Hotel Online
News for the Hospitality Executive


 
 Westin La Paloma Resort Manager Monica Rafter Named Outstanding Lodging Manager of the
Year by Arizona Hotel & Lodging Association
By Tiffany Kjos, The Arizona Daily Star, Tucson
Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News 

Jan. 17--The Westin La Paloma Resort & Spa was little more than dirt and blueprints when Monica Rafter was hired to help open the property. 

Since then, Rafter, the resort's director of conference planning and catering, started two in-house businesses, mentored dozens of hospitality professionals and continues to help run the resort's group sales department, which for the past several months has lacked a manager. 

It was for all those reasons and more that Rafter was recently named Outstanding Lodging Manager of the Year by the Arizona Hotel & Lodging Association. 

"She is absolutely, hands-down the best there is -- particularly this year when businesses could get stagnant or we could say, `That's too great of a challenge.' Monica just won't let that happen," said La Paloma's director of sales and marketing, Ed Schwitzky, who nominated Rafter for the award. 

Rafter has worked in conference planning for 26 years, 18 of them at La Paloma. When a group of 600 people walks through the door of La Paloma, it depends entirely on the resort for a place to sleep, eat, meet and have fun. Someone has to set it up. That's where Rafter and her staff of five conference planners come in. 

Rafter says conference planning is like putting together a puzzle -- starting from the outside, building a framework, then filling it in. 

"It's balancing and determining a million decisions and eliciting those from the customer -- asking a ton of questions and listening to their answers," she said. "The only difference is you don't have the picture on a box." 

Rafter has an exceptional ability to communicate in writing and in person, Schwitzky said. She writes instructions to the staff so events go flawlessly, often speaks before industry groups and trains staffers in many departments. 

"What she brings to the table is just a vast quantity of knowledge and experience, and she is a continual resource for all of us," said Susan Gyergyo, a senior conference planner who has worked with Rafter for almost eight years. 

Rafter started her career in hospitality at the Westin Crown Center in Kansas City, Mo. She worked in administrative roles in different departments - from the rooms division to the food and beverage department to public relations. Three and a half years after she started at the hotel, she took a conference planning position. 

The job sparked a passion. 

"Day One I knew this was it," she said. 

In 1980, Rafter left that job to direct conference planning at the Arizona Biltmore in Phoenix. She moved to Tucson in March 1985, when Sunrise was being carved out east from Campbell Avenue to accommodate the resort and country club that were under construction. 

Her enthusiasm shows in the way she mentors her staff, engages clients and continues to help devise new and better events, people who work with her say. 

"When people come to La Paloma, they have the expectation that we're going to do something wildly creative, highly entertaining, and in all respects productive," Schwitzky said. 

Along with devising creative ways to conduct meetings _ such as turning La Paloma into "Camp La Paloma" for a recent visit of meeting planners -- reaching budget goals and handling a myriad of other duties, Rafter leads and motivates her staff. The department has had zero turnover of its managers and administrators for three years. 

"She has taught me not only to be very detailed and a good communicator, but her ethics are impeccable," said Bobby Retz, who managed a department, Destination Services, that Rafter started. Retz ended up spinning the enterprise into his own company, which now contracts with La Paloma. 

Even when an event is an unequivocal success, Rafter strives to do more. 

"She's always been a person that helped me plan things - then sit down afterward and figure out what we could have done better," Retz said. 

-----To see more of The Arizona Daily Star, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.azstarnet.com 

(c) 2003, The Arizona Daily Star. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News. HOT, 


advertisement

To search Hotel Online data base of News and Trends Go to Hotel.OnlineSearch
Home | Welcome| Hospitality News | Classifieds| Catalogs& Pricing |
Viewpoint Forum | Ideas&Trends | Press Releases
Please contact Hotel.Onlinewith your comments and suggestions.