DON’T be afraid to dream is the motto of Liza Lakovleva, a Russian entrepeneur, who alongside her husband and two other business partners, have created Palma-based Hotel Treats. The company, which offers experiences at top hotels from spa days to lunch by the pool, has gone from strength to strength. In fact, last year they sold hotel breakfast vouchers to the tune of 120,000 euros. It is a business which is growing. First Mallorca, then the mainland and now Portugal and possibly Germany and France. The success of this company owes much to Liza, who 15 years ago embarked on a career which would change her life. “I was born in Arkangel, a place which was once known for its submarines and also as the port where allied aid for the Russian people and military arrived from the allies in the Second World War.”
At 15 she was offered the opportunity to study in the U.S. “It was like a dream come true,” she said. The Russian government allowed foreign study but Liza jokes that her mother told her that “she escaped through the head of a needle buried in a hay-stack.”
She was soon studying in South Carolina and she embraced her new life. “I put my name down for all courses. Initially it was strange living in the U.S. but it was like a dream.”
She completed her studies in Bulgaria and Miami. “It was a tough life. My parents gave me some money but I had to work. “I worked as a waitress from 6pm to 4am and then the rest of the time I studied. It was the toughest year of my life. But I got through it and got my education. The U.S. taught me something important. If you work hard you can achieve your dreams.” But her life was to change again when she met the man who would be her husband.
“He was Mallorcan and he was returning home shortly. So I took the plunge and headed to Spain. It was a new life again. A new language and a new place to live.”
“When I arrived on Mallorca, I was looking around to do something romantic and different with my husband.
“This is how the idea for Hotel Treats came about. We asked hotels to give us gift experiences. Initially, it was tough because the concept was relatively unknown,” she said.
But her ambition and drive came into play and soon their website started to have a wide range of offerings.
“Our clients are local people and expats. It was tough during the pandemic, but in someways it helped launch the concept.”
They have recruited more staff and now they have set their sights on the rest of Europe.
“We are growing, growing and growing,” she laughs.
“Hotels, obviously concentrate on selling rooms, we offer them an alternative to increase their revenue.”
Lisa is a confident and ambitious person but her mood changes when she discusses what is happening in her country. “It is terrible, Putin has taken us back to life under the Tsars, I know Ukrainians who have been killed in the war. What Putin is doing is an outrage,” she says.
Hotel Treats like many good ideas, was born out of a necessity, something different to do but its success is due, in no small part to this hardworking 29-year-old. “As long as you are organised you can do anything,” she says, apart from being an entrepeneur, she is a mother and now a wife.”
But her travelling days are over. “Mallorca is home, it is such a wonderful place. I want to return home to Russia when I can, but at the moment it is impossible.”
Hotel Treats was born out of hard work and ambition. Who would have thought 15 years ago that a woman from a northern tip of Russian would be a heading a gift voucher platform in Mallorca, speaking perfect English and Spanish.
Perhaps, not a question of the American dream, more a dream which was made in Mallorca.