INDUSTRY
INTROSPECTIVE
By Alexandra Walterspiel
I literally was born into this
business!
My father, the son of a
hotelier himself, was the
General Manager at the
InterContinental in Frankfurt
when I arrived in this world,
and as was very common in
78 ILHA
those days, we lived in an
apartment on property. I
spent the first 11 years of my
life living in a hotel, first in
Frankfurt and then at the
Atlantic Hotel in Hamburg. I
learnt how to swim in a hotel
pool, how to ride a bike in a
hotel corridor and I loved it.
I was best friends with the
laundry attendants, loved
visiting with the seamstress
who had a little cubbyhole of a
work area under the roof and
I would “help” the bell staff
move bags around when I was
allowed to. My favorite place
to go visit was the Patisserie,