95
rooms under full P&L
Sporthotel am Semmering
Aleksander
Lukowicz
GM of a 95-room hotel. CMO of the mountain it stands on.
Semmering, Lower Austria · kowicz.com · linkedin.com/in/aleksander-lukowicz-1723411b1 · alex@kowicz.com · English, Ukrainian, Russian, Polish
- Hotel General Manager
- Sporthotel am Semmeringsince Dec 2024
- Chief Marketing Officer
- 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 marketed as one
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
-
Oct 2020
Started a BBA at Kozminski University, Warsaw
Business Administration and Management. Graduated October 2023, working the whole way through.
-
Dec 2020
Restaurant runner, over New Year
Three weeks at Sporthotel am Semmering. Polishing cutlery, clearing plates, carrying water.
-
2021–2022
Two summers of internships
Three weeks as a junior manager at Voda Club in Bukovel, then three weeks through accounting, operations, guest service and marketing at the same hotel.
-
Sep 2023
Head of rental, Bukovel
Twelve rental points and around a hundred seasonal staff.
-
Oct 2024
Back again, and General Manager by December
Returned as Head of Marketing Operations to the hotel where I had cleared plates four 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 forty people now reporting to me were between thirty and fifty. For the first six months nobody believed in me and everyone thought I was an upstart. That 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
The hotel was losing money, and everyone expected it to close.
ThenLoss-making operation
One year laterProfitable
What I walked into
- No advertising. Tests lasted a week, then someone switched them off. The standing belief was that advertising burns cash and cannibalises organic demand.
- Groups filled the rooms. Individual guests barely came, because the hotel did not advertise.
- Pricing with no logic behind it. An automated system, rates below the market, category differences that followed nothing in particular.
- A burned-out team. Rows in the kitchen and in service, too few people, constant groups and children’s groups in summer. Renovation had been promised for years.
One year later
- Profitable. From a full-year operating loss to profit.
- No rebuild, no additional owner money.
- Advertising, pricing, product, staff incentives. What changed, and how, is 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
Seventy-five creator visits over four seasons, almost all without cash. Chosen on engagement rather than follower count.
75 visits · 52 creators · 6M+ followers
Merged the hotel and the mountain into one product
The hotel and the resort worked like strangers. Their marketing barely talked, and they did nothing together. Now 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
Replaced an algorithm with no logic behind it
We dropped the broken dynamic pricing. Rates are now built up from the cost per room, with a fixed weekend supplement, an idea from our sales team.
One change · five figures
An 80-page destination website, written and coded myself
Two scattered sites became one system. I built it as a working specification and handed it to developers. The prototype is public.
- 80pages
- 15audience scenarios
- Livemountain status
- 2seasons, switched in full
Replaced staff discounts with a system people use
Instead of motivation there were scattered discounts on the restaurant, rooms and drinks. I cancelled them and brought in a monthly package: a restaurant voucher, spa or gym eight times a month, and a lift pass.
Four more, smaller
Shifted the mix towards direct
Handing everything to Booking is the lazy option. It is convenient for the guest but expensive, and in the end the guest pays the commission through the price. Direct booking got promo codes, online booking and new telephony.
Profitability tracked per room and per dish
Profitability is counted per room category and per dish. Repairs, replacements and purchasing follow those numbers.
Gave the restaurant its own brand
Grand View got its own name, look and communication, so it sells to people from the region, not only to hotel guests.
Documented an operation that ran on memory
Everything worked on word of mouth; there were no systems. I described and documented the hotel: processes, responsibilities, reporting and the seasonal staffing model.
Winter 2023/24
Ran the rental department through the peak season
One of the largest resorts in Eastern Europe. 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 existed but were only handed over if a guest asked. I changed the check-in flow so they were offered as part of the fitting. Attachment went up noticeably, from a change to a screen.
Principles
Make everything easier, clearer and simpler for the guest.
I start from a blank page
Small and mid-sized businesses have no documentation and no management. I document everything 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.
Everything goes through me first
“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.
Marketing without operations is useless
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. Every general manager here before me knew the operation and got on with people. Guests still did not come, because there was no advertising and advertising was seen as burning money.
Both businesses run through a system I built
Since the start of 2026 I have been building one base for the hotel and the resort with an AI assistant: reports, figures, descriptions, projects and tasks. It has become my left hand and helps me make hard decisions quickly. It still makes mistakes, so everything gets checked and corrected.
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 client database, the booking flow, customer analytics, and the monthly reporting the owners now read the business by. Later set the same system up for two further 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, a question about hotels and resorts, or just to say hi. Write 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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