Graziano Debellini (TH Group): Quality tourism? It doesn't depend on wealth, but on people

“Many things can be taught, but the most important things, the things that matter most, cannot be taught: they can only be encountered.” Thus begins, with a quote from Oscar Wilde, the interview with Graziano Debellini. A quote that he later used as a poster for gatherings with all employees before starting each season, which well explains the spirit, the attention to the person (starting with the employees), with which he does his work. He became a hotelier starting from a friendship and a shared passion for the mountains, which led to the decision to try to take over a refuge on Mount Adamello in 1977. Graziano Debellini now leads a group, TH Group, which with the brands TH Resorts, Touring Club Italiano and the TOs Baobab and Markando manages more than thirty hotels, including nine in the Alps, mainly in Valle D’Aosta and Trentino, making him a leader in mountain hospitality. An entrepreneur who has diversified his activities over the years: from hotel management to travel organization with tour operators on several market segments, to the management of the i villages in collaboration with Touring Club Italiano. The group offers, in addition, consulting services ranging from digital to engineering operations and training. In 2017, Cassa Depositi e Prestiti joined the shareholding structure, whose contribution has enabled solid investment and planning: together with CDP TH gave birth to the “Italian School of Hospitality,” a training project built on the model of the great European schools of hotellerie, to teach a profession in which Italy has a great tradition, but that with the evolution of the times needs new professionalism, to strengthen the ability to manage changes in the tastes and needs of travelers. And so, in collaboration with Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, the first three-year degree course in Hospitality Innovation and e-tourism was born, in English, dedicated to young people who have a passion for hospitality and wish to specialize in this sector. We spoke with him on topics related to tourism.

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AL. How is the season going and (taking stock of the year just past) how did the post-emergency and end of restrictions from Covid?

GD. The winter season got off to an extraordinary start: we almost used up all the availability, we are over 92 percent room occupancy, not even in 2019 had it been like this. And 2022 was also very positive with budget closed (we close the budget at the end of October) with 135 million in sales. The previous year we opened everything but the virus was still present so we also had to manage the cases of possible isolation of workers and customers, it was more complicated. Now we have practically zero Covid incidence: we are in a new phase, in the post Covid there is a new attitude of people, great desire to go on vacation, to do tourism.

How did they book: in advance or at the last minute?

Both ways. But I tell you that this year we opened the season already with more than 70 percent booked, then as the days go by the others arrive.

They call it “revenge tourism” from Covid, how much does it affect it in your opinion and is there any evidence to say that this new desire to travel can become structural?

It is as if this disease has brought an uncertainty about the security of life, and so as soon as there was a chance, vacation was the vaccine in positive for everyone. People want to go on vacation because it is a need deemed essential to get out of a long period that has been like a tunnel. This perception has been seen more in this area than in others. But the political world is still not giving this phenomenon the proper attention. It is a sector that certainly needs to be learned about, made up of hotels in cities of art, in seven thousand kilometers of coastline, over a thousand of Alps and mountains, but it is as if sometimes it is noticed that there is no proper knowledge. Because if there was, it would be clearer how we need support: we don’t need windfall aid: we need a strategy on tourism.

Can you give an example?

Take the example of vouchers: a tool used by employers, much fought over. Those who are inside the world of seasonal work understand that you have to hire people, we’d miss it, but there are also fluctuating trends of tourist attendance during the season [public holidays, bridges, weekends - ed.] that create peaks of work perhaps for only two to three days. In these cases, vouchers become essential tools because of their flexibility. I think there is no in-depth understanding of the dynamics of our industry, of how this kind of work works.

It is a particular job you have: you work when for others it is vacation or free time.

Most of Italy’s 33,000 hotels are seasonal, and the staff of these hotels live inside, providing 24-hour service. We need policy to be able to stop and look at 17 percent of employment and 14 percent of GDP, and provide clear and effective tools.

You started from a lodge on the Adamello and now you are a leader in mountain hospitality. What determines or what is necessary for the transition from a hotel business done in an artisanal way, the family-run guesthouse for instance, to one done in a more professional and structured way? What needs to change in the mindset of those who run a facility?

It captures a strategic point that affects everyone, big and small. Let’s go in order. The staffing issue. With Covid, an opposite phenomenon has occurred to that enacted by clients: while people are rushing to the tourism product, staffing has become uncertain, insecure, in crisis. Because it is a job that involves sacrifice: evenings, parties.... one embarks on this career path with the knowledge that one feels aspects of life such as being with family or taking one’s vacation during traditional periods are penalized. Covid multiplied this difficulty by a thousand but highlighted that this area has been taken too much for granted.

Can it be explained further?

Yes, there has been too much self-taught tourism in Italy: we need to consolidate experience and knowledge that will allow the sector to have all the requirements for success.

Solutions?

Together with Cassa Depositi e Prestiti and Ca’ Foscari University in Venice, the first three-year English-language course comparable to the schools of that there are in Switzerland, I’m thinking of Lausanne [throughout Switzerland there are as many as 11 such schools of higher education with tuition fees as high as 60,000 euros a year - ed.] and the battle to be made is the leap in training and professionalism, from dishwasher to director. Think of the figure of the waiter, in a bar, a restaurant, a hotel: it is a pillar of tourism in Italy! It is the first and last point of approach with the customer in serving. The idea of Serving is a big thing! This figure can no longer be parked in the middle of the tables by us entrepreneurs, it has to be enhanced: we have to teach how to serve,how to win the customer, how to meet the customer, exchange a few jokes, and so on.

What about digital?

In so many hotels from the point of view of applications we are really novices in Italy unfortunately. I’m talking for example about Crm, to build customer loyalty, about Rms(revenue management system) which is a process through which you get to coordinate the price,which depends on many variables, including the location, the quality of the offer, the reception of the market. Also very useful is the Channel Manager, software for expanding one’s online visibility, and the Pms (property management system) that coordinates reservations,availability and payments. Strong skills are required of the revenue manager because he or she must be able to process historical data. There is a great need to overhaul Revenue management in hotels [the task of maximizing revenue and profits of the hotel, through the development and implementation of pricing, inventory and distribution strategies - ed.] because we are no longer in the era where the customer walks past the hotel and rings the bell. Product selection happens with completely different processes that require professionalism and appropriate digital tools. Everything is still to be built on this.

How do you rate the boom in non-hotel hospitality? Why do you think tourists felt that being hosted and pampered in a hotel was no longer ideal for a vacation? Also, does organized tourism have to fear from the disintermediation with the customer of web portals?

What is a person looking for when they come to a hotel? Not only the sea, if we go to the sea, but also to be able to have an experience of a certain kind, of taste, of encounter, during his stay. From the relationship with entertainment to sports to food he wants to have an experience. “Experience” means not simply delivering services, thrown out there by a hotelier, but building this experience during the hotel stay. If at some point this level of experience has been reduced to a minimum then the customer has only looked at the price, and on tourist rental portals one can find apartments at even lower competitive prices. But without meeting anyone, at most you see the person who gives the key once. So,it is where the tourism experience has become too impoverished that the non-hotel portal becomes a competitor. But where the tourism experience retains the characteristics of true service, true hospitality, true experience, from how you pour the wine to how you clean the room.... then it’s a different tune and it’s another criterion of choice.

How do you see tourism today? After the pandemic there is a war then the expensive bills. What do you ask of the government?

The success of tourism right now in all its sectors, so travel, including international, hotels, etc. is obvious but the increase in energy and raw material costs is a no-brainer: past Covid this is the new sword of Damocles weighing on the final outcome of the season. It is certainly good that the Ministry of Tourism has been confirmed. However, I would like to point out that in recent months the drivers of the recovery of the economy have been precisely tourism, so much so that the international financial world has a focus on the sector that it did not have before Covid. Many Funds are looking at Italy as a country in which to invest in tourism:this was not the case before Covid.

In this context, what are your group’s strategies?

Our strategy is very simple: we want to remain a leader in the mountains and we are continuing to sow and would like to grow both in Italy and abroad. For two reasons: we are born in the mountains, which is a place of great human depth and training, so there is a whole history that we carry with us. Also, the mountain has two seasons and also allows an integration with the sea, which can give more stability to the workers as well. And more stability to our workers is our project.

The mountains today again have a huge attractiveness: we are on a planet that is prone to overheating and confusion, the mountains are a cool and peaceful place. So there is a tremendous growth in demand, against the pre-Covid trend, in all social classes and types of customers, and we therefore focus on this because it is our story and it allows us to stabilize labor costs, which is vital. The seasonal person who works with us in the mountains in the winter can work in our facilities at the beach in the summer, and that comes very close to full time. We have the facilities in the mountains open in the summer but summer in the mountains is a different product than winter and the type of clientele and service required is different.

Mass tourism is often conceptually contrasted with “quality” tourism as an antidote for healthy tourism. In my view by this “quality” tourism many actually mean that made by the movement of economically wealthy people, “quality” is used as a synonym for “rich.” While recognizing the value of big-spender tourists, who have a spillover effect on the entire tourism-related service chain, don’t you find it misleading to seek this “quality” so understood?

What does it take to have that certain “quality” in tourism? Because I look around and I see accommodation facilities and professionalism expressed of extreme value...Quality Tourism cannot coincide with tourism for the rich. You can have a 70-meter boat but have a dismal experience. Among 32 thousand Italian hotels, we have 28 thousand under 30 rooms, so we have to imagine that so many are run by families. There are so many families that do it, I see it in Trentino, in an extraordinary way and they give you a great experience because there is an enhancement of the concept of hospitality and an attention to detail: they have one or 2 stars but they give you a 12-star “product”! So the quality, the positive feedback does not depend on wealth, spending capacity or quantity of services that can be delivered. It depends on the people. Our chain mainly consists of 4-star hotels, we try every year to grow more and more the reputation attributed to us our customers, and this depends on how polite the staff is, how you pay attention to details and how you welcome guests, how you overcome problems (which are inevitable in any industry)... and we must not forget that these workers, these employees, sleep in the ’factory’ where they produce reception. To think how much this aspect can affect them is existential. It is a profession that is open 24 hours a day, at night you mostly sleep, but if someone has a need you have to be able to respond promptly. This is quality. Quality is related to the human depth of the host.

What should we have learned as a country system -- tourism world and politics -- in these two years to do tourism that there was no time to do before? How could we have taken advantage of these two years? I’m thinking of the issue of over tourism that came up again in the same terms after two years.

But why don’t we look at our neighbors like France? They don’t have this problem. They solved it by expanding. We have situations where everyone wants to go ... even Venice: let them widen the pool of supply! Italy is so rich that it can better distribute its demand for tourism. Just think of the villages: we have so many places to visit. France has managed to build an impressive fabric of artistic, historical and environmental references. Whereas we tend to have fads. We need to broaden, and there is room for everyone.

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