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Kevin Roberts speaks at travel convention
Kevin Roberts’ clients include Proctor & Gamble and Toyota (Lexus)
By: Mary Gostelow
Today’s hotel guest wants ‘right first time, every time’ says Kevin Roberts, CEO Worldwide, Saatchi & Saatchi, who spends 175 nights a year in hotels - and 50% of them are members of Leading Hotels in the World.
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Kevin Roberts was keynote speaker at the premier association’s annual convention, in Venice, Italy, November 19-21, 2009 (and was extremely honored to be among the 260 delegates). What else did Kevin Roberts suggest, or rather demand? ‘Give the customer what he did not think was possible rather than what he merely thinks he wants, and make sure everything works immediately. Privacy and calm are essential, as are top-drawer work and fitness facilities and healthy, energizing food options 24/7 (most hotel minibars are a disgrace)’. Like every speaker following him, he said again and again it is people, the individual employees, who make a difference’.
Kevin Roberts’ clients include Proctor & Gamble and Toyota (Lexus), and whatever the product, price is what you pay, value is what you get. Luxury is true values, family, familiarity, a little bit of formality. Consumption is finished, feeling human is in. Be understated rather than showing off, bling is dead. Do not bother with customer focus groups or online surveys, he said, but actually observe your guests (if you want to know tigers’ habits look at them in the wild rather than zoos). We are moving from attention to participation, from information to inspiration, from return on investment ROI to return on involvement ROI. Luxury consumers are time-pushed but full of curiosity and conscience (sustainability). When traveling they ask friends first, then they look online (the importance of travel agents is receding fast).
Today’s travelers do not want to hear a mission statement, and rather than having ‘green’ thrust down his throat, Kevin Roberts wants what he calls ‘true blue’, his personal choice of living a healthy life (one of his homes, by the way, is in beautifully clean New Zealand). Saatchi & Saatchi has followed Walmart’s DOT, Do One Thing. Everybody does one thing, like turn off lights. Walmart has apparently found staff turnover went down 25%, and morale soared as did customer satisfaction, as staff relayed what was their DOT. The role of business, says Kevin Roberts, is to make the world a better place for everyone.
He thinks that the value of any brand is evolving into a loyal commitment, what he calls a love-mark that indicates respect and love, loyalty beyond reason, a product that is irresistible. Try this little test. Draw a vertical arrow, pointing upwards – this is Respect. Now cross this with a horizontal arrow pointing right – this is Love. The top left-hand quarter is this high on respect but low on love, and this is where he puts hotel brands. The top right-hand quarter commands highest respect and land highest love, and this is where your love marks are. (For the record, the bottom left-hand quarter, representing lowest respect and lowest love, is occupied by commodity hotels and US legacy airlines, and the bottom right-hand quarter, representing lowest respect but high love, could accommodate such television fads as the X-Factor and momentary celebrities, say Paris Hilton and Britney Spears.)
Erudition was a-plenty at Leading Hotels of the World in Venice – read it to see John Julius Norwich’s riveting description of how the city came to be. The Mayor of Venice, Massimo Cacciari, welcomed everyone, and Jan Freitag, Smith Travel Research, shared current industry data. Chris Sanderson, Strategy and Insight Director of the London-based The Future Laboratory, predicted that hitherto improbable events will become the norm rather than the exception, and tomorrow’s luxury will require rarity, heritage, a sense of locality and what he calls ‘rawness’, or cheap-chic.
The convention’s title was Preserve, Enhance & Invent: Leading the Way Forward. All main sessions, chaired by the company’s Chairman, Jean-Jacques Gauer, were held at Venice’s Fondazione Cini, the Institute of Art History on the island of San Giorgio - beautiful place, we are sure all would agree, but oh the uncomfortable conference chairs (think joined pairs of collapsible directors’ chairs but built for midgets with short-short legs). By contrast, we had nothing but praise for the overall organization, both from Leading Hotels of the World and also the destination management company, who skilfully arranged everything, from airport meeting, transfers to a water taxi, in-hotel representation at the host hotels (Bauer Hotel, Luna Hotel Baglioni and San Clemente Palace Hotel & Resort – Hotel Cipriani & Palazzo Vendramin were closed for the winter). They made sure everyone got to wherever at the appropriate time. There were so many stylish touches, say the leather-bound notebooks everyone got, for notes and jottings.
And there was a lot to write. There were, for instance, all the awards. The 450 member hotels had been judged during the period July 2008 to June 2009. The three main prizes, which consisted of trophies and BlancPain watches for the top-ranked category winners (below), went to The Gleneagles Hotel, Perthshire, Scotland; King George Palace, Athens, Greece; and Taj Exotica Resort and Spa Maldives, South Malé Atoll, Maldives. In the Commitment to Quality category, prize winners for Europe were Baur au Lac, Zurich, Switzerland, and Villa San Michele, Fiesole, Italy; for Middle East/Africa, awards went to Maia Luxury Resort and Spa, Seychelles, and Le Touessrok, Trou D’Eau Douce, Mauritius; for Asia & Pacific, the winners were The Nam Hai, Hoi An, Vietnam; for North America, winners were The Inn at Palmetto Bluff, An Auberge Resort, Bluffton SC, USA, and The Hay-Adams, Washington DC, USA; winners for Central & South America and the Caribbean, were Carlisle Bay, Antigua, and Grand Velas, Riviera Maya, Mexico. Three other Commitment winners were the Gleneagles’ above-mentioned Sustainability award, plus Community commitment, to The Taj West End, Bangalore, India, Culture commitment to Hotel Okura,
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Tokyo. Leaders Club awards, voted by members of the club, all went to European hotels, namely Hotel Excelsior Hotel Ernst, Cologne, German; to King George Palace, Athens, Greece and Le Richemond, Geneva, Switzerland. A new award is being added, as of 2010: Leading Legends, which will be judged by Jean-Jacques Gauer, Donald Goo of designers WATG, Travel+Leisure Editor-in-Chief Nancy Novogrod, and Georg Rafael, will honor individuals in the industry.
Ted Teng, President & CEO of Leading Hotels of the World, was celebrating his first year in office. His initial five-year plan has been accelerated by the world financial upheaval but he remains upbeat. His focus is on driving revenue to his 450 properties (for which read ‘putting more bodies in beds’), and on quality, quality, quality. There is no perfect number of members, he says: 23 properties have been admitted during 2009, but 44 have been terminated. His focus is on independently minded hotels and the independent, rather than corporate or group, traveler. Yes, this first year has been a fascinating journey, says Ted Teng. His job is to listen to member hotels and act for them, and it is working. Again and again delegates told us they are 100% behind what he is doing (and he does listen, indeed, and then he acts, quickly, and he is humble).
Sponsors for social events were led by two of the great Champagne houses, both privately-owned, Champagne Laurent-Perrier, and Champagne Pommery, owned by Paul-Francois Vranken, much in evidence throughout the conference . Also there in person was Prince Richard of Luxembourg, owner of Clarence Dillon Wines (named for his great grandfather, financier Clarence Dillon, who visited Bordeaux in 1934 and was so enamoured with the region he purchased both Ch Haut-Brion and also its neighbor La Mission Haut-Brion). It was that latter wine, 2000 vintage, that we had the great joy of tasting at the final gala, after Clarence Dillon Wines’ own Clarendelle White and Clarendelle red.
There was, as one might expect, sensational networking, at by-day coffee breaks (thank you Illycafe!) and lunches that were perhaps rather skewed to carbohydrates, and tepid in both color and temperature. One night was choose your dinner companions at a choice of set-meal restaurants. The first night’s welcome reception was at Scuola Grande di San Rocco, built in the 15th century for victims of the plague and later its walls and ceilings were painted by Tintoretto (1518-1594). We took a private water taxi and then a ten-minute walk down winding narrow paths, to a church that was, wow, Tintoretto murals, even upstairs, in an auditorium where the Gruppo di Musica Antica di Venezia quintet led by Prof Claudio Gasparoni played Albinoni’s Sonata in Sol Maggiore, and Vivaldi’s Concerto il la Minore, and you could have heard a pin drop.
Yes, it was learn-learn, feed your cultural senses in Venice. The final gala was at Teatro la Fenice, another city icon since its reopening in 2003. In fact this is the fourth ‘phoenix’ theater to arise from the ashes. The first three burned, the last fire, in 1996, started deliberately by electricians who were behind with contracted work and into their penalty clause (Enrico Carella disappeared but his cousin, Massimiliano Marchetti, was sentenced to six years in jail). Thanks to the support of local resident Woody Allen and many others, it was rebuilt, at a cost of about euro 90 million. The new Teatro la Fenice is in 19th-century style, following architect Aldo Rossi’s design and images from the opening scenes of Luchino Visconti's 1954 movie Senso, which was shot here.
Imagine the evening, black tie and the ladies in black or pale pink, no other colors allowed. We all chose masks, gold, black, pink, simple or befeathered. We marvelled at masked jesters from Venice’s famous carnival, pirouetting and buffooning, and the parade of ‘aristocrats’, in highly exaggerated 18th century dress complete with wigs and, in one case, a six foot-wide panier. Then we were led upstairs to the truly magnificent horseshoe-shaped auditorium, its five floors of private boxes rising to a painted and gilded pale blue ceiling that looked like a flattened Fabergé egg. This was the setting for a performance by the Italian-born Canadian pop-opera soprano Giorgia Fumanti - thank goodness she gave up earlier professions, of law and then yoga, to start studying singing professionally at 23. She just about managed not to burst out of her strapless eau-de-nil gown as she belted out, at times without the support of her nine-strong backing group or a mike (and could those behind us see her sparkling eyeshadow and the brilliant purple streaks in her shoulder-length night-black hair?).
And then it was disco, and walk home before the street cleaners started their meticulous pre-dawn brushing. And in the morning, little groups met up, at hotel check-out or at the airport (our water taxi was stopped by a police patrol for speeding but, oh such style, they let us off because we were ‘VIP hotel guests’). It was generally agreed, a great conference, Leading Hotels of the World has never looked better or, as a collection of independents, more needed, we are all behind Ted Teng and we cannot wait for the next convention. This, for the record, will be held in Tokyo, Japan, November 18-20, 2010, which happens to be the 120th birthday of one of the host hotels, The Imperial, Tokyo.
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