Here’s the story: On a certain day and in a specific month, the public account of Park Hyatt Hangzhou posted a recruitment notice inviting people to experience a day as hotel staff.
It was a chance to experience the job for free, but without any pay. I thought it was a unique experience, so I signed up quickly. As a travel editor, I’ve stayed in countless hotels, but none were my own company’s property. Luckily, with my resume from Xiyou, I was selected.
Because of our work, we are often in contact with the hotel industry and have always found the profession of “hotel staff” quite special. Working in a five-star hotel seems enviable.
They are well-dressed, highly trained, and articulate, seemingly able to provide the best solutions to any problem quickly.
Many literary works depict hotel staff as highly charming characters.
For example, there’s Gustav from Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel “The Unconsoled,” a hotel employee admired by the whole city who, even at 80, still insists on carrying luggage for guests. Or, there’s the mustachioed, violet tailcoat-wearing, cologne-scented hotel manager Gustav from the film “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” who is tirelessly committed to providing top-notch service…
Experiencing the intriguing and slightly mysterious profession of “hotel staff” has always been a small wish of mine.
Delving into the hotel’s back-end operations, exploring the behind-the-scenes aspects unseen by guests, was incredibly fascinating.
Joining one of Hangzhou’s top hotels, Park Hyatt Hangzhou, made me quite nervous.
With many imaginations about this special day, I started my workday at Park Hyatt Hangzhou last Thursday! Although it was just for one day, the experience was rich and novel, and I couldn’t help but share it with everyone.
Of course, this article is somewhat like a work report from the perspective of an employee, and I certainly think my new company is the best, hehe.
Perhaps you are a friend looking to join the hotel industry and want to know whether working in a five-star hotel is as glamorous as it appears. Maybe after reading this article, you can better understand this industry.
Or perhaps you are curious about how hotels handle bedding and various hygiene issues, or how luxury hotels operate behind their extreme services. This report could provide some answers for you.
Without further ado, join me for a day as a Park Hyatt hotel staff member.
9:00-9:30
Onboarding Procedures & Changing Uniforms
Even for a one-day hotel staff experience, formal onboarding procedures were followed. After signing the labor contract and coordinating today’s work details with Daniel from HR, I reached the moment I was most looking forward to and found the most ceremonial—changing into the uniform.
Park Hyatt Hangzhou has a large employee uniform room where professional tailors take measurements for the staff. Two and a half hours later, they can provide a perfectly fitting uniform.
Of course! To extend my experiential time, my uniform had been prepared in advance. Along with changing into the uniform, my bilingual name tag and employee card were also completed.
The moment the manager pinned the name tag onto my uniform marked the official start of my one-day hotel career. I felt both nervous and exhilarated.
Following the tradition of the Park Hyatt, after changing into the uniform, new employees gather in the lobby on the first floor to take a staff photo in front of the iconic wall. Daniel even uploaded my photo to the staff group chat to warmly welcome the new member, fostering a genuinely friendly atmosphere.
9:30-10:30
Tour and Introduction of Park Hyatt Hangzhou
The feeling of wearing the employee uniform and walking through the hotel immediately brings a 180-degree shift. How should I put it? It’s like adding a service filter to myself.
Although I’m not familiar with many of the conditions inside the hotel, I am striving to remember every piece of knowledge.
For instance, letting guests enter the elevator first, proactively asking about their floor, greeting them, and professionally answering various questions are the most basic actions I observed from every person at Park Hyatt. These small details truly exhibit a high level of professionalism.
Before formally starting a position, each employee needs to be thoroughly familiar with the hotel. Therefore, even the shortest induction and on-the-job training for official Park Hyatt staff requires at least three months.
For someone like me, even if my experience lasts only a day, it’s necessary to have a complete hotel tour.
During the tour, aside from understanding the functions of each floor and the distribution of rooms, I could genuinely feel the effort put into the design and furnishings at Park Hyatt Hangzhou.
For example, the blue carpets in the rooms are custom-made by hand, inspired by the lake blue color of West Lake under sunlight, a unique touch of Hangzhou. Additionally, the adjustable lighting floral backdrop embedded in the headboard is remarkably crafted by carving flower shapes into the wood, allowing light to filter through and form the design.
The lobby, gym, and restaurants are naturally impressive, but what struck me the most were the back-of-house areas that guests usually don’t see.
The so-called “back-of-house” areas contrast with the “front-of-house” where guests are active. These include employee offices, dining rooms, break rooms, locker rooms, and also operational support areas like the laundry room, food storage, and food preparation kitchens.
In fact, I wasn’t aware until my visit that most five-star hotels have their back-of-house areas in the basement. Park Hyatt Hangzhou follows this design, dedicating the best floors and spaces to the guests.
The back-of-house at Park Hyatt is impeccably clean and organized, with many features that made me instantly exclaim “wow.”
For hotel employees, the working environment is exceptionally friendly. Colleagues get along well in the offices, and the break room even has a karaoke space.
Once the lights are off, the atmosphere is set, allowing for instant relaxation, making team bonding sessions effortlessly enjoyable.
The operational support areas also deviated entirely from my expectations.
The water pipe room, dubbed the “most beautiful machine room” by the staff, overturned my impression of such areas being chaotic. It boasts a full industrial design, brimming with modern vibes and a raw artistic quality.
Another aspect that must be discussed is the laundry room.
As guests, the most important concern is the cleanliness of the room, especially how the bed linens and towels are washed and disinfected.
After visiting the laundry room, I couldn’t help but marvel at how professional the cleaning process at Park Hyatt is. The procedures naturally need no further mention as there is nothing to worry about; the detergents have high cleaning power, achieving 99.9% disinfection and sterilization. The super high-temperature drying after washing is much more reliable and hygienic than natural sun drying.
10:30-11:00
Lunch @ Employee Cafeteria
Because I needed to be on duty at the Xuan Restaurant during lunch, Daniel brought me to the employee cafeteria for an early meal.
The cafeteria is buffet-style, offering a wide variety of dishes, including vegetables, seafood, fruits, and whole grains, with unlimited refills if you don’t feel full.
Eating such a sumptuous meal every day would truly make one feel overjoyed.
According to HR, as long as you are in the hotel, breakfast, lunch, dinner, and late-night snacks are all included for employees. Who wouldn’t envy that? Frankly, those four meals alone make me consider staying.
11:00-14:30
Work Experience at Xuan Restaurant & Dealing with Customer Complaints
At eleven, I arrived at Xuan Chinese Restaurant. The restaurant manager, Alisa, was holding a brief meeting with the staff. As a Black Pearl Two Diamond restaurant, Xuan has extremely strict requirements for the staff’s appearance.
There are a few aspects Alisa checks during every meeting: whether nails are clean and trimmed, hair is styled according to requirements, uniforms are neatly ironed, and shoes are spotless.
Even as a one-day employee, Alisa did not hold back, pointing out that my hairstyle was actually non-compliant—too many stray hairs, which I had to fix immediately.
Furthermore, in this brief meeting, each staff member takes turns reporting on the guest reservations and whether all the food ingredients for the day are in place. If there are any missing ingredients or dishes, the guests need to be informed in a timely manner during ordering.
Xuan begins seating guests at eleven-thirty, and before that, I needed to familiarize myself with table numbers, learn how to set up tableware and napkins, as well as get trained by the tea master on how to brew tea and by the sommelier on how to pour various types of beverages.
Every task needs to be performed with precision and excellence.
Due to the short experience period, I tried a little bit of each position. The most challenging, however, was resolving a customer complaint alongside Alisa.
Everyone knows that window seats at Xuan are difficult to book and are nearly always fully reserved. On that day, a guest who had only reserved a lobby seat arrived early and insisted on sitting by the window since the reserved guests had not yet arrived—”why can’t I sit here if the space is available?”
The guest was getting increasingly agitated, raising his voice to the point that it was disturbing other diners. I was also extremely anxious, unsure of how to calm his emotions.
At this moment, Alisa stepped in, inviting him to rest in the adjacent private room. She also offered him a glass of juice and assured him that he would be seated by the window as soon as a table became available. Only then did the guest begin to settle down.
After the meal, Alisa proactively handed him her business card, informing him that he could directly contact the restaurant manager for future dining reservations. By this point, the guest’s negative emotions had completely dissipated, and he even expressed his gratitude upon leaving.
Alisa remarked that receiving positive feedback from guests is one of the most fulfilling moments for anyone working in hospitality.
14:30-17:00
Experience of Afternoon Tea Service at the Yue Lounge
Once the lunch service ended, Daniel took me to the Yue Lounge. On the way, he asked if I was tired, and I replied that I was indeed very exhausted.
At this point, I truly understood the hardships of being in the hotel industry—standing for long periods makes your legs ache. I was only exhausted for one day, while they experience this daily. Without any break, I jumped straight into the afternoon tea service.
Upon arriving at the Yue Lounge, Manager Amy was busy with the pre-service preparations. She seemed happy to see me, given that the lounge was nearly fully booked for afternoon tea and she was struggling to handle everything.
After a brief orientation of the lounge, Amy immediately assigned me tasks—distributing scones and pushing the dessert cart. These tasks sound simple but aren’t easy to master.
Scones are stored in a warming box. After taking out a few pieces, they need to be placed on a tray along with some condiments.
The tray is made of pure silver and is deceptively heavy. It requires holding the tray with one hand while using the other hand to serve the scones to guests, which truly tests core stability. I was extremely worried about messing up and took quite some time to psych myself up before starting.
Amy mentioned that nearly every hotel employee goes through a period of “tray training,” a mandatory lesson that surprisingly builds character, despite how simple it looks.
The dessert cart is one of the unique features of the Park Hyatt’s afternoon tea. The task itself isn’t very difficult, as it only involves wheeling the cart to each table and asking guests about their dessert preferences.
However, I had to quickly memorize the names and ingredients of over a dozen desserts to accurately answer any questions about flavors and allergens the guests might have.
Luckily, as a dessert enthusiast, I managed to complete the task satisfactorily.
By around five o’clock in the afternoon, my afternoon tea service was nearing its end.
Amy mentioned that the dessert menu would soon be updated, including a few cocktails co-branded with Japanese sake brand Ki No Bi. It’s about time to gather some friends and enjoy the new afternoon tea options.
17:30-19:30
Food Tasting at Yue Xuan Chinese Restaurant
The final tasting session at Hexuan turned out to be an ultra-luxurious dinner, with several seasonal dishes that really caught my eye.
This was my first experience at Hexuan, but I foresee myself visiting frequently in the future.
Indeed, whenever there’s a new dish at Hexuan, it’s always the frontline staff at Grand Hyatt Hangzhou who get the first taste.
Take the 5J Ham with Shepherd’s Purse and White Asparagus, for example. The sweetness of the Spanish ham, the tenderness of the white asparagus, and the fresh flavor of the shepherd’s purse all explode in your mouth, creating a delightful surprise.
Additionally, I learned an interesting fun fact: the difference between white and green asparagus is that white asparagus is shielded from the sun.
When I first heard it, I thought it was a joke, but it’s actually a legitimate scientific fact. White asparagus stays tender and pale because it’s covered with special sand to block ultraviolet rays, preventing chlorophyll production.
Returning to the role of a guest signifies the end of today’s one-day experience at Grand Hyatt Hangzhou.
To summarize in a few keywords, it would be tone, professionalism, perfection, and perseverance.
The high-end brand positioning dictates professional service, and behind the perfection is the dedication and daily perseverance of all the staff at Grand Hyatt Hangzhou.
The one-day experience at Grand Hyatt Hangzhou is still open for recruitment. If you’re interested, feel free to sign up through Grand Hyatt Hangzhou’s official WeChat account.
