Veronica M. Garcia, president and chief working officer of the Miami-based extended-stay lodge improvement firm Gold Coast Premier Properties Group, is among the many girls who, based on the 2022 Castell Venture Girls in Hospitality Trade Management Report, symbolize solely 10 % of leaders within the lodge funding and improvement realm. As she informed LODGING, she believes a number of habits account for her success within the “tough and tumble world” of lodge improvement, together with asking questions, being ready and protracted, and projecting the sort of self-confidence and data that command respect and cooperation.
Disenchanted with the communications profession she had studied for and begun after graduating from school in 2012, the Miami native says, “I took an opportunity and have become an administrative officer at Gold Coast in 2015, and fully fell in love with the hospitality sector.”
Garcia considers herself fortunate in that she obtained a lot assist throughout her earliest days at Gold Coast, whereas making her personal luck by a concerted effort to be taught the enterprise and earn the respect of colleagues and associates. “After I first began with Gold Coast Premier, it was a problem to be taught the enterprise—I needed to lookup what RevPAR meant on my telephone. However, as a result of I at all times needed to be taught, I didn’t hesitate to talk up and ask questions.” Nonetheless, she provides, “I additionally knew when to maintain quiet, to take heed to the conversations round me.” Garcia says that every thing is a studying expertise. “In my first job, I realized to be artistic and arranged and how you can cope with totally different individuals in one other male-dominated trade. I used to be capable of deliver that skillset over to Gold Coast.”
Whereas she began out “on the floor degree” answering telephones, Garcia says she was quickly working to job websites and attending metropolis and county conferences. She describes how she rapidly felt at residence with WoodSpring Suites model builders: “We work collectively like a household. If I’ve a difficulty or query, I can name them, simply as they’ll name me; this has at all times been the best way I’ve realized finest all through my profession.”
Garcia, who says, “I completely love my job,” finds one thing on this area of interest of hospitality that pulls and hooks colleagues all through the trade: its selection. “Daily is one thing totally different. You’re coping with totally different individuals, totally different websites, and totally different building corporations, and there are at all times alternatives to deliver new concepts to the desk. Proper from the beginning, daily has been a studying expertise,” she concludes.
Staying Above the Fray
Garcia encourages everybody looking for to rise by the ranks in hospitality—no matter gender or ethnicity—to do their job whereas holding their head excessive. “To me, it’s paramount to ascertain your credibility as knowledgeable. I feel that’s actually some of the highly effective issues that you are able to do,” she states, including, “If you are able to do the job, it shouldn’t matter whether or not you’re a person or a girl.”
Nonetheless, Garcia admits, there are occasions this may be difficult, particularly on building websites. “Some individuals will attempt to push and pull in the event that they suppose they’ll get away with it, nevertheless it doesn’t actually faze me,” she claims. “I don’t take it personally. I simply do my job, deal with it with respect, and transfer on.” Associated to those tenets, Garcia recollects being on a panel the place a scholar requested about how you can make an excellent first impression in a job interview. She replied: “What I feel opens doorways is to convey confidence, data, sincerity, and self-respect from the second you enter the room.”
HERtels by Alternative Lodges: A Multifaceted Strategy to Supporting Girls Resort Homeowners and Operators
Gold Coast Premier Properties Group President and Chief Working Officer Veronica Garcia relates that, in rising up the ranks to her present place, she benefitted from loads of unofficial mentoring from leaders round her. “There have been many senior individuals which have been extraordinarily supportive, and in numerous methods, have been very beneficiant with the time that they’ve taken to share their data and expertise,” she says. Garcia additionally took benefit of Alternative Lodges’ worker coaching program, in addition to Cornell College’s certificates program.
Her extra formal coaching predates HERtels by Alternative Lodges, an enhancement of the rising markets improvement program the lodge firm launched practically 20 years in the past to increase the chance of lodge possession to underrepresented populations. The HERtels initiative, which was introduced by the corporate in Could, goals to actively tackle the most typical obstacles girls entrepreneurs face when proudly owning and working a lodge, akin to acquiring financing.
It additionally gives devoted coaching and training, and customized mentoring and networking alternatives.
