Javier López's life began in Colombia but has taken place throughout Latin America. His commitment to education makes him our Professional of the Month.
by Vanesa Restrepo
Although Javier López's career began in his native Colombia, his current work has linked him to Mexico to the point of making him a leader in initiatives that seek the certification and professionalization of employees in the hotel sector.
This is recognized by his colleagues, who do not hesitate to refer to him as a leader in continuous movement, who develops initiatives aimed at improving standards in service and quality of care. All those elements make it our Professional of the Month.
Javier López's beginnings with the hospitality industry date back to Bogotá a couple of decades ago, when he entered to study hotel management at the Externado de Colombia University. However, he himself acknowledges that this decision was influenced by aspects of his childhood.
"My interest in hotels started from a young age. My father has always traveled a lot because he has international trade as his activity," he says while recalling that he instinctively began to compare the hotels in which he stayed.
However, the first direct work contact did not occur until he was in college, when he was linked to a Spanish restaurant that operated in the northern part of the Colombian capital. "I worked there many weekends during my career; it was a job with friends," he says.
It was precisely in that first job where he met Vicky Bayter, who by 1994 was serving as accommodation director of the Victoria Regia hotel. It was she who was in charge of hooking him to continue working at the hotel after finishing his academic internship.
A trip through Latin America
The Victoria Regia hotel was soon acquired by the Accor chain, which produced a structural change, but did not affect Javier, who today continues to work in that company.
Today he is responsible for the direction of operations of the Ibis chain in Mexico, where he arrived after being in charge of the general management of Novotel Mexico Santa Fe, where his main achievement was to maintain the occupancy levels of the property, as well as the standards of safety, quality and competitiveness.
His background also includes the positions of Reception Manager, Room Division Manager and Operations Manager of different Accor hotels, such as the Sofitel Bogotá Victoria Regia, the Sofitel Royal Park Lima, the Sofitel Quito and the Grand Hotel Mercure Quito.
After this journey through countless destinations in Latin America, Javier López arrived in Mexico in 2004, where he took over as operations manager for the Novotel Monterrey Vallehotel that hosted him until 2008. During that period his work was recognized by Accor North America's "Hotel of the Year" award for the 2005 version.
Hand in hand with technology
The professional growth of Javier López coincided with the most drastic stage of technological transition that the hotel sector has had: the massification of the Internet. From making reservations in notebooks and spreadsheets in a local unit, hotels have gone on to sell rooms on their website, portals specialized in tourism, via telephone and through travel agencies, all simultaneously.
A sample of the abrupt consequences of this transition is the story that López narrates with laughter and that occurred in Bogotá during his first years of work. "Before handling wireless internet connections, at events we had to have a phone line for clients to connect to servers," he said.
"We had the bad luck that in an event in halls, the same data line served a public telephone and what happened was that at the time of making the connection, the signal was amplified for all attendees with a call from the phone in the room: it was the secretary of the organizer of the event, who didn't talk very good things about his boss."
The matter left a great lesson to Javier who, however, never moved away from innovations: "Technology is a fundamental part of today's life, the habits of our customers and collaborators change very quickly. In the case of our company, we have more and more online tools for training," he said.
A commitment to education
López is one of the main standard-bearers of continuous training, especially within the Accor Academy, a university that the company founded with programs developed so that employees can keep up with trends.
This program works through a web platform from which each hotel manager can download the previously recorded contents and share them through social networks in which managers take an active part to contribute to dialogue and the collective construction of knowledge.
The academy is therefore a commitment to the human resource that, in the words of López, is the key to this business, because its good training, sense of commitment, low turnover, empowerment and development of activities make any financial variable in a hotel can be controlled efficiently.
Personal achievements
As not everything in life is work, our Professional of the Month confesses that he has various hobbies ranging from putting together puzzles, to shouting with the matches of his two soul teams: Millonarios in Colombia and Pachuca in Mexico. Likewise, he enjoys music, not in vain has a collection specialized in the tropical, salsa and merengue genres of the 80's and 90's.
His work forces him to be outside for several days to tour properties, analyze local markets and gather work teams, which for him is a great benefit: "in general, I think I am fortunate not to have such marked routines."
And it is precisely these interactions with different media that have allowed him to get an idea about what the local market is in Mexico. "The Mexican industry has suffered greatly in recent years due to the global crisis, influenza and local safety issues. However, we are confident that the markets will recover, which is good for our brand which is a leader in the economic segment."
Regarding its competition, Javier López recognizes that in the country there is a large influx of international chains, mainly for the medium and high segments, which generates new technological dynamics to be connected with customers and distribution channels. "In terms of products, Mexico continues to be a benchmark for Latin America in terms of quality of services and infrastructure, followed closely by Brazil."
On account of this commercial dynamic is that today Javier López does not plan to leave the country, or at least not in the medium term: "In five years I will surely be working for Accor anywhere in the world, surely in Mexico, being a world reference as a destination."
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