The General Manager of Marine Hotel in Hermanus, Michel Bouic, shares his hospitality journey and his secrets to providing his guests a luxury experience.
After 15 years at Bushmans Kloof in the Cederberg, where he worked his way up through the ranks to Deputy General Manager, Michel has relocated to the seaside town of Hermanus to take up the reins as The Marine Hotel’s GM. “Hospitality is said to be amongst the top five of the most demanding industries but it’s what drives me every day,” says Michel. “Food, wine, luxury hospitality, excellent service and meeting new people – these are my passions. It is what gets me up in the morning!”
Hospitality comes naturally to Michel, who was born into a French Mauritian family and whose father was a chef. “As a child growing up in a very large family, I was exposed from an early age to entertaining and hosting family and friends. My family loves to eat, drink and be together and my grandmother is an extremely good cook – in fact when I started at the International Hotel School in 2005, I had already acquired some very handy knife skills and basic cooking techniques from her!”
THE KEY TO A LUXURY EXPERIENCE
“Luxury is all about the senses. The touch of the napkin when you go to a fine dining restaurant, the light and colour the globe emits in a good restaurant, the ambience created within the space,” says Michel. “While I have thousands of ideas that I would like to bring to the hotel, for the moment I’m focusing on everything that the guests touch and feel, slowly adding new additions that will hopefully have a long-term, positive effect.”
For example, Michel says, changing something as simple as the type of glass a cocktail gets served in completely changes the look, feel and taste of the cocktail. “Not only does it work, but creates excitement amongst the staff – one could see that spark of inspiration and imagination as they experimented with new cocktails in the glassware. It’s this type of motivation and teamwork that really excited me about my job.”
TAKING A HANDS-ON APPROACH
While Michel might have a change of scenery from the red rocks of the Cederberg to the mighty Atlantic Ocean, he’s still dedicated to offering the same level of service. “Though I will admit that coming from an intimate wilderness retreat with only 18 rooms to taking care of a 40-bedroom destination hotel has changed the way I need to operate day to day!” he says. “The Marine Hotel is a busy hotel with a constant movement of resident guests staying in the hotel, as well as locals enjoying our restaurants.”
“Hermanus has had a great summer season and catering to casual guests/non-residents has been a most enjoyable experience for us here at The Marine. There has been a vast increase in the number of visitors, on both a domestic and international level, and it is wonderful to see the return of our loyal guests back to South Africa. Every single international guest that I have interacted with cannot stop talking about how they enjoyed their stay and how grateful they are to be back in this beautiful country.”
“I love taking a hands-on approach to managing the hotel, interacting with the staff and the guests daily,” says Michel. “I try to greet guests by their name at every opportunity and make a concerted effort to meet every single person who’s staying with us so that I can build on the good reputation of The Liz McGrath Collection. At the same time though, I have a great team and have learnt that I need to delegate more and create opportunities for my managers and staff to further develop their skills and flourish in this ever changing industry.”
