Vularewa Seru’s fascination for tourism started back in high school. Merely two decades later, this Lawaki, Nakasaleka, Kadavu woman stands tall among other employees after being offered leadership role by the Tanoa Hotel Group.
Ms Seru, 32 is Lautoka’s Tanoa Waterfront hotel manager, a role she was promoted to three months ago.
After graduating with a Bachelor of Commerce majoring in tourism and public administration from the University of the South Pacific in 2012, she stumbled upon a training program offered by the local hotel chain thus the beginning of her commitment with the Tanoa Hotel.
Ms Seru’s impressive performance awed management after she defied all odds and punched above her weight to deliver the best services she could offer to guests at the Waterfront in the past 10 years.
“It was something I wanted to go into, it is a local hotel chain and I was more interested and excited to be part of it,” Ms Seru said.
“I started off here as a senior duty manager under the leadership of Narend Kumar and made my way up and the journey so far has been sensational.
“I’m privileged as well because of the fact that the management and owners value you and they know how important their employees are.”
Vula as she is commonly known shared that she had been grateful for the opportunity she was given and the confidence to allow her to manager around 60 employees at the Lautoka-based property.
The massive return of tourists to Fiji coincides with her taking up this leadership role and it has been exciting for her so far.
Being a female leader is a challenge in itself but a good support team and a better understanding of operations has helped Ms Seru conquer well her daily leadership roles.
“I have got top management that have been helping me a lot and with the opening of the borders, we have had a good inflow of guests.
“Apart from it being a local hotel chain, they value their employees, the longer you work for them, the more they value you.
“Mr Reddy (director) knows us by names and that is something I really admire and something I work towards in life, to be humble and kind. Ms Seru was brought up in a sugar sector background; her father spanned his career in the sugar industry and her husband a staff of the Fiji Sugar Corporation. Transiting into tourism is a blessing for the Lautoka woman because interacting with people from different walks of life and meeting guests is something she considers her peace of mind. Being a hotel manager, she hopes to look into improving consistency of service at the Waterfront.
“We can get in as many people as we can but if the service is not here, people won’t come back, a lot of skilled workers are going and we are trying our best to being in the right people.”
Tanoa Group area general manager Narend Kumar said management of the local hotel chain had always believed in providing equal opportunity for its employees.
He said in the six Fiji properties, three females were managers in the Suva, Rakiraki and Lautoka properties.
“Vula has been out star performer in the past couple of years, during COVID things were slow and there wasn’t much movement and as a group we eyed her to become a manager from a long time,” Mr Kumar said.
“We hired her when the opportunity came up, she is very well versed with Tanoa Hotel, she’s one the most experienced person on the ground, deals with people and operations for a long time, we have no hesitation in recommending her to this position.
“We have three females managers, all were promoted within and we recognise their efforts and we give them their promotion.”
Mr Kumar said the six properties had record around 85 per cent occupancies in the past six months.
