Special Report
Luxury hotel groups have been slower to
wake up to the fact that their customer is online and increasingly social. This year,
ritzcarlton.com – a site that had 50 million unique visits in 2015 – was relaunched. There are 30,000 pages of Ritz-Carlton imagery and content and it now integrates user-generated social content with a homepage display of photos as they are being posted and hash-tagged with #RCMemories or #RitzCarlton on social media. When it comes to social media, Allison Sitch,
vice-president, global public relations, has general oversight for The Ritz-Carlton and Ritz-Carlton Reserve, but the social media ecosystem is heavily integrated across marketing and digital departments, while Bulgari is managed out of that brand’s office in Rome. Ritz-Carlton is now present on Facebook,
Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Foursquare, LinkedIn, Google+, Sina Weibo, WeChat, YouKu and YouTube, while Ritz-Carlton Reserve has dedicated Tumblr and Instagram channels. One of Ritz-Carlton’s most recent marketing campaigns was “Let Us Stay With You”, created by Team One out of Los Angeles. “Our competition says ‘stay with us’, but we
say to the customer ‘let us stay with you’, which means, allow us to create stories and memories for you,” Humler explains. “Of course your team is a big part of that – how you empower people is so important. We tell people it’s OK to break away from their routine to help someone – drop what you are doing and take care of the customer. We say they are authorised to move heaven and earth for them. But within reason!” he laughs. “If the customer asks you about shopping, don’t go out with them and come back four hours later, but at least share your favourite places, that special craftsperson in Ubud. I want to know ‘what is your opinion as someone who works and lives in this place’; in Beijing, I always ask our doormen where the best noodle shop is.” A fan of Virgin Atlantic, he says he is
What’s next? There are more than 30 hotels under construction, including in Astana, Kazakhstan; in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia; in Mumbai, the group’s second in India (after Bangalore); and in Nanjing, the east China powerhouse. Asia is always on the list for growth, with hotels coming in Koh Samui, Thailand; Langkawi, Malaysia and two in the Chinese holiday hotspot of Hainan island – Nanyan Bay and Mission Hills. Also on the cards is Saigon, Vietnam and maybe Cambodia. In Australia, Perth and Melbourne will be home to Ritz-Carlton hotels in a few years. South America is a big gap, Humler says: “It’s where we have the biggest expansion. We are finishing a project in Cartagena, we have two underway in Panama, as well as something in Peru and Sao Paulo.” Ritz- Carlton Reserve resorts are planned for Los Cabos, Mexico; Pearl Island, Panama; Tamouda Bay, Morocco; Caroline Bay, Bermuda; and Niseko, Japan. And Bulgari will open in Dubai, Beijing and Shanghai in 2017.
impressed with how they “control” the guest experience as much as possible. “The luxury customer wants you to help them control the experience,” he says. “Look at what Virgin does – they send a car to pick you up in London, expedite you through the airport and a car waits for you in San Francisco. I want us to look at how we can partner with as many companies as possible in our destinations so we can offer those kinds of services to Ritz-Carlton guests too.”
Global phenomenon One hotel where he certainly seems to be taking care of guests is Ritz-Carlton Reserve in Puerto Rico, Dorado Beach, one of his most successful hotels it seems, but one he was least expecting. “Our people said at first ‘it’s not a luxury
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TTGLUXURY.COM SUMMER 2016 BUSINESS OF TRAVEL
destination, it’s more mass market’, but the site used to be the compound of the Rockefeller Foundation with miles of beach – all private. During the holidays, we sell out at $4,260 a night! “But what we are doing there is creating a
tradition – people want to go back to the place where they had such a great time with their loved ones, family, friends. They come for Christmas, or Easter and when they leave – they sign up to come back within two months. When you are going to charge that money, you have to make sure everything is perfect. And by the time they arrive, you know everything they want without asking them. You still want to surprise them of course.” Ritz-Carlton Reserve is clearly something he
is passionate about. The first one was Phulay Bay in Krabi, Thailand and there is also Mandapa in Ubud, Bali, with Mexico, Panama, Morocco, Bermuda and Japan all still to come. The latter will have 50 rooms at the base of Mount Niseko- Annupuri, the Japanese ski haven – and Japan is a place Humler seems to love. “We have four hotels there –Tokyo, Osaka, Okinawa and Kyoto, which is one of the finest hotels in the world I would say,” he says. Closer to the UK – Ritz-Carlton Hotel de la
Paix Geneva is the most imminent addition and the 12th for the group in Europe. “The hotel itself has needed a lot of work.
Guest comments have called it ‘dusty’; they just mean it’s old, of course. But it’s going to take us until the end of the year; absolutely everything needed changing,” says Humler. It’s a challenge that Humler and his team will
no doubt rise to with aplomb and one that should see him back on the road to make sure his newest recruits know they need to go for gold.
Pictured 1. Herve Humler 2. Staff at Ritz-Carlton Jakarta 3. Bulgari London 4. Extract from the Ritz-Carlton credo 5. Ritz-Carlton Budapest 6. Mandapa, Bali, a Ritz-Carlton Reserve
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