Publication
Zug, Switzerland
Wednesday, June 16, 2021
The craziness of starting a Hospitality Company in the middle of a global pandemic !
It may sound extremely unreasonable to start a Hospitality Company in the midst of a global pandemic, especially when the entire travel industry has gone through a total lockdown.
Well, not quite, not that crazy !
Toward the end of 2018, Gerald Lampaert founded a new hospitality venture by creating the VERTU Hotels and Resorts organization, a new, agile and flexible management and service company for hotels, resorts, conference and well-being centers.
During the first few months of activity, 5 venues joined the portfolio which was a good start to reach the initially target of 19 properties within the first two years. Unfortunately this objective couldn’t be reached because of the beginning of Covid-19 global pandemic late 2019 / early 2020.
Travels slowly became impossible, lockdowns started in most countries which ultimately became the end of the world, and definitely of the hospitality and travel industry. The majority of hotels and restaurants worldwide closed, and for the ones who stayed open they ran an occupancy very close to 0% !
At VERTU Hotels and Resorts, we were of course impacted, and the growth of our portfolio was tremendously reduced. Nevertheless, the nature and flexibility of our structure made it possible not only to survive, but to also capture an unexpected high volume of projects for owners and investment funds.
In a very natural process, we started to be contacted by ownership groups seeking for our very wide and international expertise. The common denominator was to take the opportunity of a very low or no hotel occupancy at all for starting building, extension or renovation of their hotels' portfolio. Our management company suddenly extended its services to consultancy and project management. Pretty much overnight we started working on 12 different projects and almost 4.000 rooms across Europe. To be able to absorbe the workload, we had no other choices than increasing the number of people in our team.
Early 2021 showed a demand in the Middle East which is being developed by Philippe Attia, co-founder and President who joined VERTU Hotels and Resorts’ Founder and CEO Gerald Lampaert late in 2019.
Today, and despite being very young and discrete , VERTU Hotels and Resorts is at the forefront of the reopening of the hospitality industry and with solid management opportunities in the pipeline.
So looking backward, the idea of starting a Hospitality Management and Service company at the beginning of the global pandemic was a risky challenge, but it really paid-off and put our workforce’s on the main stage of the industry !
ABOUT VERTU HOTELS AND RESORTS
VERTU Hotels and Resorts is a leading hospitality brand operated by LUXCOM GmbH and focused on providing guests and clients with the most unique experience. Managed by a group of seasoned senior hospitality executives, all with extensive international background in major hotel groups operations, VERTU Hotels and Resorts is seeking to brand, manage, franchise and/or affiliate properties in key destinations around the world, and to provide its visitors with an exceptional stay.
In addition, sister organisation’ VERTU Hospitality Services is offering other existing brands, operating and ownership corporations, a suite of "a la carte" services to help owners and operators in their current and new projects, including development, design, space-planning, construction, FF&E, asset management, strategic marketing, sales and distribution, Food and Beverage, accounting, and information technology around the world.
PUBLIC RELATION
Amandine Allaire / pr@verturesorts.com