G.U.E.S.T Workshop | Royal Hotel | Antibes | June 2017

“It was a fantastic experience. Having over 10 years in hospitality and 7 years onboard yachts, it is great to finally have appreciation and attention to the interior crew. I hope this training will improve future crew member’s work ethics and knowledge”

From an attending Chief Stew.

On Saturday 24^th June a selection of interior crew congregated at the Royal Hotel in Antibes to participate in a day of training workshops offered by the PYA G.U.E.S.T. Program.

G.U.E.S.T is the established industry standard for Interior Training within the yachting sector and there are now 24 accredited training schools worldwide offering the training programme.

What a wonderful day we had, with fantastic feedback from the participants who attended the event. Fully booked, with a long standby list, this workshop was dedicated to the Crew of the industry (although we did open up a small handful of places for local Crew Agents too). The majority of the participants were junior level, with a few more senior interior crew members willingly sharing their own experiences and issues.

The trainers worked their magic and with their professionalism, dedication, and humour they drove the day to ensure that the participants gained the maximum from the snapshot sessions provided.

From Etiquette to Service, Laundry to Cabin set up, Care of Surfaces and Teambuilding to Food Safety and Wine Appreciation, we offered a wide range of interesting and interactive sessions for all. Audience participation brought the workshops to life and turned the day into a real success.

Those attending were able to learn from the best; with Peter Vogel who is Principal Trainer of Luxury Hospitality, Lynne Edwards, the Senior Training Manager for The Crew Academy, Sophie Leach who is a Trainer for The Crew Academy, Kim Woodey the CEO & Trainer for KDW Training, Georgie Vintner the Hotel Fleet Training Consultant for Carnival, Terry Gilmore the Director of Interior Training Academy and Helen Brotherton Director and Trainer for Fine Wine Works.

A delicious lunch was served to our guests, the trainers and partners, who all enjoyed the hospitality from the hotel, and joined in to share industry experiences and network.

The afternoon began with the teambuilding session run by Peter, whose aim “was to demonstrate to crew the importance of trust and respect within their teams”. We had the groups tangled up in a practical exercise “the human knot”, which set the tone of the interaction for the day.

Georgie led the teams through the essential elements of Food Safety, emphasising that “it’s the responsibility of all crew, especially food handlers, to ensure due diligence and duty of care with regards to safe practices for guest and crew alike”. One of the participants commented that “It’s scary to see how much can go wrong if you don’t know or understand what you’re doing”.

Lynne and Kim demonstrated some of the intricacies of Food and Beverage service to the group, highlighting a wide range of service styles and emphasising the importance of understanding the needs of owners and guests in order to fulfil their particular requirements whilst on board. GUEST Partner Boutsen kindly supplied the exquisite Aston Martin range of cutlery and beautiful flatware and table linens for use during the session. Creative floristry supplied the flowers for the centrepiece. One junior crew member stated that “this session confirmed to me how high end the service onboard really needs to be”.

The Cabin session, “Eye for detail” run by Peter and George, with beautiful linens and bedding supplied by GUEST Partner Talisman, got the teams thinking as they had to learn best practices for making beds and cabin etiquette as well as playing a fun “game” of “list what’s wrong with this room”.

Lynne created an interactive sketch to help the attendees understand what sorts of behaviours they might expect from owners and guests of different nationalities and cultures. She and training partner Sophie underlined the importance of clear and accurate communication, as well as what behaviour is and what is not acceptable when dealing with yacht owners and guests. Lynne ended the session by giving invaluable information as to what line of action can be taken if crew members experience challenging situations aboard.

One new crew member stated that “I learnt so much, and fell much better informed, this session was very interesting and a part of yachting that I hadn’t really appreciated before. It’s good to know there are people you can turn to for help”.

Kim presented the care of fabrics and furnishings session, beginning with a fun quiz to introduce some of today’s more unusual fabrics and continued the session with introducing terms used for the identification of various linens, essential for the ordering, care and maintenance of fabrics and furnishings aboard. Terry Gilmore used his expertise and experience to show how to correctly iron shirts of different fabrics.

The grand finale was showcased by Helen from Fine Wine Works, who added her own flair and experience as an actress to her session on Wine tasting & Food Pairing to the great delight of our guests after a long but certainly inspiring day.

The day was made possible and certainly enriched by the presence of our PYA GUEST Partners who contributed to the training workshops by providing their luxury and high end products. With our thanks to TeslaMall, White & Green by The Winckworth Collection, Aqua Air by Real Sphere, Yachtneeds, Superyacht Operating Systems, Boutsen Design and Carmen Blike Photographe.

“I was truly thankful for the opportunity to have come to this one day workshop, which was filled with a wealth of knowledge that I will forever be thankful for. GUEST is paving the way for not only yacht crew, but professionals as a whole. I would love to come back one day to be a GUEST Trainer”.

A statement from one of the more experienced attendees.