95
rooms under full P&L
Sporthotel am Semmering
Aleksander
Lukowicz
Runner hereat this hotel in 2019. General Manager at 21.
Semmering, Lower Austria · kowicz.com · linkedin.com/in/aleksander-lukowicz · alex@kowicz.com · English, Ukrainian, Russian, Polish · German in progress
- Hotel General Manager
- Sporthotel am Semmeringsince Dec 2024
- Head of Marketing
- Semmering-Hirschenkogel Bergbahnensince May 2025
Now
Two businesses on the same mountain, an hour from Vienna. I run the operation of one and the marketing of the other.
15,000m²
operated footprint
Restaurant for 150, pool, two saunas, gym, seminar floors
40+
people on the hotel team
Nine department heads
6M+
followers across 52 creators, almost all on barter
75 visits over four seasons
Six figures
annual digital budget
Google and Meta, three markets
4
businesses, one marketing team
Hotel, restaurant, mountain, Liechtensteinhaus
I advertise what sells best and brings in the most money. The priority comes from the numbers, not from taste.
The road here
-
Dec 2019
Restaurant runner, over New Year
Three weeks at Sporthotel am Semmering. Polishing cutlery, clearing plates, carrying water.
-
Oct 2020
Started a BBA at Kozminski University, Warsaw
Business Administration and Management. Graduated October 2023, working the whole way through.
-
2021–2022
Two summers of internships
Three weeks as a junior manager at Voda Club in Bukovel, then three weeks through every department of the same hotel.
-
Sep 2023
Head of rental, Bukovel
One of the largest resorts in Eastern Europe, winter 2023/24.
-
Oct 2024
Back again, and General Manager by December
Returned as Head of Marketing Operations to the hotel where I had cleared plates five years earlier. Two months later I was asked whether I was ready to take the hotel. I said yes, and it was scary. I was 21. Most of the team was between thirty and fifty. Earning their trust was the hardest part.
-
May 2025
And the mountain on top of it
Took on the marketing of the resort the hotel stands on.
Before any of that: weekends at a car service changing wheels and spark plugs, and a few months as a runner at a churrascaria. I have been working since I was fourteen.
Built
Hotel and restaurant: from a loss to a profit in a year.
ThenAt a loss
One year laterIn profit
The brief
- Bring in individual guests. The rooms were filled mostly by groups, and the hotel hardly advertised.
- Get the rates right. Prices sat below the market, and the room categories barely differed.
- Take the load off the team. Too few people for constant groups, and children’s groups every summer.
The result
- In profit before group overheads, with no rebuild. Advertising, pricing, product and staff incentives, all below.
Hotel and mountain
&
&
Built the advertising function from nothing
I ran the account myself for six months and wrote the creative as I went, then handed it to an agency.
- €5 a day, switched off
- €30, then €50, then €100 a day, run by me
- Four figures a season
- Five figures a season
- Six figures a year, Google and Meta, three markets, around 30M impressions
Six million followers on a barter budget
Chosen on engagement rather than follower count.
75 visits · 52 creators · 6M+ followers
One marketing team for the hotel and the mountain
The hotel and the resort used to market themselves separately. Now one department with ten roles does the marketing for both. The hotel sells the mountain as its main advantage, and the mountain sells the hotel, its spa, the restaurant and the group offer.
- Packages
- Campaigns
- Calendar
- Voice
Rebuilt the room rates
A fixed weekend supplement, an idea from our sales team, and five room tiers instead of three.
An 82-page destination website, written and coded myself
Two separate sites became one system. I built it as a working specification and handed it to developers.
- 82pages
- 15audience scenarios
- Livemountain status
- 2seasons, switched in full
Replaced staff discounts with a system people use
Scattered discounts on the restaurant, rooms and drinks became up to four vouchers a month: a meal, the pool, the gym or a lift pass.
Two more, smaller
Gave the restaurant its own brand
Grand View now sells to the region, not only to hotel guests.
Wrote the hotel down
Processes, responsibilities, reporting and the seasonal staffing model.
Winter 2023/24
Ran the rental department through the peak season
Twelve rental points and around a hundred seasonal staff.
Rental points12
Seasonal staff~100
Built a demand model that beat expert judgement
The season’s equipment was ordered on the chief technician’s experience. I spent two months on the alternative: pulled the full check-in history, where every guest enters height, weight and category, and mapped demand point by point. Then folded in what each location implies, because a car park brings day visitors and therefore more children. Run head to head, the totals matched and the distribution was more accurate.
Rebuilt pay around output
Flat salaries pay the fastest fitter and the slowest one the same. I designed the bonus system and ran it: fitting speed measured from the till, each point against its plan, weighted by how busy the location actually is so a quiet point is not punished for being quiet. Published monthly.
One more, smaller
Turned a check-in screen into a sales channel
Goggles went out only if a guest asked. I made them part of the fitting, and attachment went up noticeably.
Principles
Make everything easier, clearer and simpler for the guest.
I start from a blank page
Most small businesses run on memory. I write everything down and rebuild it: where we are now, what came before, where we are going. On the mountain that meant three or four walks with the operations manager and a notepad: this is crooked, this sign needs updating, this needs paint.
Zero or one
A marketer who does not understand operations is a zero. An operator who does not understand marketing is a one: a little better than zero, but still bad.
I build it so it runs without me
“From now on, every decision goes through me.” For the first six months that meant every purchase, booking, group, price and post. After a year and a half I was out of it: people had learned what to ask and what to decide themselves. Now only money, contracts, guarantees and serious conflicts come to me. Since the start of 2026 I have been building one base for the hotel and the resort with an AI assistant. It has become my left hand. It still makes mistakes, so everything gets checked.
On the side
Things I built outside the two jobs, mostly to find out whether they would work.
Comme il Faut
Started with the marketing, ended up running the commercial back end: Altegio CRM, the booking flow and the monthly reporting the owners read the business by. Later set the same system up for two more salons in the city.
- CRM
- Client analytics
- Financial accounting
- Pricing
- Reporting
TOKA
A charging station from paperwork to exit. I poured the foundation, welded the bollard, set up the feedback forms and the cameras, and dealt with the cars that parked there without charging. Sold to Go To-U at break-even or slightly above.
- Paperwork
- Build
- First charge
- Exit
Camera roll
14 photos, swipe sideways
Talk.
For work or a question about hotels and resorts, write to me in English, Ukrainian or Russian.
Outside work: a B58 with far too many kilometres on it, long drives, and Pink Floyd.
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