Reinventing Elegance

Luxury.It’s a descriptor so overused in the hospitality industry, by all rights it should have lost its meaning years ago. When every steak, pillowcase and miniature bottle of shampoo in the United States is being called luxury, it must be time for a new term.

Yet the word persists -- and travelers still seem to recognize the difference. Consider these statistics: In the first six months of 2006, the average daily rate for luxury chain hotels in the United States was $271.68, fully 80 percent higher than the $151.28 average of the upper-upscale market segment, according to Hendersonville, Tenn.-based Smith Travel Research. That luxury rate is up 9 percent from the year prior, and occupancy is up a few points, as well, to 72.3 percent. Clearly, individuals and corporations are willing to pay a premium for the luxury experience.

Those who can afford luxury, however, require more than just a pleasant stay. The needs of these travelers -- including attendees seeking a topflight experience outside the meeting room -- are the most exacting of any, which means luxury brands that want to thrive among strong competition must also work constantly to improve their product. M&C spoke with some of the youngest, smartest luxury travel brands around -- along with meeting planners who appreciate what they offer -- to find out what luxury is and where it’s headed.

One&Only Resorts

This exclusive chain is known for its small, celebrity-friendly properties all around the world. Henriette Attard (right), director, group and incentive sales, was hired in 2004 to sell to the meetings and incentives market, to prove to customers that the company is serious about groups. Up next for the chain is One&Only Capetown, to open in 2008 in founder Sol Kerzner’s home country of South Africa. The resort, designed by Adam Tihany, will feature 130 guest rooms and three meeting rooms.

M&C: What defines a luxury meeting?

Attard: I think it really is all about the service levels and exceeding the expectations of the guest. It’s not just about the meeting itself -- it’s the complete experience: having a successful meeting, followed by a superb meal by a celebrity chef, and a butler who packs your bags so you can enjoy a last-minute swim. It’s about attention to detail. At One&Only Palmilla [in Los Cabos, Mexico], when the butler unpacks for you, he matches the sewing kit to the colors of your clothes.

M&C: How is luxury different today from what it was 10 years ago?

Attard: Luxury is no longer about big chandeliers and marble. Modern-day luxuries are time, space and privacy. Luxury is more about creating moments.

M&C: How is the group market for you?

Attard: It’s very healthy and buoyant. We’ve seen a huge increase in our groups globally in the past couple of years. Our market mix for groups is 11 percent, whereas it was probably only 3 or 4 percent a few years ago. And 2007 looks to be one of our best years yet.

M&C: Where are U.S. groups going?

Attard: Our clients are becoming more adventurous. They’re looking for something different, something that sets them apart from their competition. People are spreading their wings just a little bit farther, which we’re delighted about.

M&C: From which sectors do you realize the most business?

Attard: Automotive is very strong for us, because they do a lot to incentivize their dealers, and the financial sectors as well, especially private banking. But the market sectors we attract are really quite varied.

M&C: Does the hotel brand matter to the luxury meeting?

Attard: The brand is very important to people because it gives them reassurance; even though all the resorts are very different, they know what to expect in terms of service and experience. I think a trend we’re seeing is that the resorts themselves have become destinations in their own right. For example, we have a lot of clients who choose to hold an event at One&Only Le Touessrok [in Mauritius] instead of first choosing Mauritius. People actually go to the hotel regardless of where it is in the world.

Capella Hotels & Resorts

After Horst Schulze left Ritz-Carlton, the landmark hotel company he founded, he launched the Atlanta-based West Paces Hotel Group, in an attempt to create a travel experience more luxurious than ever before. Out of that emerged Capella Hotels & Resorts, a class of small properties aiming to provide a consistently perfect experience. The first opens in Ireland in April 2007; the second in Velden, Austria, in May.

Of the Capella concept, Schulze has said, “With luxury hotels today, the property’s style and service determine the type of experience guests enjoy. It’s time for the customer to determine the experience.”

Kit Pappas (right), vice president of sales for West Paces, elaborates on Schulze’s vision.

M&C: What does the modern luxury traveler demand?

Pappas: The ultra-luxury travelers are more and more looking for the element of exclusivity. They want to have a high degree of control over their environment. They want to have what they want, when they want it. It’s not about consumption; it’s more about the connection, what allows you to really connect with that locale you’re in.

M&C: How will Capella provide an experience as luxurious as it claims?

Pappas: They’re small hotels; they range from 60 to 100 rooms at the absolute maximum. What we’re able to do with 100 guests is to have much different movements of people. We’re not going to have a group of 250 people check in. During the reservations process, we’re able to determine their exact needs and what they’d like to experience. We’ll have their luggage picked up at their homes and brought to the resort or hotel, so they don’t have to worry about getting their bags through customs. We’re able to pick them up at the airport personally. It really individualizes the experience.

M&C: What defines a luxury meeting at Capella?

Pappas: Our group customers at Capella will be similar to our individual customers. Depending on what the group needs to accomplish, we’ll be able to zero in on that, to give them individual attention. They’re not going to be one of five or 10 groups in the house. They’ll be the only group in the hotel.

M&C: What types of luxury groups are you looking to attract?

Pappas: With Capella, it will be small board meetings. We’ll have boardrooms, but that will be the extent of it.

M&C: Does a particular hotel brand really matter to the luxury traveler or meeting?

Pappas: There are things that brands do. They can create an awareness, and they can build some loyalty. As you move into the luxury scale, site selection is more based on the experience and location. We feel strongly that there’s strength within a brand, one that offers consistent expectations in different locations.

LXR Luxury Resorts

What do you get when you take 33 varied properties from all over the United States (and one in Jamaica), then spend more than $1 billion to redesign the interiors, bring in celebrity chefs and jack up the service levels to the very best? LXR Luxury Resorts. The brand, formed in 2005, promises to be a major draw for meetings. John Tolbert (right), president of sales and marketing, took a moment to talk about LXR’s concept of luxury.

M&C: What defines luxury nowadays?

Tolbert: No longer does a manufacturer, a retailer or, in our case, a service provider determine what luxury is. The consumer does. We look at luxury today as a verb. It’s not something that is, but rather something that does. Our goal is to create a personalized, tailored experience to meet the needs of planners. The only limit we have is our imagination and our ability to communicate that in a real and incredible way to our customer.

M&C: How is luxury changing?

Tolbert: Today, people don’t necessarily want the same experience that they can have in Atlanta for a city-center meeting as they can have in our South Seas Island Resort [on Captiva Island, Fla.]. It comes down to the ability of the service provider to produce a genuine sense of place. You have to focus on uniqueness, with service being the common thread of luxury. It’s no longer good enough to have a grill room. You have to have Gordon Ramsay and Morimoto.

M&C: Will these chefs be able to improve a banquet?

Tolbert: The ones we’re partnering with have great experience in this. Jeffrey Chodorow [who is bringing China Grill to the Fort Lauderdale Grande Hotel & Yacht Club] has been doing off-site catering for years. Gordon Ramsay is at Claridge’s [Hotel] in London. Angela Hartnett is at The Connaught in London. Our chefs won’t say, “These are our banquet menus.” We will customize every food experience for our customer.

M&C: Where are luxury meetings being held today?

Tolbert: I think the traditional destinations: Florida, California and Arizona, because of their accessibility and climate, will always provide great incentive and meeting destinations. A lot of it is product-driven. You’ll see markets go hot and cold, but the demand of what we call the “best beach” -- the best real estate in the market -- will always be strong. The luxury traveler is always willing to pay for those experiences.

THE LATEST AMENITIES

Shampoo?Check. Soap? Check. Shower cap? Check. Personalized stationery? Check. Because luxury guests expect the cutting edge of hospitality, luxury hotels are providing it, right down to the amenities in the room. Here are a few of the latest.

Haute coffee. In the near future, guests won’t have to undertake the messy and tiresome proposition of brewing coffee; hotels will provide one-touch machines. For example, the new Regent South Beach (Fla.) offers easy-to-use espresso machines in guest rooms. The trend isn’t limited to luxury, either: Hilton Hotels now offers single-brew Cuisinart coffeemakers with Lavazza coffee in more than 230 U.S. hotels.

Classy bath spreads. Hotel Fauchere in Milford, Pa., gives its guests
Kiehl’s bath products, including full-size lip balms, to use and take home after their stay. At the start of a guest’s stay, Ikal del Mar in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, sends a local Mayan soapmaker to the room to cut a fresh block of handmade soap. A variety of scents are available.

Electronics. Hip: In-room docking stations for iPods. Hipper: PlayStation Portables for watching movies outdoors. Tragically hip: Easy-to-use Migo phones in the rooms, for making requests. All are available at the Viceroy Palm Springs (Calif.).

A twist on stationery. XV Beacon in Boston personalizes business cards for guests and includes a direct line to the guest room.

Welcome presents. Luxury travelers like gifts, no matter how small. Conrad Hotels gives gifts of animals, depending on the location. The Conrad Tokyo, for example, proffers rubber duckies; the Conrad Bangkok, stuffed elephants. -- J.V.

Silversea Cruises

Silversea Cruises is a luxury small-ship cruise line with just four ships, with talk of a fifth ship in the offing. Sean J. Mahoney (right), vice president of worldwide charter and incentive sales for the Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based company, discusses his take on luxury.

M&C: How is the luxury market treating you?

Mahoney: We’ve seen on the corporate and incentive side double-digit growth, year after year for the last number of years. That is a symptom of a couple of things. Silversea took a much more proactive approach to corporate and incentive business at the start of 2002. It’s one thing to say you’re in the corporate and incentive business, and another to design your company to sell and market your product to the business.

M&C: What industries are you seeing hold events on Silversea Cruises?

Mahoney: It’s those industries that rely on dealer/distributor networks: Insurance, financial services, automotive, pharmaceutical and high-tech rely on a network of dealers and distributors who aren’t employees. They are conducting the marquee types of programs at luxury cruise ships or destinations.

M&C: How would you describe your core customers?

Mahoney: These are affluent people, 45 to 55 years of age. They’re working executives or semiretired. When they’re not doing meetings, they will typically vacation in a five-star hotel or on a luxury cruise ship. They’re active, with a great sense of adventure and exploration, and are looking for new or unique experiences, mostly due to the fact that they are well traveled.

M&C: What do they expect from a luxury provider?

Mahoney: With us, it is service that exceeds their expectations. These are extremely savvy customers. They’ve done their research, and they come to us with high expectations. And they still appreciate those special touches that might not have appeared in the brochure. That helps set this experience apart.

M&C: Has luxury changed in the past five or 10 years?

Mahoney: To be the best, you have to constantly reevaluate your product and services and innovate constantly to stay a step ahead of the game. It’s choosing the right partners on board, providing the right entertainment choices, the right food choices. There’s a major emphasis on creating a product and services on board that people can identify with. We’re finding that many of our guests don’t want to sit down to a production show. They’d much rather be entertained by a live band or a celebrity entertainer. Or we’ll have parties on deck.

M&C: How about the luxury meeting or incentive? Have those changed?

Mahoney: One of the big concerns for many in the industry is the growing commoditization for both the meeting and incentive purchasing process, and more so in the meeting purchasing or procurement process. Today, companies increasingly are making decisions in many cases based solely on price and not taking into consideration those aspects that can really make the difference between a meaningful event that accomplishes many things and just another meeting.

MandarinOriental spas

The Hong Kong-based Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group has staked a compelling claim as the premier spa provider of all the luxury hotel chains. Much of this success can be attributed to Ingo Schweder (right), group director of spas, a man who not only is guiding Mandarin Oriental’s spa endeavors, but in a sense, the entire spa industry as well. The newest spa in the portfolio is at the 502-room Mandarin Oriental Hong Kong, which reopened in September after a $140 million renovation.

M&C: What defines the luxury spa experience?

Schweder: What you see, what you smell and what you hear are key components of enjoying that journey. It’s not only the physical space. It starts with a foot ritual, with hot and cold towels, and continues with the tea, and locker rooms with hot and cold experiences. It brings your heart rate down, detoxifies your skin, and prepares you for the eventual treatment. That two- or three-hour journey is what luxury is all about.

M&C: What makes Mandarin Oriental spas so luxurious?

Schweder: First, we’re doing a very good job in creating and designing the physical spaces. The second thing is training. Before any spa opens, we train our employees for three months. And, third, we are offering true Asian healing modalities. Our company was born in Hong Kong. Chinese medicine, shiatsu, Thai massage -- they were born here, in our home.

M&C: What draws customers to your spa facilities?

Schweder: That’s a question I asked last year for the first time. I asked 19,000 people, why are you coming to a Mandarin Oriental spa? Is it the products? The ambience? The design? They are not coming because they’re price-sensitive, and not because of the spa products. They’re coming for the design and ambience, for purification, for the qualified staff and for the guest journey.

M&C: How have luxury spas changed?

Schweder: Many years ago it was the gym, pool and squash court that had the spa rooms. Our new spas are 20,000 to 40,000 square feet, and they take over prime space. In the spa in Hong Kong, it’s the top three floors. And they are offering today a variety of holistic exercises: tai chi, yoga, qigong, Pilates. There’s much more to do now.

M&C: What’s next for spas?

Schweder: At a restaurant, when you go for fine dining, you might choose French or Japanese. It depends on what you feel like, what you want. That’s going to be one of the biggest elements of spa experiences, the personalized experience according to the guest’s wishes.

Laura Sayegh (right), vice president of event marketing for Fox Cable Networks, balks at the term luxury meeting. “How do you define luxury?” asks the New York City-based VIP meeting planner. “You can pay $1,000 a night and still have a lousy experience, because your service is lousy. It’s the perceived experience that matters.”

M&C: What defines a luxury event?

Sayegh: It’s customer service. Any event can be a luxury event, whether it’s a sales meeting or client event, as long as it’s perceived as a service-oriented experience. You could have 50 celebrities, but if the food didn’t come on time, if you can’t find a fax, if the business center wasn’t helping you, it doesn’t matter who’s there.

M&C: How do you determine whether a property will provide a luxury
experience?

Sayegh: Sometimes I walk in cold and just check out the place. I’ll observe how the property is taking care of their grounds, observe how people are being greeted by the bellman, and how long the check-in line is. If they have ropes and stanchions set up, you know what you’re in for.

M&C: How do you get good service from a hotel?

Sayegh: Getting good service is really all about constant follow-up. I keep a laundry list of what my expectations are, and I review them every day with the staff of the hotel. It never fails: The more information you share with the people you’re working with, the better the attendees’ experience is going to be. Before the event starts, I gather all the people serving my event, and I make sure they understand who’s in the room. Sometimes I call everybody in and say, “Hi, my name is Laura, and I’m the point person here.” It takes all of two minutes’ time.

M&C: What about the spa? How do you ensure a luxury experience there?

Sayegh: First, I go for a spa treatment without telling anybody and make decisions based on my own experience. In one particular case, I felt the spa was too sterile, so I ordered some complementary flower arrangements to make it feel even more peaceful. Sometimes they don’t even have music, so I ask them to play some mellow music. It’s kind of odd when you go into a spa and there’s no music.

The independent planner

Lexye Aversa (right), president of Professional Touch International in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., has been planning high-end meetings and incentives all over the world for 33 years.

M&C: What do luxury meeting attendees expect?

Aversa: When they’re on site, the service is expected; it’s not a thought process. When they’re doing their coffee break or having their cocktail, everything is delivered to them on a silver platter. There is a naturalness to that type of upscale service. When they travel themselves, they know they’re going to get good service. When they travel in a meeting or incentive milieu, you have to deliver an experience that no money can buy. The ability not to be able to duplicate that unique experience is what spurs these people to excel, what gives them that little extra charge.

M&C: How do you get that level of service from hotel employees?

Aversa: It’s like anything else -- it’s a combination of the experience you have in the industry, the connections you have and how well you know the product. One of my pet peeves in this business is advertising that promises the moon and gives you a patch of dirt. You have to know what hotel is promising the moon and is actually delivering the universe.

M&C: Which properties have you found to deliver the universe?

Aversa: I have to say Ritz-Carltons and Four Seasons hotels, across the board. I love the Beau Rivage Palace Hotel in Lausanne, Switzerland; the Rome Cavalieri Hilton; the St. Regis properties; and the Grand Hotel des Iles Borromees, in Stresa, Italy, where they hold a lot of G8 meetings.

M&C: How do you know if a hotel will do a good job on a luxury meeting?

Aversa: You chat with the employees about their background. You track the longevity and the pedigree of the people that you’re working with on the property, from the GM level through the resident management level, banqueting staff, servers, etc. Are they full-time employees, or do they have to pull in extras? Also, who have they hosted? Have they done upscale meetings?

M&C: How is luxury changing?

Aversa: It’s become more important. Travel has become so mass market. For the ones who can afford it, luxury is an escape to an era we won’t see again; it’s this conscious thing that has to be offered. And that’s why it’s become so important. You have to find luxury now; it’s not synonymous with travel anymore.

M&C: Are budgets changing for luxury meetings?

Aversa: You have to provide more with less. Prices in hotels have skyrocketed. The dollar is weak overseas, and prices are higher because of inflation and the world situation. Everyone has fuel surcharges. If you’re buying a slice of pizza, there’s a fuel surcharge.

M&C: What’s next in the luxury world?

Aversa: Private jets are a big up-and-coming facet of our industry. Anything that’s a time-saver for people. And if you’re a luxury property and you don’t have a spa, you have a great handicap.