Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1143967
18.07.19 10 INTERVIEW A father's legacy and the daughter She received training at the École Hôtelière de Lausanne in Switzerland, specialising in hospitality, and then read for a BA Hons in eatre Studies at the University of Malta. Business Today caught up with Dorothy Baldacchino, who is responsible for Baldacchino Group's operations, to discuss the hospitality industry, a permanent link to Gozo, the gender pay gap and other current issues MASSIMO COSTA Baldacchino Group's main sectors of operation are the hotel sector and the property sector. Could you give us an overview of what the group is involved in, both in Malta and Gozo? We are a diverse business, but our group's main focus is on property hold- ing, specializing in commercial and residential renting, wedding and event venues, and short-let villa holidays rent- als. We also have a spray foam (insula- tions) company. When my late father, Joe Baldacchino, had first started out, his business was in woodwork. Baldacchino Woodworks, in fact, still exists, and all our projects are furnished, finished and refurbished by us, including our Kempinski Hotel in Gozo. We also do contract finishings for other businesses, such as for boutique hotels in Valletta. Some of our clients have been with us for many years, be- cause they trust us and remember my father's work. While there has been a surge in recent years in imported furniture, made-to- measure furniture is not widely catered for. But we specialise in making bespoke furniture, so we found ourselves a niche in this area. The Kempinski Hotel San Lawrenz is perhaps the most well known venture your group is involved in, and one of the best known hotels in Gozo. What does the hotel offer which the other hotels in Gozo cannot match? As a business, we never had the men- tality of trying to outdo our compet- itors. My father used to lament that Gozo didn't used to have accommoda- tion facilities which could attract cer- tain high-quality tourists. e Mediter- ranean region alone makes it difficult for Malta, and even more difficult for Gozo - since it suffers from double in- sularity - to stand out. If a country offers good quality properties for tourists, this helps put the location on the map. When my father decided to launch a hotel business in Gozo he specifical- ly wanted it to be a spa hotel. e spa resort in Gozo was quite an avant-gar- de when it first opened in 1999, and it helped differentiate us from the other types of accommodation in Gozo. It re- mains the only internationally branded hotel on Malta's sister island. Refurbish- ment in our hotel had been continuous, and we keep updating the property for our repeated guests and new visitors. What kind of customer does the hotel cater for, in general? Mainly escape and retreat customers and families travelling for leisure - these are our main target market. We also host groups - such as dentist groups – which come to the Kempinski to par- ticipate in things like yoga, which helps them detach and relax while still build- ing their business plans. We've hosted big brand companies who come here because they can both engage in leisure activities and discuss business. In 2007, we extended our hotel to also include self-catering yet serviced apart- ments - the first of their kind in Malta and Gozo. ese have created a new area in our accommodation portfolio which is attractive to families who want to have the freedom and privacy of their own apartment, but also want to be able to have facilities such as breakfast avail- able. Some of our apartments are also animal friendly, allowing our guests to travel with their pets. Tourism in Malta and Gozo is doing well. But Gozo is known to suffer from a lull in activity during off-peak months. Are the "quiet months" a challenge for the Kempinski Hotel, and how does it manage that challenge? Having a spa hotel was key in helping us fight the challenge of seasonality, since it made us much less suscepti- ble to it. Our slow months, in fact, are January and November, and October is still a peak month for us, since it is a very popular month to travel for Ger- man and other relatively well-off tour- ists, who consider August to be too hot. e spa allowed us to develop activities which would keep our guests enter- tained throughout winter. Our spa has been consecutively awarded best spa in Gozo and in the Mediterranean by the World Travel Awards, and we're very popular with German and Scandinavian tourists who travel specifically to stay at a spa. is has put Gozo on the map for these sec- tor of tourists. We always strive to remain innovative. roughout the years, we have added onto the hotel's wellness facilities to make it more attractive to guests seek- ing a winter escape, such as investing in our Oriental Hamam and steam rooms. We have also invested in our garden, which is probably the biggest hotel gar- den in Malta and Gozo, benefitting from our land area of 30,000 sq.m. We grow our own produce in its garden, and as much as possible try to have organic practices. We carry out competitions related to vegetable-growing amongst our staff, and our international employ- ees take pride in growing vegetables which are native to their homeland. Do you encounter challenges when it comes to finding and retaining employees for your hotel and for other areas the group is invested in? Yes, and increasingly so. When the Kempinski first opened twenty years ago, most of our staff members were locals from San Law- renz, and many of these are still em- ployed with us. Today, however, we are indeed experiencing a big problem with finding staff. It is a major challenge to find locals who are interested in the hospitality sector. In terms of our main- tenance and house keeping staff, 90% to 95% of these are Gozitan, which marks a clear difference from the situation in this area in Malta. But when it comes to the food and beverage area, we suf- fer the same problem as Malta in find- ing staff. Here we mostly have foreign workers, and their turnover is substan- tial, with most of them leaving after two years or so. Many of these are foreign management trainees and trainees from hotel schools, who come to our hotel because we are a branded hotel and can therefore attract a certain level of workers who are well-educated in this sector. Hotels that are not branded are in a worse situation, because they might not be able to attract these kinds of em- ployees. e Kempinski in Gozo is also consid- ered a teaching hotel, and is attractive to foreign trainees because English is one of our official languages, and also, due to the relative small size of the es- tablishment, they are able to gain exper- tise in a varied number of areas. I feel, however, that in Malta we are failing to attract our young people to the hospitality area and we're losing the knowledge of the art behind the pro- fession. e emphasis when it comes to choosing a profession appears to be on areas such as accounting, medicine, law, and so on. is has always been the case, but the hospitality sector was still considered a viable option, even when it comes to summer jobs. Nowa- days, however, it seems that the sector is looked down upon. While students are willing to work at McDonald's, they don't consider hotel work a "cool" job. But, if done properly, there is actually a strong element of pride in hotel work. ere is a lack of realisation that work- ing in a four- or five-star hotel brings about good prospects of a promising career. e hospitality industry offers good opportunities for growth, and once one reaches higher levels in the sector, the salaries become very con- siderable. is is especially true if one starts working with a well-known high- end hotel, and opportunities open up even away from Malta. People tend to