Vanessa Rajnish strives to bring back ‘How may I help you?’ mentality to hospitality

By: Brittny Valdes/Contributing Writer

Vanessa Rajnish has a Swiss mother and Colombian father, was born in Italy, raised in Saudi Arabia and completed high school in the southern state of Georgia. Her homes have danced across the globe and as a result have made her a passionate fan of travelling.

“I love travelling,” Rajnish said. “I’m happy when I’m at hotels, I like making people happy and at hotels they give ultimate customer service.”

Rajnish realizes her passion every time she enters a hotel, which is why she chose the University and its School of Hospitality upon her freshman year in 2008.

This year, Rajnish’s experience with hospitality around the world has promoted her to lead student associate coordinator for the Student Associate Team of the Food Network’s South Beach Wine & Food Festival.

This year marks the festival’s 10th year anniversary and falls right on Rajnish’s 21st birthday.

Since her inaugural festival in 2009, Rajnish has spent the last three years attributing her kindness and desire to see people smile to the festival. She has worked on both the student and media teams of the festival, but found her passion lay on the student side.

Being the coordinator is a very “fast-paced, interactive and personal position,” Rajnish said. The personal part is the reason she likes it the most.

Rajnish wants students to feel the same way her peers made her feel when she first volunteered. So matching the 1,100 student volunteers’ interests with festival positions is one of Rajnish’s top priorities.

“I want [the students] to have the best experience possible,” Rajnish said.

Other important duties include signing the students up for orientations, awarding the individual scholarships at the festival’s finale, and finding find last minute solutions when operations do not run as planned.

Rajnish explained organizing an event with such a guest to worker ratio can be quite tedious and difficult, especially when the issue most students have comes into play: not being able to work the multi-day positions.

Rajnish’s greatest drawback is when volunteers do not show up, according to Rajnish

“Even though there are 200 more student volunteers, those that didn’t show still had a specific job and now we need to rush to find others to fill their role,” Rajnish said.

Since her first years with the festival, Rajnish has seen it evolve and improve in various ways.

One of those ways, she explained, is this year’s addition of a hired SWAT team to substitute any missing volunteers.

Other upgrades she revealed include: the festival’s new website, www.sobefest.fiu.edu; plans for a Wine & Food Festival on the University’s Tiajin, China campus; and the latest event added to the festival’s itinerary, “Brunch at Sea with Michael Genuine,” a fantastic dining and yachting experience.

The little things of hospitality are what initially sparked Rajnish’s interest in the industry.

“It’s the things you don’t even think about,” Rajnish said. “Like when you go to an event and you park valet, if it goes smoothly you don’t think twice about it, but if something goes wrong that’s what you talk about for the next hour.”

It is the “How may I help you?” mentality in and by which Rajnish believes and lives and she laments it’s status in Miami.

“People are more genuine and not out for themselves all the time [in Switzerland],” Rajnish said. “Switzerland has a ‘how may I help you mentality’ that is practically non-existent in this big city.”

It is kindness that gives Rajnish reason to live a life devoted to hospitality.

“No matter how different people are, kindness is the same in every culture,” Rajnish said.

She loves seeing people smile and as simple as it may seem, her ultimate reward is in a “thank you.”