After having spent seven years at GL Events and seven others at Accor, Thomas Garmier, a Vatel ‘99 alumnus, decides to start his own business in April, 2014. Less than two years after, his company employs six people, is leading twenty hotel development projects throughout the world and just keeps on growing. Here’s his Success Story!

***

After having had several summer jobs in hotels, a career in the hospitality industry became a natural goal for Thomas to reach:

“Naturally, I applied to Vatel, attracted by its concept where theoretical courses were followed by practical application courses in the School’s restaurants.

Many professionals in the field told me about the high quality of courses, internship opportunities in famous hotels, as well as Vatel’s reputation, and all of this really confirmed my choice.”

Playing in the major leagues

After having spent six months in Courchevel at the Byblos des Neiges and 6 others in  London at the Durants Hotel, I did my last internship at GL Events, a globally known special events managment group, with 4,107 employees, 35% of whom are expats.

This was my springboard towards my career: I started out as a Project Manager where I was in charge of hotel reservations for events the group organized. 

Then I was quickly promoted as a Branch Manager, Market Leader, and finally, Head of Development.

I worked for seven years at GL Events before starting with another giant: Accor group as the ‘Vice President Hotel Equipment Services’ where I was in charge of support in renovating and rebuilding the group’s hotels, all brands included. Five years later, I was promoted as the ‘Vice President Services Support Operations,’ and I particpated in the group’s economic brand changes.

Here my role was to support the transformation of Etap Hotel and All Seasons to Ibis Budget and Ibis Style to create the Ibis family, which now has nearly 1,600 hotels in 82 different countries. After a successful integration of the first 200 hotels, I decided to pursue an old dream, that of creating my own company.”

Right time, right experience and an opportunity

A Vatel alumnus, a well-known school itself founded by a visionary man and with 15 years of experience in leading international groups, I was very credible in creating my own company, and the profession supported me.

Launched on April 1st, 2014, The Great Hospitality accompanies hotel owners throughout the world in their development projects. Our job is to schedule, quote, identify, optimize, purchase, deliver and install all of the equipment.”

A young thriving company, today TGH has:

• A team of six,
• 20 projects led in France and Africa,
• A turnover of 3 M 300K €,
• Different customers in France and abroad such as Sheraton, Pierre & Vacances Center Parcs, Dometude, Pitch Promotion, Okko Hotels and Disneyland Paris,
• Many other projects, in particular with Sofitel in South America,
• Vatel interns who will be managed by Thomas.

Discover other Vatel Entrepreneurial Success Stories.