In an effort to maintain all the grace and charm of the ageless European private hotels, Heidelberg's Hotel Europa continues the traditions of personalised service and attention to detail that began in 1865.

Ernst-Friedrich Von Kretschmann is a man who prefers to speak candidly. Not for him any lofty show of pretense or aloofness. He will tell you exactly what he sees as the problems and highlights of his industry, and spell out the reasons why when many other private hotels are selling out to large companies, he prefers to run his hotel his way with his wife, Sylvia sharing Management duties.

"The challenge for hoteliers here in Germany is that we Germans seem not to be prepared to spend money on five-star accommodation in our country", he says. "Yet this is not the case when Germans travel abroad however, where it is not uncommon for many to stay at the best hotels and pay top dollar. It has to be made clear to them, and to travellers in general, that people cannot expect to buy a Mercedes for the price of a VW, and so too with hotels. One cannot expect to have five-star service when one elects to pay one-star prices. My personal challenge therefore is to run a five-star hotel at a price which works with the client".

Challenge is however something that Herr Von Kretschmann thrives on, coming as he does from a family who have run the same business for over three generations. In this time the family enterprise has survived two World Wars, a Depression, and even annexation of their business by the Allied forces.

"After the Second World War the Americans took over my grandparent's hotel here in Heidelberg as their base of command", Herr Von Kretschmann explains. "Despite many efforts by my grandfather to regain possession, he died two years before this finally came to pass in 1955 - ten years after it had been requisitioned. It was then up to my grandmother to carry on and rebuild what she and my grandfather had undertaken together after their marriage in 1910".

Already at an age when most people have retired from working life, Herr Von Kretschmann's grandmother was 67 when she decided to reopen the Hotel Europa. Born Luise Muhlmann in 1888, this intrepid woman saw it as her duty to continue the work her husband Fritz Gabler had dedicated his life to.

One of twelve children, Fritz Gabler was influenced in his choice of careers by his hotelier uncle, Anton Gabler - who as fate would have it had been the owner of the Hotel Europa from 1886 until 1890 when he sold it to two Swiss brothers, Eugen and August Kupfer. An astute business student, Fritz Gabler learned the finer points of hotel management while travelling Europe and working in some of the best hotels of Germany, France and Switzerland. Later, inspired by what he saw as a chance to buy into the then very lucrative Heidelberg hotel market, Fritz Gabler persuaded his sister Mina to go into partnership with him in re-acquiring the family interest from the widow of Eugene Kupfer in 1906.

Four years later Herr Fritz Gabler married Fraulein Luise Muhlmann, and together with her brother Erich they went on to purchase the Victoria Hotel - also in Heidelberg. But not before Fritz had seen active duty in World War I, and been awarded both the Iron Cross and the Knights Cross.

Luise Gabler's dedication to pursuing her husband's vision of establishing private hotels of distinction, is perhaps understandable when one considers that it was largely because of Fritz Gabler's personal initiative that the Hotel Management College in Heidelberg was established, and that at one time he was also President of the International Hotel Owner's Association. Here was a man whose total commitment was to improving not only the standard of his two hotels, but that of luxury hotels in general.

"As the current owner-manager of this hotel it is my responsibility to see that the traditions of this establishment continue", says Von Kretschmann. "What concerns me with family enterprises however, is that while one generation will devote themselves fully to the business, the next may not. It is all a matter of personal commitment and dedication. Chain hotels do not have this very real challenge; they hire and fire, and move staff around according to requirements and demand. With our endeavour the emphasis is on taking calculated risks in an effort to bolster the chances that we will indeed survive into the next generation.

"As part of this I know that I must allocate at least ten percent of our total income into continual redevelopment and refurbishing of the hotel and its environment", he continues. "Of course as private owners we run the risk of failure or success based squarely on what we do or don't do".

Besides boasting one of the oldest universities in the world, Heidelberg is a city where culture is still an intrinsic part of the lifestyle of the people. Little surprise then that at the height of German aristocracy last century, the nobility from all over Europe flocked to Heidelberg to be part of a rather exclusive social set. Accustomed to the very best that money and reputation could afford them, this discerning crowd soon began to leave their mark on the burgeoning hotel industry. Where once it had been enough to offer clients a comfortable suite, it soon became increasingly more common to see demands for running hot and cold water in the rooms as well as private bathrooms.

Where the Kupfer brothers had begun to read the changing signs as early as 1890, and reacted accordingly by installing central heating as well as the hotel's first power generator, Fritz Gabler saw the need for introducing a more familiar approach to the attention of the guests requirements. He reasoned at the time, that no matter whether a hotel did or did not boast separate bathrooms for every room, ultimately if the basic essentials were in place, it was the quality of the service which won loyalty from clients.

By the time World War II erupted the Hotel Europa was rated as one of the best five-star hotels in Germany, and Fritz and Luise Gabler enjoyed the esteem of clients from every corner of the world for the calibre of their hotel staff's service and the elegance of the hotel itself. It was a time of great personal prosperity, but it would be short lived as the clouds of war closed in on and finally strangled the German hospitality industry. So much so that by 1933 foreign business was down 70% and parts of the hotel were reluctantly converted into a wine bar in an attempt to offset mounting losses. After introducing running water to all rooms, giving the foyer and entrance a major face-lift, and adding a further three levels, the Gabler's faced the very real possibility that all they had worked to create would be lost.

The war years coupled with Germany's defeat and the aftermath of external economic and social pressures this exerted on the nation, almost saw this fear realised. Fritz Gabler was destined not to live long enough to witness the return of his hotel to family hands, yet his enthusiasm and conviction to establish the family business long-term found renewed vigour in the partner who outlived him by almost thirty years.

"She was a very determined woman", explains Herr Von Kretschmann of his late grandmother, who after first losing her only son in the war, and then her husband some years later, set about rebuilding something of value to pass on to her daughters Edith and Liselotte. "After the war the allies held on to the site of this hotel until 1955, at which time my grandmother's first move was to sell off the Victoria Hotel and use that money to get this hotel operational again. When you consider that she was almost seventy years old at that stage, this was quite an undertaking".

Running a totally privately owned hotel while certainly not unusual in the early part of this century, has become increasingly more difficult with the passing years and the rapid growth - particularly in the last twenty years, of corporate owned hotels. In light of this, the fact that Hotel Europa continues to thrive is a point of much personal satisfaction for Ernst-Friedrich.

"The challenge private hotels such as ours face is that we cannot, and do not put ourselves in direct competition with the larger chain hotels", he explains. "It would be impossible for us to give the same level of service and attention to personal detail that we do, and then charge the same prices as the chain hotels. We are a totally different proposition in that we cater to those people who enjoy the feel and ambience of a smaller hotel over the uniformity f the larger establishments. By the very fact that any one of many hotels is part of some larger group means that they have more resources, financial and human, to allow them to charge lower tariffs. But we are not in the market of undercutting prices.

"We are here because we offer a true family-operated hotel. In fact, my wife Sylvia is the interior decorator as well as being the person in charge of service", explains Herr Von Kretschmann. "Many people walk in, see the paintings and the chandeliers and think that we live the high-life. This however is not so. To run a private hotel involves a great many hours of work and dedication. There are always challenges with occupancy, problems with getting good staff to stay on when they have received offers for more money and shorter hours from the larger hotels, and the usual problems of balancing budgets and meeting the changing needs of the clients".

Yet despite all the challenges of simply surviving, Hotel Europa remains a favourite home away from home for many discerning visitors to Heidelberg. Aside from the central city location, and the rich history and refined service, another reason why guests return to Hotel Europa is certainly the wide choice of rooms and sumptuous penthouses, many with vista's overlooking nearby parkland and all tastefully decorated and richly appointed. According to Ernst-Freidrich, the fact that the hotel is the only one in the city to offer extensive and up-to-date conference facilities, as well as formal reception venues within the one complex, is another oft cited reason for business travellers in particular electing to stay there.

The son of Arthur and Edith (nee Gabler) Von Kretschmann, Ernst-Friedrich took on the family business after the official retirement of his grandmother in 1968 at the age of eighty (at which time she was awarded the Feral Service Cross with the Ribbon of the Federal Republic of Germany for her services to the tourist industry of the city of Heidelberg). His first instinct was to consolidate the reputation of the hotel for excellence in service and accommodation while at the same time laying the foundations for further expansion in the future. Faced with a slump in the tourist market in the early Seventies as a result of an increase in budget-fare holidays where accommodation was incorporated into pre-paid packages, Ernst-Freidrich replied by diversifying the family's business interests.

"I started in this industry working in the kitchens of many fine hotels", explains Von Kretschmann. "From there I moved up to being a waiter, before progressing to front-of-house, so I learned this business from the inside. In fact before I joined my grandmother I spent a further year at the university in Munich studying business and administration. This was essential since today I have to be both a businessman and a host. Nor is it uncommon for me to attend personally to problems such as fused light-bulbs or difficult heating systems. This is the beauty of owning and operating a family hotel, you can be as involved as you like. With the large corporate hotels with their uniform standards and codes of operation, the manager is often just one of many staff.

"Certainly the family could all make more money if we had more hotels", he continues. "What I decided however was that rather than build new hotels all over the country and bring in investors to back the expansion, it would be more wise to expand on what we have here. In the early Seventies therefore I initiated an expansion programme which included converting large areas of the land we had all round this hotel into new wings, an underground carpark and a shopping arcade which amongst other things houses our Europ-Treff cafe which provides an informal-style environment for coffee or a light meal".

The shopping arcade complex itself includes a multitude of boutiques and several levels of office space, the latter of which is leased out to directly off-set any slump in accommodation. And as Herr Von Kretschmann is quick to point out this has been a very auspicious move, particularly with the current world-wide economic downtrend not sparing the hospitality industry.

"Our target is the client who sees the value of spending time in a hotel where everyone of the guests is an individual, and where they are treated as such", explains Herr Von Kretschmann. "My grandparents believed in running their establishments in a manner whereby the guest was the number one priority of all the staff, and where every detail was attended to. This is one reason why I have not accepted offers by larger groups to sell off the business and simply look after the management side. Certainly it would be easier on me and my family - we would have more free time, but this is not the point. The point is that we are happy to do what we do the way it has always been done, with the family in complete control.

"My major challenge is that I am running a five-star establishment which since 1965 has been a m ember of the very exclusive Leading Hotels of the World, and I have to do so at a price which will appeal", Von Kretschmann continues. "Our focus is to move forward, and in an effort to do this I am pleased to say that we are a founding member of the Steigenberger Reservation Service - (a world-wide network of over 150 first-class and luxury hotels with international advertising and sales campaigns targeted at travel companies and large trade and industrial operations). This means that we can give our clients the very best attention to booking no matter where they come from, and we can integrate between the various members as to potential locations for client functions, sojourns and so forth".

From the elegance of the main lounge with its warm brown tones and leather armchairs set around an open fireplace, to the spaciousness of one of several conference rooms, the Hotel Europa has fostered an ambience of subtle charm and character which is refreshing in its variety. Where the Terrace restaurant is renowned for the diversity of its culinary delights, the Kurfurstenstube is decidedly more casual, reminiscent of the famed German taverns of yesteryear with their lively conversation and hearty meals. Opening on to the central garden meanwhile is the more formal restaurant with its starched linen and silver service, matched by the impeccable German attention to detail.

"To be perfectly honest, I sometimes think that if I had invested as much time in some other enterprise as I have in this hotel I would have more to show for it", grins Ernst-Friedrich. "But there again it would not have been as personally satisfying".