With Planet Earth in lockdown, our industry at a standstill and many of us in self-isolation or quarantine at home, or grounded, this is our blog for you – it’s a way to share stories within our community, to form solidarity and foster a sense of belonging.
Short essays on what we are each doing, how we are getting through this darkest hour in travel, how are we handling withdrawal symptoms from travel, what we intend to do with this down time, a word we want to focus on, a wish we have or simply, an important topic you want to share with your travel friends at this time.
Luke Hurford, senior vice president, strategy, YTL Hotels, Malaysia
Home with the kids, juggling e-learning and conference calls – a day in the life of a hotelier
Back in late January, I clearly remember hearing from our reservations leaders and looking at reports and understanding the trickle of cancellations were increasing by the hour. Reading the NYT each morning and then seeing the impact to our business at that point, it was inconceivable to imagine the scale of the pandemic the world was entering.
In retrospect so many people now say all the signs were there but at that moment I was looking at the status of the business and updating ownership how we were handling our partnerships and guests. Certainly I wasn’t focused on hoarding toilet paper.
April 2020 – I was scheduled to be in Bray in the UK for a quarterly review with our UK and European operations and then the US to tell key partners about some exciting new projects and stories in the YTL Hotels’ pipeline. Actually I’m at home.
Initially we spent days and nights on calls with all our hotels, all teams, sales and communications offices around the world to assure everyone that YTL Hotels’ approach would be that we are in this together for the long term. YTL Hotels’ has always had a family-driven approach to the business and this crisis would be no different, we will come through these unprecedented times together and be more resilient and stronger on the other side.
Now on a daily basis, I am at home and often on my balcony not to get a suntan but on conference calls and trying to keep the sounds of three kids off the line. Three kids, 7, 4 and 2, their ages not their names, and no school but a lot of homework. The seven-year-old has a 20-page Powerpoint file come each morning to her online learning app she has to work through and we need to help her with some of the activities and video little snippets for her to post. It is impressive and I certainly get the benefits of home-schooling, distance learning is a struggle though.
I do spend some time sneaking a look beyond the teacher or the posts and videos and make a quick judgement as to how clean and organised everyone is keeping their space during isolation. Overall people clearly have too much stuff and hopefully this period of downtime will make people reassess; buy less and live more.
My four-year-old is autistic so we have become his full-time therapists until his team can start sessions again or his kindergarten reopens. The two-year-old is pursuing his goal of making sure his parents fully comprehend the expression ‘the terrible twos’. In our own way, we have learned a lot through the first few weeks of the shutdown, gained some perspective, perhaps absorbed a little from my daughter’s home-schooling activities about what we should be thankful for and generally we are laughing a lot as a family despite the crazy times the world is going through.
I am looking forward to much in the coming months and, like never before, will savour putting my kids on their school bus and welcoming them back each afternoon, running around the park for some exercise in the sun and taking the kids to their favourite water and trampoline parks.
In our business right now so much is unknown but we will be looking to reassure all our partners we are in this for the long term and opening Higashiyama Niseko Village, a Ritz-Carlton Reserve and seeing old friends in some powder snow in December.
For now though we are all washing our hands and constantly sanitising till the smell of alcohol stains my nostrils. Right now I am looking forward to some old smells of fresh cut grass and the nostalgic smells of beaches, parks, cities and towns I love to visit with the family and for work.
Note: We will be running this blog for as long as we need to, to get us through this. If you wish to contribute, please send your essays to Siew Hoon. Send images too, it’s your story.
• Featured image is of Luke Hurford’s three children
