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Hotel manager calls for 'soft Brexit'

A Birmingham hotel manager with a large overseas workforce is calling on Theresa May to soften her hard-line approach to Brexit over the coming months as negotiations officially begin.

Angel Resmella is the general manager at the Campanile Hotel in Aston, where 13 of the 29 employees are from other European countries such as Romania, Greece, Germany, Slovakia and Spain, and he is cautious about the consequences of a potential new immigration policy.

Angel moved to the UK two years ago from his native Spain as part of an internal company transfer, and currently lives at the hotel.

He said: “I am quite calm about Brexit as I have been in the UK for a while on business, however, I also employ a lot of workers from overseas, so any restrictions on immigration could, worst case scenario, see me lose some of my work force and struggle to replace them in the future.

“We are still two years away from negotiations concluding though, so I’m hopeful that when the time comes, they will have been here long enough to stay and carry on working at the hotel.

“Other staff who send money home to provide for their families are also concerned about the weakness of the pound, as the exchange rates mean their families aren’t receiving as much as they used to.

“We have employees from Europe who have spent at least three years working here, so we’ve developed a strong family atmosphere at the hotel over the years which we do not want to see end.”

Mark Aldridge is Director of Operations for Louvre Hotels Group UK and Iberia, which has 18 Campanile and Premiere Classe hotels around the UK.

He added: “The beauty of the hotel industry is it brings people from all different nationalities and walks of life together, so every hotel manager in the land is waiting to see how Brexit will impact them - particularly our hotel in Birmingham which has one of the highest numbers of workers from other EU countries compared to our other hotels.

“My advice to Angel and everyone else is to carry on as normal, because until anything is announced, we can’t be sure what the final impact will be.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Matt Joyce .