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2 Cornell Hotel School
Passport to Adventure
Liv Gussing ’91 makes a trail around the globe
By Bill Summers
By age nine she had lived in Sweden, Somalia, Ethiopia and
Switzerland. At 17, she had worked in a Swedish hotel and a Swiss
hospital and learned four languages. Little wonder, then, that Liv
Gussing chose to study at the Cornell Hotel School, or that her
career has since taken her to Thailand, Morrocco and Indonesia,
where, at age 35, she runs one of the world’s premier hotels.
Born to a Swedish father and a mother from India who was
raised in Kenya, Gussing’s thirst for adventure is embedded in
her genetic code. When her father was 15, he spent his summer
holiday traveling on an oil tanker from
Sweden through the Panama Canal to
Vancouver. At about the same time her
mother was making her way from England
back to Kenya, by train through France,
Italy, Egypt and Ethiopia.
“My parents were explorers and they
passed that devotion on to me,” Gussing
observed. “I love moving around and feel
at home in most places. I can pack a bag in
one hour and be ready to go anywhere.”
It was through her father’s work with the
Red Cross that Gussing saw so much at
such a young age. Days after she started
first grade in Sweden, her father was assigned to work in East Africa. During four years in Somalia and
Ethiopia, Gussing and her mother traveled often to Kenya, where
they took safaris and visited the British school where her mother
had been the first non-white ever to teach in that system.
When Gussing was nine her family moved to Geneva,
Switzerland, where she completed her studies at the International
School. From their home in the hub of Europe they made frequent trips to neighboring countries, and Gussing learned to
augment her English and Swedish with French and Spanish.
Gussing’s travels gave her an informed view on the hospitality
industry she would later join. So, too, did her father’s work and
her parents’ commitment to social responsibility, which she calls
an essential fabric in the Swedish culture. Many times she was
made aware of those less fortunate, such as on a visit she made at
age eight to a camp for displaced people in Somalia.
“My dad and I got out of the mini-bus and people surrounded
us,” she recalled. “Several kids my age moved toward the front,
and we just gazed at each other in wonder.”
At 16, Gussing left Geneva to spend the summer as a housekeeping maid at The Strand, a five-star hotel in
Stockholm, Sweden. It was a sobering entry
into the working world.
“After the first two days I was so exhausted I could barely move,” she said. “My
body ached from cleaning, scrubbing and
lifting.”
Still, she gained new perspective on the
kinds of hardships people endure and the
lengths they go to in order to carry on.
Among her co-workers at the hotel were
several Chilean political refugees who had
been doctors, nurses and teachers, but were
rebuilding their lives in a new country.
The following two summers, Gussing
worked as a waitress in the restaurant of Geneva’s main hospital,
where she served doctors and nurses. Because the hospital was
funded by the state, she earned excellent pay and benefits, more
per hour than she would make in her first few jobs out of school.
She also saw for the first time the challenges of motivating people
who do the same job every day.
Inspired by her work in the hospital and hotel, Gussing decided
to pursue a career in hospitality.
“I wanted a job that would present new challenges and allow me
to use my languages,” she observed. “I also was drawn to the in-
“As a friend, Liv is exceptional. She is the kind of
person who you like to hang
out with, who listens to your
problems, and who you can
laugh with. Everyone admires her and loves to be
around her.”
At left: Liv Gussing ’91 in Bali, Indonesia.
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Gussing with her daughter, Isara.
dustry because I knew it would allow me to continue exploring
the world.”
Gussing enrolled at the Hotel School in 1987 and sought out
opportunities to lead. Among her most vivid memories is Hotel
Ezra Cornell, a conference the students plan and run over a weekend each spring. Gussing ran banquets her sophomore year and
marketing the next before being named managing director as a
senior.
“The year-long preparation and the event itself enabled us to
practice the knowledge and skills we were taught in the classroom,” she remarked. “It was a powerful lesson in how a group of
people with a shared vision and passion could create an extraordinary weekend.”
Sometimes her learning came in more humble ways. In a class
on management Gussing got her first chance to start and run a
business. Her team chose to make and sell submarine sandwiches. They bought the ingredients, made the sandwiches at
fraternities around campus and trudged through the dorms late at
night to sell their goods.
“It was not a very successful business,” Gussing recalled. “But it
was a valuable lesson in learning how important it is to select the
right business — and the right business partners.”
Gussing also reflects fondly on the faculty’s devotion to advising students as individuals. In her view, that attribute is best em-
4 Cornell Hotel School
bodied by one of the three faculty members she served as a
teaching assistant, Senior Lecturer Giuseppe Pezzotti ’84, MPS
’96.
“Giuseppe was accessible to all his students,” she remarked.
“His energy and commitment is legendary. He is a tremendous
ambassador for the School.”
After graduating in 1991, Gussing agreed to join a hotel company in Thailand. She postponed her start date by one year, however, so she could work at The St. Regis in New York City, which
was reopening as ITT Sheraton’s flagship hotel. Gussing donned
a black tuxedo and white gloves to become one of 30 butlers.
Catering to the needs of her guests, she ran baths, polished shoes
and provided room service, often for celebrities and royalty, including Harry Connick Jr., the Prime Minister of Sweden and
members of the Thai Royal family.
A year later, Gussing moved to Bangkok where she joined
Dusit, a family-owned hotel company operating eight five-star
hotels in Thailand. She spent two years developing standard operating procedures, traveling often to inspect those procedures at
each hotel. She then moved to the Dusit Thani College, a vocational training school where she taught marketing skills. In the
Thai culture, Gussing found, the professor is always right and
does little more than lecture to a class of silent students.
“Thai students would never speak back or voice an opinion that
was different from the professor’s,” Gussing said. “It took a while
before I could get the students to share their opinions, however
different from mine.”
In 1996 Gussing left Dusit to take a few months off before a
planned return to the U.S. for graduate school. While touring
Asia, she stopped to spend six weeks teaching basic English to 50
hill-tribe orphans at a camp in northern Thailand. Aside from her
lessons, Gussing and the children passed time fighting bush fires
and watering plants. She said that learning English was not so
important to the children, who were grateful to live in a home and
interact with people. Gussing even prepared the meals, which,
despite her culinary training, proved a daunting challenge.
“We cooked rice in a big pot on a charcoal fire, and despite
those Cornell cooking classes, we burned it almost every day,”
Gussing recalled.
Returning from camp, Gussing fell into Amanresorts through
a Cornell contact. She put graduate school on hold and accepted a
job as front office manager at The Strand in Yangon, Myanmar
(formerly Rangoon, Burma), a city known for its street markets,
bookstalls, temples, monks and Indian movie theaters. Among
her duties, she trained all hotel employees in how to cater to the
needs of a well-traveled clientele who were paying over 500
American dollars each night. She stressed to her team the cultural
differences among the guests, who came from Europe, America,
Japan and across Southeast Asia. Yet Gussing learned that no
matter how much training she gave, not all cultural gaps could be
bridged.
One day a butler showed her a pair of guest shoes that he had
caked with polish.
“Ms Liv, can you help me get this off?” the man asked.
The shoes were suede.
“I realized that I had not given enough detail in my shoe polish
training,” Gussing said. “Fortunately, that kind of eager mistake
was rare.”
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One morning, the hotel staff decided to throw a surprise birthday breakfast for the general manager, John Reed ’90. After bagels and salmon, five monks arrived to bless Reed for the coming
year. For thirty minutes the monks chanted around Reed while
the staff sat by. It was only after the monks had left that the banquet manager explained that they had misunderstood their mission and had done a special blessing for Reed and his girlfriend.
The couple has since been married – in a ceremony performed by
different monks.
On another occasion guests mistook Gussing for a local, complimenting her on how well she spoke English.
After one year in Yangon, Gussing embarked on a furious run
around the globe, helping to open new Amanresorts hotels in
Borobudur, Indonesia; Jackson Hole, Wyoming; Bora Bora,
French Polynesia; and then Marrakech, Morocco. At each hotel
she worked with the general manager to structure and hire staff
and set up the rooms function.
In 2000, Gussing returned to Thailand as resident manager of
the Amanpuri in Phuket. She trained and developed staff, showing them how to pamper guests in the exquisite style Aman is
known for. She also managed the building of a new spa that was
recently voted the best in the world.
“As the number two, I was incredibly busy,” she said. “But I had
a wonderful mentor and general manager who encouraged me to
learn and grow.”
In March 2003, Gussing was named general manager of
Amandari in Bali, a 30-suite resort with extensive gardens that
sits above Bali’s sacred Ayung River. It is a tiny village where
everyone knows everyone else. Villagers walk through the resort
on the way to the rice-fields where they work. Kids visit the hotel
often to practice dance under a teacher sponsored by the resort.
Amandari has proven a stern challenge for Gussing. Named the
best hotel in the world in the 1990s, it has suffered a steep drop in
business since a terrorist’s bomb exploded in Bali in October
2002.
“It is a great shame that people have associated Bali with the
bomb for so long,” Gussing said. “I believe people’s fears are misguided. This Hindu island is very tolerant of different people and
is safer than most places in the world. It is also an island that is
spiritually strong and rich in culture and geographic diversity.”
When she takes a break from managing Amandari, Gussing
commits much time to the Hotel School, just as she has since
graduation. In 1994, she established and became president of the
Thailand chapter of the Cornell Hotel Society (CHS). Later she
became the regional vice president for Asia-Pacific, coordinating
efforts among 10 chapters. She serves as class director, has interviewed many prospective Hotel School students and has presented the Hotel School in classrooms around the world. Last
year, she was named a member of the Cornell University
Council.
Indeed, Gussing’s commitment to her fellow alumni is legendary. She once traveled for 30 hours from Thailand to Florida to
spend a weekend at a CHS Leadership Summit. Two years ago,
while pregnant, she flew from Indonesia to Vietnam for less than
24 hours for the Asia Pacific CHS Conference.
In 1999, Gussing made a lasting imprint on the School’s freshmen when she returned to Ithaca and shared anecdotes from her
career in the Dean’s Distinguished Lecture Series.
Gussing runs the Amandari resort in Bali.
“Liv opens your mind to a world beyond your own,” said
Pezzotti, a senior lecturer. “She gets people to think globally —
and not just about the United States. She is a professional, but
more importantly, she is a wonderful person with a great heart. ”
Gussing encourages the School to continue taking a more
global approach. She recalled that much of the case studies she
learned from in School were based on hospitality practices in the
United States.
“Many of the trends and unique features in the industry are
happening in other parts of the world,” Gussing observed. “This
is a global industry, and I think the School is doing well to take a
global perspective.”
Gussing, whose first name means “life” in Swedish, continues
to broaden her world view. She has to renew her passport about
every three years, a telling testament to a life lived to its fullest.
“Liv is an amazing person,” said Maureen Tarantello ’91. “She
has lived in more countries and met and touched more people
than anyone I know.”
As much as she gives to her career, Gussing shows the same devotion to her friends.
“As a friend, Liv is exceptional,” said Regan Taiktisadaporn
’93. “She is the kind of person who you like to hang out with, who
listens to your problems, and who you can laugh with. Everyone
admires her and loves to be around her.”
Gussing and her Italian companion, Ermanno, now have a
daughter, Isara, who is one. Isara takes daily walks in the ricefields, watching the roosters, geese and dogs that live nearby. In
their free time, they sail among the remote islands in Southeast
Asia and visit new places around the globe.
“We shall keep exploring for as long as we can,” she said. “That
is the beauty of this industry.”
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