Building luxury from the ground up in Seychelles

Elias PertroftEspecially when guests visit places like this where you see nature at its finest, you really want to feel that you're contributing to it rather than leaving a footprint that is negative.

the Future of HospitalityWelcome to our podcast, the future of hospitality. I'm your host, Arjen Eichelebaum. And today, our guest is Elias Bergertof. He's the general manager of the Waldorf Astoria on Platte Island in the beautiful Seychelles. Elias, welcome to our show. Thank you so much. Great to be here. It's it's good to have you here all the way from The Seychelles. So before we move on to talking about your current position at the Walldorf Astoria, tell us a bit about yourself, where you're from and your journey.

Elias PertroftSure. So, I'm from Sweden originally. I grew up about an hour outside Stockholm in small town. Started traveling the world when I was 19, So not really knowing what I wanted to do for university, I left Sweden and and become a dive instructor in in Thailand.

the Future of HospitalityAlright.

Elias PertroftAnd

the Future of Hospitalitysince then So you left Sweden. Tell me more tell me more about that. So you left Sweden at 19 years old, so you decided not to study or what? Tell me a bit about that.

Elias PertroftYeah. So I think many of my friends gymnasium, what we call high school in Sweden, they may have picked something for university and realized after a year or so that it wasn't exactly their calling and they changed around. I just felt like I wanted to take some more time to understand what really interests me before picking a direction in what to study in higher studies. And a friend of mine was moving to Thailand to become a dive instructor. I said, Why don't I join you? Was supposed to be six months to do the courses. And here I am over twenty years later and I haven't really moved back home. I evolved in my career, starting off traveling the world as a diver, moving to Australia, to Borneo, to Fiji, and later on landing in Indonesia to run the cruise operations for Aman Resort at Amanwana in Moyo Island, which is about an hour seaplane ride East of Bali.

Elias PertroftThat's really when I fell in love with hospitality when I saw we had 20 tents on the beach on an island that's half the size of Singapore with only a few little fishing villages there. The rest was jungle and national park. And you can see with a team of 120 or so team members how we could create some amazing experiences for guests. So, I thought this is very special with so many working together, creating amazing dinner experiences, connecting with guests on a personal level, not just a check-in and check out experience at some resorts or hotels are more like, but really doing it to create unique memories and unique moments for for guests that came to visit.

the Future of HospitalityI can feel that that that is exactly what what you liked about being there is the the interaction with people, looking after people, make people feel comfortable. That is is that correct? So how did that go? When you you moved to your let me let I wanna get a bit of a better idea when you moved. You were 19 years old, Thailand. What was your first position? How did it start?

Elias PertroftSo when I when I started with Amanwana, I I started off to run their cruises and their dive operations. That was what I was hired as. And we launched what was then called Amanikan. It was a cruise boat, a converted old cargo vessel, actually, that was built in Sulawesi, where they built these beautiful Finisis in Indonesia. And later converted then to three luxury bedrooms, 10 crew, and sold as a private charter to exotic corners of Indonesia. So we had an itinerary that we built in Komodo Islands

the Future of Hospitalitywhere you have these giant dragons on land. Yeah. The Komodo Komodo Faron. The Komodo dragons. Oh my god. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I've always wanted to see one in real life, but I'm a bit scared because they're big.

Elias PertroftThey're big. They they can grow to three and a half meters or so, and they're they're actually highly toxic. If they bite you, you're lucky if you survive. But very, very docile creatures. They lay in the sun to warm up as they're cold blooded, and then there's plenty of food around, so you don't need to worry.

the Future of HospitalityIt sounds like paradise to me. You lay around in the sun all day and there's plenty of food around you. So, we realized with

Elias Pertroftthese cruises, we launched the cruises into this national park and it was a really unique kind of a first of its kind. Now, there are many luxury cruises in that region. We had guests boarding the boat. They chartered the boat for two or three couples. I would be on board with a big C Shark and say, What would you like to explore? You're really an explorer here because there's not much tourism back then. This is back in 2006 or so. You have options to go into remote villages. You have options to go snorkeling or dive with big manta rays. You have options to trek on the islands to see the dragons or see beautiful

the Future of Hospitalitysunrise, sunset scenery. Oh my gosh.

Elias PertroftYou can visit live volcanoes that are smoking on top and

the Future of Hospitalityeven the the water around it is bubbling. You know? It's Oh, wow. Really? Very exotic. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that sounds amazing. I've been to Indonesia once. I've been to to Java to the island of Java, and I climbed Merapi Volcano, went to Burgabudur. So I have a little bit of an idea what you're talking about because it's beautiful. Never been to Sulawesi, though, but it sounds it sounds good.

Elias PertroftIt was. It was amazing. So we did half a year there and then the other half up in Raja Ampat, which is Papua, Indonesian Papua. Yeah. What was really extraordinary was we launched this cruise. Second year. We were already fully booked for the season, 50% return guests because it was such a unique experience and you couldn't find it anywhere else. Going on board and your own explorer mind thinking of what do I want to do next, and you're just really scratching the surface over a week's charter, so you want to go back.

the Future of HospitalityOkay. Well, I'm going to put that on my list to go. Let's move let's move forward. I heard you mentioned you mentioned Fiji and etcetera, Australia. So you you after you left Sweden, which is all the way up north and cold, you went south and you didn't come back. And now you're at on in the beautiful islands of the And I wanna hear as much as I can from you about The Seychelles because that's also on my list, and I think on many people's list. Tell me more about how you ended up in The Seychelles.

Elias PertroftSo I've been working on islands for the better part of my career. And After COVID or actually, yeah, just at the end of COVID, I was approached by Hilton for this opening of Waldo Fostoria on a remote island in The Seychelles, an island that's been a coconut plantation up until the resort was built. Actually the most remote island I've ever worked on or visited almost because it's 90 miles or 130 kilometers to the closest island. It's really sitting on its own.

the Future of HospitalityAnd that's Platte Island. Platte Island. Platte Island. Correct. In between

Elias PertroftMahe and us, it drops 3,000 meters in the sea, so the depth and the marine life is out of this world. We get humpback whales in the season. They're coming through mothers with their calves, preparing them for colder waters. They stay a few months and then they head south. We get a lot of manta rays. Our lagoon is a sanctuary for hawksbill turtles, So this is an endangered species that we have the most of in all of Seychelles. This season alone, we had over 400 turtles laying eggs on our island

the Future of Hospitalityeach day. Sounds like Yeah, very

Elias Pertroftit's crazy. So, you think 400 times up to 200 eggs. These are thousands of turtles that are hatched every year off the beaches on this island. In previous places, you'd be lucky the previous places I worked you'd be lucky to see one turtle in a year coming up laying eggs and hatching. It's very rare.

the Future of HospitalityBut here you've got thousands of turtles laying eggs. That must be just an amazing sight.

Elias PertroftIt is. It is a very, very special island. And all the villas and the resort is actually set back about 50 meters from the beach.

the Future of HospitalityOkay. 50 meters from the beach? Isn't that dangerous with the rising sea levels? The 15 tons of greenery

Elias Pertroftand then coconuts and so on, and you have a large garden in front of every villa, and then you get to the beach. This is to protect the marine life and the turtles to not get disoriented when they hatch.

the Future of HospitalityRight.

Elias PertroftYeah, it's a really unique place to have that raw nature together with a luxury resort. Normally, to see the type of marine experiences or nature experiences that we offer, you would have to rough it. You would have to either have a very nice yacht that you go out and explore but not stay on the island or stay in very basic accommodation and research places So you really feel like David Attenborough, but slightly more looked after with our resort and the luxury facilities that we have. Tell me more about the resort itself and what what

the Future of HospitalityI wanna know, of course, how long how long do people because this is like a destination itself. People stay there for a longer period of time. How long do people stay there, average?

Elias PertroftSo, average between five to seven nights. And we have our own plane that comes in and lands in the middle of the island. The island is actually sort of divided in two by a runway, which is quite exotic. A twenty minute flight from Mahe and a beautiful scenery as you fly over the sea to come over here. We have 50 villas ranging between one five bedrooms, so many large villas for bigger families that want to come over and enjoy a holiday together. Three signature restaurants. That's quite rare for an island to have proper signature restaurants where one is your Mediterranean bistro, one is creole Latino grill house, everything is cooked over fire, lots of spices.

Elias PertroftAnd then we have a garden to table restaurant as well, which is beautiful, set in a chef garden where everything is harvested fresh for the evening. Do you have also a local cuisine? Is there something like that? I can only imagine there's a lot of fish being served because you're on an island. I mean, tell me more amazing about fish life. Yes. So so fresh caught fish. We have also that Creole Latino restaurant is very much of a seashell cuisine. Seashell cuisine is called Creole cuisine. It's really a melting pot of so many different cultures, cooking cultures, as the island nation is very young in itself and a mixture between India to Africa to Middle East, even quite a large Chinese population and so on. Mix it all together and it becomes a I Creole culture and a Creole

the Future of Hospitalitylove it. I love it. I love it. So when did you become the general manager of this property?

Elias PertroftI moved here about two and a half years ago, August 2022. Back then, there was only a construction team on the island. I was the first employee of the team, of course, then building a superstar team one by one to move on to Ireland about two years ago now. Right. We in Mahe for a bit before that just preparing. But it was an amazing recruitment process. We had over 5,000 people applying down to a team that, to begin with, we were a 170. Now we're about 200.

the Future of Hospitality5,000? Hold on. Let me go back. 5,000 people applying. So where do these people come from? From what part of the world? Are they locals or

Elias PertroftSo we about 40% local in our team and the rest is from all over the world. We have over 40 nationalities to the team, anywhere from Myanmar to Argentina to China to Indonesia, etcetera. So, it's a really diverse team that's amazing to work with.

the Future of HospitalityOkay. That I like the mixture. I like the the diversity. How is that that must be a challenge because you have so many different cultures, people, cultures, personalities, it's all that makes. How do you manage that? Because I can I can only imagine that's a real challenge?

Elias PertroftSo I I see my my role really as general manager here to motivate the team to shine in their space, in their passion. Everyone has a different passion, and I really want to put the spotlight. Rather than saying that you're going to have dinner at Mulan, you're going to have dinner with Gavi and he's going to show you the masters of how to prepare something freshly from the garden to a surprising taste that you never had expected. The same goes for our barista that grew up on coffee farm in Kenya or the personal concierge that takes care of you during your stay, which is our name for a butler that does anything to make sure that you are looked after and communicates that with the team. I think that the key here is really motivating the team to go above and beyond in service, in personalization, in treating the guests as the special people they are.

Elias PertroftThink once we all work towards the same goals, you don't have too many issues with the different cultures and others. You are less about me being a Swede. I'm passionate about hospitality. I'm passionate about marine conservation and that's what I communicate with guests and talk about when I get a chance. Wonderful. So yeah. It's some somewhat tricky with a a team cafeteria to get a cuisine that everyone enjoys, but we we are open to suggestions and we we tweak things around week by week.

the Future of HospitalityIt it it really sounds to me you have a very authentic organic approach. This is not coming from someone who's been to a hotel school. This is someone who has started his career just by traveling, and I'm I'm really, really, really intrigued by your your leadership. So can you maybe share a team building experience? How do you We do

Elias Pertroftdid we did an amazing team building just over a year ago when we were just getting ready to open. What we did, because we didn't have guests yet, and that's a privilege, most up and running resorts, it's harder to take the whole team together and do something to really make everyone bond. As we called it tribes, and we had everyone first learning about each other's personalities, so introvert, extrovert, etcetera, drill down into the elements of fire, water, earth for different personalities. That helps us to understand each other when we work together later. By taking everyone across the whole island, all departments, and mixing them up into smaller teams to create anthems and tribe sort of personalities of what they had as an imaginary people, not a nationality that's actually existing and then doing competitions and games around it. It's a really good way to break the ice and see a different side of someone that you're working with in an office maybe in the future, but seeing how they get creative and show a true self in a way.

the Future of HospitalityWhat do how are your guests responding to this? What is their feedback in general? So

Elias Pertroftfar, we've had an amazing feedback from guests since we opened. That's from guests, from media, from travel agents. We just got our Forbes five star, which is a rating for hotels on service, but also on emotional intelligence and actually connecting deeply with guests and not treating someone like a room number. So, that was the first Forbes five star rating in Seychelles even though many hotels have been here for

the Future of HospitalityNice one. Decades.

Elias PertroftWe also closed off last year with the highest stay scores, which is a survey that goes out to all the guests after they leave within all of Hilton EMEA, which is over 1,000 hotels and resorts. It's really shown when you live on an island and you work closely together that we can create something very special. Because nobody goes home at the end of the day, in a sense, we all are around each other and you you play sports in the afternoons, you do activities, and you you you get to know each other so much deeper than in a nine to five environment.

the Future of HospitalityAbout Waldorf Astoria, that's the brand. It's a well known brand, of course, worldwide. What excites you about Waldorf Restoria in the Star Shelfs?

Elias PertroftI think the combination of history of very fine hospitality It started off in New York with the two Towers Of Waldo Fostoria there. It's been the place for celebrations for over one hundred years. They're just about to reopen it after renovation now. So, that legacy of a fine tuned service, a very elegant way of treating guests and creating experiences, to have that intertwined with a quite natural island setting and, like I said earlier, the rare occurrence of having a turtle laying eggs in your garden of your villa and swimming with manta rays and watching the birds above or going out to see the Milky Way like you've never seen it because there's no light pollution out I want to come. Now I want to see it. I think it's it's very unique. I wanna do that.

Elias PertroftIt's a unique combination.

the Future of HospitalityOh my god. It sounds like, the destination is selling the property itself. I mean, it's the wall wall of restorative quality. That's what people expect. They know what to expect topped with the local unique experience. Am I right?

Elias PertroftAbsolutely. I think we are very blessed with our natural setting, our beautiful sunset sunrise, the stars and the nature. To be able to have that in combination with stunning villa, really outdoor living, up to a large garden, you have your own pool, you have the conveniences and the delicacies of three different restaurants, a world class bar, diving, fishing. Sport fishing is ten minutes to the drop off and you might catch a tuna. It's a very unique combination of things that comes together to a beautiful experience.

the Future of HospitalityI understand why you never go back to Sweden. I mean, I love Sweden, I've been there, but this this just beats everything. I wanna talk a bit more about the location itself. I mentioned it earlier. We left a little about its rising sea levels. Sustainability, is that a big thing?

Elias PertroftIt is for us. We recognize the beautiful nature that we have around us and we want to leave a positive impact rather than a negative one. And the resort itself is between 70% to 90% solar powered, depending on how the clouds move. We take care of all our waste and much of it goes back into compost. Glass goes into a crusher so that it's removed from the island in the best possible way and then it's recycled by various vendors. I think, especially when guests visit places like this where you see nature at its finest, you really want to feel that you're contributing to it rather than leaving a footprint that is negative.

Elias PertroftWe have Island Conservation Society on the island, which is an NGO that tracks the turtles. We have a lot of baby sharks in the lagoon. It's a 14 square kilometer lagoon, which is sort of a safe haven for so many species a lot of rays, sharks, marine life. Inside this lagoon, we have a large seagrass bed as well. This is the nursery for many of the species. But this actually absorbs over 3,000,000,000 tonnes of carbon. CO2, really? Yeah. Yeah. It's more effective than the rainforest. I

the Future of Hospitalityread about that. That's so good to hear. Oh my god. I like that.

Elias PertroftGuests get to be part of the conservation program as well. They can walk with our marine biologists and learn about the species that we have here, how to contribute or how to protect further. I think we've only been open just over a year, but there will be lots of different conservation initiatives that come along with scientific research and anything that we can contribute to the worldwide knowledge of what unique surroundings we have in this corner.

the Future of HospitalityThis sounds honestly paradise to me. You really sold it to me. I'm I'm gonna put it on top of my list. I have one last question for you, Elias. You started in the hospitality industry without an education in hospitality. You made into general manager of the Waldorf Astoria in one of the most beautiful places of the world. Do you have any advice for people who want to start a career in hospitality or thinking about a career and maybe this is the career path for them? Do you have any advice?

Elias PertroftSo I think it's an amazing career to have, hospitality. It's brought me around the world working in Indonesia, Belize, Thailand, Laos, Caribbean, now in The Seychelles. Very few professions will allow you to do so. It's all about who you meet, who you connect with. Everyone that we meet in this level of hospitality might be owning a resort, be investors in other projects and so on, and you build your network as you go along. I think top advice is to connect with everyone you meet. Be present. Be suggestive. You are so much more knowledgeable about your destination than those that come and visit, I would highly suggest that you wake up at 04:30 and go and catch that tuna and come back and you'll thank me afterwards. But if I didn't push you to go there, you might have just slept in and missed that opportunity, right? I think we need to put some respect to what we know about where we are, and that's anywhere you are. If you are in Thailand, if you're in Indonesia, if you're here in the seashells, you shouldn't miss going for a walk around the whole island at sunrise.

Elias PertroftIt's an amazing experience. Not everyone will do it unless you really make the suggestion and say, I come with will. I'm an early bird. I will meet you at 6AM.

the Future of HospitalityWe'll watch the sunrise together. You know? Oh, no. I would. I'm an early bird. Again, I climbed the Merapin Volcano at midnight, and we came down, like, four or 5AM in the morning. And I just stayed there a few hours watching the sunrise. It was most one of the most beautiful experience I ever had. So I totally get I can imagine. Yeah. Get up early and embrace nature.

Elias PertroftYeah. Take advantage of where you are. You know? Guests half around the world to get here, to see the sky of stars that we have, to see the marine life, to go and catch the fish that they dreamt about, and we should enjoy it ourselves as well. That's how we embrace it and how we get guests to enjoy it even better.

the Future of HospitalityWonderful. Thank you so much for giving us your insights, your your story. I already fell in love with with the destination. And, I put it on top of my list. Elias, thank you so much for being on our show.

Elias PertroftThank you. Thanks for talking to me. It's been a really nice conversation.

the Future of HospitalityThank you.