As teenager in Zurich whose biggest passion was video games, Gorka Zubiete was urged by his parents to start thinking seriously about a career.
“I looked around and found that the École hôtelière de Lausanne [EHL Hospitality Business School] seemed to be a ‘party school’; but they don’t really advertise how much work also goes into the hospitality industry,” recalls Franco.
Born in Bilbao in the Basque country, Zubiete moved to Zurich at the truly tender age of one month, when his father was transferred there. And in Switzerland he would stay until age 22, when he began his career in international luxury hotels.
“I have Spanish blood, but my upbringing, the way I work, essentially is everything Swiss. People are often confused; they say things like: ‘Aren’t you Spanish? Firstly, how come you don’t have a Spanish accent, and why are you always on time?’” he explains with a chuckle.
He had punctuality drilled into him at the EHL: “they would lock the door five minutes early because they believed if you weren’t five minutes early then you’d be disrupting the class taking out your laptop etc.” Despite the strictness and hard work, he reports that the ‘party’ element also lived up to expectations and describes his time at EHL as “the best four years of my life.”
Briefly back to the old country
A combination of the cosmopolitan environment he had grown up in at international schools and work assignments in the industry during his course convinced Zubiete that sales in the hotel sector was the best fit for him. “It sounds so corny, but I’m a citizen of the world, and I need to be surrounded by people from different countries and cultures. So, what better place than hotels?”
On graduation, he jumped at an opportunity to work at the W Hotel in Barcelona. “That was me trying to get back to my roots and see if I was truly Spanish or not.” Zubiete says he, “Felt like a stranger in my own country,” and found himself not laughing at Spanish jokes even though he could understand every word of them. “A lot of my family define me as a ‘decaffeinated Basque.’”
Beijing bound
After a year in the country of his birth, the fact that his Chinese girlfriend at the time was herself feeling the call of home, swayed his decision to go to Beijing in 2015. “I went from one of the most liberal cultures and cities in the world in Barcelona – where you can see naked people wandering on the beach – to an authoritarian state. The culture shock was huge.”
There he worked on the opening of Beijing’s Rosewood Hotel, a new flagship property for Asia-Pacific, which also first brought him in touch with the local Swiss chamber and embassy. Despite the initial culture shock, he found the Chinese easy to get along with and was impressed by their work ethic. “If you make an effort to involve yourself in the culture and learn the language, the people are so warm and welcoming,” he recalls, adding, “They’re one of the most business-minded cultures in the world.”
Following a couple of years at the Rosewood, he moved to The Peninsula Beijing, which was relaunching after a major upgrade of the property. During his time in Beijing, he hosted guests including four of the seven members of Switzerland’s Federal Council, the Sheikh of Dubai, Hollywood stars such as Daniel Craig, Jason Statham and Charlize Theron, as well as Russia’s Prime Minister Medvedev.
“When I get nervous, I joke around, which isn’t necessarily the best thing to do when you’re dealing with the Russian security services. We were hosting Medvedev and I met a guy who was looking after him and was introduced as Alexei. I said ‘Nice to meet you, Alexei, I bet that’s not your real name.’ He laughed and said, ‘You’re a very funny guy,’ but I decided that was enough of the jokes.”
The latest edition
Following four years in China, he decided to take on a new challenge, and arrived in Tokyo to begin work in March 2020 on the launch of the Toranamon and Ginza EDITION Hotels. With the pandemic just taking hold, things inevitably moved slower than expected, but this gave him time to travel in Japan, naturally staying at hotels in the Marriot group, to which the EDITION belongs. The Toranomon hotel opened in October 2020, and Ginza’s launch is set for the first half of next year.
Compared to other high-end hotels, EDITION goes for a younger, edgier feel, explains Zubiete, where “our bartenders are showcasing their tattoos,” something very unlikely to be seen in more traditional luxury properties, certainly in Japan.
A definite cultural shift from Beijing, Zubiete appreciates the great food, the efficiency and freedom of Tokyo. “Japan is such a well-run society, but luxury is all about last-minute requests and flexibility; that’s where the challenges really start in Japan…I call Japan ‘the Switzerland of Asia’: everything is so organised, so on time, and so inflexible as well,” he says with a laugh.
Zubiete certainly has no regrets about his chosen career, though he says he rues both the fact that due to speaking Spanish at home and schooling in English, his “Swiss-German isn’t the best, considering I lived there for 22 years,” and that he didn’t obtain a Swiss passport when he had the chance.
As for those video games his parents worried about, he remains an avid fan, and battling enemies via the PlayStation is one of his preferred ways of winding down after a lengthy shift.
Text: Gavin Blair for SCCIJ.
The lobby lounge of the Tokyo EDITION, Toranomon.
