Description:
Ski Holiday Host

Collett’s Mountain Holidays are looking for warm, friendly, polite, enthusiastic, dynamic, organised, focused & resourceful people for the winter of 2022/2023, starting January 2023.

We have two bases in the Val Badia, Italian Dolomites, located on the celebrated Sella Ronda Ski Circuit, in the vast Dolomiti Superski area, one of the largest in the world.

You would be part of our small resort hosting team contributing daily to the warm and welcoming atmosphere we provide to our guests. At heart this is part hospitality job and part holiday representative job. It only works if you genuinely enjoy looking after people. Through the presence of your personality, tailored advice, and help with sorting out any problems they might have, the aim is to help your guests get the most out of their precious six days in the winter wonderland which is the Italian Dolomites.

Two of our team look after guests in the village of Badia, who mainly stay in one Hotel called Haus Valentin. Two of the team would look after our guests who are spread between different hotels in the village of Corvara. All four members of the team would live together in a staff apartment under Haus Valentin, where meals would also be taken.

Building up your own local ski itinerary knowledge is key, and during our training period you would be out getting to know our suggested ski routes so that you have first-hand knowledge to pass on. Not too much of hardship for a keen skier.

A TYPICAL DAY
Morning
The morning starts around 7am when you would have your breakfast at Haus Valentin and then make yourself available to your guests from around 7:45 until mid-morning to give them last minute skiing advice for the day or sort out any problems they might have. Some days you will have some admin work to catch up on too.

Evening – Office Hour & Dinner
From late afternoon until 7:30 pm we touch base with our guests again to see how they are doing. In two of our hotels this takes place at what we call ‘Office Hour’. For guests staying in other hotels or apartments you have to visit them at times you set in advance. This part of the job requires you to be organised, resourceful and dynamic, to make sure you see everyone on time.

These meetings take place in a very sociable atmosphere. Often over a drink before dinner, you would help your guests to make their plans for the next day, using suggested itineraries which Collett’s have put together to showcase the best skiing in the area. You might also be helping guests who want to do other activities in the area, or visit places of interest nearby etc.

At Office Hour you will also field a host of other questions, requests, or problems which guests may have, such as: accommodation issues, problem their skis, information about local shops, pharmacies and doctor’s surgery opening times etc. On occasion you will accompany guests to the Doctors in the village if they have a health issue or injury, to give as much support as you can in what can be a stressful situation for them.

SUNDAYS - Changeover Day
Sunday is the changeover day, when all the guests leave, and the new guests arrive. These are long hard days with a very early start and a late finish. They require the team to work and communicate well together all day. This is a massively important day in getting your new guests off to the best start they can have to their holiday.
Transfers: Most Sundays you will act as a representative on a transfer coach to Innsbruck or Venice, to drop off and pick up guests. You may be the first face of Collett’s which our guests have seen, so you need to make the experience for them as friendly, organised and informative as you can.

Welcoming New Arrivals
On your return to the resort, you would help your guests to settle in, passing on essential information about their stay, and point them in the right direction of ski hire which is a 10-minute walk away. From late afternoon you would run Office Hour or do the rounds of your guests in other hotels as normal, making sure they have everything they need and giving them advice for their first day out on the piste.
Monday Morning: For those guests who arrived too late for ski hire on Sunday, you would do the rounds to make sure they had everything they need to help them get out skiing as quickly as possible. By mid-morning on the Monday, you should have everything sorted and all of your guests in a good place.

The Rest of the Week
Once you have gotten your guests off to a good start, the rest of the week is about keeping them in a good place, being available for them each morning and evening, sorting out any problems they may have, and getting to know them in the process. Going the extra mile with them is required daily.

OTHER WEEKLY TASKS
• Checking weekly Arrivals Reports and liaising with the UK Collett’s Office on weekdays if you have any queries etc.
• Touching base weekly with other landlords and suppliers in the villages, to maintain the excellent relationships our previous resort teams have developed over the years.
• Keeping your staff accommodation clean and tidy, in good order and condition and reporting any breakages or damage to the owners of Haus Valentin.

Haus Valentin Team:
If you are part of this team, you would also have the following jobs to do.
• Preparing Haus Valentin for arrivals on a Changeover Day – if you are not on a Coach Transfer. Most of the time you will be on a Transfer Coach!
• Helping to register new arrivals online with the Tourist office.
• Helping to take PDQ payments when guests are settling up their bar bill before departure.
• Helping with serving, topping up and clearing the breakfast buffet, if needed. Helping with dinner service (serving and clearing) most evenings and eating with guests on some evenings.
• Helping to clean the dining room after dinner.
• Helping to serve at the bar when needed.
• Driving the Ski Shuttle minibus in the morning and late afternoon, if the Haus Valentin team are unable due to injury or illness.

Whilst these are the key duties we can think of, there may be other tasks you are asked to do during the season, of a similar nature. This is normal in seasonal work, and we would ask you to remain flexible. You might also need to cover your teammates’ duties when they are ill or injured, to make sure everything runs properly on the understanding that they would do the same for you.

Requirements, Pay & Package
Essential Requirements
• Available for the full period from 6th December until early April 2023
• You would need to have an EU passport, or residency in Italy giving you the right to work there, with all the relevant documents: Codice Fiscale, Permesso di Soggiorno etc.
• You must have an excellent level of spoken & written English.
• You need to be a good skier, able to ski any grade of piste in Italy.
• You would need a driving licence with at least one year’s experience of driving (for manual vehicles).

N.B. Please do not apply if you only have a UK national with no dual nationality or residency rights in Italy. Due to Brexit, we will not be able to employ you in Italy.

Personality
• Friendly & warm, open and communicative.
• Supportive and empathetic team player.
• It is essential that you are a people person as much as an outdoor person. Your daily interaction with your guests will be what transforms their holiday from a good one into an outstanding one. Looking after people on holiday comes with its challenges of course, so you also need to be understanding, patient and very resourceful.

Wage & Package
• A competitive monthly wage in the region of €1200 euros/month - on an Italian Contract.
• Ski & Boot Hire for the season
• Superski Dolomiti Season Pass
• Shared accommodation provided in a two-bedroom apartment under Haus Valentin
• Breakfast, lunch (a sandwich or leftovers) and evening meals provided at Haus Valentin.
N.B. No evening meal is provided on the day off.
• One Full day off – Wednesday.
• Free time built in on most other days.
• Training and orientation on location from 6th to 13th December
What we do not Provide
• Travel Expenses to and from the Dolomites at the start and end of the season.
• Travel Insurance for the season (which is essential if you are not an Italian National or not a full-time resident there.

About us
Collett’s is a small, independent holiday specialist, offering self-guided and guided Skiing and Hiking Holidays in some of Europe’s most stunning mountain ranges and areas of outstanding beauty: In Italy, The Dolomites and Tuscany; the Austrian & Swiss Alps; and in Spain, the Pyrenees, and the Sierra Tejeda (Andalucía).

Your Guests
Mainly from the UK, and all English speaking, the guests are generally a middle-aged crowd of ‘outdoor enthusiasts’ who love the mountains in all seasons. More than half of them will have been on a Collett’s holiday before, winter or summer. Their expectation of you, the team on the ground, will be that you are warm and engaging hosts, focused on their comfort and enjoyment, with a genuine interest in helping them get the best from their precious six days of skiing in the mountains. For many guests, regardless of the fantastic area in which they are in, it will be you and your teammates who make the holiday for them. 

Skiing in the Dolomites
If you haven’t skied in the Dolomites, then you are in for a treat. The Dolomiti Superski pass covers one of the biggest ski areas in the world. Our village bases in Badia and Corvara give you excellent access to the world-famous Sella Ronda circuit, which connects five separate valleys in which you can ski, including glacier skiing on the Dolomites highest mountain, the Marmolada.

Skiing here is characterised by travelling from village to village, valley to valley, with affordable places to drink and eat on the piste around every corner. Whilst there are one or two hot spots to avoid at certain times of day, the ski system is big enough to mean you don’t end up queuing much at all. And the scenery is just out of this world.

To apply for any of the post please email - work@colletts.co.uk