Courteous, attentive and personalized service defines the luxury hotel experience, and it comes from a staff’s passion, devotion and hard work.
To recognize these efforts, Forbes Travel Guide presents its fourth annual Employee of the Year honors in conjunction with its 2023 Star Awards. The winning staff members demonstrated a willingness to go above and beyond their roles’ expectations in the service of hotel guests and their communities.
Hundreds of properties in FTG’s worldwide collection submitted nominations for these hospitality industry distinctions. An executive committee narrowed down the finalists and then selected the below winners, who received their plaques at FTG’s Summit at Resorts World Las Vegas on March 1 and 2.
Hotel Employee of the Year: Jack Yan, senior housekeeping supervisor, Capella Shanghai, Jian Ye Li
Considered Capella Shanghai’s “Uncle,” Yan has worked at the Forbes Travel Guide Four-Star hotel for more than five years and has demonstrated an unwavering commitment to his profession. He rents a room close to the hotel to allow him to always be on call for any emergencies, big and small. Yan also voluntarily picked up shifts in laundry and other departments to meet and exceed guests’ needs in a time of uncertainty during the pandemic.
His sense of duty applies not only to the hotel but to the entire community — during Shanghai’s lockdown, Yan donned protective gear for three months and volunteered to sanitize public venues. He is a hero of Capella Shanghai and the city.
Finalists: Miguel Lopez, bell captain, Bernardus Lodge & Spa, Carmel Valley, California; Nuno Ribeiro, business intelligence officer, Corpo Santo Hotel, Lisbon; Kai Turner, doorman, Four Seasons Hotel Philadelphia at Comcast Center; and Sam Xue, senior butler, Londoner Court, Macau.
Restaurant Employee of the Year: Luis Noel Pol, server, Seagrapes Restaurant at The St. Regis Bahia Beach Resort, Puerto Rico
“Luis Noel Pol is the soul of our restaurant,” his nominator wrote. Popular with guests, Pol anticipates their needs by ensuring that requests are carried out even when he isn’t working — he leaves notes for his colleagues about guests’ preferences to create a consistency of service. Pol also shares his humor and joy with his co-workers to help foster a positive work environment despite challenging times. For example, every morning he performs some choreography from a Broadway show or musical simply to bring smiles to his colleagues’ faces.
Finalists: Marija Bozhinoska, food and beverage associate, Bellini Restaurant at Solana Hotel and Spa, Malta; Lafaine Clarke McKenzie, server, Twenty-Eight Atlantic at Wequassett Resort and Golf Club; Deborah Taye, server, The Americano at InterContinental Buckhead Atlanta; and Jean-Pierre Tuitt, junior sous chef, Veranda at Jumby Bay Island.
Spa Employee of the Year: Nancy Russo, spa desk agent, Spa Montage Palmetto Bluff
Russo’s mission to create meaningful experiences for all guests who pass through the spa’s door helped the facility achieve its Five-Star award. Her warmth inspires her fellow team members, whose training she oversees to ensure all staff shares her capacity to deliver personalized service. Russo leads by example — she returned to work shortly after her husband died so that she could attend a Forbes Travel Guide training session, and when a guest attending an on-property wedding found out he needed a white jacket at the last minute, she brought one in on her day off.
Finalists: Marla Benner, aesthetician, The Spa at Pebble Beach, California; Judy De La Cruz, spa coordinator, The Spa at Four Seasons Hotel New York Downtown; Ni Kadek Rustini, team leader, therapists, One&Only Reethi Rah Spa, Maldives; and Rajeshwari Idayah Madoo, spa therapist, The Spa at Four Seasons Resort Mauritius at Anahita.
Responsible Hospitality Winner: Atlantis, The Palm
The success of the Dubai resort’s Atlantis Atlas Project merited Forbes Travel Guide’s inaugural Responsible Hospitality award, sponsored by Nespresso. In 2022, a year into the project, Atlantis, The Palm invested over half a million dollars in green initiatives, like the creation of an onsite water-bottling plant, which will eventually allow the hotel to eliminate all single-use plastics and prevent the use of 2.7 million plastic bottles yearly; aid in local marine conservation projects; the adoption of food waste reduction technology that shrinks the resort’s total landfill trash by more than 95 percent annually; and increasing the number of locally sourced and sustainable dishes across its restaurants by over 70 percent.
The forward-thinking Four-Star hotel also donated nearly 3,400 pounds of food to the Stray Dogs Center Umm Al Quwain and 15,690 meals to the Tarahum Charity Foundation, an area humanitarian aid organization. Plus, its waterpark was the first in the region to become an IBCCES Certified Autism Center.
Finalists: The Venetian Resort Las Vegas and City of Dreams Manila.
Luxury Travel Professional of the Year: Helena Andrén, managing director and founder, Travel Beyond in Sweden
Helena Andrén’s exceptional customer service and support, superb attention to detail, strong leadership within the industry, vast network of global contacts, professionalism and drive won her the honor of receiving the first Forbes Travel Guide Luxury Travel Professional of the Year title.
A prolific traveler, Andrén had traversed the world five times by the age of 15. She built a successful career, including working at a renowned agency for 18 years before starting her own business with key partners in 2005. In addition, she serves as the chair of Virtuoso’s European member advisory board.
2022 Young Concierge of the Year: Angelica Miozza, assistant chef concierge, Wynn Las Vegas
Miozza rose among the Five-Star Las Vegas hotel’s leadership ranks, first pioneering the Concierge Lead program, then being promoted to concierge supervisor and finally securing the role of assistant chef concierge. To earn this 36-and-under youth award from the prestigious concierge association Les Clefs d’Or, Miozza underwent a series of rigorous assessments (including an exam on the history of Les Clefs d’Or, geography and hotel knowledge, as well as essays on her interest in the profession and her goals) that allowed her to demonstrate her talent for delivering stellar service.