Young at heart

Soon there will be no reason for hotel workers to feel alienated and alone in foreign countries, with a new online community set up to encourage learning and connectivity across the region.

YoungHotelier.com is the brainchild of founders Erin O'Neill, Jitendra ‘JJ' Jain and Joynal Abedin, who are all currently working at properties in the United Arab Emirates.

"We had been discussing various ideas for the last few months, but the actual work only began a couple of months ago," Jain said.

"In terms of distribution we are trying to leverage popular platforms that are already out there, because it is all about finding the stories from people in the industry.

"It's about trying to learn the stories of the people that define the industry. We really care about these people, and we want to get the stories so that we can share them with others and learn from each other to highlight good leaders and good ideas."

The website functions as a blog, with a focus on video interviews hosted by YouTube. YoungHoteliers also has a Facebook group which, despite a lack of publicity, already has more than 100 members in a couple of weeks.

"Ultimately our mission was to be a home to young hoteliers everywhere, and provide the sort of things you get from a home like support, gaining of knowledge and experience from others, gaining a family of hoteliers you can seek advice from worldwide," O'Neill explained.

"We were quite selective with the word ‘young' because we didn't mean for people to be between the ages of 18 and 25 or anything like that. But what we are trying to achieve has nothing at all to do with your age, it's the industry itself that is very youthful and vibrant.

"This industry is a very fun industry, and people are in it because they love it, not necessarily because it is the best paid industry!"

Jain said the site would not only help people already in the industry to connect and stay in touch with friends around the world, but it would also provide information for people thinking about entering the trade.

"There is a lot of misunderstanding about the industry. It looks very glitzy and glamorous from the outside, but we want to make sure the site portrays the industry accurately," he explained. "We have a couple of signature questions [for interview subjects], including ‘what is your advice for people wanting to join the industry?'. And most of the time the answer is ‘it's fun, but it's hard work' - which it is - so we want to make people aware of that."