Great hospitality hinges on finessing your customer service skills – a talent that can reward throughout your career. In partnership with Quest Apartment Hotels, we speak to franchise business owner Roberto Salicio about how he made the transition from running five-star hotels to becoming his own boss.
Roberto Salicio has worked in hospitality for 20 years. A native of Spain now based in South East Queensland, he cut his teeth climbing the management ladder in five-star hotels in London and Barcelona. But for the past two years, he’s raised the bar.
“I needed to back myself up,” says Salicio. Now the franchise business owner and general manager of Quest Breakfast Creek, a 90-room serviced apartment operation in the Brisbane inner suburb of Albion, Salicio has found himself navigating two years of disruption – everything from Covid-19 to the Queensland capital’s catastrophic late summer floods. He says it’s been well worth it for many reasons – including the opportunity to work for himself after all those years.
“At the end of the day, I’m more rewarded doing my own business,” says Salicio. “[You can be] very successful when you work for someone else, but that person is the one getting all the profits.”
Lifestyle was another key aspect of his decision to make the leap to Quest franchise business owner. After relocating from Europe to the Gold Coast with his family to work at the Intercontinental Sanctuary Cove Resort, he decided he didn’t want to move his wife and children again for his job. Having lived on the Gold Coast for seven years now, his hour-long commute to Albion was much more appealing than another uprooting.
“That was important to me,” says Salicio. “It was a great opportunity for my family.”
Salicio took over the nine-floor Quest Breakfast Creek in September 2020, during the pandemic’s uncertain first year. But unlike so many hotels, which either closed down or pivoted to quarantine accommodation, Quest never closed. The self-contained setup of the serviced apartments helped in that regard, but Salicio still notes how he and the rest of the industry had to adapt during that time.
“It was very overwhelming, because we didn’t know what lockdowns would mean,” he says. “Covid changed the whole industry, from booking patterns to the way guests were interacting with us.” Rather than booking far in advance and engaging in a friendly chat in reception, guests were booking the day before and wanting no contact with staff.
Thankfully, Salicio was able to draw from his two decades’ worth of high-end hospitality experience. “I had all the training to see how the business worked – operationally but also financially,” he says. “That was one of my biggest strengths. I really understood how to maximise returns from the revenue coming through the door. And I have always treated the department I was in charge of as if it was my own business, which [in turn] has made me quite successful.”
Salicio says whether it’s a five-star hotel or a Quest location, it all comes down to providing great customer service and building a world-class team. Once you have identified how everyone in your team shares their individual strengths, you can get additional support from Quest’s support office in areas such as rostering and housekeeping.
Quest also enjoys the sense of security that comes from the fact many guests stay for longer than they would at a hotel, whether it’s corporate travellers stretching their time across the better part of a week or long-term residents living there for several months at a time. Thanks to the self-sufficient nature of live-in apartments – with full kitchens and other home-like amenities – guests are able to develop personal preferences around how they like their apartments cleaned, their packages delivered, and so on.
“Some of my guests become family because they stay with us so long,” says Salicio. “We know them on a first-name basis.”
Salicio’s role as general manager also includes playing tour guide, encouraging visitors and guests to take advantage of the surrounding city, which in Albion’s case includes the likes of the iconic Breakfast Creek Hotel, produce-heavy The Cheeseboard and a growing array of cafes, breweries and distilleries. It’s also nestled next to its namesake Breakfast Creek and a stone’s throw away from the winding Brisbane River.
That local knowledge is just another part of the job. “Being a business owner, you have to have a hands-on role to make it successful,” says Salicio.
His advice for anyone working in the hospitality industry is universal – especially for anyone looking to run their own business. “You need to work hard to make it work,” he adds. “It requires the same attention as the 300-room hotel I was running before.”
This article is produced by Scout Jobs in partnership with Quest Apartment Hotels. If you’re interested in stepping up and owning a Quest franchise business, head here for more details.
