Kurt Macher: Out & Proud in Hospitality & Travel
Travel
Shangri-La The Shard, London's General Manager Kurt Macher shares his work and travel experiences as an open and out senior leader in luxury hospitality.
Hi Kurt - thanks for chatting with us. Could you give a bit of background to your career journey in luxury hospitality?
I started out as an apprentice chef and waiter, then went to the College of Hospitality and Tourism and pretty much worked all around the world. I started in Austria, then went to Switzerland, Canada, Dubai, the Caribbean and Tanzania. I also worked in several American states, including Chicago, Houston and New York. After the US, I went to Asia, spending around eight years in Hong Kong, Singapore and China. Basically, every two to three years, I worked for different hotels, and many of those years were spent with Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts. Then for the past three years, I've been running Shangri-La The Shard, London. It has been an amazing career journey.
What does your role as general manager entail?
My role is to look after the day-to-day operations ensuring that the hotel runs successfully. It involves a lot of strategic thinking and succession planning. We have 450 employees and cater for around 1,000 guests in the hotel every day. So I'm in charge of their security, safety and wellbeing and ensuring that we’re providing an amazing service. Of course, a big part of my role is to further educate my staff through training. As an out and proud gay GM, it’s important to me to provide diversity and inclusion training because I want our guests and employees to feel very safe and comfortable here, especially our LGBTQ+ guests. So, for example, if two gay men check-in, we provide two extra-large robes and men’s slippers and try to make them feel comfortable from check-in and throughout their whole stay.
What was it like growing up in Austria?
I'm from a small village in Austria with around just 800 people. I grew up in the 70s and 80s as a Roman Catholic. I had to go to church and was in the church choir. I struggled with religion all my life and especially as a child. Everyone in my village played soccer, but I hated it. Back then, I didn't like any sports. I was very interested in reading, travel and fashion. I was very creative too. Luckily, I was never bullied because all my friends were girls in high school. We all liked fashion and were the cool kids. When the straight boys wanted to hit on my girlfriends, they had to go through me, so I was always kind of protected. But it was very weird growing up in a place where you don't fit in, so for many years I just couldn’t wait to escape. That's why hospitality was great for me.
What drew you to a career in hospitality?
Hospitality is in my family. My mom is a pastry chef. My aunt has a bakery. And my best friend, also my neighbour, had a restaurant. So growing up, I was always in the restaurant helping to serve and eating there. So I kind of grew up with it.
How was your coming out experience?
I've been out in my career since the early 2000s in the US. But I came out to my family much later. I only went home two weeks each year and always toyed with whether to tell my family at the beginning of the vacation, in the middle or at the end. It's always uncomfortable. So for me, it was important to firstly be comfortable at my workplace and be respected by my bosses for doing a good job. I actually saw a psychologist in America to help me to come out, and I highly recommend seeking professional help. There are so many great doctors out there who can guide you. So the advice I got from them was to write a letter to my family (my brother and mother, as my father had already passed away) one month before I went home. That way, they could read the letter and my story. A written letter can always be reread and it gave my family a month to digest it. It wasn’t easy, but it was much easier than if I had just talked to them about it without it.
What does Pride mean to you?
As well as Pride being about raising awareness, it’s a continuous effort to ensure that everyone is respected. It's not just about the gay community but so many other communities as well. Unfortunately, there are still a lot of inequalities, and there’s a long way to go to fix those, but Pride is a great way of raising awareness.
"I only became successful once I was out to everyone and when I didn't have to lie anymore because it is so exhausting."
How did Shangri-La The Shard, London, celebrate Pride?
We actually took part in the Pride Parade on 2 July, the 50th anniversary of Pride London. Around 40 employees and I marched in Shangri-La t-shirts and Pride outfits representing our hotel. It’s the first Pride parade that Shangri-La has taken part in. Our bars also featured a Pride cocktail throughout July and the whole of this summer because, for me, it’s important that we’re doing something continuously to raise awareness about our community. In fact, our Pride flag has been hanging proudly and high since last year, as we never took it down.
Shangri-La actually has been very supportive during Pride, compared to some of my other employers, where some of my straight colleagues were promoted faster than me even though my performance was much stronger. I had my struggles in not very inclusive cultures. But those experiences only make you stronger. So it's very important to me that I'm a role model. We have 40 nationalities working here, and in our executive team, we have a couple of gay employees. My aim is to create an inclusive and happy work environment where everyone is made to feel welcome and everyone can be themselves.
What can senior leaders do to really promote diverse and inclusive workplaces?
First of all, it's important for senior leaders to be openly out in the workplace if they identify as LGBTQ+. That's how you show that you're proud to be in the LGBTQ+ community. Leading by example sets the right tone. More senior leaders need to be brave, be out and be proud of it. Then it’s about great leadership and how you treat people. As allies, all leaders can create a great environment through treating everyone with respect and offering diversity and inclusion training.
Do you have any advice for senior leaders who might still be in the closet?
Nowadays, you have so many choices of working for a company that celebrates us and respects us today. When I started my career over 20 years ago, there was no talk about being LGBTQ+ friendly. As a gay leader, my advice is to find a company that celebrates you and respects our community. And be out and drive change. From my personal experience, I only became successful once I was out to everyone and when I didn't have to lie anymore because it is so exhausting. If you're comfortable in your own skin, then I think you're also more successful. That was my experience. For those leaders still scared to come out in your company, I would try to find a mentor, because mentors from your company who are supportive of you can help to guide you. But I think it's important that you are comfortable in your own skin and ready to come out. Of course, if they then don't treat you well in that company or promote you, then I think that's the sign to leave the company and find one that supports you. After all, we have so many options right now.
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What’s your advice to someone in the LGBTQ+ community who has started a job but doesn’t feel included or supported by their employer?
What advice do you have for people who want to follow your career path?
If you want to have an international career and want to travel, it's the perfect career for you. The great thing about hospitality is that you don't need to have a Master's degree to become a general manager or CEO of a hotel. The great thing about my industry is you can really fast track your career, especially now as there's a shortage of great talent in some of the top hotels around the world. Of course, you have to work hard, but you have to work hard if you want to get ahead in any industry nowadays. Get a mentor too. I had great mentors and good connections, so jobs came to me.
Do you get homesick with so much travel?
In my younger years, I didn't really get homesick because I never felt like I fitted in growing up in my village. So for me, my job – which allowed me to travel the world and live this life, provided me with the escapism I needed back then. I was so excited to travel and meet so many new people. I was also quite adventurous and never scared to travel to a new country. I actually relished the uncertainty of moving to a new place or a new hotel where I didn’t know anyone and had to start fresh. However, in the last few years, I've started to get homesick. So I moved to London from China, so I can see my mom every two months for long weekends. I’ve also learned that one day my family will not be here. So you have to cherish those moments. I'm actually now very grateful to be back in Europe and close to Austria.
What’s the best travel experience you have had?
There are so many. For me, vacation is really a time to relax where I don't have to think about anything and just have care free and easy winter days. So I normally go to Greece a lot in the summer. Or a ski destination in Austria for the winter, usually smaller places where it's very personalised.
Have you ever had any less than satisfactory travel experiences?
Three years ago, I was invited to a conference in China as a guest speaker, and I travelled with my former partner there. When we arrived at the hotel, as two men, they could not handle it because we’d made a booking with a king-size bed. They like freaked out with, 'Oh, my goodness, do you need another room? Are you comfortable with that?' I said, 'This is my husband. We booked the king-size bed, and this is what I want.' And then the managers came, and they were all confused. I think because the hotel opened just like a month ago, they didn’t have enough training yet. Or maybe no gay people had checked in there yet. So I had to be quite forceful in saying: ‘I want the king-size bedroom, I'm paying for it. Please give it to me.’ And they finally did. Later the GM, who was European, was very apologetic when he found out.
Do you think there's more that the industry could be doing to promote LGBTQ+ inclusion in travel?
Definitely. I doubt every hotel would automatically put two large male slippers and two men’s bathrobes in the room for every gay couple. I'm sure many LGBTQ+ travellers might have to still ask for those things. We still have to address pronouns in correspondence, in cases of, say, when two men make a reservation, i.e. Dear Mr. and Mr., but I'm not sure if every hotel company is doing that already consistently. Also, more staff training is needed so you don’t get laughed at for being LGBTQ+, as I've been to countries where the staff still find it quite funny to see that we are gay. It just goes back to providing education and including diversity and inclusion training.
How did you navigate working in countries where being gay is illegal?
I worked in Singapore, and there it's still illegal to have sex with another gay man. Although it's very westernised, you still have to be careful as the government is very strict. For example, if there's a lot of gay parties in Bangkok, or they see many gay Singaporeans travel to Bangkok you can be arrested on arrival as you get tracked. People also get offended by gay men holding hands etc, so you have to watch yourself and you can't really be 100% yourself. So I lived two years there because my former partner is from Singapore, and it was actually good to be with somebody local to navigate through it because they grew up there. But there are many parties and a lot of LGBTQ+ events and as long as things don’t get out of hand, the government doesn't get involved. I also lived in China where the government still doesn't like it so much for people to be openly gay. But in some big cities there are gay bars and you see gay guys holding hands in public. We tried to organise a pride parade in the city I lived in every year that I was there, but it didn't work out. In fact, in the hotel I worked at as well as raising awareness about LGBTQ+ life and community, we hosted the first lesbian wedding which was posted on social media. It went viral, with millions of viewers seeing the wedding live. We were a bit scared that the government would come and shut it down, but they didn't. So those are the kind of experiences I had in countries where it's more challenging to be gay.
Should LGBTQ+ people travel to countries where homosexuality isn't legal?
Personally, I wouldn't travel to a country where it's prohibited to be gay. But if I did travel to a country that was anti-LGBTQ+, I would stay in an international hotel, especially in a big American, Asian or European brand that will look after you, should you run into any problems.
If there was anything you could say to your younger self growing up, what would that be?
I would tell myself to come out earlier, especially to your family. Don't waste those years. It's never easy, but it gets better. I only came out when I was 36 years old for the reasons mentioned earlier. I also regret staying at companies for too long that didn't promote me simply because I was gay. I should have been braver and made faster decisions to change to companies that truly celebrated inclusion, like where I am now at Shangri-La The Shard, London.
You can check out the full interview with Kurt Macher during this year's WorkPride:
