Curiosity is defined as a pleasant emotion that involves the search for new information, knowledge and experiences.
It is fueled by the will to surpass or expand our mastery, knowledge and understanding of the world, and this to this Lord springs from within, he dominates it.
Someone who from his studies of ancient Arabic and having visited ancestral places could be considered a time traveler.
A man who has been fortunate to have parents and grandparents who taught him that the greatest wealth in life is not money, but culture or knowledge; the importance of curiosity as the primary engine of wisdom and to get a taste for learning itself.
I have accompanied his name in the pretitle cataloging him as an explorer, when I should have written guest experience manageror painter, both things he is, but it seemed petty and unfair with the most important thing about his personality, which is how he has been and continues to be a voracious curious, capable of getting into all kinds of situations in search of knowledge.
He is not an explorer of pick and shovel, brush and sifter, but he is of that tireless search for ancient culture that in a way makes humanity who it is today.
He has a vocation of service mixed with the pleasure he takes in the exchange of meeting different people, while he shares his days with the team he is part of in his work, always valuing people.
I go to meet Manuel Sorá (Valencia, 1959), who meets me at the Mongibello Hotel in Siesta, a place as retro as peculiar.
The pool merges with the sea and everything hangs on the horizon, perfect and clear sky, it is a postcard Ibizan day.
With that background we begin. 
-I was born in Valencia but I came to Ibiza when I was three months old.
We came and went.
My father was from Ibiza and my mother from Valencia, but I was born in Valencia because my aunts were nurses there and here in Ibiza at that time the health system was very basic.
So my mother would give birth there, but I grew up between Ibiza and Valencia.
After my basic studies I studied French Philology in Valencia but I also did my military service in 1979.I also did my military service in 1979. -It was compulsory back then, wasn’t it?-Yes, yes… I was in service for 13 months. Then I moved to Barcelona to study the School of Fashion Arts and Techniques, which lasted two and a half years.
Then to Italy, to Florence for a year.
I went to learn Italian and worked in a leather company with which we traveled all over the country looking for the leather that was needed, north and south… It was all very interesting for me.
Then I took a competitive examination to join Iberia. In the year 88 I started working at Ibiza airport on the runway as a flight coordinator.
A year later I was offered a job at Lufthansa and I was studying German but I told the head of the stopover that my German was very poor, but he sent me to Lufthansa Frankfurt for two days to take the exams anyway [risas].
After a week I was informed that I was joining Lufthansa, from 1992 until it closed its offices in Ibiza in 2003.
I went through ticketeríaI did a little bit of everything.
I am very grateful to that company because I met a lot of people and several became great friends, and I have very nice memories.
But in 2003 there was a problem in Palma and someone decided that closing the operations in Ibiza was part of the solution, so they closed it.
I can’t tell you how upset and sad I was.
We had fought hard to have flights in winter… we had been involved in going further but suddenly it was over and we were all out on the street.
-And in the air as they say, of course, and what have you done afterwards?
-A friend of mine who lived in Toronto called me and said to me, “Come, you speak French and you will do very well. So I went.
I was alone for about two months because I couldn’t get a visa to stay, and I had an offer from a shoe company but I wasn’t going to stay illegally, because I was already old enough and besides I didn’t like illegality.
I went back to Ibiza.
-Do you want to stay?Another friend of mine, [carcajadas], calls me and tells me that she just came back from a vacation in Syria and she tells me about it and I… well… I went to Syria because I thought it was an interesting country.
I have been to Israel many times on personal business and I already knew Egypt, so I was attracted to the possibility of getting to know the other countries along the border.
I was in a hotel in Damascus for a week and I found a university very close and I went in to ask if they had programs for foreigners in ancient Arabic language and they told me that next Sunday one was starting.
I ran to the Spanish embassy to apply for the visa, which they did very quickly and gave me a slice of cake and tea, they were very nice. And I started the course which was like modules of two months each.
Halfway through the second one I had to return to Ibiza, it was 2004 which was the same year I started working here.
-By here you mean in this building, don’t you?
-Yes, it used to be the Hotel Don Carlos of Palladium Hotel Group and now it’s been a couple of years since this beautiful project called Mongibello started.
And until I retire.
-And you are the guest experience manager, although the answer is deductible, it is better to describe it yourself in your post.
-This is a very interesting job, which is simply to help make our guests’ experience as happy as possible.
Where the client feels respected, cared for, helped, understood and to look for solutions to all needs or desires.
My top priority is that if there is a problem – find a solution, but right away.
Personal treatment is very important so it is very good to have a lot of psychology because they are different people from different countries so you have to listen very well. It helps a lot to speak to the customer in their own language whenever possible.
-How many languages do you speak?
-I speak 8 and I speak 2.
About ten, let’s say.
-What an outrage, which ones?-I speak Spanish, Catalan, English, German, Hebrew, Italian, Portuguese, French, Dutch, a little bit of Greek and a little bit of Arabic. a little bit of Arabic. -Do you have a predilection for any of them?
-I like French very much.
I went to French school for 11 years.
And in my house we always spoke French.
-Ah, okay, for emotional reference.
-Yes, my grandparents also spoke French because they both studied in France.
In the old days, the universal language in Europe was not English as it is today, but French, which also denoted a certain cultural height.
-When I speak in English I don’t think as much as I do in Spanish, and when I get angry, I get angry in Argentinian, is that what happens to you when things come out in one or the other language? – Yes, when I get angry I get angry in Hebrew [risas] and I don’t know, I don’t get angry easily either but when something goes wrong, I say things to myself [habla en hebreo] but they are not even insults. Now, count, in French, I get like this, if I have to count anything I hear in my head un, deux, trois, quatre…
I like Italian very much, my grandmother on my mother’s side was Italian-Argentinean with the surname Graziani and I traveled a lot to Italy.
My grandfather and my father were experts in art history… I come from a middle class family but tremendously cultivated.
We never had a lot of money but we always had a lot of books.
We spoke several languages and traveled a lot.
My grandfather used to say that “wealth cannot be transported in suitcases”.
-How has this season gone, which was a bit strange for many?
-Well, there have been two giant sporting events, which always reduces the influx of tourists, so at the beginning of the season it was a little difficult for us to take off, but from July onwards we did very well, August and September at full capacity, and now we are very well and very happy.
I know that this place is very pleasant and that it is in an unbeatable location and is making a name for itself.
Besides, we have an excellent team of people at all levels and we are all working together to make this go ahead.
-Yes, once the client wanted an airport-hotel transfer but by helicopter to the roof of the hotel.
Which, for those who do not know, is forbidden by law, it can not be done.
But I did not know at that time and as always I tried to satisfy the client’s wishes and found out that here obviously there was no such service, in Palma either and yes from Barcelona that cost 4 thousand euros to the island and 2 thousand from the airport to the hotel.
Then I found out that it is not legal.
And the client, who had been told that the traffic jams are monumental in Ibiza, got angry because we did not give him what we could not.
I am very dynamic, I always try to understand exactly what the client needs, from where they ask for it, that is, in what emotional state they are in… I have been working with the public for so many years.
I also study them and I know when the client is telling the truth or when he is lying [risas].
-How so?
-Well, yes, in order to have a benefit or compensation, there are those who are capable of lying.
It hurts me, I don’t like it, but there are fewer and fewer of them because in the hotel business in Spain we have already learned a lot and we are better prepared.
-Talking about that, I have heard complaints from some employers about the professional quality of seasonal workers, it may be because of the housing situation and the wages, but they say that there are many workers who come without training.
-It is essential that people are very well trained and prepared.
Today’s clients demand a lot, first of all because Ibiza is one of the best-known international destinations in the world, and that’s why a lot is expected of the service on the island.
Then some people come believing that this is Monaco 2 and there is a long, long way to go.
Innovation is constant, preparation has to be constant, training too.
And on the other hand, I have friends who are prepared and have jobs but did not come because of the housing conditions.
But the youth who come to work must be prepared, they must understand that they come to be part of a team where it is never “I” but always “we”, and that they must be well prepared to know what they are doing in order to provide a quality service, and that they must always honor their work, they must be serious and grateful; they must be neat.
-You also paint pictures, where did you get that artistic vein and what kind of paintings do you create?
-My paternal grandfather painted and I loved to go up to the attic with him in the house in Ibiza and I would prepare the colors, paint, and he told me many stories because he knew a lot about Greek, Italian and Middle Eastern history.
I was fascinated by everything he told me.
I always liked expressionism very much because it is a freer way of understanding painting.
Academic schools are very good, I really like to study and read about painting, travel around the world and visit museums like the ones I have visited in Paris, Budapest, Munich, and the Muze’on of Tel Aviv Lamanut which has one of the best collections of expressionism in the world.
But for me the world changed after the Salon des Indépendants in Paris in 1901.
The first manifestation of expressionism took place there.
There were two schools, the German one called Die Brücke or The Bridge, and another one from Dresden called Der Blaue Reiter or The Blue Rider.
I always liked the explosion of color.
Another current that I like very much, which is even freer, is that of Fauvism, which was born in Belgium, with its referents Henri Matisse and André Derain, I love Marc Chagall to name a few … in short, a daring, a freedom without rules … to vomit color; I never liked black and white.
I love color.
Maybe it’s because I was born during Franco’s regime when it was all black and white [risas].
That’s why I have always loved to travel around the world because that’s when I saw that it was possible to live in a different way, and I always wanted and still want to be free.
The only ties of the soul are the ones I put on myself.
-I know you are a fan of one of the best publications of all times as Tintin, tell me how was your relationship with this French classic.
-In my house everybody read Tintin.
My father always told me when we told him we were bored we were told to pick up a book and sit down and read.
Tintin, Asterix, El guerrero del antifaz, El jabato, and read and read and read and read.
But my family was always very connected to Tintin, in fact I’ve read it in several languages, and I still read it today because for me it’s a breath of fresh air.
For me Tintin was a book for children who wanted to be adults and it was based in a world of the 30’s and the truth is that I don’t give a damn about the author’s past, he has created a fantastic character and for me he has linked me to him for life.
I have some items that I love.
-You grew up in Ibiza, what do you miss from those times?
-I remember the few cars, the tranquility… My parents lived in Ibiza, they were teachers, but we had a little house in San Antonio.
I remember that my father rented a wagon because he didn’t have a car to take us every year to Valencia with everything, even the washing machine, because we went from March to October there and from October to March here.
I also remember that we lived by the sea and my grandmother always told us “put on your little hat, the chilenas” and we did not stop running, swimming, moving and my grandmother complained that we did not listen to her saying “¡acá se vive la zíngara!”[risas].
In the sixties this was like the movie Verano Azul, a lot of tranquility, sun, sea, old chimney boats that took 12 hours to get to Valencia… how to pass the customs…-What do you mean customs?
-Yes, yes, back then you had to go through customs.
There were some carabineros at some tables when we got off the ship.
-What strikes me about the past is that for Spain to be submerged in Franco’s oppression, how free Ibiza was, wasn’t it?
-Always, it’s true, the island always lived in freedom.
With my father we have been nudists since that time, Franco didn’t care much about the island.
We lived very quietly, nothing worried us and everything was easy.
I would go with my father by bicycle to Salinas and there were hippies, all naked, with flowers on their heads, all in a good mood… There was peace.
-What a spectacular time…
-Yes, very nice, it was very nice.
And the memory smells like Patchouli to me [risas].
-What is that?
-A perfume that was made from incense, very strong.
My teachers used that.
-What do you do during the winters?
-Traveling, reading and painting.
Also classical music and of course spending time with friends.
-Having lived and traveled to so many cities around the world, in which one would you like to retire or which one is your favorite?
-I like Paris, Florence and Jerusalem very much.
But the one that has given me a lot personally has been Alexandria, where I have spent many winters studying Greek and learning about the writer Constantine Cavafis, and even as a child in Latin classes we were told about him.
I love reading, listening to classical music and poetry, I love poetry.
And one of my big pains right now is seeing that young people don’t read.
-…and it’s going to get worse with A.I., what do you think about Artificial Intelligence?
-It helps us, but we should not cut off personal contact.
There are too many devices and if something happens to them, what are they going to do?
I work with devices but I have a book I call “the book of truth” where I write down everything because if the computer fails and I lose information, which has happened to me… well, no thanks.
I’m old school.
Siphnos…
[Sonriendo le digo] -How lucky we were to have been born in the last century, where if you dropped your food on the floor in less than 5 seconds you could eat it, where we knew all the telephone numbers by heart, where when you called your beloved one, you had to ask her father not to answer… all day long in the street playing, present…. What good times those were!What I fear is that the new generations, when you cut off the power, they are dead, they do not know much what to do without a digital interface, don’t they?
-Well, I see a lot from friends or clients at a table and everyone with the phone in their hand, with how nice it is to talk!
And you can be there for 8 hours and my question is; what have you learned?
-They go to the concerts and watch them through the mobile screen, being there, it’s terrible.
-Yes, I know.
When I get home I put the phone on the fridge, because it doesn’t ring there [los dos a carcajadas].
I dedicate myself to my books, some movies, watching ballet, listening to music and some TV shows that talk about… books!
I have a lot of books to read, a lot of concerts to listen to, I don’t have time for nonsense.
-I could go on for hours listening to you, but I’ll leave you in peace, it’s already tea time….
