What We Do in the Quiet Season

Low season in Siem Reap has its own rhythm. Fewer tours to help book, fewer tuk tuks needed at once, everything moving just a little slower than the rush of high season.

This year, a new Spoons trainee joined us — this time, a culinary trainee, learning in our kitchen instead of at the front desk. Our staff finally get the chance to take some well-earned holidays. We get more time with the handful of guests who are here, real conversations instead of a quick check-in and out. And low season is also when we tend to welcome our long-term stays: people using Babel as their first home in Siem Reap while they look for something more permanent. Renovations, deep cleaning and painting starts.

It's a quieter kind of full. And behind that quiet, there's still real work going on.

Hands-on as always! Katrine bringing our logo to life on the wall.

Since 2008: Our ChildSafe Commitment

This September our whole team sat down for updated ChildSafe training — a full four hours on September 1st for all of our staff, both hotels and our night guards together, and a further session on September 2nd for our tuk tuk drivers. Everything was delivered in Khmer by a training team who came directly to Babel, and it ended with everyone sitting a test on what they'd learned, followed by a certificate for those who passed.

This isn't new for us. Babel has been a ChildSafe certified business since early 2008, and we've maintained that certification for over 15 years. We were also the first hotel or guesthouse in Cambodia to bring all of our tuk tuk drivers into this training too, not just hotel staff, so the protection our team offers extends out into the community, not just within our walls.

ChildSafe itself is run by Friends-International, who have worked in Cambodia since 1994 and launched the ChildSafe Movement in 2005 to set a global standard for protecting children and young people from abuse. Here in Siem Reap, their local program, Kaliyan Mith, works directly with children and families navigating the pressures that come with being at the heart of Cambodia's tourism industry.

This matters to us for a simple reason: our drivers and staff are around families, children, and vulnerable people every single day, often more than we are ourselves. Making sure everyone knows how to recognise risk and respond properly isn't a box we tick once and forget. It's something we come back to, again and again, because it's too important not to.

Continuous learning in action! Our drivers participating in a ChildSafe training session earlier this week.

Welcoming a SPOONS trainee

Every August or September, we welcome trainees from SPOONS Cambodia into our team for a two and a half month placement, as part of their internship. This year, we welcomed a culinary trainee, learning and working in our kitchen.

SPOONS trains underprivileged young Cambodians for careers in hospitality, and has helped more than 600 young adults launch their careers so far. Hosting a trainee each year is a small thing on our end, but it's a real, hands-on chance for someone starting out to learn in a working kitchen or a working front desk, not just a classroom.

Mao Sophany, Director of Spoons, with Katrine, owner of Babel Hotels—a long-standing friendship and partnership between the two. Pictured alongside Babel staff and former Spoons trainees.

Getting the place ready

The other half of low season is a lot more hands-on, and a lot dustier. But we love it. It's one of the most social times of the year for us and the staff — everyone pitches in, hands-on, whatever the task happens to be.

Starting the 1st of September, we've been deep into low season renovations: retiling the pool, fixing up our old wooden pool furniture, painintg, scrubbing and building a new roof over part of the property, and giving our front garden the attention it's been waiting for all year.

None of this is glamorous work. It's the kind of thing that only really gets noticed when it isn't done — so we're doing it now, while things are quiet, so that by the time high season arrives, it simply looks like Babel always does: cared for, comfortable, ready.

Behind the scenes! Thanks to year-round tropical sunshine and endless pool days, every two years we completely redo our pool tiles to keep everything fresh for our guests.

Why we're telling you this

We don't usually talk much about what happens in the gap between guests. But we think it says something true about who we are: the work doesn't stop just because the bookings slow down. If anything, it's when we work hardest — on our people, and on our place — so that when you do arrive, everything is exactly as it should be.

See you in high season. We'll be ready.