In the opinion of Aurelio A Giraudo, degrees from hotel management schools are merely a ticket for a hotel job. What really counts is experience and dedication to serve.

He has learnt this from more than 20 years in the hotel business, starting from his parents' small business on the border between Switzerland and Italy.

"Being in the hotel business is not an easy job. Hotel staff must be willing to serve people, and Thais are great; they love to do that. They have great attitude towards customers.

"People working in this industry are not 'servants', but service-minded professionals. Again, it's an attitude, and it is a reflection of the respect that one has for oneself. Serving people is a very tough job, but if you have the right attitude, it becomes easier," says Giraudo, who returned to Thailand recently from Taipei, where he spent two and a half years at the five-star Grand Formosa Regent.

He returns to Thailand as general manager of Nai Lert Park Hotel.

"It's a challenge to work for a business hotel in the Swissotel Hotel & Resorts Group. My family [his wife and a son] also loves Thailand very much. I like the group and love the location."

At 45, Giraudo has worked for high-quality hotels in Europe, Thailand, China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia, Taiwan, Kenya, South Africa and the Middle East. In Thailand, he has worked at the Imperial Queen's Park, Dusit Thani and Imperial Samui.

He was impressed on his arrival to find more people in Thailand speaking English. A lot of Thais returning from overseas studies want to work for leading hotels.

Giraudo has found that overseas-educated staff members tend to be more dedicated than those who are locally trained.

Having been a hotel general manager for 15 years, he knows the difference between staff with overseas degrees and those from local schools. Having studied overseas, young people are more attentive and aggressive in their learning habits, he says.

"Their parents pay huge fees and have high expectations for them. Those studying at local schools are rather afraid to talk. They don't feel lonely and, as such, they are not driving themselves towards excellence. Forty per cent of locally groomed students try to do the best. Others want to be good, but in a relaxed way," he says.

He says the hotel schooling system in Thailand is not as good as that in Europe. However, in the next 10 years, if Thailand attracts better and qualified teachers, Thai students may not need to study overseas, he says.

Giraudo believes home-country education and overseas education are different. Long ago, those who wanted to enrol in a Swiss hotel management school had to have parents who owned a restaurant. Overseas study, on the other hand, was a ticket to get away from Europe and be free.

He knows, because his parents used to operate a restaurant and a 20-room hotel in Switzerland.

"In Europe, small property owners have to do everything if they want their businesses to make money. Hence, my mother did everything. Whenever she had to make the beds and clean the rooms, she would put me in her trolley and take me with her." As a teenager he fetched kitchen supplies, washed dishes and worked as a busboy in the family restaurant.

Realising that the hotel business was all he could do, Giraudo decided to go to a hotel school. He has a master's degree in hotel administration from Shelburne University in Dublin and has studied at Cornell University in the US as well as the Swiss Hotel and Catering College. He is fluent in eight languages.

But the degrees would mean nothing if he didn't work hard. He started out washing pots, then waited on tables and supervised restaurants before becoming a general manager.

"Just because you have a hotel degree in your hand, it doesn't mean that you can do the job. Experience is what counts," he says.

He recalls that in Europe, new people are expected to deliver on Day One.

"There's no training. If your boss finds out that you don't know anything about waiting on tables, he will fire you the next day. In Asia, it's different. If you hire a supervisor, you have to train him from scratch. Outside of hotel school, I never got any training; I simply watched and learnt from the more experienced staff."

Moving around the world, he has learnt that it needs different approaches to deal with staff. Married to a Malaysian Chinese as well as having spent a number of years in Asia, Giraudo thinks he has an advantage in staff training: he understands that it needs a different approach to reach out to an Asian staff; a soft approach is needed as people avoid open confrontation.

He has also learnt that each hotel needs different strategies. When in Taipei, he worked for a business hotel, but here, the Nail Lert Park caters mainly for tourists.

"Demand is different. But Bangkok is the gateway to Samui and Phuket. Therefore, the hotel could be a tourist business hotel. I have to adjust just a little bit, and adjust my relationships with the staff. I need different styles of talking: there, just go straight, but here, I have to be softer," he says.

But with his strong experience in catering, wherever Giraudo goes, he wants to make his hotels "the talk of the town" in food and beverages. It's a personal policy he keeps restating. He was quoted as saying the same thing by The China Post when he was general manager of the Grand Formosa Regent in 2005.

At 45, Giraudo has an ample time to prove himself.

Achara Deboonme

The Nation