3 ms·

Around 2008/2009 I was working in a public relations position, and web development was still just a hobby for me. My boss owned a pro volleyball team, one of m

Around 2008/2009 I was working in a public relations position, and web development was still just a hobby for me. My boss owned a pro volleyball team, one of my responsibilities was managing an online community for fans. Every time we needed changes to the community forums, we had to hire external devs who were very slow and very expensive. So I explained my boss that I could code and asked if I could just do the changes myself, he agreed. I gradually started coding more and more regularly, this helped me keeping my skills current even if I wasn't formally employed as a dev. Fast forward to about a year later - my boss bought a hotel, and shortly after the hotel director quit. He asked me if I could temporarily take the role as a director, I agreed. Business was slow (low season), and I was more confident about my programming skills thanks to the experience with the volleyball forums, so I kept myself busy working on a simple calendar web app for the hotel. The next year, I left my job and I became the tech co-founder of a travel bookings startup, where my main task was building a calendar synchronisation system. I couldn't have done it without that previous experience building the hotel calendar app. My co-founder later told me that he chose me over someone else because of that specific experience I had.

Solvency 3y ago
What does a hotel director do all day? Does it require training? Customer interactions? Is it technical or social in nature?
- mastazi 3y ago
  As you can tell from my post above, I have only had this role temporarily so I'm not an expert. Based on my experience, you have a few people that report to you from the different teams (reception, cleaning, maintenance, kitchen, sales etc.) - what you actually do depends a lot on the size of the hotel and on how large those teams are; in a small B&B you are probably doing some of those tasks yourself, but in a larger hotel there will be different teams and you are purely in a management position. The amount and frequency of customer interaction also depends on the hotel size. Whether it is more technical or social depends on the above. And it also depends on whether you consider management itself to be a technical or social skill. Edit - regarding training: I have seen people in this field who had hospitality management degrees so I suppose that's the most common path.

Solvency 3y ago

What does a hotel director do all day? Does it require training? Customer interactions? Is it technical or social in nature?

mastazi 3y ago
As you can tell from my post above, I have only had this role temporarily so I'm not an expert. Based on my experience, you have a few people that report to you from the different teams (reception, cleaning, maintenance, kitchen, sales etc.) - what you actually do depends a lot on the size of the hotel and on how large those teams are; in a small B&B you are probably doing some of those tasks yourself, but in a larger hotel there will be different teams and you are purely in a management position. The amount and frequency of customer interaction also depends on the hotel size. Whether it is more technical or social depends on the above. And it also depends on whether you consider management itself to be a technical or social skill. Edit - regarding training: I have seen people in this field who had hospitality management degrees so I suppose that's the most common path.