Alex Oreshkov, general manager of Sofia's landmark Princess Hotel, gets to work at about 8.30am and leaves just less than 12 hours later, on an average day.

He dismisses the myth that being a top executive means working excessive hours. Similarly, he scorns the idea that an executive should need to micro-manage every department, looking over the shoulders of the chefs, checking how the laundry is being done.

"It's about putting the right people in the right places. It's about knowing how to delegate."

That said, Oreshkov, who truly may be described as a veteran of the hospitality industry in Bulgaria, having accumulated a vast wealth of experience in his 50 years, says that his favourite part of the day is probably the operational meeting held first thing in the morning.

At this meeting, department heads get together to discuss the previous day, to mull over the successes and shortcomings, and set the priorities for the day to come. "You hear different views. We communicate and set the priorities for what we shall do that day."

He quotes the saying that "failure to plan is planning to fail" and says that the morning meetings amount to planning so as not to fail.

Interviewed by The Sofia Echo, Oreshkov speaks with passion and charm about his long career, about the hotel that he has managed for the past four years, and about his views on Bulgaria's hospitality industry.
Indeed, his background is extensive, and he has seen many changes, in a career spanning from the former socialist era through the transition to democracy and a market economy, to the present day of a Bulgaria on the verge of European Union accession and all that that will bring with it.

"I've been in the tourism and hospitality industry all my life, actually. I graduated in tourism (a bachelor's degree from Sofia University in 1981 in tourism and hospitality, a master's degree the following year, and in 1988 a PhD from the Bulgarian Academy of Science), I have never worked in anything else but tourism."

"My first job was in a travel agency, without mentioning the internships I did at school and university, then I worked for the government - the committee of tourism (1990 to 1992) and then I went on a scholarship for two years to the UK, to the University of Surrey, and that same time, the position of director of the National Tourist Office in London was vacated and I had to cover both - my university work and to take care of the National Tourist Office - for a year or so. I came back and at the committee on tourism, I worked in the privatisation department and in the marketing department, then there was about two years in the Balkan Holidays Business School, methodology of tourism operators."

He has been in some of the biggest hotels' board of directors, but at an operational level he started in 1988 at the Sheraton Sofia Hotel Balkan, where he was the Bulgarian director and covered administrative, HR and operational functions. "It was until the moment that there was a change of ownership and unfortunately the new owners decided that they did not want the management contract and transferred it into a franchising agreement, which was one of the reasons that I looked around, and then the invitation came to be area manager of Princess Hotels and general manager of the Princess Hotel."

His additional qualifications include research work at a Moscow university, and two special seminars in the US, at Tampa University on business ethics in tourism and at the University of Nevada on the management of gambling tourism. Strong assets to have, given that the owners of the Princess specialise in the fields of hospitality and of gambling.

Asked what his priorities were when he took over the management of the Princess in 2003, Oreshkov noted that the Princess had been privatised but the 30-year-old hotel, formerly the Novotel, had inherited that group's niche approach of being orientated towards transport hubs - airports, railway stations. The Princess is close to Sofia's central railway and bus stations.

In past times, Oreshkov says, the market was quite different. The former approach had been appropriate because most of the tourist groups coming to Bulgaria emanated from Central and Eastern Europe and Russia, and mostly arrived by train. "The volumes were big, and a big hotel like this one, 603 rooms and suites, was quite successful in its location and corresponded quite well to the customers' requirements at that time."

But times were changing. "Our clients now have totally different requirements, and a huge hotel like this has to have very different segments and targets in the market in order to go to the necessary 50 to 60 per cent occupancy. So what I had to do was to ensure a very broad approach to the potential market. Which meant that in all cases, we had to first change the product."

He identified as important the potential for hosting conventions, especially given the Princess's character as a major four-star city hotel. "My advice to the owner was first, we have to refurbish the rooms, second, we have to make the hotel more attractive than its competition. With the wonderful sports centre, with the very nice swimming pool, and the most important thing, we are like a small NDK (the National Palace of Culture, in central Sofia, which accommodates large halls) in terms of convention facilities. We have the biggest ballroom, we have two very big conference rooms, we have one medium-sized conference room, we have breakaway rooms - so we can cover the whole concept of seminar or a congress or even a convention. Importantly, we are able to cover the whole event, from the airport transfers to the final stage with a gala dinner, let's say, after the serious part of the event."

He says that the product had to be changed in order to attract a wider customer base to the hotel.

"When I say, `the product' I mean not only the physical part of it, I mean the training, the attitude of the staff, flexibility in terms of rate resistance from some of the tourist groups coming by coach from close markets like Greece, Turkey and the countries of the former Yugoslavia, and at the same time, have the corporate type of product - close to the so-called tower concept, of dividing the grading in parts of the hotel, offering totally different products."

He says that the Princess Hotel currently has an occupancy, given that September is traditionally a strong month, of close to 63 per cent. For the past three years, annual average occupancy has been about 54 to 55 per cent.

"Because the break-even of a hotel is about 40 per cent, and everything above that is providing good evidence to the shareholders."

Asked to recall the moments and people that had inspired him in his career thus far, Oreshkov names the time of the mid-1990s when the committee of tourism became part of the then ministry of trade and tourism, and was given the task of preparing the first law on tourism, together with a grading system for hotels and rules and procedures for licensing tour operators and travel agencies.

"That was very interesting." He headed the team that took on the task of preparing the legislation for tabling in the National Assembly.

The times were especially interesting, he says, because many new people were coming into the industry. "Many new private small family hotels had been opened. We were also coaching and teaching people how to operate in the business, rather than just putting up impossible requirements and obstacles in front of them. My experience in the UK gave me a lot of the necessary background knowledge to carry this out."

A second inspiring time for Oreshkov was the process of privatisation.

He also looks back at his time at the Sheraton Sofia Hotel Balkan as an important learning experience.

"In terms of people, I have had many colleagues a little bit older than me who I also listened to, and who taught me a lot, but if I have to say one or two names, they would be, first of all, Tsvetan Tonchev, who is chairperson of the Bulgarian Tourism Chamber, who actually invited me in 1990 into the committee on tourism, and then Krassi Stanev, the general manager of Albena. Since the time I first met him, he has not changed his place - but he has changed the place all around him."

Returning to the subject of training people, Oreshkov says that this has to be a process.

"It shouldn't be a one-time activity, it should be a process, be it for the (tourism) branch, be it for a company."

As for the tourism sector, he says that he is critical of the current situation, for several reasons, the most important of which is that people getting education in tourism and hospitality are given training that lacks a sufficient practical element.

"Unfortunately, they stay in the universities and the colleges, they listen to their lecturers, but they don't have the practical skills and their knowledge is more theoretical, even than is necessary - it is not pragmatic enough.

"Then, the second big problem is that most of the educational institutions do not divide their approach to the people who are going to be hoteliers and restaurateurs and those who are going into travel agencies and tour operators."

In the Netherlands, he says, there is such specialization, between colleges dealing with the hospitality industry and with tourism.

"This was something that we used to have, 15 years ago, with the institutes for tourism which were equivalent to colleges, conferring bachelor's degrees, in Varna and Bourgas, but unfortunately with the big development of the tourist industry in Bulgaria in the past 15 years, we have seen only an increase in university faculties dealing with tourism. My personal opinion is that we have to have more colleges, or even high schools, specialising in the field, instead of university people. This is because university people are ready to become assistants to their professors, they are ready to go to the state institutions, but the business is a private one. We need people with skills, and the motivation to work in the branch, not just to know globally what is happening."

As for company training, in a locale such as the Princess Hotel, he says that the most important thing is that underline as one of the most important tasks for department heads the pre-eminence of training.

"He, or she, must coach and train his people. That is at the very beginning of the job description. He must not only follow financial or operational results. He, or she, has to coach his people. If this is not done by the department head, it must be done by the deputy department head. But every department should give, first, an orientation, and then communication training. Of course, every day should be better than the previous one, and this is the responsibility that the GM has to give and to control and to promote, in order to be sure that people who are coming just from the school bench or the university bench, get training that is controlled and followed up."

Every month, the hotel does communication training sessions in every department.

"This is something that reflects very positively on the motivation of people, because they see that you are trying to give them something more. In that way, you are giving them the chance to grow in the profession."

Cross-training among departments is also very important, Oreshkov says.

He speaks highly of previously in his career having learnt what is known as the Six Sigma system, which measures failures, rather than successes.

"When you say, I am 80 per cent successful, that sounds satisfactory. But when it is turned around that it meant that I lost 200 000 potential sales a year, then you see that you are not good enough."

His background taught him the value of training administrative staff to know how to make up rooms for the times when the hotel is 100 per cent full. It is no use diverting chefs or laundry staff, because their work cannot be interrupted when a hotel is completely full.

"Unfortunately, in Bulgaria there are not enough reliable partners that you can just give a call and say, `John, send me three or four chambermaids because I am in trouble'."

Giving this training, and using administrative staff in this way when necessary, gives them the feeling that they are not just clerks "but now they know that they work in a hotel and in the service business".

Nothing is more important for the hospitality industry than people, Oreshkov says.

"Our product is service, and service cannot be delivered by robots. They tried it in Japan 10 years ago. Social practice just rejected it."
Asked whether he saw the Sofia hotel market as overtraded or appropriately served, Oreshkov said that so far the demand was being covered.

"We are not ready for the expected demand after January 1 2007 when we will be part of the European Union and there will be higher interest in Bulgaria, not only among  investors, for traders, for advisers, for tourists, but among all of them. Then we will not be ready to accommodate them in a proper way."

He says that some nice new properties have been built lately, including the boutique, medium-sized four-star hotels. "I can mention some without, so to say, promoting them - the Downtown, Best Western, Crystal Palace, are what a capital city needs. Of course, the capital needed the Hilton and the Radisson because there was a time when the Sheraton was the only five-star hotel.

"But now the competition that was established with these two, and of course the Kempinski, what is missing from Sofia? Only the Marriott, of the big-city chains, and as far as I know, they are coming."

He does not see a problem in the four-star sector. "I also like the new Central Park Hotel near NDK, another nice hotel is Vitosha Park, close to Studentski Grad. What can I say about the competition? They are moving quite well."

Asked to return to the subject of the Princess Hotel's competitive edge, he says that there are a lot of nice four-star hotels, but the product in each is different.

"A hotel like this (the Princess) has convention possibilities, with huge potential in terms of rooms and restaurants. Of course, we are not trying to get a five-star grade because we shall lose our market. But still we are trying to be the best four-star hotel. So far I think we are successful."

"We are competing now with the Kempinski and the Rodina. I cannot compete with the five-star hotels, like the Sheraton, the Radisson, and the Hilton, and I don't need to. It is completely different market, totally different target groups. And also, Crystal Palace, Downtown and Best Western are totally different."

What he is not happy with is that some five-stars "stretch their hands" into his parish, by lowering prices during the slow season in Sofia in summer. "If they lower their prices, of course, all customers will prefer to go to a five-star hotel."

His views on the Bulgarian business environment regarding the tourism and hospitality industries have critical aspects.

He says that he has no problem with the legislation or with the labour code.

"For a city hotel, the business environment is quite positive. What we have to say about the tourism branch as a whole is that the common infrastructure lags behind the business. We have been saying for years - for decades - that we have to raise the quality of our product, to reach wealthier markets, and business has done this. Go to Sunny Beach or to the mountains, and you will see marvelous five-star hotels. At the same time, look at the roads, look at the sewerage and drainage system."

It is the job of the state - whether national or municipal government - to address this matter, Oreshkov says.

He cites the case of one of Bulgaria's biggest competitors, Turkey, which arranged things by installing infrastructure first, then inviting development, and by taking on a national promotional campaign at state expense, and made reduced-cost travel to the country possible.

"They know how to help business."

At the moment in Bulgaria, governmental help is non-existent, Oreshkov says.

"They have withdrawn themselves from the sector, while the tourism sector is providing more than 12 per cent of gross domestic product and is providing jobs to hundreds of thousands of people who would have no other way of making a living."

"To me, it is not understandable, this policy of the state."

He says that it is not true to claim that the tourism sector is a private sector enterprise.

No one comes to Bulgaria for its hotels, Oreshkov says. They come for the country's seaside, its mountains, its spa resorts, its cultural heritage, its museums - all of which are in state hands.

"The tour operator, the travel agency, the hotel, all may be and should be private." The sector is trying to develop, while the state is trying to harbour resources.

Monuments of Culture, he says, is "an institute with a budget that is lower than my family's budget.

"It is a sin, it is a crime."

Asked how he saw the future of the country, the industry, and his own future, in five years' time, Oreshkov says that Bulgaria should maintain its trend of development.

"Of course, the rate will not be the same as in recent years. But the trend will continue in a positive way. As to the hospitality business, it is the same. The only thing that we have to do as responsible people is to stop all the building at the seaside and the mountains, because we are killing the essence of tourism. Otherwise, as I say, every year hospitality industry properties are becoming more and more sophisticated. I was in St Helena resort, in Sunny Beach this year. I was surprise how every flower was in its place, and next to every flower, there was a proper water supply and drainage. The number of people working in the garden perhaps was higher than that of the housekeepers, which may mean that nowadays owners and managers have finally understood that they have to listen to the voice of the customer, and it is not just, give him the room and the restaurant, and that's it."

Not many people in Bulgaria had the chance to have Western experience.

The old communist-era Balkantourist approach was not to give customers what they wanted, but "what I can", he says.

Now, with the competition, internationally and domestically, all this had changed, he says.

"I am positive both about Bulgaria and Bulgarian tourism, in five years we shall be well above the level we have achieved so far. How much I cannot say. But the positive trend will be preserved."

What he would like to see, he says, is for foreign investors to make it possible to offer salaries on the domestic market competitive with those that may be earned in wealthy Western countries, to encourage Bulgarian youth to stay within the country.