I started in hospitality by chance and then I fell in love with it. Originally, I studied economics in Portugal but I had to abandon that because of the 2011 economic crisis, when I left for France where I had some family. I worked in farming but after about six years I decided to go back to Portugal because my wife is Portuguese and I wanted to be with her.

I did not have a job when I returned to my home town, Figueira da Foz, where I found a position in housekeeping and that is when my career in hospitality began. I stayed in housekeeping for nine months, when the maître d’ invited me to work with the F&B team because I had done some gigs as a waiter.

I stayed for a year and then came to Lisbon where my wife lives. I worked as a receptionist at ibis; that’s when I joined Accor. I stayed there for six years to 2021 and some colleagues who had worked with me a few years before invited me to be F&B leader at the hotel where I am today.

In ibis, we do a bit of everything and although I was a receptionist, I did some shifts on the F&B team; I’m greatly enjoying being an F&B team manager.

Accor is a big group and that gives us lots of opportunities and allows us to grow. I started with almost no experience as a receptionist or in F&B and with determination and hard work I grew into an F&B manager.

I can travel the world with my job because when I talk to our customers, who are from different countries, that allows me to experience many cultures without leaving my job.

I can recommend hospitality to anyone because you can start small and think big, you can be a housekeeper and aspire to be a team leader or even a general manager. I met one woman who started in London as a housekeeper and is now general manager of a Mercure; and I started in housekeeping and am now an F&B leader.

And even if you don’t aspire to a career in hospitality, I think it is a good thing to do for at least a few years because it allows you to improve as a person. When I started as a receptionist I was very shy but contact with the public allowed me to grow into someone who now enjoys talking with people – and in a language that is not my own, English; and mostly, I learnt that on the job.

Heartist® means I can be myself – it is more than a job, it is an experience for us and our guests. Because ibis is not a formal hotel we can give our customers more than a service, we give them an experience; we do not receive guests in our hotel, we receive friends and make them feel they are staying at a friend’s house.

The highlight of my career was becoming F&B manager. I started with no expectations, I needed a job, but in my role as a housekeeper, I could grow to become F&B manager.

I urge newcomers to hospitality to do things with passion because sooner or later you will reach heights you would never have imagined.