An exclusive contribution for The Executive Magazine by Grant Peires, Director of Communications at IDILIQ Hotels & Resorts
Last month The Executive Magazine featured an article about Kind Holidays, IDILIQ Hotels & Resorts’ initiative that gives free accommodation at our properties to families experiencing unimaginable physical and/or emotional trauma. The article focused on the business case for the initiative and the impact it has had on our team. I talked about how the primary cost – housekeeping – is far outweighed by improved staff morale, increased productivity and enhanced retention rates.
Since 2012 Kind Holidays has worked with numerous charities, giving holidays to families with children with terminal illnesses and severe disabilities, bereaved families where a young parent, child or sibling has recently passed, Military personnel suffering with PTSD and physical injuries and unpaid Carers, who are often caring for a loved one and have had to sacrifice their own financial well-being to do so.
In this follow-up article, I am hoping by focusing on the recipients of these holidays, readers will come to appreciate the immense value and, in some cases, life-changing benefits, these holidays can bring. Our hope is that this programme becomes as fundamental to hospitality as sustainability initiatives.
IDILIQ Hotels & Resorts is a franchisee of Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, the largest hotel franchise operator on the planet. Over the last couple of years, Dimitris Manikis, Wyndham’s EMEA President has met some of the recipient families of Kind Holidays including Sarah Sea and Scotty Darroch. Sarah is a single Mother, who had a last holiday with her two sons at Wyndham Costa del Sol, before her youngest passed away, from a rare degenerative condition, at 10 years of age. Scotty served for ten years as a Corporal and Training Instructor in the British Army in Northern Ireland, Bosnia and Kosovo. In 2013 he was diagnosed with PTSD and Major Depressive Disorder. He credits the holiday he had with us as helping him turn away from heroin use, self-harm and suicide.
Dimitris is helping to secure a speaking engagement for Kind Holidays at Wyndham’s Annual US conference in April. It will give us a chance to share how Kind Holidays has had such a profoundly positive effect on our team and how it can do the same for our fellow franchisees. Our hope is that this will capture the hearts and minds of a substantial number of hoteliers and help spread the initiative and kindness throughout the world. It will also allow Sarah and Scotty a chance to tell 6,500 hotel owners and senior executives their own very personal stories. These are their stories.
Scotty’s Story
“At 4 years old, I was sent to a child lockdown facility for weekends to give my parents a break. I was a minute away from being a statistic of the Lockerbie plane disaster in 1988 aged 12 and when I was 14, I was sexually molested by a so-called family friend. So I decided to rebel against the system getting involved in trouble and ending up within the criminal justice system.
“I decided to join the British Army in 1995; this was the only decision I had to help save my life after the pain and suffering I went through in my childhood years. After spending over a year of hard training I was deployed to Northern Ireland, but no training and experience could have prepared a young 20-year-old lad for what I was about to witness on the streets of the United Kingdom. I witnessed the worst that humanity could do to each other, something which has had a devastating impact on my life. Not knowing at the time that being involved and witnessing violent horrific atrocities and fighting for our lives would affect and give me a mental trauma.
“I began drinking heavily which led to getting into a lot of altercations and I soon enjoyed the pain that violence provided, as to punish myself, felt like the right thing to do. I have had over 30 recorded concussions, as I put my head in places you never want to, resulting in numerous brain injuries. All these altercations also led to regular visits to military and civilian jails.
“The times were hard and the knock downs were always constant, but nothing I was doing was taking the pain, night horrors and images away. I was tired all the time and finding it very difficult to focus on my job, as now I was a training instructor in Germany. Trying to portray the constant professional soldier to the rest of the regiment was very difficult, alongside drinking 1½ litres of spirits and some beers nearly every day. I started taking a lot of cocaine so I could function at the level where no one knew what was going on, I was now putting on a mask to hide the truth of my secret torment.
“It all came to a head when I couldn’t take the pain of conflict anymore and I ended up on the back streets of Gutersloh sitting amongst rubbish and waste, with my shoes off and my trouser legs rolled up, injecting heroin into my feet. I still recall the dirty needle ripping my skin and releasing this warm orangey brown hell into my veins. I couldn’t deal with what was going on in my brain, I was now addicted, this was the time I needed help and being a soldier this was the hardest decision I’ve ever had to make. This was definitely not what I had envisioned when I wanted to serve my country.
“I was discharged from the Army in November 2004. Since then there have been setbacks with periods of self-harm and multiple attempts to take my own life. Trying to make the images disappear. It took another nine years and in 2013 I finally got the diagnosis of PTSD and due to the years of neglect and hardship on my body also major depressive disorder.
“Now knowing that it wasn’t just me but an illness causing these thoughts and actions there was still a life for living and a chance to become a better husband, that my wife could be proud of. Give Us Time and Kind Holidays was my hand up. It gave us the ability to adapt to our new normal. A life of compromises and plans to act as a safety net if we fell backwards, all in a relaxed, peaceful and scenic place. This was also our chance to reconnect with our loved ones and to look forward for our new future on our road to recovery.
“These holidays are life savers. If I can implore holiday businesses to donate accommodation. You’re not just providing a vital holiday to a military family. You’re not giving us a handout. You’re giving us a hand up and that’s priceless.”
Sarah’s Story
“Phoenix took his first footsteps in the sand when he was seven months old. I didn’t know at the time that they would be his first and only footsteps, that he would ever take in the sand.
“It was just the three of us. It was always just the three of us, muddling through. I was Mum, Dad, provider and homemaker. I often felt helpless and alone. Most of the time I was. As Rico grew, he became more than Phoenix’s brother, he became my rock and second in command in caring for Phoenix. This was our life for 10 years, one obstacle after another. We couldn’t travel, even out of the house with ease.
“I had to give up working and chasing a career. There was no time to think about anything other than appointments, hospitals, clinics, equipment, specialists, medical terms, adaptations to our home and trying to find help so we could afford to put the basics in place that Phoenix now needed as he declined. I don’t have a family that stuck together in times of hardship, it has never been like that for us. I got into debt and at one point couldn’t afford to feed myself. Amongst all of this we met some amazing people who gave us the consistency and continuity of time and knowledge, that it was enough to keep me fighting.”
Fast forward to Sarah, Phoenix and Rico’s holiday to Wyndham Costa del Sol:
“From the minute we arrived at the resort, I realised just exactly why we were meant to be here. Every single person we met at this resort made us feel like we were family. A family that was wanted, cared for and cherished. You joked with us, welcomed us every single day, with such kindness, warmth, care and love. There wasn’t a single person that made us feel like we were anything other than a normal family. Human kindness and contact means so much to a family like mine. Please whatever you do in your lives, just remember that the love and kindness you showed my children and the families that came before and after us, will never be forgotten.
“My surviving son and I have got this memory for the rest of our lives with his brother. We wouldn’t have had that. We wouldn’t have had the opportunity to do that and felt so normal. It is my absolute heartfelt wish that other companies, hoteliers and holiday providers would be open to considering assisting families like mine.”
Less than two years after their holiday to Spain, Sarah’s son Phoenix sadly passed away. Sarah and Rico are returning to Spain in June, when they plan to scatter Phoenix’s ashes in the sea, just metres from the beach in front of the resort. The place where they created their most cherished memories, watching the sunrise together. Scotty and Sarah are both the most inspirational people and speakers I have ever met. They are true heroes both battling different types of pain and turning their experiences and feelings into hope and help for others.