Stay positive and remember - It's about human connection. Chitra Stern from Portugal drops by

I am a big believer in the huge impact of human connection, you know, face-to-face and being together. Family times will become even more precious in the future. Our hotels are about providing the luxury family experience to ensure that parents can have their cappuccino with the foam still on it.

Welcome everyone, welcome back to my show. And the show is called Zavaroness, and the idea is to try and make people understand that they can do anything they want and each interview is to bring some sort of value to each one of you on the planet and kind of take it to a positive way into your lifestyle and so on. The thing is, I don't know if you know this, Cheetah, and before I introduce you, is my dream—

No.

For my 40th birthday was to go travel the world and do 100 different talks, which I quite often travel and do. And sadly, corona happened, and I decided why not bring all these people into my living room. So welcome to episode number 4. Welcome, Chita. I'm so happy to have you, and you're my guest from Lisbon, Portugal.

Thank you so much, Nir. It's great to be in your living room as guest number 4.

I'm so excited. Before I ask you to give the usual elevator pitch, I have something amazing to share with you. So a couple of years ago, Spain and Portugal opened this concept that People from Jewish descendants from Spain can apply to get a passport. So, right, I just received my passport before corona happened, and basically I'm a Portuguese citizen. Is that right?

Congratulations.

Yeah, so, and you and I spoke a bit before we started this recording, so just so you know, when this is all over, I need a place to live. Okay, I'm coming. Yay! I'm totally in.

Like, so, um, well, I don't need to say welcome to Portugal because you're already Portuguese, so that's wonderful.

So I'm very excited about that. So this is a very special episode for me, just so you know. So, um, yeah, let's, let's dive in. For people who don't know you, okay, give us a short elevator pitch. You can do whatever you want.

Go. Okay, so my name is Chitra Stern. I'm in business with my husband Roman. We moved to Portugal in 2001 and started our real estate business. We've had 4 kids since then and we're all Portuguese residents. We are very proud owners of 4 hotels here under the brand name of Martinhal, which we created from scratch. The first Martinhal opened in 2010, and this year is actually the 10th anniversary of our brand. And we have 2 hotels in the Algarve and 2 in the Lisbon area, and we have a 5th one in construction in the Park of Nations, which is also a residence, branded hotel residence. And we're also building a school, an international school, to help people make the move, to help companies make the move to Portugal. So I hope to see you all in Portugal soon.

Yeah, that sounds amazing. Wait, now April, we're talking, it's mid-April. Is that like summer is there? Is it summer? Is it getting hotter?

You know, it gets warmer. I mean, you can see a bit longer picture of mine, my TEDx talk on why Portugal. I think we have one of the best climates in the world. Yes, we're having a little bit of rain here sometimes, but you know, after a couple of hours of rain, it's always sunny. So it's springtime in Portugal. We always have very early summers here. Usually by mid-March, our tourism business starts really increasing a lot and goes all the way to November. And then it slows down in December, January, February, but You know, it's still— for me, it's an all-year-round temperate climate. Beautiful.

Yeah, you know, Israelis love—

It's the California of Europe is what I normally say.

I'm sold. I'm in. You know, many Israelis, when we go traveling, which is funny, 10 months out of the year we have sun, and then when we go traveling, we always try and find another place that has sun. Doesn't matter what's the month of the year, we try and find sun. And I think we discovered Portugal a bit late because we always— we started going to Spain and then Portugal and places like that. But I think in general, the way of life is quite relaxed and you guys are warm people. How are people reacting to the situation in terms of social distancing, not hugging? How was that taken?

Yeah, so it's a tough time, there's no doubt. I mean, I myself am originally Singaporean Indian. My husband is Swiss German. We moved to Portugal in 2001 for many of the reasons I'm sure you already know, and— but the warmth of the people is one of the top reasons. The culture here is definitely about maintaining the social fabric and very close-knit community and family. Here, the grandparents, the parents, the aunts, the uncles, the cousins are very important. I'm very reminded really of my Indian roots in that sense. And people usually, as you know, give each other 2 kisses on the cheek. And this, of course, has changed. COVID has changed the way we behave a lot. But the Portuguese, without complaining, just got down to it. You know, they're disciplined, they respect society, they respect their elders. We've been trying to find out the reason, the reasons why it's worked so well in Portugal. And apart from the measures that the government quickly announced and people actually Heeding the advice of the government and respecting the rules. They also talk about the fact that we had the BCG vaccine here, which might have helped. But I really think that one of the key reasons is because every person has an avó or avô, which is a grandma, grandpa at home, or quite close by, aunts and uncles. And, you know, it was the right thing to do. to help keep them in good health. And I think that is one of the key reasons why it works here, despite the fact that we're very— we're in a society that loves to be together, spend a lot of time together, and hugs and kisses. So emotionally difficult, but just going through the pain to get to a better place on the other side of the tunnel.

Yeah, I usually assume that cultures that are less— that are more about warmth and having fun, they're usually also less disciplined. And we are now finding out that that is not usually the case. Apparently also same goes for us in Israel. People were quite disciplined in that sense of, oh, problem, we'll fix it. Again, it's never 100%, but seems like it's been working quite well. So the streets are empty, no supermarkets are open.

Yeah, same here. Supermarkets are open, pharmacies are open.

Yeah, and everybody has a dog now to walk.

If you didn't have a dog before, I think it'd be quite difficult to get one. Although sadly some have been abandoned for those who can't afford to keep a dog. But we had a dog before. My children begged me to get a dog. I resisted for a long time, but we got one 4 years ago and she's keeping us busy. So that's good. Yeah.

In general, I think that, in general, I think that the dogs at the moment are becoming truly the Man's best friend, especially if he needs to take a walk outside. So—

Yeah, I've heard of cases in Italy where, you know, people were dog sharing and the police had to find— you needed to have the license, the ownership documentation on you. You know, look, I think we've all become each other's best friends in these times, not just with the dog. You know, my children and my husband and I are spending more time together. My mother is stuck here with us. My father, unfortunately— my parents are from Singapore, Kuala Lumpur. She got stuck here. My dad is in Kuala Lumpur. But, you know, we're happy that he's staying well and she's with us. So we play games that we hadn't played in a long time. And along, or you know, in a car, which is usually when you have time, when you're driving from A to B. You decide to call a friend. And I think these sort of things are— And in a strange way, it's kind of good that he's bonding, or let's say forced to bond much more with his younger siblings. You know, so I think everyone is becoming everyone's best friend. That's the way I see it, you know.

Yeah, I think, I think in general we're becoming— we're going back, or there was a lot of talk in the last 2 or 3 years, I think, about people going back to their tiny communities of 150, 200 people, going back to buying at the local supermarket to support them, buying at the next-door coffee shops, and going back to the neighborhood concerts and stuff like that. And I think now we went back to that basic family structure, and we noticed that it works. And we noticed we don't necessarily need to work 15 hours or be on the road. And if we look at people's creativity—

Yeah, that's another matter.

No, but creativity is through the roots.

We'll be working that again when things come back. Yeah, yeah.

But the question is, will we? Will we have to work like crazy back again where now we're seeing that people are just becoming more efficient in that sense? And I was discussing with a friend of mine.

Yeah, there's no doubt. Yeah, there's no doubt that some of these things will change forever. You know, I believe that the hotel industry is one of the slowest industries to adapt to artificial intelligence and automation for some reasons. You know, it's about people-to-people contact, a lot of it. But we'll be all forced to change the way part of the team will be working. Zoom, you know, has proven to be— and Microsoft Teams have all proven to be fantastic for people who can work from home for part of the time. And yeah, I mean, that's changed forever. You're absolutely right. In businesses like ours, you know, it'll take a little bit of time for it to come back because of the fears of travel or availability of airlines. But I am a big believer in the huge impact of human connection, you know, face-to-face and being together. Family times will become even more precious in the future. Our hotels are about providing the luxury family experience to ensure that parents can have their cappuccino with the foam still on it while they're spending time with the kids. That's the concept which I didn't talk about before because it takes a little while to really explain, especially if you haven't had kids yet. I don't know, do you have kids? No.

No, I'm single. I'm doing the quarantine alone.

So pluses and minuses. One of the issues once you become a parent is that, yeah, your time is shared and, you know, little children especially require a lot of attention from parents and little luxuries become difficult to to have, you know, having that cappuccino with the foam still on it or having a shower in peace, you know, having a glass of wine with your other half. So our hotels are based around this, you know, the family togetherness, getting them together where we focus on every member of the family. And I think these times really become even more precious after the pandemic, you know, because I mean, look at Italy, how many people have lost their grandparents.

Right.

You know, the other day it was already— this news is a week old, but 100 doctors had died during the pandemic, you know, had lost their lives to coronavirus. So I really think apart from the importance of local community and, you know, buying local and all the things you said before, I also believe that people will value much more this quality time with the family. And where you live becomes even more important. I mean, you mentioned earlier that you already have a Portuguese passport. We have— And I believe that after this pandemic, especially this experience of lower number of cases and lower number of deaths and how Portuguese people value society, value the social fabric. All these reasons just add to the list of good reasons to move to Portugal because, you know, this question of where you live, why I'm saying it is in some places, you know, there's no transparent government, there is You know, society behaves in a different way as a result of the pandemic. And I think this will also really become more important, where you live, where you live your day-to-day life, you know, and it can be different to where you actually conduct your business.

So first of all, I completely agree. I have— so I live in Tel Aviv, which is probably the best city on the planet. And I own 2 bars that have been closed for over a month. And I also own a company called Streetwise where we do outsourced marketing services for various sizes of companies. And yeah, everything's gonna be different, I believe. But also, if you look at it, that made all of us— I think there's like 2 or 3 main things that I've noticed. So first of all, creativity is going through the roof and it's crazy and people are sending WhatsApps and videos and stuff, which is amazing. And suddenly people had time to focus on their hobbies. So we in Israel don't have enough time for hobbies because we work and family and so on. And then on top of that, a lot of people became— suddenly they became entrepreneurs to find a way.

Yeah.

By the way, even inventing games with their families sending that to other friends, suddenly that is happening. And I think lastly is we now appreciate the power of a moment, being with our fathers and mothers, being with our grandparents, being with friends. We went back to calling people on the phone and they're actually replying and not, hey, what do you need, on a text message. And suddenly hearing a voice again where the millennials said—

Yeah.

I don't wanna hear anyone, just text me. And suddenly they're like, can you call me? Which is interesting. And the power— but by the way, the power of a good hug became suddenly a big thing. Now you appreciate a hug. So we went from kissing twice, right, on the cheeks, and suddenly we are not allowed to touch, which is a basic human thing.

I know, I know.

And you know, I loved what you said about hotels. And I don't know if you know, there's a book called The Power of Moments, The book starts with why a 3-star small hotel in, if I'm not mistaken, that's in LA. Yeah, I think it's LA. That is the highest rated on TripAdvisor. And what they did there is a small, small thing. They have something they call the popsicle hotline. So basically every time you sit in the pool, like in the TV shows, there's a pool with a fence in the middle, and every time you pick up that phone, someone says, hello, welcome to the popsicle hotline. And you can order a popsicle and they come with the white gloves and the whole thing and they raise it up and there's a popsicle. And people talk about that moment. And when you said having a glass of wine with your significant other or appreciating that morning cappuccino, and I think we are now going to do these things. I can tell you something interesting. I wake up every day at 6:30. And I don't have kids. And by quarter to 7, I'm out the door sitting in the best coffee shop around my neighborhood having a coffee before they open. They open at 7. I sit there at a quarter to. And it's a thing. It's my thing for years. I started this in 2014. And now because everything is closed and we're allowed to go 100 meters out of our radius, and some of my friends, we also in that coffee shop, so we live 100 meters. So we made a decision, we'll meet every morning on a bench next to the coffee shop. Everyone brings their own coffee that they like from home and we'll do it. And now we're saying that when they open, we are not sure we're gonna revert back to buying that coffee mug. And we might just keep doing this on a bench. It's our thing now. You know, it's our moment. And I assume that a lot of new moments will start happening all around the world and there will be so many new things to explore and capture that people create within their mind and share with other people.

You know, that we encouraged people to use when they were posting moments on Instagram or on anywhere on social media. And in fact, you know, we sent out last week a newsletter to connect with our guests again at home before Easter to wish them a happy Easter. And it was amazing actually the response because we sent some coloring kits for the kids to remind them of the mascots and some nice recipes for traditional Portuguese colar. You know, it's a typical Easter bread as well as a leg of lamb or kid, whichever you preferred. And the response was overwhelming and people wrote back with photos, posting photos of kids coloring in the pictures of their, you know, them making these dishes and asking for other recipes of the favorite dishes that they miss from Martinelle. So look, it's all about building those memories in my opinion and I totally agree with you. creating your moment, you know, new moments and into the future. The one thing is for sure, all the things we used to take for granted, we're being reminded how important they are right now. And it will be for the future. You know, even my children's generation will remember this period well into their lives. And, you know, I look forward to the day that I can go more than 100 meters, you know, to the beaches again, the beaches of Portugal. And boy, will I sniff that air and look at the sunshine and look at the waves and feel completely different when I'm able to do that again.

That's amazing. Chita, I want to say thank you so much for being a guest on my show. And I know you're busy and I appreciate it. And thank you so much.

Thank you, Nir. It has been an honor and a pleasure. Let's get through this time. And I really look forward to meeting you in person when you're back in Lisbon. And let's pray for this tough time to, to get over quickly and new beginnings in a few months' time.

Okay, definitely. I hope I still see you in 2020. Guys, thank you so much if you tuned in. Yeah, so if you tuned in and you like it, if you have a guest, a guest that you think might be interesting to have on this show, please write us in the comments. Feel free to share, like, subscribe, whatever you want, and we'll see you soon. And, uh, Chitra, thank you so much for being a guest. Thank you.

Thank you, Nir. Thank you for the honor, and, uh, here's to 100 people in your living room soon.

Thank you.