Hotel Etico Australia is the first not-for-profit social enterprise hotel group staffed by people with disability. We are focused on delivering premium hospitality service, whilst facilitating a work, training and live-in program for young adults with disabilities.
Our mission is to train and empower people with disability to contribute in the Australian workforce and live more independent lives. We provide hospitality and independent living skill training, enabling our trainees to transition to open employment. Through this mission we seek to challenge individuals, employers and the community at large to be more inclusive of people with disability.
The vision for Hotel Etico emerged in Italy from the dream of a young man with Down Syndrome called Niccolò Vallese. In 2006, Niccolò started an internship at Tacabanda Ristorante – owned and operated by brothers Antonio and Egidio De Benedetto. It was the pair’s first experience dealing with a person who had an intellectual disability and they didn’t know what to expect, but it didn’t take long for them to see how Niccolò was flourishing and the remarkable potential he had as a hospitality professional. The De Benedetto brothers suddenly understood the need to remove the barriers that prevent people with disabilities from achieving their full potential. They asked Niccolò one day what he hoped for in the future and he responded: “My dream is to work in a hotel”.
Hotel Etico began in Asti Italy in 2015, with the opening of the world’s first social enterprise hotel offering training and employment for people with disabilities. Niccolo Vellese, a young man with Down Syndrome had a passion for hospitality and helped inspire the Etico model.
When the Etico model came to Australia, our goal was to create a brand identity that honoured our Italian roots, while reflecting the local culture and our deep respect for Country. The Hotel Etico Australia logo merges the Italian and Australian stories.
A persimmon tree inside a human brain, representing transformation through learning, is paired with a symbol from Spirit of the Land: the yarning circle. Together, they create a logo that’s simple yet rich in meaning, capturing our commitment to transformation, collaboration and inclusion.
Have you ever asked yourself what our logo means, why it looks like that and how it was created?
It all started with the logo of Albergo Etico, in Italy where the Etico model was first born.
You probably know that the very first trainee was Niccolo’. A young man with Down Syndrome, who, after doing a course in hospitality, approached a chef in Asti, a town in northern Italy, asking for a job. Antonio gave Niccolo’ a chance and discovered a whole new world. A world of incredible potential for people with disability. And that’s where the Etico story started (but that’s for another story…). And that is why our restaurant is called Niccolo’. It was dedicated to Niccolo, thanks to whom, the magical world of Etico was born.
But back to the logo…The Italian logo is a stylised persimmon tree. Persimmons carry a rich cultural significance, often associated with luck and prosperity. In many cultures, the fruit is a symbol of perseverance, reflecting a deep understanding of inner strength patience and hard work. That is why it was chosen as a symbol of Etico. And the tree, in the Italian logo, carries 21 persimmon fruits. Because chromosome 21 is the chromosome responsible for Down Syndrome, Niccolo’s disability and the disability of many of the Etico trainees in Italy and now, also in Australia. Down syndrome in fact is also known as Trisomy 21, a genetic disorder caused by the presence of all or a portion of a third chromosome 21.
The tree is also incorporated in a stylised brain with an arrow at its base, symbolising the “Download method” the training and learning methodology created by Chef Antonio, with a playing on words, referring to the “downloading” of information and skills from the trainers to the trainees.
When we first established Hotel Etico Australia, we wanted to pay tribute to the Italian logo, while incorporating Australian and indigenous references to the logo. So we approached an indigenous artist, , and commissioned her with creating an original representation of the logo. Elsie, incorporated lots of Australian animals and indigenous symbols in her artwork and created a fantastic rendition of the logo, called Spirit of the land.
The beautiful piece of art was obviously too complex to be used as a logo, but provided the inspiration for Hotel Etico Australia to create its own unique logo. We “picked” one of the persimmons from the tree and incorporated the dot art yarning circle, which often appears in Elsie’s artwork and featured significantly in Spirit of the land. A yarning circle (or a dialogue) is an important process that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people use to learn from one another, build respect, and share knowledge. It is also a method that engenders the building of robust, trusting, and caring relationships between people.
And from these elements we created our own, unique, simple yet meaningful and beautiful logo.
When we created it, we intentionally created it with the possibility of changing the location line to different locations, as we open up new hotels around Australia. In fact, lately, we have chosen to use a variation of the logo with the word Australia underneath, instead of the words Blue Mountains. When a second and subsequent locations are secured in the near future, we will adapt he logo to the new location and replace, for that location the words Blue Mountains, with the name of the new location. The logo with the word Australia will continue to be used when referring to the “Group”.
Timber representations of the Italian logo and the symbol of the Hotel Etico logo are displayed in our Conservatory for all to see. Soon, we will also display a framed version of the artwork from Elsie Randall.