No guest role for Gqeberha hospitality go-getter

At 27 years of age, Radisson Blu marketing manager Sigourney Bruintjies has already built a reputation as an innovator in the Nelson Mandela Bay hospitality sector.

Sigourney Bruintjies may have only been a young girl at the time, but her mother’s words hit home instantly.

“Never say you can’t. You can!” came the oft-repeated instruction while growing up in the northern Gqeberha suburb of Aspen Heights. “Never say you can’t. You can!”

It is this line that has come to define Bruintjies as the quintessential modern woman – driven, ambitious and thoroughly fearless in everything she does.

She may be 27 years old, but these no-fear attributes have quickly propelled her to impressive heights in the hospitality industry.

Two years ago, with Covid-19 still raging, she was appointed marketing manager of the Radisson Blu hotel in Gqeberha – a position that would have put the fear of god into lesser mortals twice her age given the global crisis.

But, for the Nelson Mandela University graduate with no less than two communications degrees to her name, it was a challenge she would come to relish.

“The pandemic period was interesting in itself with the regulations and levels constantly changing. It was the first time I have worked in the industry, so the jargon would fly over my head,” she recalled.

“My colleagues would be speaking in abbreviations and, in my head, I would try to decipher them. After three months, I got into the swing of things – and those acronyms.”

Twenty-four months on and Bruintjies brims with confidence, finding creative solutions to every problem while working closely with general manager Elmarie Fritz to inculcate a winning culture at the hotel.

With her stock on the rise, she even found herself working remotely for the Radisson Blu in Umhlanga while performing her duties at the Gqeberha hotel.

She served on what the Group calls the “Taskforce”, where individuals in a certain role take over that function at another property when a vacancy arises.

From the outset, the go-getter has never shied away from bringing youthful ideas to the table. In fact, she believed these were precisely what made her successful at her job.

“When I started working here, some of my colleagues didn’t quite understand what I wanted to do. As time went on, my age became empowering as my ideas were out of the box and unique in a hotel setting.”

In her first quarter on the job, she had conceptualised a “listening session” to promote an EP by music-producing brothers Jay Em, who now work with J’Something of Mi Casa fame.

This foray into influencer marketing was a relatively new concept in the local hospitality sector, but now she regularly collaborates with creatives to showcase the hotel and city.

Being a woman was just as important as her age in terms of creating marketing strategies as females’ strength was their ability to bring a “personal, human touch” to the industry, she noted.

Having said that, she emphasised that it was equally important for leaders in business to be receptive to learn from others and to pay attention to detail.

Networking and developing relationships with key individuals – both within and beyond city borders – is also essential in sculpting a long-term career.

Bruintjies acknowledged that the demands of hospitality required her to become “a lot sterner in your day-to-day”, but finding the right balance was key.

Her daily tasks are certainly not for the faint-of-heart. Photo shoots, social media reels and platforms, public relations coordination, drafting reports, conceptualising activations, cajoling partnerships and reviewing sponsorships count among her duties.

“Also, when the GM calls me [and says my name] with this semi-French pronunciation, I drop everything that I’m busy with,” she quipped.

With her father’s job taking the family to Barcelona in Spain and, later, to Sao Paulo in Brazil, she was extremely well-travelled in her formative years.

Now that she was on the other side of the fence, she acknowledged that all that globetrotting had been invaluable in giving her insight into the hospitality business.

Working for an international chain also demands that she has to evaluate herself constantly against global standards.

“What’s nice about the Radisson Hotel Group is that they are big on marketing and communications, so every week you learn about new things being implemented around the world.”

The South African team have a monthly catch-up call where they discuss current and future projects, which helps to get everyone’s creative juices flowing and often proves to be inspirational.

Bruintjies had always stood on her own two feet and she believed that was as much a part of her makeup as was finding answers to tricky hospitality questions.

She recalled her father once telling her that she should find a man who could support her as he had their family.

Her response to that was, “Daddy, I don’t need a man for that. I can do that myself”.

“And here I am, working hard every day to achieve just that.”