Time for service with a smile

Employees of the AX Hotels Group got the red carpet treatment yesterday. Photo: Darrin Zammit Lupi

Hotel staff heading for what they thought was an ordinary training seminar ended up posing for the camera in what turned out to be a bid to promote smiling on the job.

Little did employees of the AX Hotels Group know that they were going to be joined by local personalities for a series of heart-warming talks on positivity – and that the media were going to be invited along too.

Congolese maintenance worker Jean Madie Ouednaoeo was visibly taken aback but delighted by the unorthodox team building exercise.

Beaming from ear to ear, he wrapped his arms around two Serbian chamber maids and said: “Guests say my smile is warm and heartfelt. What can I say, my job makes me happy.”

The way I see it, you need to be happy to spread happiness

Among the speakers was TVM news anchor Keith Demicoli, who went red in the face when taking off his jacket was deliberately misconstrued as the start of a striptease.

“I’m just doing away with the formalities,” he said.

He told hotel staff about a group of journalists who attended a youth journalism conference he had organised.

“The smile on the hotel receptionist’s face was the highlight of the whole event,” he recalled.

Mr Demicoli was joined by actor and former athlete Xandru Grech, whose idea of happiness being a day off on a boat was met with cries of “we’re all in the same boat” from his audience.

And it was grins all round when Donald Camilleri, a hotel maintenance worker, was crowned the company’s first “Smile Champion”.

Mr Camilleri said: “Every morning I’m asked why I’m smiling. The way I see it, you need to be happy to spread happiness.”