Arrived from Verona in 1993 with a suitcase, a few clothes and a lot of determination, Renato Grussu, built in over thirty years an extraordinary career in the heart of New York. Today, its travel agency “Arriva Travel” is a reference point for high-level government delegations, fashion, food, tech companies and for individual travellers arriving in the United States. But the route from Juliet to Lady Liberty has not always been easy.
When I arrived in New York in the early 1990s, there were few Italians, nobody wanted to come, the city was still a battlefield after the crisis of the 1970s and 1980s: much of Manhattan was dangerous, Lower east side, Meatpacking, Alphabet city etc.. except the main streets like Fifth Avenue, the rest on the sides of the city was a mini Bronx.
After a first exploration trip in ’92, Renato decided to move permanently. Intensive talks in the hotels of the city, looking for an opportunity lead him to be hired at the hotel Macklowe, a hotel of 800 new-generation rooms in Times Square, which at the time not only dangerous but real trench zone after eight in the evening. The hotel industry, he says, was a real school of life.
“I thought I knew everything about my job, but I realized I didn’t know anything. I learned so much about the functioning of the great hotels and great chains, and about the cultural and working difference between Italians and Americans. In New York, the Danarian god reigns, but it is thanks to this, that everyone has an opportunity. It is not important that you have it, but it is important that you know how to produce it. If you produce results, for which money, you are recognized, regardless of age, religion, sex or sexual orientation. But those who stop are lost. An approach that in Italian we can translate as meritocracy“.
Grussu’s career quickly takes off: In a few years he moved from a 90-bedroom hotel in Verona to one of almost 900 in New York from Director of Front Office to Director of Sales&Marketing for a chain. But the path is not without difficulty, often linked to the bureaucracy of visas and the absorption and understanding of the different cultural and social dynamics of the city.
“New York is cold, competitive, with all the diversity that make it unique, but the possibilities of networking and outlets are endless. There is nothing comparable in Italy. The city is a source of daily inspiration that generates, but also absorbs a huge amount of energy. The secret I think is knowing how to exploit it while keeping the balance between what we give and what we take, without getting burned and we Italians on this we have an extra march.”.
In 2008 Renato took a decisive step: he opened his travel agency, “Arriva Travel”, initially with seven American employees. The economic crisis of the same year puts a tough test on new activities, but the ability to establish solid relationships with high-profile customers, from fashion and food companies to Italian official delegations, and lately various engagements with Tech companies like Google, have allowed the agency to survive and flourish. Among the important clients are the Presidency of the Republic and the Palazzo Chigi of which Grussu followed all the delegations from Berlusconi onwards when visiting the United States.
Despite the hectic life and the constant rotation of people typical of New York, Renato feels like a New Yorker:
The city was dirty and dangerous but it was a New York perhaps more true and intense than that perhaps too gentrified today. None of the friends I knew in the 1990s still live here. Every decade I think there is a spare of both people and the city, today completely different from when I arrived.
Diversity and immigrants are the real economic and cultural resource of this city.
From Grussu’s experience, the vision emerges that, Italian flexibility and creativity, combined with the American mentality, made of opportunity and determination are a solid starting point for a good career, whatever the working sector. Renato has just finished writing a book about the hotels in New York. Not a guide but an intriguing tale of historical events linked to the development of the city in the last two centuries in a plot of history, architecture, and anecdotes on the most famous hotels and other less known of Gotham. An act of gratitude and love of Renato Grussu for an incredibly unique city.
Today, at the beginning of its fourth decade, Renato Grussu remains one of the symbols of Italian success in New York: an example of how courage, determination and ability to adapt can transform a city not always easy, but surely unique, into a fertile opportunity for achieving ambitions and dreams.
L’articolo Renato Grussu: the conquest of New York between hotels, delegations and Italian companies proviene da IlNewyorkese.
