The latest edition of the Boutique Hotel Investment Conference by BLLA, held at Florence Gould Hall in New York City, brought the latest in category trends and investment insights all together on one stage.
During the keynote conversation, “The Landscape of Boutique Hotel Investment,” Ariela Kiradjian, partner/COO, BLLA and cofounder, StayBoutique, sat down with father and son Alan Fuerstman, founder/chairman/CEO, Montage International, and Michael Fuerstman, cofounder, Pendry Hotels & Resorts, who talked about the importance of high-level service at luxury hotels.
“Luxury is such a broad word, and there have been so many compromises made in pursuit of a bottom line,” said Alan Fuerstman. “A longer-term approach to luxury is differentiating a product in such a way that you can command the kind of premiums it’s meant to get to legitimize what we are offering.”
He said that his company is “highly focused” on the service component. “We allocate more towards training, mentoring and mentoring our people,” he added. “It is the essence of who we are, but make no mistake, it’s so we can charge premiums, so that the economics makes sense and can deliver both for an investor as well as the customer brand experience.”
For Michael Fuerstman, service is where true luxury comes from. “In my mind, the guest experience can’t be broken down between the hardware and the software,” he said. “It is the physical building, environment, scale, architecture, the lighting, the design…All of that is powered by the people and the service culture, how you are made to feel and the systems that we have in place to take care of somebody. I just don’t believe a luxury hotel experience exists without both of those things.”
He continued, “Our people create magic and if you were to ask our guests, for the most part, it is really about the relationships they formed with our team on the ground. Those are our repeat guests. It is because they feel really well taken care of.”
