60 seconds with…Miguel Velez, CEO - Unlock Boutique Hotels

Looking back on 2020, which was your professional most successful initiative/achievement? 

We have done some amazing changes and we were able to reach some great results. I would appoint the success of having all the team together and working with the same objective, to be able to involved all the stakeholders in the changes and had the support and commitment of them and finally the capacity we had to keep the hotels open and serving our guests. 

What are your most priorities in terms of planning for this year? 

We hope that in April we can start opening more strongly our business, our hotels, and from July until the end of the year that our business will start recovering the loss of the last year.

With the ending of the BREXIT transition period and new rules being here, what do you think the impact will be? 

We are based in Portugal, so our perspective is only based in the fact that we are a touristic destination for British people. I think we should differentiate from who have a house in Portugal and spend part of the year in our country, and with the limitation of 90 days Brexit will have a big impact. In term of who comes to Portugal to spend their vacations we believe the impact could be more because of the potential international economic and finance crise comparing with the Brexit. The impact of the Brexit in the crise will be a point to be follow.

The Government has put in place several measures in order to help business owners and operators throughout the pandemic and lockdowns. What are your thoughts on what is available to you? 

Only based in the Portuguese case it is needed more support having in consideration that in the beginning there was not the visibility that could take so much time.

As we all know, employees’ and people’s well-being & mental health have been critical points during 2020. How have you incorporated them in your operations, and have you changed your ways of working in order to accommodate different working patterns (flexible hours, working from home…)? 

We have done a big effort to involve everyone. At beginning we were doing meetings everyday with the managers of the different hotels in a perspective to keep them informed and focus on the needs but also to make sure that none fell “alone”. This is the spirit that we maintain until today but with different actions.

What positive lessons do we need to learn from what the industry has been through? 

There is always a tomorrow. All businesses have cycles and cycles can arrive by the most different ways. To be ready for all scenarios every time.

Miguel Velez profile on LinkedIn 

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