He is being trained by a tenor at La Scala in Milan. And he occasionally belts out an aria while working as restaurant manager at the Hotel Giardino Ascona. He breeds parrots and drives the same motorbike as Tom Cruise. And because Mauro Pacchioli is a pilot as well he likes to invite guests to a little sightseeing flight over Lago Maggiore.

text: Tomas Niederberghaus, photos: Cyrus Saedi

„Let´s start with the most important thing“, says Mauro. „If the engine cuts out, please don´t panic. This aircraft can be landed like a glider.“ What an intro! Actually, Mauro Pacchioli has to smile himself after making it. He knows only too well that we are in Switzerland, where the precision of airplane maintenance is taken even more seriously than that of clockwork.

Moreover, the 44-year-old Italian is an experienced pilot. He has started his little white Piper Warrior, which is waiting for us at the sports and military airport Locarno, well over 500 times.

Mauro Pacchioli is a man of many talents and passions. He breeds plants and parrots and is training to become a classical singer at the Helvetic Music Institue Blinzona, where he is taught by a tenor from the Scala Milan. At his Giardino restaurant, Aphrodite, the maître d’ occasionally breaks into an aria at dinner time. His hotel guests only know him in formal suit. Now he is wearing a bomber jacket, Ray Bans and baseball cap. He climbs into the aircraft and starts the engine. Last security check. Mauro glances at the instruments, presses a few buttons, makes contact with the tower – then we´re rolling towards the runway. On the right hand side, a gas station, a bit further on a massive military helicopter. We come to a halt. The pilot test revs the engine in neutral: „Works beautifully“. Were the engine a singer, it would be a baritone.

„You have to fly a vecchia signora (an elderly lady) like this with style and sensitivity“.

Flight control gives its ok. Mauro moves the gas lever forwards. The plane starts rolling, gathering more and more speed. The lights on the left and right of the runway become solid lines. Take off! Incredible!

Heading south from Locarno over the green Brissago islands. Then we´re flying over Ascona at 120 miles an hour. It´s easy to make out the boats in the harbour and the promenade. Even the free spirits on Monte Veritá would still be visible, were they still looking for their happiness, dancing around in dresses of light.

A few seconds later the Hotel Giardino is below us, where Mauro has been working for the last 20 years. We are wearing head phones and communicate via microphones: „ How did you become a pilot?“, I ask. „ As a kid I loved remote control aeroplanes“, says Mauro. „A few years ago a friend of mine came from Vienna to Locarno. He called on the way to tell me he had just landed. That he flew the plane himself only dawned on me at dinnertime. When I took him to the airport on Sunday, I saw him enter his plane and take off – a mere 24 years old. I thought: „Cool – I would enjoy that too.“

Mauro immediately asked to have Saturdays off at the Giardino. Three years later he held his pilot´s licence in hands. His final test was a solo flight to Sion in Switzerland. His longest flight so far took him to Genua.

We´re also just flying over the border to Italy – at roughly 120 miles an hour. Visibility is perfect, we can make out the Alps on the horizon. Grandly we float high above the countryside. Verbania comes in sight, pretty historical buildings. In one of them lives Eros Buratti, the world famous cheese merchant. To the right the botanical gardens of Villa Taranto emerge, where the first camellias are blossoming already. Konrad Adenauer once donated a fir tree to the estate.

„Do you want to take over?“, Mauro asks. „Well, rather not, or perhaps…what do I have to do?“ I follow Mauro´s instructions, get hold of the steering in front of me and keep it steady. „As a pilot you need courage, discipline, concentration and respect for man and machine. Such a Vecchia Signora / an elderly lady needs to be treated with style and sensitivity.“ says Mauro. I push the steering column forward, the elderly lady drops down, we are now heading directly towards the Borromaic islands. To be more precise, towards the biggest of the islands, Isola Bella. Another elderly lady. Her summer palace and terraced park greet us from below. Napoleon stayed here. Carefully I pull the joystick towards me and we gain altitude again. Who’d want to drive a car after this adventure?

„Flying for me is like singing. I enter a different dimension.“

Somewhere above Centovalli – I have in the meantime handed the job back to the pilot again – Mauro makes contact with the tower and announces our return. Whoever called this patch of land Centovalli, must have been drunk. It´s only a single valley but it looks magnificent. Ragged cliffs, dense jungle, waterways, mountain ranges. And the Maggiatal, incredibly green as well. Somewhere down there lives Dimitri, the famous clown. Is he juggling balls right now? Or having his lunch time nap? „Look“, says Mauro and points towards a gigantic wall. 660 feet high. That is the dam wall James Bond jumped off in Goldeneye. These days bungee jumpers throw themselves off it. „Have you tried that too, Mauro?“, I ask. „No“, says the pilot, prepares for landing and, after an hour of flight time, brings the Piper Warrior safely to the ground.

In a few hours’ time he will be at his restaurant, Aphrodite, and maybe surprise his guests with some Caruso. Before we say our good byes he gets philosophical: „Flying for me is like singing. I enter a different dimension. High in the sky – or deeply immersed in an aria.“

Then he mounts his Kawasaki and disappears. By the way, he´s got the same motorbike as Tom Cruise in Top Gun.

Der Beitrag Quick Take off! erschien zuerst auf TN Hotelconsulting.

How do you define good press work and what is the difference between TN Hotel Media Consulting´s approach and other agencies? Hans Amrein, editor-in-chief of HOTELIER magazine asked Tomas Niederberghaus

Public Relations work for hotels requires original ideas, journalistic sensitivity and often the courage to do things a little bit differently, says Tomas Niederberghaus, until three years ago author and hotel critic at DIE ZEIT, Germany´s prestigious weekly newspaper. An interview about hotel stories, emotions and a phenomenon called „The Art of Storytelling“.

Hotelier: Tomas Niederberghaus, your agency name doesn´t include the expression PR but media consulting. Is that supposed to signal a wider range of services than a classic PR-agency would offer?

Tomas Niederberghaus: As a journalist working for DIE ZEIT, I was often surprised when it came to dealing with PR agencies and their level of involvement with their clients. Some didn´t even know the hotels personally that they represented. The press releases were often just a collection of hollow phrases. That´s why I tend to avoid the expression PR. When I do presswork for hotels these days, I still see them through the eyes of a journalist. I look there for themes, that the media could be interested in. If the customer wants us to, we also do folders or in-house magazines. Then all the texts and pictures come from one source only.

You work with journalistic principles. What´s the advantage for your hotel clients?

If you run a hotel for years, you might not be able to see it´s potential anymore – it´s like an old marriage. Hotel owners are hosts, Yield Managers and F&B experts. They are not experienced in copywriting and they are not media professionals. When I do research on a hotel, I try to understand the DNA of the place, I talk to the staff, I experience the building and finally I develop some themes/subjects. But not only the content of a message is important. The timing of it´s release also matters and which subject suits which media.

Can you give us some examples of successful PR concepts?

When I did research for our client Kärntnerhof in Vienna I found some archive material, stating that the house used to be a brothel in the 1950s. When the hotel reopened after some renovation works, I called it „the smallest Grand Hotel of Vienna“ and sent out a press release with the headline „From Brothel to Grand Hotel“. The owner was slightly anxious initially. But newspapers and magazines made his place famous in no time. Even some TV programmes picked up on the story.

The concept of „Storytelling“ is very popular right now. What´s the hype about?

Storytelling is simply the art of telling a good story. That involves a statement, which has to be true of course. It also involves an element of surprise and emotions. A story like that will be remembered and told again to others. Storytelling has always been the job of journalists. PR and social media have recently hijacked the idea and tend to overstretch it a bit, in my opinion.

How important is the language you use?

Very important! The language used for the media must not look like advertising. A headline containing just one word that smells of selling can make an editor press the delete button on your message.

How will PR work for hotels change over the next few years?

There are new hotels opening every day. The market is being virtually flooded right now. In addition there is the competition from Airbnb. And everyone wants attention and media coverage. It will become increasingly important for hotel PR to underline the unique characteristics of the house and create content for storytelling. That requires quirky ideas and continuous work. On top of that PR and marketing will interlock even more in the future.

How important are the social media when it comes to spreading contents? And how important are bloggers these days?

Social media is a relatively new discipline for us, but they are gaining importance and will be an inherent part of corporate communication. A lot of representatives /players in the social media are not trained in storytelling though. That can be a big disadvantage. If 30 hotels tweet about their new drink at the same time, that´s 30 too many. The same is true for bloggers. Travel blogging in particular is still lacking professionals.

Editors today constantly receive information via all sorts of channel. That can create an overload. How do you manage to stand out from the crowd and get journalists exited?

With a good story, which doesn`t necessarily have to please everyone. It´s sometimes a good idea to polarize. One of our hotel clients recently hired a flying butler to take his guests on sightseeing flights around the area – an idea that we came up with.

Most PR is done swiftly, cheaply and comfortably via e-mail these days. Is it still worth it to send out an expensively created press kit via mail?

Whoever receives a handwritten letter on beautiful paper in this age of digital information flood is sure to appreciate it. It´s the same with press kits. It makes total sense for an outstanding hotel to send out this kind of special message. We all like to be surprised sometimes.

How important is personal contact?

It is absolutely vital to stay in touch with journalists to see what issues are important to them or where their focus lies right now. Quite often a hotel article starts off at the lunch table.

Can you measure the success of good media work at all?

Definitely! After a while you have to draw the balance. You look at clippings and analyze what articles were published in which media and what quality they were. Good media work doesn´t mean shooting from the hip.

Der Beitrag To Experience Stories erschien zuerst auf TN Hotelconsulting.