Before and after

Don't you just love the before and after photos, especially when you are happy with the "after" look. Well here is a photo of our terrace before the make-over and one after. Quite a difference, I must say.

Since the temperatures outside are around 25°C and the temperature of the lake is 19°C and rising every day, we decided to officially open our lido today. Swimming, sunbathing, rowing,…..summer time is here!

Fleet

Do 10 boats make a fleet? Yes, of course they do. How many hotels in the world can boast to have their own fleet of boats? Well, not in Slovenia for sure. Our new addition, a lovely boat number 10 arrived today and was launched properly with my presence. There was a bottle of sparkling wine present, but I would rather not explain what happened to it. If you look carefully at one of the photos, you will see two features of Bled that are really important: St. Martin's church and medieval castle on a cliff high above the lake. I will dedicate a special blog to the castle since it is rather special.

Jula Molnar

This blog is dedicated to a very special lady. If it wasn't for her, Grand Hotel Toplice would never have been built. Mrs. Jula Molnar was born as Julija Vovk in 1891 in Bled. In 1919 she bought the old, wooden hotel Luisenbad build in 1854. She did some renovations, she built a new lido and then she finally decided to do something very brave. She managed to get a lot of money, torn down most of the old hotel and build a completely new one according to the drawings by Austrian architect Franz Baumgartner.

Mrs. Molnar personally managed the hotel from 1919 until 1945. She was known as a very smart, competent manager, but also very much liked by her employees for being fair and kind.

Interestingly, Mrs. Molnar and myself are the only two women to have ever held the position of the manager of Grand Hotel Toplice since for more then 60 years after 1945, all managers were men.

Decisions

A part of my job is making decisions regarding different things, no matter how strange they may sound. I have decided to write down a few decisions I had to make recently:

1. What type and colour of flowers shall we plant in flower pots on the terrace?
2. How long will the new skirts for service staff be?
3. How many new lounge chairs for the lido do we buy this year?

If you read the above my jobs suddenly seems quite trivial and easy to do, but this kind of decisions are actually just a part of a big picture called managing a hotel.

In case you were wondering how I decided, here it goes:
Ad 1: I chose blue, pink and white for this summer, I hope it will work out!
Ad 2: I decided for 70cm which is quite long and covers 3/4 of legs. Not that I am being puritanical, I just believe that longer skirts are more elegant.
Ad 3: I decided on 10 new ones in addition to 32 that we bought last year. See photo!

PARTHENOCISSUS (VITIS) QUINQUEFOLIA

It is a bit strange to name a blog post after a plant, but this not just any plant. Vitis Quinquefolia is a Latin name for Virginia Creeper, a plant that is a very import feature for the image of the hotel. It covers a very large part of the wall and gives to the Grand Hotel Toplice a rather unique look. It changes colours according to the season. Most of it was planted in the 1930-s, and there were some additional plants added some 30 years ago. Stefan, who is head of maintenance in the hotel and has been working for this hotel for 37 years actually remembers buying the additional plants.

Mateja

Mateja is back! She just spent two days in Zagreb, Croatia, promoting Sava Hotels & Resorts. Mateja is our happy angel. Well not literally, but close. She is the one that you talk to when you want to organize an event, wedding, reception, seminar etc.. She is 100% efficient and always does it with a smile. The fact is that she gets a lot of thank you letters from satisfied guests, more then anyone else in the hotel.

Well, Mateja is back home and I am happy!

Construction

One of the unavoidable things in the hotel business is renovation, construction, building etc.. We have a wonderful terrace overlooking the lake that was screaming for a make-over. We have chosen to cover the concrete floor of the terrace with tiles. We decided on the tiles, found the company to do the work and then we waited for the warm and sunny weather to begin the work. Like any work that has to be done outside of the hotel, no matter how important, it is annoying to the guests. The work is progressing quite nicely and it should be finished within a few days. But, and there is always a but, the workers today have decided to start early since they wanted to take advantage of the beautiful weather and do as much work as possible. Since they started at 7.00 a.m. (very early I must admit), and they caused quite a lot of noise, some guests complained. I talked to them and they promised to start at 9.00 a.m. tomorrow and not a minute earlier, but nevertheless the damage has been done. Anze and I have some apologizing to do!

My apologies to all the guests that feel annoyed by this construction work going on, I do believe that in the end this will be another positive addition to the beauty of the hotel.

More about the hotel and people

Yesterday, we had a film crew in the hotel, filming for a promotional video. Luckily the weather was really beautiful and they were able to do some great work. Anze loved the actress hired to play the role of the guest. He said that she was absolutely gorgeous. (He even got her phone number!) Now I absolutely have to explain who Anze is. Anze Cerne is Rooms Division Manager which means that he is responsible for 3 departments: front office, housekeeping and wellness. He is my second right hand in the hotel, very young but very capable. My first right hand is Asmir. Asmir Jusufagic is Food & Beverage Manager and he is responsible for the kitchen, 3 restaurants and 2 bars. Asmir is one of the most knowledgeable people in the F&B field in Slovenia and I am really happy that he works here.

We have a new boat in the boat house. I know it doesn't sound like much, but these boats are actually built to last for 30-40 years, and it takes ages before they can be replaced with new ones. We had a lot of fun deciding how to name the boat. Romana, head of wellness center, wanted me to name it after one of our regular guests, but I couldn't decide which one, since I like them all very much and it wouldn't be fair to choose only one of them. So now we have a boat with no name, we will just give it a number.

The begining

Introduction:

To start writing this blog I must first do some introduction of both the hotel and myself. Since the name of the blog is Manager's Blog - Grand Hotel Toplice, this naturally suggests that I am the manager of a hotel. Not just any hotel, but a rather special place. Grand Hotel Toplice, a five star hotel, built in 1931 is located on a shore of Lake Bled. Lake Bled looks like from a fairy tale and so does our Hotel. Or should I say, my Hotel? I am very much emotionally attached to this beautiful place. Back to the hotel: 1931 was a good year to build it since the architecture of that time seems to last forever and never looses its charm. There were several renovations made since, and the last one took place in 2002. Hotel has 87 rooms, 3 restaurants, a bar, wellness center and its own boat house and lido. Luckily my Hotel is more than just its wonderful walls. Grand Hotel Toplice are also fantastic employees, who speak several languages, are dedicated to their work and are proud to say: I work at Grand Hotel Toplice.

And myself? My name is Petra Vengust, currently 36 years old and have graduated in economics and I have a post graduate certificate from hotel management at Les Roches in Switzerland. I have been managing this hotel since January 2007.

Enough for the first time. Bye!