
You don’t need papers from the best Hotel Management Schools to run a hotel in Lisbon.
When we decided to leave Denmark to start-up a small business the best idea we could come up with was making a small hotel. Not because we’re experienced in hospitality – but because we already played with the idea of buying a small hotel in Hanoi back in 1995, and because it’s easy to start-up and run. You basically only need two things:
Rooms and space you can furnish & Good and friendly hosts aka Staff
As Annette is an interior designer with a style our friends and our international guests in Kathmandu like, the furnishing part isn’t a problem. And if you remove all the science from the hotel management schools, the rest is basically down to one thing: To be a good host, that treat the guest like you would treat family and friends at home. After a lifetime with a lot of social activities for family and friends and with hundreds of employees, teaching the staff these basic things can’t be rocket science.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etaXxcvxGDE?rel=0&controls=0&showinfo=0&w=640&h=360]
]]>Having traveled around Portugal, Nepal, Thailand, Istanbul etc. researching tiles, furniture, fabrics, lights, fragrances, sounds etc, having cruised around Lisbon to pick up all the beds, closets, mirrors and other old traditional Portuguese furniture Annette has bought online AND having visited carpenters, linen factories, soap factories, tea producers, interior designers and DIY’s it’s a revelation finally to see how it all makes sense. To see how the carpets she is producing in Nepal match the pillows & bed covers the factory in Guimarães is producing, how it all goes hand-in-hand with the color the furniture workers are using for the antique bed is impressing. Each color, tile, light, soap, tea, texture, angle and wall has been weighted, turned up-side-down, in-side-out and calculated before Annette has made her decision. Useless nitty gritty details? NO WAY Thomas