Shortly before midnight, the time had come and the 101 Iconic Hotelier of the Year was chosen: it is Marco Zanolari, CEO of the Swiss hotel group The Living Circle. The board of trustees and the laudator, Swiss star chef Andreas Caminada, whose Schloss Schauenstein has three Michelin stars, described the 47-year-old Marco Zanolari as a beacon, innovation leader and therefore a benchmark for the industry. He said: “Marco Zanolari has an outstanding influence on guests and business partners like no other. He offers employees orientation, encourages, challenges and inspires, while at the same time thinking, acting and managing in the interests of the owners of The Living Circle.” The luxury group, owned by the Swiss Anda and Franz-Bührle families, includes not only the Widder and Storchen hotels, the Alex Lake Zurich, the Castello del Sole in Ascona on Lake Maggiore and the exclusive Château de Raymontpierre in the Swiss Jura, but also three organic farms, namely the Schlattgut in Herrliberg near Zurich with the Buech restaurant, the Terreni Alla Maggia in Ascona and the Cantina della Maggia winery, also in Ascona. 

 A conversation with Marco Zanolari at the Baur au Lac 

 The thirty minutes fly by. Marco Zanolari is a captivating conversationalist. The 47-year-old has been head of The Living Circle Group since August 2023. Until he was headhunted, he had been Hotel Director for the last seven years and Chairman of the Executive Board of the Grand Resort Bad Ragaz since 2022. The Living Circle Group, which Marco Zanolari manages, has 850 employees. “Working with people means doing something good. I want the employees to feel good. I want to motivate them and help them progress. You have to do something that's fun and enjoy it,” says Marco Zanolari. He wants to pass on his credo, with which he himself obviously operates and works successfully, to his team. One building block to achieve this is the construction of a two-storey staff cafeteria at Münzplatz in Zurich. “The locations of the hotels on the lake are different. We want to promote a cultural association and create added value for employees. That's why we're building the cafeteria in a prime city location,” he says, emphasizing with an example: ”I studied at the hotel management school in Lausanne. We used to party there every week. Those are wonderful memories. What I want to say is that special moments and experiences connect, motivate and make people happy. Employees who feel good and spread joy are also good hosts.”

 And they also remain relaxed when, for example, the queue outside the Hotel Storchen in the heart of Zurich is extra long when the sun is shining because everyone wants to go to the wonderful roof terrace The Nest with its dream view or enjoy the fine cuisine, some of which has been awarded stars and Gault Millau points, in one of the hotels. All the hotels serve produce from their own organic farms - and not every hotel group does.“We produce a lot.Milk, eggs and wild berries from the Schlattgut farm in Herrliberg, for example.Rice, pasta and polenta or wine, gin and grappa from the farms in Ticino. We would like to promote this.But so far the products are not enough. We have to buy them,” says Marco Zanolari. 

Long before the topic of sustainability and modern gastronomy concepts such as farm-to-table or nose-to-tail occupied the zeitgeist, the group focused on craftsmanship and its own, regionally produced products. A fact that is presumably paying off today, as quite a few modern guests appreciate precisely this honest and authentic enjoyment. And what does Marco Zanolari want when he goes on vacation with his family? “An authentic experience. When we go to Ticino, for example - my wife is from there and we have an apartment - we often go to a small restaurant where the polenta is still stirred by hand,” he says.Otherwise, the CEO of The Living Circle wants to go to Poschiavo again, an idyllic place in southern Graubünden in Italian-speaking Switzerland.“I'm from there, but I haven't been back for 20 years.” Like many people in the industry, Marco Zanolari's postgraduate degree included a Grand Tour of countries and continents:China, Thailand, Doha, Maui and Miami are just some of the places he worked before returning home.