Actors and artists do it – politicians do it – AND hotel managers do it. They all stay at the hotel, some longer, some shorter. Since one imagines the “hotel at home” to be quite cool and carefree, we wanted to ask our general manager at the Falkensteiner Spa Resort Marienbad more precisely.
1| Dear Reinhard, tell us: How long have you been part of Falkensteiner? Have you actually lived in the hotel since the beginning, or did you do the same in your previous professional positions?
I have been with Falkensteiner for over 5 years. I came here directly to get to know this fascination and the cradle of health tourism in detail and to help shape it for the future.
I have been here in the hotel since the beginning – my center of life is actually not in the Czech Republic, I am not Czech and that is why I have my job here and it makes a lot of sense for me to “live” in the hotel and therefore be here permanently – apart from the days when I go home.
In the previous professional stations, I lived the same way, even several times. Especially when I was on the road with Intercontinental Hotels in South America – where it was and still is common that the directors, especially if you come from abroad, live in apartments. I know that from before and have now reconnected with it, yes.
2| When you think of staying in a hotel, you often have a very romantic idea of it. There is cleaning, cooking, laundry ironing, you are pampered by room service. One lives a “lottery life”, so to speak. But what is it really like? And how “personal” do you really make it in the end?
Yes, this is really just imagination and not reality! Because I don’t want to feel like a guest – I’m not a guest – I’m an employee and I also have to convey to the employees that I do want to see the standards or check whether everything is working – BUT that I don’t have the same claim for myself as I do for our guests. I think this is a difficult combination for our employees to understand – I don’t have my room cleaned every day, but only once a week, or I don’t need a fresh bathrobe every day – I don’t need this standard. But I do want to see that once a week is cleaned correctly – and the work is done as correctly as if I were a guest.
There are special features in that I have my own books. I have, of course, always tried to personalize the room to some degree. Logically, I also have my own glasses and small items here. I also do not want to spoon my yogurt with hotel cutlery in the morning, but feel a little “independent and distant” and just not constantly as a hotel resident. Is also I think quite healthy so, for example, I also do not take the hotel soap, but buy my own shampoo – so little things to personalize it. In the suites, there are also so beautiful shelves, there are my glasses, the dishes and my cutlery – that’s all from me privately – so you can separate a bit and still create a kind of home at work.
Catering – so I have to eat at the hotel because I don’t have a kitchen in the suite. I don’t make any big exceptions here either, I eat what’s available in the restaurant or at breakfast. Most of the time, however, I don’t eat breakfast in the restaurant. That’s why I have some yogurts, cereal & jam in the minibar and then I also don’t always have to enter the guest areas to eat something. What I also do NOT use is Room Service – I don’t like it either. So, to have a staff member employed here to serve me, I don’t want that. They are there for the guests and not for the director! 🙂
Laundry, of course, already runs through the hotel, of course. What you have to keep in mind – of course my family comes here often and I tell them, please, we are not hotel guests, not paying, but we have the privilege to stay here and we behave like that – but I don’t have to explain that to my daughter and my wife. It’s natural anyway, I think. The staff also treat you very respectfully, which I always find very nice, and also with my family when they come to Marienbad a few times a year. They are welcomed and cared for as if they were at home, and the staff is happy to see them. That is always very warm!
3| How can one imagine your room, your service apartment?
Yes, well, I haven’t remodeled anything. Maybe I could have done something to furnish the apartment according to my own taste with furniture and so on – and just move out the furniture as long as I live there, but normally there are also apartments for employees – so I don’t do it, I live with the furniture I have and that’s just fine.
4| When you work and live in a hotel – is it difficult to switch off when you live right next to your workplace? How do you manage that?
Curiously, no. I mean, switching off is generally
It’s not because I live here, that’s not a problem for me, I can separate it well. One means is certainly to personalize your home a bit and if you do that, it’s certainly not hard. I also have my bike here and try to have a private life and pursue hobbies in addition to my working hours. Even sometimes a weekend trip in the area or also to the Bavarian cities or also to Pilsen to the cinema – like the other day. There I watched the new James Bond movie with a colleague and I enjoyed it. I was once again in the cinema for 10 years and it was – alone this sound technology – it was spectacular. I had a lot of fun.
So, those were the first personal questions to Reinhard Wall. If you still want to know which is his favorite place in his beautiful hotel and with which principles and values he is a host – then I recommend you to read the second part of the home story. You will definitely get an impression of why the Falkensteiner Spa Resort Marienbad is worth a trip and why it can also be a wonderful place to start your professional career!
Stay tuned & see you soon!
