Cristina Cabañas: "People take the breakfast yogurts and the little spoons. We lose thousands of small spoons"

BarcelonaI interview the hotelier Cristina Cabañas (Lloret de Mar, 1974) at the Guitart Grand Passage, the hotel she manages in Barcelona. Cabañas, a pharmacist by training, took charge of Guitart Hotels following the death of her husband, Climent Guitart. She has been chairing the hotel chain for twelve years, and does so with the intention of passing the baton to her three children, who confessed to her as children that they would like to dedicate themselves to their father's work. In parallel to her business work, she chairs the Climent Guitart Foundation, in memory of the businessman, to preserve his legacy in the world of tourism, as well as collaborating with other foundations. Through the foundation, she has managed to have more than a thousand young Ukrainians visit Lloret de Mar and Catalonia so they can breathe away from the war that their country is experiencing.

You put aside the vocation of pharmacist.

— Not entirely. I keep the pharmacy operational in Lloret de Mar.

Among the hotels and aparthotels in Lloret de Mar, Barcelona, and La Molina, many people end up staying, of different nationalities. What are the breakfast buffets like?

— I thought about it together with the nutrition representative of the College of Pharmacists. We created a balanced diet program even though people are on vacation. And we did it with a color system, so that people can graphically see which food group the foods they choose belong to. The point is to emphasize that, even though you are on vacation and relaxed, you can have a balanced and healthy diet.

What criteria do you use to choose breakfast buffet ingredients?

— We try to ensure that as many products as possible are local, to support local commerce, and in season. Furthermore, we also opt for suppliers from social entities. For example, at Hotel Guitart Grand Passage, we serve a cookie to wish goodnight that is made at the Fundació Sant Tomàs. At the breakfast buffet, the yogurts are from La Fageda and the uniforms are made by the Ared foundation, which helps the inclusion of women who have left prison. Fundació Roure is the one we have chosen for laundry. We always try to find social suppliers, both for food and for other areas of the hotel.

Do tourists want to have breakfast with what they eat at home or do they choose local products?

— There is everything, and I would say that the continental breakfast is the most common, that is to say, bread, pastries, jam... But we, because we want it to be a Mediterranean diet, include a lot of fruit, cereals and extra virgin olive oil. And when there are typical holidays of our calendar, linked to food, then we also highlight it. For Saint Joseph's Day we serve small Catalan cream.

Are breakfasts always buffet?

— It is the most practical when it is a large hotel. We do costings of what will be consumed in a day, and even if some food is left over, everything is consumed. Furthermore, in a breakfast buffet, personnel costs are lower. On the other hand, if breakfast is personalized, à la carte, you need more staff, more waiters attending, and in the kitchen, more cooks. At a breakfast buffet, everything is prepared an hour before the schedule begins, and the same people who prepared it are the ones who serve the coffees or replenish the food. That's why breakfast buffets are so widespread everywhere.

Barcelona, and it seems to me that much more Lloret, you have guests of all nationalities.

— Yes, that's right. In Lloret de Mar, more than 110 nationalities live, and people visit us from all over, especially French, English, and Polish people. The food they eat the most, which is common for everyone, is eggs. Foreigners eat a lot of them, while we, Catalans and Spaniards, don't eat as many. The egg is the great staple of breakfasts. Here, perhaps we don't eat as many because many of us still have that idea that you can't eat many a week due to cholesterol. I know that nutrition studies have disproven this, but I think it was an idea that caught on.

I'm asking you about the salmon and the avocados.

— We don't have it in the hotels in Lloret de Mar. In Barcelona, yes. In Lloret de Mar, no, because it's where we have the most hotel capacity, and the ingredients we buy take into account environmental, economic, and social aspects. That's why we can't have salmon in the hotels in Lloret de Mar.

In hotels in Lloret de Mar, is there the possibility of all-inclusive? I mean, those who don't want to leave the hotel and eat all their meals there?

— Yes, in Lloret de Mar there is the possibility of having half board, full board, and all-inclusive. All-inclusive means you can eat and drink everything at any time. And we have verified that they do it the first two days, excessively, but then they cannot keep up with this pace. Therefore, I would tell you that, even though it may not seem like it, all-inclusive is profitable for a hotel. This concept of all-inclusive comes from the Caribbean, where the idea of the bracelet and going from bar to bar is very widespread.

At the breakfast buffet, don't people also eat in excess?

— Yes, it usually happens. It also depends on profiles and ages. But it's true that there are people who fill their plates to the brim. Notice that in breakfast buffets we put small plates, never large ones, and, despite this, they can put fried eggs, croissants, bread with butter and cold cuts, all together, piled up.

At home we wouldn't eat a muffin with a custard and a sausage on the side.

— No, we wouldn't, but I also understand that when you are in a hotel, you are relaxed. I don't know anyone who goes on vacation to a hotel and diets. Since you are on vacation, it's time to relax, and there is also relaxation with food, and that's why you see things like this at breakfast buffets.

Do you find that at the breakfast buffet people take food for other times of the day?

— Yes, it happens to us with yogurts. And, with yogurts, little spoons. We lose thousands of small spoons.

How did you decide to focus only on hotels?

— My husband was ill for two years, with cancer. He died when my children were 7, 5, and 4 years old. His name was Guitart, and the family story is like a Netflix movie. My husband's parents had a dance hall in Puigcerdà, where there was a client who owed them a lot of money. One day, the client told my in-laws that he couldn't pay them everything he owed them, but, on the other hand, he could let them have a small hotel he owned in a house in Tossa de Mar. Since they were from the mountains, one summer they accepted the offer: the money they would make from running the hotel in the summer was to be used to settle the debt he had at the dance hall in Puigcerdà. My husband was 4 years old when his parents went to Tossa for a summer. They had never seen the sea. And it turned out that my father-in-law loved it, and he saw that it could be a good business. Later, he left the hotel in Tossa, which wasn't his, as he only ran it for one summer, and rented a hotel in Lloret de Mar. It was a time when tourism agencies lent money to hoteliers for them to build. I would say that the large hotels in Lloret de Mar were built with money advanced by travel agencies. That's why there are so many families in Lloret who dedicated themselves to it. Some were plumbers, butchers, and they saw an opportunity there.

When you grew up, did your husband dedicate himself to the family business?

— First he trained at ESADE and Harvard. And he obtained doctorates in law and tourism from the University of Aix-en-Provence. He was a very prepared person. When his father died, his sister sold him her share, and he continued with it and grew it. When my husband died, I had very young children, but they were already my partners by inheritance from their father. It was at that moment that I wondered what I should do.

Did they make you purchase offers?

— Of all kinds. From the first minute people started appearing who made me a thousand and one offers to buy. Two days after the funeral, I already had them around me. It wasn't easy because the economic situation at that time was delicate. But I said no to everyone, and I took charge. I had to do it for my children, who told me they wanted to be hoteliers like their father. It has been very complicated, with everything we have experienced since he died, like covid, but I would tell you that I have also met very nice people who have helped me.

As you explain everything to me, I feel that you have a passion for your profession as a hotelier.

— I continue to do tasks as a pharmacist too, but always in the background. What I'm also passionate about is being involved with foundations. I already was before Climent, my husband, died, but now much more so. I've been with the Cancer Association for twenty-two years. We have created the Climent Guitart Foundation, in which we will bring together all the charitable work we have done over all these years. I believe strongly in alliances, and I want to continue supporting various tasks: to raise funds for breast cancer research and to bring young people from Ukraine to our hotels in Lloret so they can breathe away from the war. 1,300 children have come, and I've done this with the alliance of Sister Lucía Caram, who asked for help from the Spanish government's Ministry of Defense, which is the one that provides the plane to bring them to Lloret. The first ones came by bus, but now they come by plane.

The initiative has become very well known, Cristina.

— The Pope of Rome found out and asked me to go visit him so I could explain it to him. It was a magical moment. I was there for an hour, but I could have stayed for more hours. I saw that he wasn't in a hurry, that he was very interested in the topic, his eyes were shining. The project is called Smiles for Ukraine, and we do it three times a year. Do you know what they always tell me? That they like to sleep without having to have their mobile phone next to them waiting for the alert so they have to take refuge in the bunker because of the bombs. Apparently, they have an app that always warns them when there is one. We have had orphan children and boys who at fifteen and sixteen years old have already gone through military academy.

Boys always?

— Before, only boys; now also girls, but few. Few come because with girls there are more difficulties when making their papers; the government wants to avoid the danger of trafficking girls. In Ukraine there are many missing children. This year we have had older boys and girls who had already been on the front line of the war. The president allowed them to come. The girls could be my daughters. One was introduced to me as the best drone pilot, of war drones. In Lloret they rest, do leisure activities and are young again. When they arrive, their skin is gray, the gray that skin acquires from being in the bunker, where daylight does not touch them. Here they get another color, and we make them put on very high factor sunscreen.

You are a hotel entrepreneur in a job that must be very male-dominated.

— When I started, especially. Now, too. At first I even wore heels because I thought that would make me feel more powerful. We have gained a lot in women's equality, but let's say it: we still have a long way to go. Women always feel like we have impostor syndrome; they never feel it. We are our own worst enemies. I always wear flat shoes, to all meetings.