Excellent Stay and Care

The Emblem Prague Hotel is known for its “home away from home” concept. What does this approach mean for your guests and how is it reflected in your daily operations?

We approach each hotel visitor individually. In addition to the hotel service, this of course also applies to other offers and recommendations that a guest receives from us – which restaurants are  the best for a great meal, which monuments and galleries to visit or which current cultural events to attend. Our approach to tourists spending time in Prague differs from our approach to commercial guests. In addition, our hotel has unique club premises that are used as temporary offices or for organising events. Our spa, which large companies make available to their employees, is also popular. The portfolio of our services is really broad. So that everyone – including my wonderful mother-in-law – feels comfortable with us, it is important for us to create a professional and pleasant environment for guests.

 Your pathway to the hospitality industry was quite unusual, from lawyer to General Manager. How does your previous experience help you in running a luxury hotel?

Personally, I believe that any kind of study will set a young person on the right path. Whether it’s the ability to organise work well or to work under the pressure of deadlines. The art of working in a team is definitely crucial. Working in the state administration, which has its own specifics and where I spent three years of my life, helped me a lot in this regard. All this together gave me valuable experience that I still benefit from today. However, hotel management is also a matter of my heart. It is not an easy profession, especially after we went through the challenging period of the COVID-19 pandemic, which no one expected. To this day. this field is gradually being put into order. However, positives always prevail for me, because even the most demanding but satisfied guest charges me with energy.

In addition to the Emblem Hotel, you also operate the White Horse and BRICK’S restaurants. How do these enterprises differ from the hotel’s George Prime Steak restaurant and what role do they play in the overall concept?

The newly opened Lví Dvůr restaurant at Prague Castle must also be included in this list. Since we are constantly expanding our selection and want to offer the best to customers and guests, we have decided to cover all our operations with the strong Emblem Places group. This concept allows us to manage more effectively, better use the synergy of existing and established restaurants and hotels, as well as the new challenges, for example, in the form of the Lví Dvůr restaurant. All these venues are united by the above-mentioned “home away from home” concept, which emphasises the high quality of the services and ingredients offered. This is where all our hotels and restaurants are the same. But they differ in the type of cuisine. The White Horse restaurant on the Old Town Square offers excellent Czech cuisine, while BRICK’S overlooking Charles Bridge defines the culinary experience created by Pavel Sapík, one of the best Czech chefs.

Hotel Emblem is proud of a number of awards and recognitions. What do you see as your key success factors and how do you manage to maintain a high standard of service across all enterprises?

I think Emblem has won its awards thanks to its timeless design and the use of new technologies that today’s guests very often seek and demand. In addition, new technologies allow us to automate a whole range of administrative tasks and processes that would otherwise be quite tedious. Thanks to this, employees can pay more attention to guests and participate in the creation of superior service, for example, in the form of experiential tourism and gastronomy. At the same time, thanks to technology, management can better support the further education of employees and further build and improve the corporate identity of our brand. I would also like to mention that we are creating the Emblem Places group with an emphasis on sustainability and social responsibility.

People also associate your hotel with the support of art and local artists. Can you tell us about some of the initiatives in this area and how they affect the overall atmosphere of your enterprises?

Among the most important artists whose works you can see here are Özlem Altin, Atelier E.B, Nina Beier, Daniela & Linda Dostálkova, Habima Fuchs, Lukáš Hofmann, Krištof Kintera, Esther Kläs, Erwin Kneihsl, Eva Koťátková, Kris Lemsalu, Jimena Mendoza, Lucy McKenzie, Josephine Pryde, Lucy Raven, Tauba Auerbach, Jiří Kovanda and Lenka Vítková. The Emblem Hotel also houses selected works from The Emblem Collection, founded in 2015 in collaboration with the Are curatorial organisation, which consists of 60 works by contemporary Czech and foreign artists of various generations. Because the works of some of the above-mentioned artists are represented in the collections of international galleries and museums, such as the Tate, MoMA, Guggenheim, Centre Pompidou and the Victoria and Albert Museum, we have managed to establish collaboration with truly exceptional artists and performers. Our collection includes works created in classical media, as well as documentation of performances and footage of video projections of artwork that use the visual language of fashion and design. The Emblem Collection operates on an exchange system between the hotel and the artists. In our premises, the collection creates an extremely pleasant environment, which is appreciated by all visitors to the hotel, including experts from the art world.

How are you coping with the challenges in the hotel and restaurant industry, including the recent pandemic? What innovations or changes have you had to implement during this challenging period?

As I’ve already mentioned, we are still coping with the consequences of the pandemic. According to my information from other colleagues in the industry, we all face similar issues. We are at 70 % hotel occupancy, and that’s only since this year’s Easter holidays. Incidentally, this was also the assumption of economists from STR, a respected organisation and global leader in hotel and tourism analysis. Among the biggest problems we still face today are the changing behaviour of target customers and the shortage of staff. Many have left this amazing profession and do not want to return to it. It only took two years to destabilise the labour market, and operations, including ours, unfortunately had to adapt to this situation. There was also a higher turnover of employees, which we are now trying to improve by strengthening the HR of the Emblem Places group, where we are preparing an interesting Benefits Programme for employees.

Are you planning any new projects or expansion of the existing services of the hotel, or of the White Horse and BRICK’S restaurants?

With regard to the expansion of services, we officially created and activated the Emblem Places group, so that as a whole we could apply for additional operations – hotels as well as restaurants. One of them is the Lví Dvůr restaurant, with its incredible view of Prague Castle. This is another unique venue for unusual corporate events. We also plan to expand our services with wedding planning. In the future, we want to provide all our customers and companies with above-standard and unforgettable hotel service, as well as restaurant management and gastronomic experiences.

You recently got married and have a young son. Where do you prefer to relax?

I always relax the most in the Krkonoše Mountains, where we have a cottage. I like to walk in the forest, seeking moments of peace without the constant ringing of the phone. Anyway, I cannot resist  also working at the cottage, because I’m happy when everything functions as it should. Even though I inform the staff in advance that I will be away and they will take care of everything, I still have to make sure that our guests are perfectly taken care of during my holiday.

https://www.emblemplaces.com