel restaurant. This isn't good. So we try to maintain it. We have also many people that come regularly, like once a week or even for, for lunchtime. This is very good. We had some actions like activities with music, uh, university, with local enterprises like the post, that we offer them like a business lunch. And as you mentioned, this is very important because our concepts, in the end, for many years it hasn't been renovated, etc. So we are working on that. We know that. However, our service, I think is very, very. How to say it, uh, we try to focus on the customer relation, on the service we provide. And we do many activities. Now, of course, like many hotels, I guess, or restaurants, we do Easter, we do Halloween, we do Thanksgiving, we do Mother's Day.

Speaker B: We do.

Speaker A: We try to be like creative, not only the typical, but also like other events like Women's Day, Woman's Day, lunch or dinner. And of course then we try to upsell because, uh, our cell has also costs. So we cannot only. Only, uh, do good things without having income.

Speaker B: No. Yeah, that's great. It looks like that you are the type of leader that doesn't want to get bored, right? You want to bring creativity, you want to involve the teams, you want to get the hotel alive. And this will pay off. This always pays off. Not only because you can bring the local people, but because the team themselves, they get excited. They probably will come up with ideas. And I want to hook that to a question that. Because you have a fantastic career so far. So before becoming the hotel manager that you are today, what was that one training and one moment that really defined the leader that you wanted to be. Sorry to interrupt. If you're enjoying the show and if you are learning something new today, please consider following the show, subscribe to our channel or leave us a review. It helps us to help more people through the podcast and it would mean the world to us. Thank you for listening. And we're back on the chat.

Speaker A: Well, um, I think many moments. No, I, I did. I, I think I don't have the classical hotel career because now, of course, uh, deputy general manager. I, uh, was already 10 years ago GM in Thailand, uh, and cluster GM for four small hotels, boutique hotels. But. And then I switched. I got an offer in Argentina, where I was living in Buenos Aires. So I was never only hotels. I raised up in hotel family. I remember being in Cancun when it was really small, beginning in the late of 80s when I was five years old and there was a hurricane and we were, we were, we spent the hurricane in 89 in Cancun. And my dad was FB manager in a big hotel from Melilla. And so I was, I was born in Acapulco. Come on. Acapulco is de Mecca. Or was the Mecca of tourism. No. Elvis Presley, Johnny Weissmuller, even Sylvester Salon, Schwarzenegger, etc. All they had the villas over there. John F. Kennedy was there during his. After the honeymoon, so. And then hotel management school, etc. But um, I was one. If I have to choose one special moment, I think it was one. My first big hotel, uh, traineeship, uh, it was the Ritz Carlton in Cancun. It was in 2000. I just became 16. I was there four months as a kitchen training in all kitchens, fine dining, etc. And this hotel was the best in the all Americas, not only the Latin America. It had three five star, a triple diamond awards. So this was unique. My uncle was the restaurant manager. And uh, for me having this uh, encounter with this high quality with when I. There was like a brochure from Horst Schulze, the founder of Ritz Carlton, who defined, you know, the philosophy, the motto. We are ladies and gentlemen, serving ladies and gentlemen. And being like just 16 and seeing this. And then I said, wow, this is totally something different. So in hotel management school I decided to write about quality management, uh, in Ritz uh Carlton. I still have it in my pocket. Although I don't work at Ritz Carlton. I have this, uh, credo. And I think, of course this is not a Ritz Carlton now in this step of my career, but I think it's the mindset. You can even operate a, uh, youth hostel, a Trista, a four star hotel, an EBIS or Ritz uh Carlton. But if you deliver from heart, if you try to do personalized service, even if the rooms are not with the best materials of the world, but the human thing and also connecting it to AI, et cetera, because we met at AI conference in Nice. But I think this is so important.

Speaker B: So mindset for you, Mindset training or mindset hiring is the most important part of hospitality.

Speaker A: Yeah, I would say this is so important to have this why you do something, why you want to work in hospitality, why you want to serve, to be a host, to resolve problems. Because every day, of course as you know it, it's totally different. No, I love it.

Speaker B: That's really inspiring, Alejandro. Definitely. And I can see that you came from a Whole family of hoteliers. I didn't know that part, Uncle. Your parents, your mom as well?

Speaker A: Yeah, actually it's. It's very strange because my dad did hotel. Hotel management school. And then he went to work for the. He had to do, you know, military, was obliged in. In France, uh, when he was 18. So he went to. He was also. He had this travel gene. So he went to, uh, uh, bora Bora, Tahiti, etc. And always working in hospitality. And then he was working for Khashoggi, not the journalist, but the, uh, Saudi Arabian multimillionaire. And he had this yacht in Acapulco. And he said Acapulco. And then he stayed like three days. And he met my mom in the. In the Socalor, in the center. And this is how I came to be alive. What a surprise. And he was working in hospitality, my mom and all the family, of course, because Acapulco is only hospitality. Even if you see other things in Netflix now about Mexico that are not so nice. But, uh, she was working as a receptionist in Las Brisas that was once leading, uh, hotels of the world. And then my uncle at the Ritz Carlton, then my stepfather's leader that was Vis from Graben. He was also hotel manager. So I was somehow born in hotels, raised in hotels. So I think you have this gene and I, uh, love it because there are so much adventures. No, people come from different. They have always to say something, to speak, to tell you some stories. Doesn't matter which language, which culture. And this is like, very enriching for myself. Ah.

Speaker B: Uh, that's awesome. You are a fruit. Coming up on the seed of hospitality. That's awesome. And we're talking about hiring and talking about a, uh, mindset, and hiring is hard. It's tough. It's being tough everywhere. Is it the same in Vienna?

Speaker A: Yeah, I think everywhere. Every industry, everywhere.

Speaker B: It's like everywhere I speak, it's always the main issue is hiring and keeping people. But what challenges do you face in finding the right people to work with you?

Speaker A: Well, I think, um, it's very complex. Although we have employees here, you can't believe it, that are, uh, here since 1989. That means M. Like, uh, I don't know, over 30 years, 35, 36 years. So we have a great mix between people that are 15, 13 years here. So we have fluctuation, but not like, uh, every month or something. That is good for us. And of course we have new people. I'm here since two years and seven months and uh, what we try to do because it's uh. Difficult. Um, especially after Covid, many persons left hospitality, they retrained and went for something else. So many qualified persons, many persons that speak German, especially Austrians. And then uh. Of course we have this migration from Arab countries, from Syria for example, but also from Ukraine. And many are not skilled. But uh. We have had positive surprises that many have the right mindset and they want. Because sometimes I think in Austria, although I was. Have lived many years in Austria, I was raised up mainly in Innsbruck in Tyrol. So there is this luxury uh. Problem that the uh. People complain always ah, uh. Everything is so bad, everything is so bad. But if you compare yourself, especially if you travel a lot to other countries, to other situations, we are quite living well in Vienna. You know that Vienna has been voted for the best city to live several times and also at the same time for the most unfriendly persons in the world. So I think this is like uh. Typical for Vienna. And we try to find a balance. It's difficult. We try to work on the typical way from Hotel Career, Stepstone, etc. But we also try to encourage our staff to invite their friends, their connaissance, like people that they know to work with us. There is of course a goodie. They become money if the person stays with us. And so we have actually several couples in the company that sometimes we have always to deal especially in the same department. This is not possible but in different departments. So we are very family hotel. And as you mentioned this is uh. Actually a challenge for us. But in the. In the last six months we are very stable at the moment. So I think it's also because uh. Our uh. We try to do a good onboarding. We do nice activities from summer party, Christmas party. They get vouchers, they get discounts. We do uh, wine tastings. In one month we will do two wine famous in Bajau and then we will go for dinner. So it's not only the head of departments but also like kitchen, uh, team goes. The front office team was playing uh, bowling. So we try to keep them always uh. Not only updated about work with different trainings, but there must be also the fun factor like paintball with the gm. So everyone goes on the gm.

Speaker B: That's fantastic. That's fantastic. And yes, I can relate because Prague it's quite similar I believe uh with Vienna in many aspects. And I share with my friends here as well that um. They can only complain about Prague because they are not traveling outside and off right when you go and you live in a country that is a developing country or anything like that, you will see how great uh, the cities here in Central Europe are. Right. And how everything actually works and always come to it.

Speaker A: You know, I'm half Mexican, so I was living from 2019 in Mexico and I had even again a cultural shock, although I'm Mexican. And then when I returned to Austria I said, oh wow, everything is working so smooth, etc.

Speaker B: You mentioned about onboarding now and I believe that this probably is one of the most important success recipes that hotels can apply to actually keep people and to attract the right people. Right. With uh, a very strong onboarding, normally you attract better people. When we spoke last time, you mentioned that you've been digitalizing your HR processes, your trainings, how, how did you find the hotel before, what the challenges that the process that you had in place were and how this digitalization has helped you.

Speaker A: Well, I think as we met at the conference, it is a very important issue especially for monotonous works, uh, like to increase productivity. We have when I arrive, I don't want to say too many details but it was like several uh, things like I don't know in the 80s or only with Excel, etc. And it takes so much time every month etc. So we did actually we are doing now also uh, between with our partner hotels to see how we can restructure uh things. And we did of course the typical from ChatGPT. There are other apps also like uh, Barbrane and others for several aspects. But for the onboarding I think it's also very important that again the human factor. But uh, we do, we try to take our time for the employee. We are not again Ritz Carlton. So I remember the Ritz Carlton, they had like the first two days or three days we had just uh, talks and the philosophy etc. Etc. For like 20 employees. So sometimes only one employee starts. But we try to keep him a hotel tour, try to give him all of cost from the contract, uh, onboarding information, the house rules, all this data. But of course have already the first, of course after the interview, having the first, uh, the first conversation about his goals, how we can support him. He has a body in the team so he's like uh, uh, Carl, you have questions, come here first. You don't need to go directly to hr. And uh, we have helped with the AI, it has with the digitalization. It has helped us to improve and to how to say, to do the processes less complicated.

Speaker B: Did you digitalize as well any type Any part of the onboarding processes or the onboarding is actually what it is. It's face to face and.

Speaker A: No, no it is, it is face to face and uh, what we are working now on is also like uh, to have like more on videos uh because it's like you know like TikTok and Instagram to have some things on this uh, like philosophy like other things that you don't have to always do it personally although we like the personal touch. So we are working on this.

Speaker B: Yeah, no problem. And what is the one activity that your team really enjoys from the onboarding or the training? Something that they talk about that could inspire some other hoteliers to do the same?

Speaker A: I think there are several but I think one of them would be the only. We have a newsletter like where we also present the new faces. Not only the employee of the month or something. And this is like also nice because you already get like a little bit of light.

Speaker B: Ah.

Speaker A: Uh, who is this guy? Who is this new guy, I don't know that speaks uh Mongolian or comes from Mongolia for example. We have one person and we are very exotic in the positive sense. So I think this is one of them. And then of course that you are introduced to every age of department to every staff member personalized. And what goes with this? I would say maybe it's very basic but I think uh, the needs of human psychological needs. It's not always to have the most uh, up to date robotic app or something but uh, the it is time to have. Because I remember also when I arrived in another hotel I came neither my neither I had a handover. Um, although it was a position as FB director, there was nothing who nobody who could help me, who could I call. My laptop wasn't even working so I had to do a uh ticket to open it and it takes some time etc. Etc. So I think it's the most as you mentioned successful condition to to do a good work, to do great work because we want them to not think like I'm going another day to work. No, this is boring and it's not our value. Although we are four star. We want them to because you're a person, you spend at least eight hours of your living time at work. So go back happy after work and not I finish in ten minutes. Uh, fast, fast, fast. No. So all this strategy combines it not the onboarding process and how we want them to feel. And I think we have also good results and the employee survey we do always every year we have also like a box where they can put ideas, it's anonymous. We have also like an ombuds person who they can speak to and it's anonymous. Oh, I have a problem with Mauricio, etc. Etc. For example. So there are several like, um, topics, uh, that we try to always get also important feedback to them. Of course there's a one to one every year, but they can all also request a one to one with the HR department and even with myself when they say, of course we have open door policy so they can come.

Speaker B: Yeah, as I see, probably the most important thing that you see that it's belonging. It's making sure that they understand that they belong to the place and that, that they feel welcome, not alone, and they have someone to reach out when speakers.

Speaker A: Of course belonging is important because it transports our culture, our values. But also we have a less fluctuance, how you say, Personal fluctuation. So yeah. And then because we want to train them, we give them the instruments. So this is. If everything is good, there is, there are also opportunities to grow position, salary, etc. No. Happy, happy team members, happy results. Then you have happy guests, then you have happy revenue, then you have of course happy owners.

Speaker B: The perfect cycle. And uh, Alejandro, what is on leadership behavior that you use in your daily life that you believe that improves that staff motivation and retention?

Speaker A: I think one of the most important, and probably many would agree, is listening. And listening, not only from position wise, like I'm the boss, or I'm the deputy or I'm the manager or something, but really listening. And I think I have learned it and I have improved more and more to just listen, really. And not only abstract, but also with the heart. Because sometimes some person might speak from the heart and you are listening, listening, analytical. So. So there won't be a match, uh, like in other applications, to use the word no. And, and yeah. And when the people feel hurt, they, even if it's unconscious, but they respect this. So there is like a, uh, big connection. And when people get connected not only with the team, but also with themselves, then they can do great work. No, and then of course it doesn't matter if you don't have the facilities of a newer, newly renovated hotel or if you have like in our case, our channel where we are working on this.

Speaker B: No, that's, that's beautiful.

Speaker A: The customer. And the customer of course notices it. No, if you have a Sincere Good morning, Mr. Schuller, and Eye to eye contact and a, uh, happy face and not at the front office, like very serious passport like you are at the police or something. So this is very important and if

Speaker B: you would like to share something with our colleagues here, hoteliers to get inspired, the ones that are struggling to structure their onboarding, their training. If you could help them with a little uh, checklist maybe five non negotiable thing that you believe that every onboarding should have.

Speaker A: Difficult question but I would say listening listen to your podcast, that would be a good point. So this would be a good. But of course to take time to see the. Because no tell is the same as you mentioned, no human is the same. So everyone has different needs and we have to know them. And uh, there for example in our case the balance is good because we have people that are uh here like 30, 15 years sometimes they uh. Because it has always been done like this. Why do we have to change? And at the same time you have like young ones not only from the age but I mean from the employment history at hotel. So this balance to see, to get important feedback from both, from both directions doesn't matter which position is very relevant. So to listen, to take them part. I think in the onboarding process that means it's not from top to down. I say this is of course there are several things you have to do like data, uh, protection, compliance, uh security, etc. This is a must. But this is not only onboarding and in the rest you should involve the people, give them the power to participate, to decide. Because mostly they know what is is relevant for them and for the co employees and they have the experience and if they participate and they identify with it and then you're more successful or probability is higher. So I would say these elements are very instrumental.

Speaker B: Would you consider because now you're saying about personalization and I totally understand that. I believe that our audience would get a little bit uh, concerned with personalization because of time. Right? Managers don't have time and they will say I don't have time to personalize onboarding. For people that will live in two months, whatever their mindset it is right now. Would you consider that having a consistent onboarding is important? Something like that every employee at least get one type of onboarding that repeats that is always the same and it's easier for the department head to deliver that.

Speaker A: I would say yes, it has to be however simple, not too complicated. Because this is also like if you have a boring process of one day or six hours, I don't know. And of course it has to be flexible. No, everything changes. Uh, you have also to be flexible with Your restaurant concept or with your hotel concept? No, I mentioned it, that the hotel is like a theater. So we are like, uh, Although Persona means mask from Latin, but however, we are in an open stage, the people see us, etc. They want authentic people. But the concept also evolves. You cannot, of course you write a, uh, business concept for hotel and you try to work on this, but you even have to on the hotel, on the restaurant concept, on the onboarding concept. You have to be flexible. The new generations, Alpha, uh, for example, they want different things, so you have to adapt to them. No. And you know that now more and more, especially with technology, everything changes so fast. So you cannot say no, we do it like this, this is the best way, and we stay like this. No, of course it evolves. More intelligence, more time you have to put in place. But for, for several things, important, crucial things, you have to take the time. And then if it works, then, then you are, you have less stress to, let's say, no less fluctuation, more satisfaction of the employees and therefore all the results are probably better. No revenue, etc.

Speaker B: Let's get a little bit dreamy now and let's get a little bit, uh, philosophical here.

Speaker A: If budget law philosophy. As you know, I have a PhD in history philosophy. So

Speaker B: we are talking the right person here. So if we would remove the constraints of, of budget, uh, bureaucracy, branding, uh, whatever, and you could uh, design your dream hotel training platform, whatever. It can be digital, it can mix with human touch, it can be everything. Whatever you can think of what it must be able to do to reconnect

Speaker A: in a sustainable and fast. Not fast that it has to be fast, but a way the people again to reconnect with. With their position, of course, or. But mainly with the mission. I don't mean the position. I'm chef de patie, I'm commie or something. But uh, that they can. Because sometimes you're motivated. Two weeks and then you come to work, uh, fuck, it's Monday, five more days or something. No. And this and this and this. So that they can reconnect, that they can understand again from the hotel, but also their personal mission. Because every person is different. Some people want Alpha, some people want to just be in the background. Some people want to make a career. Some people say, no, I'm fine, uh, being a breakfast cook, it's fine. There is no need for discrimination in any sense. So I think to reconnect them with themselves and with the hotel mission, that we all talk the same language, that we all have of course the same needs, but at the same time we are all different. We are not all the same. And to do this in a multicultural 25 plus countries, nationalities 22 plus languages, it is not easy. If there could be, I don't know, maybe we should hire Socrates or uh, Oracle of Delphi or. I don't know. Then I think this would be. Because if the most important, I think Nietzsche said it, the most, uh, dangerous man is somebody that knows his mission and that wants to do it. No? So it doesn't matter the age, the background, if you have a master or not, etc. So these people or this system would be great if I could be like dreamy and visionary.

Speaker B: That's great. And we. Everybody's talking about AI. I was now at ITB Berlin. AI.

Speaker A: I saw you the nice videos.

Speaker B: Wow. Yeah, I sent it directly to you. Uh, it was like uh, overwhelming when it comes to the AI buzzword. But what really AI means and how it will really help hoteliers is a little bit, uh, do beat now, right? People are a little bit lost in this ocean. Do you believe that AI will help with staff training as well and with maintaining the people and engaging with them?

Speaker A: Yeah, I think so. I don't think only personally, but also in this context of hotel professionally I think it helps a lot. But of course again, you need the balance because now I think in general the society, especially the Western society that I know is so much focused on technology, technology, technology. And I think the human thing, again, I have also this humanistic background, so I think this is so important. Uh, you cannot only focus on optimizing everything. Even also with this biohacking events, how many steps, how many calories are burned, how many hours I slept, etc. Uh, the people like 500 years ago, of course it's difficult to compare, but I mean they didn't have this. And they could also live, uh, relatively. I don't want to mention was, etc. Etc. No, but uh, you can sometimes we complicate too many things also with this rational. We are too. I'm too rational many times. And with the technologia, how many apps do you have? I have an app for everything, etc. So, so I think, uh, it is a skill. But we have to also speak about literacy, how we can use it, not only the young people, like media literacy, social media critic, etc. But how to use it, how to, how are we going to govern it, that we are in charge of it, not the technology of ourselves. And I don't mean Only these disutopian robots that iRobot for example, the novels that they will take over the world, et cetera. But I mean like in general, no, because there's a big addiction to mobile phones, to technology, to ChatGPT, to Canva, etc, etc.

Speaker B: You are in a very beautiful journey right now. You're a few weeks away of being promoted. I uh, always say that the biggest promotion that a man goes through that has been promoted from son to father. Right. And congratulations on that. But my question goes as.

Speaker A: Ah, I'm very nervous about this. You.

Speaker B: Well, you should come in. Are you concerned with the world that we are building for your son?

Speaker A: Of course, of course. Yes. We speak many times about my wife also about this thing. And um. You know, I think I'm maybe also again from my educational background, I'm much into reading. No. And I have prepared him. He has already more than 100 books from different ages. I bought him, I have from mine. So I prepared him. We have musical instruments we will want to play with him. I want to have quality time with him. We will travel, blah blah blah. But in the end he has his own karma and who knows. No. I told my wife in the end maybe he doesn't like even reading. No. And I have a son who doesn't like reading. How can this be possible with so many books at home, etc. And of course I will love him and accept him the way he is. And on the. This is like more on the micro and on the macro view of course the, the wars that are going on, the technologies, technological critic I just gave. Of course it concerns me. No. So I, I want, I think I can do my, my drop of water. It is important I can show him the best. I have never been father. You have because mine is maybe like theoretical because you have more experience than myself. But I want to show him of course leading by example. I want to walk my talk. So this is important. And uh. I am even more conscious. He will be born in three weeks. So how I will use this for example and spending quality time with him. Uh, because I can tell him the values and I want him to learn three languages. I will speak German, my wife Spanish, my, my father French and he will. You know, I have already Montessori and all this. But uh. The reality will be different, I guess. No. And I'm very anxious and yes, ah, this is uh, really an issue that I'm going through. How this will be how the world changes so fast. No. Now with the new wars etc. So yeah, I Cannot, it's. Yeah, it's. I cannot tell much more, I think, uh, but this is, it is, it is something in my head.

Speaker B: Of course, you, you be a, ah, passionate dad and that I think that's the most important thing, right? You are open to give all your love and this is what they need. Um, they need to explore the world. They need to explore from their own eyes. But as long as you are there to give support on whatever it is and to give the tools. If they're going to use the tools, it's up to them. You just give the tools and let's see what happens. Cannot force upon them, but they will copy what you're doing. And congratulations on that. I want to ask one thing then. What advice would you give to other hotel managers who want to improve training but feel that they're stuck in the old system?

Speaker A: Ooh. You know, I, I learn constantly, so I wouldn't say I'm the expert or I know everything better, but I would say and it's difficult. It's uh, it seems so obvious and so cliche, but think outside of the box. No. And I try also. And then if you go and say, well, let's now this hour with the head of departments, let's think outside of the box. It's not sometimes possible. No. So sometimes when I'm running or when I'm running these marathons, then after the 30 km, then you say this is an idea, then you're thinking outside of the box. So I would say, uh, take the time to think out of the box. It's not always easy. And this is my, I think spontaneously, my response.

Speaker B: Is there any type of training to get people to think outside of the box?

Speaker A: It is connected to. Yeah, it depends on the hotel and the people, uh, if they want to do it. But I personally now I try to uh, like do uh, weekends without mobile phone, to go in the forest for running, for walk, to do grounding with my feet on the floor, to meditate, etc. And this helps me like to, especially in the early morning person. So especially in the early morning before doing anything else, I can think outside of the box. I think, um, I know myself a little bit, so I know when I work best. In the evening I'm not useful. I can watch Netflix or read a book or something. But for me this is a productive when I can really think out of the box, when I can come up with new ideas. So I think everyone again has to know, not only the team, but especially himself and to provide this or to facilitate. This is also part of the hotel manager at the hotel to provide the space to facilitate the work process so that they have time for this or at least to motivate and to engage and to initiate this process.

Speaker B: Mhm. Alejandro. Ah, that was a great chat. We've been here for almost one hour talking. So awesome. Very engaging. I really enjoy speaking to you. Um, how can our audience get in touch with you, learn more about the hotel, come stay with you, or even work with you.

Speaker A: Thanks so much Mauricio for the invitation and also for not only the podcast tip, but also further tips and if anyone can want to contact me, maybe you can put my LinkedIn or profile on the and then we can connect. And of course if they want to work with us or they want to visit for coffee, they can just write me. LinkedIn, Facebook. I'm always with Alejandro Bukabe on the social media. Not too active, maybe more on LinkedIn, but I reply somehow and otherwise. You can also put my email and I'm happy to connect, especially also to other professionals. I always believe in the connections. When I run my marathons and I travel like uh, one weekend like I went to Prague. I always at the hotel I stay, I ask, hey, do you have a uh, five minute networking time coffee. And not only the professional, but the person I know. You meet other persons, you learn from them and the world is small, no? Yesterday I was just in the train on my way to work and there's one of my favorite Austrian writers. He's 71 now, Karl Marcus Gauss. And I discover him on the first class, uh, section and I say, hey, it's you, I love your books and can we take a selfie? I did a selfie and I asked uh, like a uh, small, small talk. And it connects. So I'm always open to professional and personal connections.

Speaker B: That's great, Alejandro. I will put all your links, uh, or details and please uh, listeners that if you're listening today, please connect Alejandro. It's awesome to talk to him. He's a very nice person as well. Alejandro Bukabay, thank you so much. I appreciate Schillering. Thank you for listening and I'll talk to you next time. Bye bye.

Speaker A: Bye bye.