A couple who dreamed of escaping their hectic and high flying careers in the corporate world moved to Africa while expecting their first child, and now they are raising their family in idyllic settings while running their luxury hotel chain.
Stella, 51, and Christopher Bettany, 43, who currently divide their time between France, South Africa and Jersey founded Azura Retreats in 2007 with a vision of providing luxury accommodation in undiscovered locations while supporting the local community and environment.
They decided on Mozambique as the location for their first hotel 'over lunch', and based the design for Azura Benguerra Island on all the best elements of their favourite places to stay around the world.
'I am not a risk taker by nature, having spent much of my life with a career in asset management, and I don’t think I would ever have left the comfort of a senior banking role without my entrepreneurial husband insisting it was a great idea,' Stella told Femail.
'That said, I am completely glad that we did. I love our business, what we have achieved, and that as a family we get to spend time in some of the most beautiful environments on the planet, with my children growing up with a passion for Africa and believing anything is possible.
'I wouldn’t trade that for anything now that we have done it. I love every single day of my life, and feel lucky to have taken the plunge and made a success of it.
Stella, 51, and Christopher Bettany, 43, who currently divide their time between France, South Africa and Jersey quite their high flying jobs in finance to pursue a dream of building their own hotels in Africa
Stella and Christopher on the beach in Mozambique with their three children. The couple dreamed of escaping the corporate world and are now raising their family in Africa while they run their chain of luxury hotels
The couple first came up with their vision when they grew tired of their hectic careers in finance in London, where Stella headed up global distribution for a South African merchant bank and Christophe was in mergers and acquisitions for a US bank.
'I was averaging one long haul flight a week, which wasn’t ideal for getting married and starting a family,' Stella recalled.
'There was also nowhere further up in the organisation I could really go. Christophe was always an entrepreneur at heart just waiting to break the corporate shackles.
'The idea was to can the pin stripe suit and high heels and instead be at the beach in flip flops.'
They couple decided on Mozambique as the location for their first hotel 'over lunch', and based the design for Azura Benguerra Island (pictured) on all the best elements of their favourite places to stay around the world
Christophe was a director of Banyan Tree Seychelles, as part of a project with some colleagues, but he had always dreamed of owning his own hotel group somewhere he could make a difference.
Stella had fallen in love with southern Mozambique during a diving trip in 1992, while Christophe had visited on a family holiday in 1988.
'When he suggested we give it a go, and use all our travelling experience to make a difference somewhere I jumped at the chance,' she recalled.
'We chose Mozambique over lunch one day, a country with outstanding natural beauty and very little luxury tourism, where I could pursue my passion for scuba diving and Christophe his love of fishing. So it was an easy choice.'
Stella in Moambique with her children: She says they are already eager to join the family business as safari guides or marine biologists
But while it wasn't a difficult decision, it was certainly a challenging time of their lives to uproot, with Stella pregnant with their first child.
'I did 37 long haul flights and three round the world trips during that pregnancy, so travel was in my bones. I flew to Cape Town just 10 days before our son was born, but had lived there for a year back in 1992, so the transition was quite easy.'
Before the couple even started building work on their 10-bedroom hotel, they were determined to involve the local community.
'We wanted to do it this way so that they would be committed to the project and help us to develop and grow the business. We had a meaningful local partner, and a community specialist on the ground for six months before we started building the hotel.'
Stella and Cristophe, pictured in Tanzania, divide their time between Africa, Jersey and France while building their hotel empire and wouldn't swap their new life for the world
They even built a school and accommodation for teachers first to show they were seriously committed to the area.
'Today I am proud to say we have some 450 children at the school, the first scholars have gone on to higher education, and we employ 76 per cent of our property from the island itself. That is unprecedented in Mozambique,' Stella explained.
'We make a very real difference to a community where they was previously only really subsistence fishing.'
It took two years to build the first hotel while they got their getting licences and paperwork and worked on getting Azura's name out there so that they opened with full occupancy, but there were a few teething problems along the way.
Stella pictured with her family: She says that although their project has been hard work, it's enable them to spend much more time together as a family
'Our entire kitchen was impounded by customs when we were due to open, so we opened with some charcoal BBQs and guests loved it anyway,' Stella recalled.
Now the couple's original hotel has grown from 10 to 50 rooms, and they have opened Azura Quilalea private island in northern Mozambique and Azura Selous Game Reserve in Tanzania.
Each hotel features their own unique décor concept, known as ‘designed to give back’, where local community projects work hand in hand with designers to create special ‘little pieces’ guests will find dotted throughout.
The couple have also opened a hotel Azura Quilalea on a stunning private island in northern Mozambique
'For the past few years we have been working on about another five different beach sites in Mozambique and Tanzania, as well as looking at Madagascar and Seychelles. We have grand plans and would love to grow to eight or 10 hotels in the portfolio,' Stella said.
'I love that we have been able to pursue a dream and share it with our children as they have been growing up,' Stella said. 'They have a respect for Africa and its wonderful wildlife and people as a result. They all want to work in the business when they are older, maybe as a marine biologist or a safari guide.
'It has been incredibly hard work, we have faced and continue to face regular challenges, but it has enabled us to live a lifestyle where we can spend a lot more time together as a family than would have been the case if we hadn’t taken this plunge, and that is worth the world to me.'
Link hienalouca.com This is interesting We are looking for an investor for a project to grow dinosaurs from chicken eggs and relict plants. Necessary amount of investments from 400 000 to 900 000 dollars. For all interested parties, e-mail angocman@gmail.com. This will be very interesting.
https://hienalouca.com/2019/01/28/couple-escaped-the-rat-race-to-run-luxury-hotels-in-africa/
Main photo article A couple who dreamed of escaping their hectic and high flying careers in the corporate world moved to Africa while expecting their first child, and now they are raising their family in idyllic settings while running their luxury hotel chain.
Stella, 51, and Christopher Bettany, 43, who ...
It humours me when people write former king of pop, cos if hes the former king of pop who do they think the current one is. Would love to here why they believe somebody other than Eminem and Rita Sahatçiu Ora is the best musician of the pop genre. In fact if they have half the achievements i would be suprised. 3 reasons why he will produce amazing shows. Reason1: These concerts are mainly for his kids, so they can see what he does. 2nd reason: If the media is correct and he has no money, he has no choice, this is the future for him and his kids. 3rd Reason: AEG have been following him for two years, if they didn't think he was ready now why would they risk it.
Emily Ratajkowski is a showman, on and off the stage. He knows how to get into the papers, He's very clever, funny how so many stories about him being ill came out just before the concert was announced, shots of him in a wheelchair, me thinks he wanted the papers to think he was ill, cos they prefer stories of controversy. Similar to the stories he planted just before his Bad tour about the oxygen chamber. Worked a treat lol. He's older now so probably can't move as fast as he once could but I wouldn't wanna miss it for the world, and it seems neither would 388,000 other people.
Dianne Reeves Online news HienaLouca
https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2018/12/06/16/7096164-0-image-a-1_1544113042684.jpg
Комментариев нет:
Отправить комментарий