Patrick Hoffmann has been working in the hospitality industry for more than 22 years now. He’s also headed a few resort pre-openings in Maldives over the course of one and a half years. He’s currently the Resident Manager at Heritance Aarah.
What are some of the challenges you have faced?
The biggest challenge is mostly I believe is coming with the person itself. So you need to groom yourself, you need to educate yourself and you need to be patient with yourself, because what you do is all day long you deal with people for people. So it’s a people’s business. And you need to be able to explain the right thing, you need to understand which language is your opponent speaking, to choose the right words, always have in mind that your point of view is most probably not his experience level. What expectation which has been raised is a challenge so being aware about your capabilities I think is the biggest challenge I faced and it’s not touching on one specific sector. So, it’s in the food and beverage department, in the house keeping department, transportation department but as well in sales and marketing, advertisement. So this has been the biggest challenges to understand who I am, what can I do, where I am good at, how can I support best.
What are some of the most notable successes in your career?
Definitely one of my successes has been the openings I went through. Starting, building something from the scratch. First time in Slovenia I have been not in a management position but as an assistant manager. Going out of your cultural comfort zone, going in to a new culture which you do not speak the language, where you are not understanding history because it has not been a part of your life. So learning something in action rather than reading a book or listening to a class or training this has been one of my biggest successes to understand that with all the experience and all the culture you have by yourself. There is always a different way there is always a different possibility to achieve a goal and to be open for this and not being reluctant on saying but this is the right way of doing.
What advice would you give to the younger kids who want to pursue a career in the industry?
My advice would be to speak to the children to give them an advice to make them understand that where ever they start will not be where they finally end up. So they need to be patient. What they need to understand and that one of the nicest experiences you can make in life is making someone happy. And if you work in hospitality you will have the chance of doing this daily. So and this is I think the best motivation to share with your children because what we do mostly is that we a driven by tasks. But we are creating memories and sometimes this can be difficult. So to advise them to be patient.
What do you see in the future for tourism in Maldives?
I think I see some challenges. Maldives is a beautiful place to be and in history is has been a luxury spot. Now this is changing slowly and with this changes the government would need to make sure the infrastructure is given to keep the beauty of this spot. Because this is the biggest challenge. As more humans you will bring, more challenging it will be for the environment. And to find the right balance between regulations and the freedom to experience the beauty, the nature but as well the beauty of the culture. This is I think a challenge to find out. Therefore, you need to the right infrastructure.
