New hotel manager at the Bareiss

BAIERSBRONN. The 5* Superior Bareiss holiday resort in the Black Forest has a new hotel manager. Hannes and Britta Bareiss, together with the resort’s senior owner Hermann Bareiss, have entrusted 40-year-old Clemens Degenhardt with responsibility for front-of-house operations, marketing, sales, housekeeping and day-to-day operations. As hotel manager, Degenhardt is also a member of the management team and the family’s ‘right-hand man’, whilst the family continues to take full responsibility for the active management of the hotel, including all investment, operational and personnel decisions.

Clemens Degenhardt, born in Bremen, is a 5* Superior professional with international experience; most recently, as Executive Assistant Manager at the Taschenbergpalais Kempinski in Dresden, he was responsible for the hotel’s day-to-day management. Since 2011, Degenhardt has held management positions responsible for marketing, national and international sales, staff management and catering development at the German hotels of Starwood Hotels & Resorts; for the Jumeirah luxury hotels in Frankfurt and Rome; the Gekko Group in Frankfurt and Baden-Baden; and the pre-opening of The Diaoyutai Mansion Frankfurt. After 15 years of global corporate experience, Degenhardt made a conscious decision to switch to the private luxury hospitality sector. His motivation stems from a professional and personal desire for closer proximity and contact with guests.

At the Bareiss – whose standing and standards as one of the world’s finest privately run resorts in the high-end segment are highly demanding – he is also fascinated by the exceptional individuality evident in the thoroughly professional yet warm manner in which the owner family and the team interact both with their guests and amongst themselves. “Hannes and Britta Bareiss don’t just know their staff by name. They are also attentive to personal concerns and respond to individual situations or circumstances.” Guests experience the same: “The luxury at the Bareiss is not aloof; it does not create distance. All these outstanding and first-class amenities are there for the guests. They can sense that. Here, you’re allowed to be completely yourself.” When asked what ultimately sets the Bareiss apart, the new director says: “However clichéd it may sound, on all my previous visits I have experienced a warmth amongst the team and towards the guests that I’ve never encountered or felt before. It’s not a cliché, it’s reality: anyone can be happy here – every guest, every member of staff.”

When asked whether they themselves are happy with their new director, Hannes and Britta Bareiss reply: “Otherwise, we would hardly have entrusted Clemens Degenhardt with this enormous task. Apart from the fact that he is a seasoned professional through and through, above all, he has our trust. Professionalism is one thing, and it’s indispensable. But trust is even more indispensable. As director of the Bareiss, he works more closely with the family than anyone else. The Bareiss is, in every respect, no place for self-promoters or those seeking the limelight. We are, so to speak, a hotel ‘imbued with family values’ through and through. This applies both to our management and to our international clientele. Clemens Degenhardt is fully integrated into the team. And he occupies a crucial pivotal position – quite literally. We are delighted that he is one of the ‘pillars’ supporting the Bareiss: the excellence of service and the warmth of hospitality.”

Clemens Degenhardt, a runner, budding racing cyclist and passionate foodie, is the father of two sons, aged six and four, and lives in Freudenstadt with his wife and their two boys.