The unpredictable journey of hospitality

It is Friday morning when we sit down and video call Kaido Ojaperv in Estonia to see what he has been up to since his days at Swiss Hotel Management School. He is courteous and affable; even though the call is supposed to highlight his accomplishments and his experiences in hotel management, he is quick to first praise how far the hospitality school has come since its inception 30 years ago. “It’s been immensely satisfying to see SHMS become one of the top hotel schools in the world,” says Kaido, referencing the school’s 2022 QS rankings as 3rd best in the world. He studied at SHMS in the 1990’s as one of the first graduating classes, attending the school at its campus in Les Paccots before it officially moved into Caux Palace in 1995. Now, while SHMS is considered a top tier hotel management school for both its bachelor’s and master’s programs, the school still has a comfortable, friendly atmosphere on campus even while operating and teaching with tidy professionalism. 

Kaido also may come off as all business at first, but he quickly demonstrates his good-natured demeanor in conversation. Though his online business profiles exhibit a serious tone, with photos and backgrounds in black and white, Kaido is not above poking fun at himself, joking how he is so old and boring. He laughs with us when he reminisces about his time at SHMS when it was a foundling institution, telling tales of a time when the hotel school and its students were considered as the underdogs of the area. His graduating class was barely over a dozen people. “How times have changed,” he says with a smile and a bit of pride in his voice. 

Kaido was kind enough to detail his experiences in hospitality, from before attending SHMS to where he is now. “Estonia was originally part of the Soviet Union,” he explains, saying that when the USSR collapsed, everyone wanted to go study abroad and try new things. For Kaido, he says that he was interested in the hospitality industry early on even though he couldn’t quite explain why, but that “hotel management in a communist regime or in a free market are totally two different things.” The modern concept of hospitality was completely alien in the post-Soviet Union era, when tourism and visitors crossing international borders on a whim was only a dream just starting to become realized. In such a climate, hospitality and hotel management education were not exactly easy to come by. 

There were several difficulties that Kaido faced when seeking out international hospitality education for himself, both financially and in opportunities. For example, he had heard from friends that the local university had just started a new program called the Open Estonia Foundation (OEF), funded by Hungarian-American businessman George Soros, which provided financial assistance to hopeful students. However, when he met with the foundation, they turned down his aid request because they were looking for students in more traditional studies such as medicine, engineering, and other similar fields. They did, however, give a brochure of schools in the United States where he could study hotel management. 

But studying so far away in the United States didn’t work out for him. Kaido was set on studying closer to home in Europe, perhaps in a vocational or trade school instead. He reached out to hotels in Estonia to see if any would sponsor his hotel education and ended up working and living at a hotel before he moved to Switzerland doing odd jobs. His persistence paid off, and his employers encouraged him to pick a school and pursue his education. Kaido had received some brochures for schools in Switzerland from the visiting Estonian honorary consular in Geneva at the time, including the one for Hotel Institute Montreux among others, and he ended up writing to a dozen of the schools. In the end, he chuckles when he says that he chose SHMS because they had the nicest brochure. “They had the nicest logo,” he quips, speaking of an older version with a Swiss flag that was replaced by the current golden logo with Caux Palace. In all seriousness, after considering budget and practicality, SHMS seemed like the best fit for him. Again, his perseverance and dedication were key to his acceptance at the school; SHMS required a certain level of English to attend, but there were a lot of obstacles to take the English test at the time, so he called the school and in fact reached the dean, who was so impressed by his resolve that he helped Kaido get accepted. 

Although he spent all his studies and work experience in hospitality, the trajectory of Kaido’s career had several surprises and unexpected experiences. During his internship in rooms service at the Geneva InterContinental, for example, he had an unbelievable time. “I think I met all the people you could see on the news at that time,” he says. He had the opportunity to wait on then-president of the United States, Bill Clinton, as he met with then-President Hafez al-Assad of Syria. He also once served coffee to Radovan Karadzic as he was flanked by armed guards, who was wanted at the time by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. “Basically, I could have arrested him,” he jokes.

After graduation, Kaido’s career remained unpredictable, and he tells us a short story to demonstrate this. He starts by admitting that his least favorite part of his studies was practical F&B that is taught during the first year, which is still a cornerstone of the bachelor hospitality program at SHMS today. Kaido explains, “I thought that F&B was the part that I would never ever work in...so I thought, okay, I survived year one, and I can forget about it. And that was the case.” Kaido is unable to keep a straight face when he adds, “But, uh, I ended up working ten years as F&B manager.” It was a good laugh, the irony of how someone who disliked F&B spent so much time in the field, and he acknowledges how helpful it was to have had the training at school. “I can’t imagine if I wouldn’t have had the training...First of all, I would have never become F&B manager!” Despite his dislike for the class, he says that it was still a lot of fun.

In fact, F&B was how he came to Radisson. Starting as an F&B manager back in 2001. He transferred to a different hotel which was coincidentally acquired by Radisson Hotel Group not a year after. He subsequently worked on and off with Radisson on a few different projects in Estonia and Lithuania before coming back to the newly branded Radisson Collection Hotel in Tallinn as the general manager.

When asked if he still keeps in contact with his classmates, Kaido confirms that they met up just before COVID-19 spread. He explains that it is great how diverse his class is, with people from all over the world. “You can go to Dubai, and you have someone you can meet up with...you go to China...we had a very big Indonesian community...” For someone who had never really traveled abroad, it was an incredible experience to be able to get to know so many people from all over the world. “It was a good group.”

To wrap up before our call finished, we asked Kaido if he had anything to say or advice to give current and future students. He takes a moment to ponder before commenting. “I must say that your time in Switzerland, that must be enjoyed, because if you don’t, then you only realize it later that it was probably one of the best times of your life.” He also has a bit of wisdom for hospitality students about their career, and how to progress quickly. “First of all, they are already in an industry where you can really progress fast in your career ladder. But...sometimes what I see is that people are really afraid that they work too much. I’d say that I wouldn’t be afraid of that until I am thirty to do that.” He laughs, and explains that working hard will get you noticed and considered for higher positions quickly at the right places. “When you graduate school, don’t be afraid to work a little bit hard. Merits will come on its own.”