Meet the woman running Gosport's newest hotel - the town's first Travelodge

Irita Zigure is the manager of Travelodge Gosport, a 70-room hotel which opened in the High Street in February.

The 36-year-old said it had been a tough few months establishing the business while keeping up with restrictions and regulations, but that she is delighted to be staying open this lockdown.

She said: ‘In January, I was very excited to be opening the first Travelodge hotel in Gosport. I had my team in place and we were getting ready for the big opening however a part of me was constantly being drawn to the news on coronavirus.

SEE MORE: Gosport Travelodge opens its doors for the first time - creating 20 new jobs and promising £2m a year to town's economy

‘At the time my heart went out to the countries and people who were being affected and I thought we were going to be okay in the UK.

‘I pushed ahead with our hotel opening. We had a great opening, there was such a buzz in the town and it’s was big news that Travelodge had come to Gosport, we were welcoming business and leisure travellers from all corners of the UK and it was great news for the local economy.

‘We had a few weeks of trading. During this time Covid-19 was rapidly spreading across the world and it had come to the UK. It was very alarming.

‘On March 23, we were informed that all UK hotels would have to close. I was totally shocked as we have never closed any of our Travelodge hotels. The next 24 hours were crazy

‘I was so sad when I had to tell my team and literally walk out of the hotel. It all felt very strange and surreal.'

Irita and her 20-strong team were place on furlough for three months, returning in July.

She said: ‘I really missed my hotel, my team and the buzz of working.

‘When we were allowed to reopen, we all came back super energised and ready to reopen the hotel. I was so pleased to see my team return and be totally motivated.'

SEE ALSO: New Gosport Travelodge hotel receives 1,000 applications for 20 jobs

Irita said: ‘Reopening a new hotel after lockdown was a massive challenge as we had new rules and regulations plus we didn’t know what demand would be like as people were nervous to travel.

‘I had to come up to speed very quickly so that I could train my team and ensure that we had all the safety measures in place plus get them use to wearing a mask and constantly using hand sanitiser.

‘Opening a new hotel is very stressful at any time but during a pandemic it goes up a good ten notches. Especially as you cannot plan ahead and stick to timescales. In this situation you have to keep your cool and take each day at a time.’

Irita, who is married to Jannis, a chef, joined Travelodge in 2015 as head of housekeeping at Southampton Central Travelodge

Irita soon worked her way up to manager on Travelodge’s in-house fast track management development programme Aspire.

She said that despite the challenges, she has been delighted to receive excellent customer reviews so far.

A message from the Editor, Mark Waldron

The News is more reliant than ever on you taking out a digital subscription to support our journalism.

You can subscribe here for unlimited access to Portsmouth news online - as well as our new Puzzles section.