LUX April 2017

LUX - April 2017 7 Planhotel Hospitality Group Mrs Sara Rosso, President of PLANHOTEL HOSPITALITY GROUP Sara Rosso Cipolini resides in Lugano Switzerland with her two sons and husband. After graduating from high school she attended Professional Development Programs in Accounting, Financial Management, Hospitality Sales, Strategic Marketing and Asset Management at Cornell University. Between 1989 and 1997 she worked for Pantravel SA, travelling extensively organizing incentive travel around the world. In 1997 she took the position as Managing Director of Planhotel SA and then became President of The Planhotel Hospitality group in 2008, a company specializing in Resort ownership & investments, hospitality management and the development of new luxury projects. Her group today comprises of 10 resorts hotels & Spas in Kenya, Zanzibar, Mozambique, Maldives, Italy and Switzerland. An active member of the local community she sits on the Board of Directors of TASIS, the International American School in Switzerland since 2013 and she is also a founding member of the AIFT Association of Family Enterprise Ticino since 2015 now counting more then 50 Enterprises. LUXURY IS FEELING AT HOME Sara Rosso, President of Planhotel Hospitality Group, passionately and determinedly, told us the best tradition of hospitality with Made in Italy design and creativity “Design has always been important to us, we hold that a guest must recognize a style and an atmosphere that reflects his personality and makes him feel at ease, like at home. We have been fortunate to work with important architects and this put us in a position to be light years ahead of the others, with respect to future trends and fashions. This placement helps us to anticipate lifestyle trends, it means surprising our guests when they arrive. For us this means faithful and satisfied clients, our turnover in fact is made up of returning clients (some for as long as 25 years), this is gratifying but at the same time represents a constant challenge. We must come up with new facilities in order to continue to astound. This is a great incentive, very positive, which makes us better every day and which over time has made us extremely dynamic and creative. An example of our creativity is surely the consolidated event “Dining with the Stars” which continues to attract young Italian chefs - and from this year also from the rest of Europe - to the kitchens of the Planhotel Group hotels and resorts throughout the world. The initiative began three years ago to pamper our guests in the Maldives with gourmet dinners prepared by starred chefs. I believe it is an extraordinary experience for our guests and also for the chefs: it’s a very important cultural exchange, starting with a show-cooking evening, then a mini cooking course for the guests and then chefs delight everyone with a sophisticated gourmet dinner. We were the first and we’re very proud of that, the response is very positive and varied, the public of all ages is enthusiastic”. Even in the hospitality sector there seems to be little room for women. Can you give us a glimpse of your experience in this respect? It’s a great privilege, and it’s true that it is hard to find women in positions of importance but I’d say that it’s more frequent in tourism. In our case, it’s perhaps an advantage because it combines a creative side with the propensity for hospitality, qualities more typically feminine with leanings towards the management and pragmatic sides typical of the “lady of the house”, or the “mother” of a large family. And for us our employees must feel themselves in a large family and our guests must feel at home, in all respects.” The concept of luxury is rather complex and subjective. What is luxury for Sara Rosso? It’s decidedly very subjective, I think that luxury is strongly linked to the concept of time and space. Being able to take one’s time and to have room for oneself today is a luxury in its own right. In our hotels it’s the details that mean luxury, each particular has a meaning, it is conceived and selected with extreme care. And the vision of the whole that one has at a first glance is due to the whole of the particulars that really make the difference in our opinion Your resorts represent the ideal location for tropical destinations such as the Maldives, Kenya or Zanzibar, all five-star with tailor-made details and high standards of safety. We operate in destinations that are not always easy. All our directors have always Founded in 1997 in Lugano, where today it has its headquarters, Planhotel Hospitality Group is active in the sector for more than 20 years, and it is a leader in resort and hotel management in the Indian Ocean area with its brands: Diamonds Resorts, Sandies Resorts & Hotels, Exploreans Camps & Lodges. This successful Group is well known around the world for its original and unique combination of local tradition with a distinctive and unerring preference for Italian design Planhotel Hospitality Group Company: Planhotel Hospitality Group Website: www.planhotel.com