How Beaumier redefines luxury hotels

we don't think enough about first impression with our employees right you know we have a lot of seasonal hotels a lot of people are traveling to get to us to work in the season and the first impression we make with them you know is is everything to their behavior and their attitudes you know it's our first date with them right and it's important to win them over so if you want them to smile and you want them to have the right behavior day one day two you got to get off to a good start with them welcome back to the future of hospitality i'm your co host gabi and today i'm joined by billy ceo of palmier hotels hotels that are known for their character calm design and real human service across the alps the province and the mediterranean he believes that the best hotels are places where it's easy for employees to smile and guests feel at home welcome billy thanks for having me yeah i'm so glad that you're here because i know you are really really big on culture and especially also culture for your employees like empowering them and letting them be themselves if you could have to kill one script at a check in tomorrow for example what would it be and what would would replace it well you started with a pretty pet peeve of mine in the hospitality industry i think scripted check ins are something of the past and the need to react to a client's need when you first meet and greet them for the first time is just so important so i'm giving you a very long winded answer to a short question but i think it's just critical to be able to tailor make a check in experience to what a guest want whether they want to do it online before they arrive which we're implementing in all our hotels you know whether they want to sit down and you know have a glass of something and really get the lowdown of everything they can do around us and everything in between right and just being able to allow people to kind of walk through the door of our establishments with comfort and with their dictating how they want us to to be you know assisting them from the time we spend time with them yeah yeah i love that because you're like i said both big on consumer brand but also like like employees if you like what is the one guest moment in bomir where you don't refuse to compromise on what is like really important for your guests and you will never compromise on any way or anyhow yeah i think the one thing we'll never compromise is is creating an environment where people can create their own experience right and that takes you know it sounds easy but it's not so easy to do right and what we'll never compromise on is purposely not provide these prescribed experiences and giving people kind of this you know this environment where they can feel comfortable and decide how they want to interact with our hotels with our staff and with our amenities yeah would you say that like the freedom for the guests is like really important like how they are in the hotels etc yeah i mean listen clearly once you decide to stay at one of our hotels you're already choosing a certain type of environment that you want to be part of but part of that environment is you know while we try to create little moments that are fun and special for our guest and you know a lot of things around fun food and beverage or wellness at the end of the day we really want the guests to feel that freedom to experience the hotel the way they want to and whether they're there by themselves as a couple as a young family as a gathering of people celebrating something to just give them hopefully a great backdrop to create memorable experiences yeah i love that i think the listeners that are listening right now are are also already captivated like about the story that you're telling we often also do like a fun break on quick fire where we ask quick questions and then get some quick answers just to get you billy and more are you ready for that for the quick fire let's do it yeah okay if you need to choose alps or mediterranean well i just moved next to aix en provence so i could be 30 minutes from the mediterranean and an hour and a half from the alps so i'm not picking i want to be able to do both okay okay what's the most underrated destination in your portfolio right now well we just opened recently in switzerland in wengem which is probably not as well known of a destination as some of others in our portfolio and i have to say the nature there is just breathtaking it's absolutely breathtaking so for anybody who's never been in wengham i really invite you to come and visit yeah okay what's the biggest waste of money in hotel design i'm curious technology in hotel rooms you know it ages very quickly and nobody wants to learn how to use anything while they stay with you true true and how would you describe understated luxury in one word that's a tough one i'd say just relax you know it's just gotta feel natural and relaxed relax yeah yeah we already had maybe an amenity you can delete tomorrow because it's probably technology in the room right i'm sorry repeat what you just said an amenity you can delete tomorrow but it should be probably the tech you know an amenity in a room the one thing that i've and this is going back to a dear friend of mine michael levy in the industry who talks about this a lot but the chocolate on the pillow is something that i've never quite gotten and even though that's a pretty tiny amenity i just don't get it okay shall we no chocolates anymore and no tech in the room anymore well you can just you know this idea that you can introduce like fancy technology people want things that are intuitive easy to use in a hotel they're not looking to learn how to become tech geeks while they're staying with us true that's so true so for guests and for the world out there one word for bomier's vibe chill chill so everything is just relaxing you are at home you're just chilling and i think that's also really in what you're saying you often say like we don't need to force our guests but we need to give more freedom how would you say the moment you knew guest led design works like what clicks for you if you know like okay we want to design a hotel based on what the guests also really want yeah i mean i think what tends to go wrong in design led hotels is people thinking about how something looks and how something looks is important and very relevant but you know the eyes is only one sense right and it's how something feel that's important right so it's how it all comes together and and paying attention to all the senses to ensure that again right you're just creating an environment that feel aspirational that just feels good and that allows you to hopefully be kind of the best version of yourself or whatever version of yourself you want to be while traveling yeah and how do you because you're saying okay there are multiple senses in a way how would you describe the art of genuine hospitality yeah within bomir how would you describe that it's really about creating an environment that feels very natural it starts with our employees right we want them to be themselves we want them to be empowered and just being part of something that's not forced that's not contrived that respect and incorporated environment all hotels are not just all hotels they're always part of you know beautiful surroundings and again kind of not trying to compete with that but trying to kind of blend and allow that to also play a big part of who we are yeah and i know you're not a really big fan of scripting and everything but how do you like keep the efficiency but also like the freedom that you're telling because some things yeah should it be also always that freedom or is structure also sometimes important no that's a really good question right and we're constantly challenging ourselves on what kind of that right balance is of making sure that people are trained properly and that there is a certain level of structure to the way that we operate but yet that it doesn't feel forced and contrived and it's an art not a science we don't always get it right but we try our hardest to and something we really think about a lot right is always kind of reassessing do we have that balance right in our hotels yeah yeah i love that you're saying it's not a science but an art because the thing that i also really love about the branding and the hotels is that it's simple but it is luxurious and i really liked it how did you realize that simplicity could also be like a huge advantage in luxury yeah i mean listen i don't think that's an original thought right if you look at the world today everybody is looking to simplify their lives one way or the other right so you know that we are so overly stimulated in our lives that you know having the privilege to you know have hotels create hotels reposition hotels in these beautiful environments and not trying too hard and letting it be stripped back and simple is it's actually not an easy thing to do right it's i i always say in design it's always harder to take something away than to add one thing but it's at the end of the day very we believe very in touch with the way people want to travel and live their lives today yeah yeah you you did already like a lot of of openings etc and i'm really curious like what was like one thing that you kept away from the design or did for example less and that created like more magic for the guests is there something memorable in something you took away but created so much space yeah i mean i think what bohmier has done really well over the years in the development of their properties is that confidence of repetition of materials and not over stimulating by you know our hotel rooms never have like you know wood marble tile you know and all these things and 12 colors you know and i think over the years that's something repeatedly even though you've asked me to kind of point something out but i think repeatedly without probably trying too hard and credit you know to many people who have been involved in our project and in kind of having that discipline and confidence of repetition of materials and not doing too much in any given space yeah and then of course the design is really important but like i said i know you guys are also like big on employee branding and the culture within and i think that's also right the face of brand is the people that are working there what would be the quickest staff experience tweak that makes it easy for employees to smile like inserting something in their routine that makes employees happy to serve because that's yeah also really important yeah i mean i think there are three components to this right one is you should never lose the opportunity and take really every opportunity to remind our employees that at the end of the day they're the most important people in all hotels so that's one the second thing is you know first impressions are you know people talk about first impression with guests right like the first question you asked me was about check in right but we don't think enough about first impression with our employees right you know we have a lot of seasonal hotels a lot of people are traveling to get to us to work in the season and the first impression we make with them you know is everything to their behavior and their attitudes you know it's our first date with them right and it's important to win them over so if you want them to smile and you want them to have the right behavior day one day two you got to get off to a good start with them and the last thing is you know kind of going full circle back to my first point right not only for them to understand that they're the most important people in our in our buildings but also for them to feel appreciated and never lose an opportunity to say thank you to say well done you know to give constructive criticism when is needed but you really have that ongoing communication that you know that allows for a good healthy and thriving relationship yeah i love that right because if you invest in them you eventually also invest in experience that our guests are having in that way how do you also train them for example to ask better questions and get more one on one relationship with the guests you know it's actually something we want to get better at we're developing new training programs for when we are taking in kind of the new class of people in our seasonal hotels even though obviously we have a lot of employees that follow us from one hotel to the other so we're developing new modules both physical and online we are just realizing how much training is a pyramid down so a lot of the time we think about the training of the bulk of the employees but also investing a lot more time in department heads and empowering them to train their staff more and giving them more time to do that also around the opening of our hotels so even though it's something that i think we've done pretty well so far i think it's something we recognize as a business that we need to do better so we're actually putting a lot of time energy money and efforts into in with the upcoming season in bettering ourselves and hopefully that will allow our staff to feel that much well received that much more prepared the pre opening and thrive and have that much of a better time working the season with us yeah so we already have like two of the three components that i think are really well done by palmier because we have the guest experience like the relaxed the luxury but simple we have the employees but one thing that i also really really love is like the sense of place that you're creating with the heritage of often different places how do you balance like the soul the history with the modern and classic when you open new hotels or yeah yeah i mean i think the first thing you have to do is ensure you let me just backtrack a second every property that we've purchased through the the life cycle of dumier has had a lot of dna a lot of character a lot of soul and a lot of history the first thing we need to do is hang on to that very tightly right you know we're writing the next chapter of these hotels right so there's been chapters before us so holding on really tight to you know the history of the surroundings and the history of those buildings and what was there once upon a time i think is very important i think once you do that well writing that next chapter becomes easier and you know it's a gift to be able to work on hotels in such incredible surroundings right the storytelling just writes itself right and it's so you know if if we're allowed to curse a little i would say our biggest job is to not fuck it up you know once we get our hands on these beautiful hotels yeah yeah i love that yeah you can you can curse if you want because i also like really curious when you're looking at those hotels how do you know it's authentic enough that that those chapters before are authentic and that you guys know okay if we give the bohmier vibe on it stampo on it it will be yeah the next chapter how do you feel that feeling yeah you know the word authentic is one that i struggle with a little bit in our space i feel like so many people i said this is authentic authentic you know the word unique and authentic are used and overused in our industry you know listen storytelling is storytelling right it's it's luckily we we are in in in areas of the world and with properties that have such strong dna again that we do know that it is authentic to use your word but you know it's it's about not taking these you know you want to hold true to these stories but it's the lore of what was there before and what will be there after us and you know sometime it's a little bit embellished sometime it takes a little bit of a left or right turn that's that's perfectly okay as well that's part of the charm of getting to work on hotels that get to tell such beautiful stories around them yeah i love that you're big on storytelling and it is important but how do you get it consistent across when you open when it's low season but also when it's peak season how do you keep that storytelling consistent to your guests yeah i mean so let me just say the start of good storytelling is working with very talented people with you and beaumier has luckily surrounded themselves by extraordinary talent that have helped us kind of develop these stories and these hotels you know as far as how they live in our hotels again i kind of go back to what we were talking about it's kind of that finding that right balance between telling the stories and just let the lore of their stories just be part of who we are we stop being ourselves as soon as people walk through the door we just tell them every story story that that has happened in the buildings and the surroundings right it's kind of counter to what we've been talking about for the last 15 20 minutes but it equally is fun once in a while to tell something cool about the building or the surroundings right and and it's about first making sure that that knowledge gets gets passed on and translated to our to our staff and our ecosystem and again finding that right balance between these stories just living within the walls of the buildings and being told whether it's through the digital world or the physical world with our staff yeah and i'm curious because we're talking about it right but it would be also interesting to see how you did it more practical for example with the hotel in wenger how did you preserve the history when you were opening that but also reduced operational friction i'm not sure i understand what you mean by operational friction so it is quite like how do you keep it simple but luxurious like we talked about i'm curious how you did it particularly for example for this hotel yeah i mean listen vangam is a destination that's over 100 years old the ski shop that we use for example for all our guests right they're the fourth generation in the ski shop right and there's a lot of stories like this right so yes so how do the young new brand from france go to switzerland and make sure that you know we're paying homage and being respectful to the environment and that it leads that it lives very well in kind of the opening and you know first of all you do it by doing a lot of listening at the start and doing a lot of learning about the destination that's where it all starts then you know you make sure that when you're repositioning the property that you are again taking that dna that sold the stories with you and then you know going now to your question once you have the hotel open you know you just got to do what it takes to make sure that that stays alive in the hotel and that you're also while that stays alive not afraid of writing also new stories as part of the property you know it's not that hard you know it's not easy you know but part of the key is to not try too hard right and actually not to try too hard you have to work incredibly hard right because that's where the confidence comes in that's where the training comes in that's where you know having the confidence to you know share what feels you need to be shared and again let some of those stories live through the walls of the hotel yeah i love that i really love that and to be honest like really personal when i look at your brand and i look at those hotels i'm like oh i want to be a part of that it's so you feel the freedom you feel the storytelling even though even even if you're not in the destination you feel it breathing from through the website to to everything is community also something that's big for you like having kind of your guests feel part of being a community yeah i mean listen you can't do what we do without creating a community at every hotel right and we work with as many local suppliers as we can especially through our food and beverage we hire as local as we can even though that's not always as easy as we would like it to be given the lack of population around some of our hotels and the people that work with us in developing the stories and developing these hotels we tend to repeat and keep working with them so they're part of what we call our collective and our community and none of what we do is possible without that so you know our community has no boundaries right but it involves you know it starts with bomier employees but then it goes with you know the consultant the designers the creatives that are around us it goes to the local community that we try you know the the biggest compliment is for the local community to endorse us and to be proud of what we've created and we work incredibly hard to earn that respect whenever we go into a new market yeah i love that i really think that that's also the way to go in that sense i'm also curious because i know you are often on the property you spend time in the hotels why do you do that i'm curious about why dropping in first of all very selfishly because i love it you know the energy in our hotels i just feed off of it and it just inspires me to see our hotels in action even when our hotels are not open and there's a different type of action and typically making them a little bit better and so forth right i just you know for me it's where all my creative energy comes from it's where all my inspiration is being surrounded by the people that are making it happen in our hotels you know after that i feel to contribute successfully in my role in the business that you stay as close to the business as possible is the best way i can get really good feedback the best way i can interact with as many people as possible in the business and therefore you know allow me to make sure that we're focusing on the right things and and allowing it to drive some of the strategic vision of the group so i wouldn't know any other way yeah i love that because eventually it comes back to that internal employee branding so being there showing them that they are empowered that they can be themselves and then that's the foundation of of bringing that great experience that great guest experience from the ground or from the employees up if i'm hearing correctly yeah i just need to make sure i don't overstay my welcome so i try not to stay in our hotels for too long people need to understand our general managers they're the people in charge of our hotels and while everybody typically welcomes me with open arms and again i just so so fun and exciting to to to be in our hotels at any given time i know that there are time for me to leave and you know let them get on without me at property level as well yeah on our side it's also really cool like you said to see the hotels in real life action and then stay there but yeah you also need to let them do their work so we are called of course the future of hospitality and that always brings us to the last question being about the future and i know or i'm hearing that you really see like that the future of hospitality will be people powered so by the employees but also about the guests and what are like in five years what will be like the most human moment of guest stay will that be everything or yeah how do you see that yeah i mean it's interesting our business just like many other industries right is is kind of in this intersection of how do you keep human contact and how do you introduce more technology to be more efficient in your hotels right and ai is the biggest topic on the planet right now but even new kind of software that's being developed for the hotel space where do i see the crystal ball in five years again i'm going to give you a long winded answer but for me first of all i see a very bright future for our industry if you ask every single person the number one thing they want to do with disposable income is travel i'm incredibly bullish for industry and our space moving forward because at the end of the day people want to travel they want to discover the world they want to feel connected to nature and discover these amazing cities around the world and the only way to do that is to travel you know in five years time i think technology will play a bigger part in our industry but equally i think people will also play a bigger part in our industry yeah i love that so okay that's a new one that i heard but i love that answer because people are important which i really learned also from this conversation not only your guests but also your employees they are like the fundamentals of having that good storytelling billy i really want to thank you for your time and showing us how you can really make luxury simple but also focus on your employees and provide them great great experience for your guests so thank you so much for your time oh thank you thanks for having me and thanks for your great question and your time and appreciate it thank you and for the listeners i want to invite you to follow us on linkedin on spotify or youtube and like and subscribe and i will see you to the next