“I personally interviewed over 2,000 to get the 190 employees we needed for the May 2019 re-opening of Hotel de la Ville, Rome, Italy, which is now a Rocco Forte Hotel,” says General Manager Francesco Roccato. As of May, figures show unemployment in the Italian capital at 3.6%, which makes the number of applicants impressive.
About half a dozen returned because they had worked for the hotel, previously managed by IHG, before its 2016 closing. Thirty-five transferred from other Rocco Forte Hotels (the entire complement shows 20% non-Italian, a number which includes one Chinese, three Ukrainians and half a dozen from elsewhere in the EU; all are fluent in both English and Italian). Many applied because they knew someone else in the line.
Since opening two months ago, Roccato has only lost eight staff: It is all remarkably informal (Roccato is Francesco, to everyone).
Even the GM arrived through networking. He had first been introduced to Sir Rocco Forte by the Ferragamo family. They met again at International Luxury Travel Market (ILTM) in Cannes, France, in December 2017. In March 2018 he was called to Forte’s London office. As well as half a day with Sir Rocco, he had one-to-ones with head of Italy — longtime Orient-Express legend Maurizio Saccani — and an hour with each of the three Forte children (later, he talked in Rome with regional director Martin Elsner).
Lydia Forte, 32, the eldest of the Forte next generation, oversees F&B, working with corporate culinary adviser Fulvio Pierangelini.
“I started out as a chef, and she wanted to know how we would make the hotel’s multilevel F&B work — we have 480 seats in our bars and restaurants to fill every day (Lydia designed the F&B uniforms, by the way),” Roccata explained.
Irene Forte, 29, is in charge of wellness (“she questioned me on our successful operation at Puerto Romano, in Marbella”).
Charles Forte, who is two years younger, heads development. “He wanted to know how we could get even more youth into our client base — in fact the first two months of operation I have noticed more millennial guests than expected.”
The interviews with the younger generation were in English: with Saccani it was all Italian and with Sir Rocco, interviewer and interviewed spoke half-English, half-Italian. He was not interviewed as such by Sir Rocco’s wife, Aliai, or by his sister, Olga Polizzi, in charge of design, but he had informal meetings with both before he was finally appointed. He joined in October 2018.
Networking also plays a vital role in filling the 104 bedrooms and suites: Without any other representation, Hotel de la Ville relies on the brand’s reputation, plus travel advisers through ILTMs and Virtuoso (a contact at ILTM in May in Singapore, indeed, has resulted in a three-day buyout this fall for a worldwide luxury brand). Overall, business for the first two months has been 90% leisure, average stay 2.7 nights, with 52% coming from the U.S. and 15% from the U.K. The goal for the first year is 90% occupancy.
“Yes, I am happy. I have given myself three years to rival rates of the well-established Hotel de Russie, Rome, another Rocco Forte hotel,” Roccato said confidently. “A re-opening means many have preconceived expectations. But I was attracted by the Forte family, they are very involved, but they leave me to do my own thing, though one of them comes at least every two weeks.”