Luxury, relaxed

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Laura Collacott speaks to Simon Cooper, President of Ritz-Carlton, to find out how the luxury hotel brand continues to evolve and remain relevant in the modern marketplace.

You may think that the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company is somewhat older than the 25 year anniversary that it will be celebrating next year. "Most people think that we are at least 100 years old because of Cesar Ritz, or Ritz Paris," agrees Simon Cooper, the company's president.

It is not, but the association with the established Ritz hotels in London and Paris and is not something that the company are attempting to shake off.

After all, it smacks of an established luxury brand that many try to emulate: Cesar Ritz was said to be 'the king of hoteliers and hotelier to the kings'. In spite of its relative youth, the name Ritz-Carlton is synonymous with luxury hotels, running a chain of 70 hotels worldwide.

This reputation is maintained largely through maintaining an exceptionally high level of customer care, carried out through careful training and constant appraisal of each hotel.

"Measurement is critical because you don't know where your weak spots are if you're not measuring," says Cooper. "[Analysing the results], you begin to pick up themes where you may be weak, where a hotel has issues."

"Then you get to work on the issues; are there fundamental product issues or is it just that we took our eye off the ball?" These may only be small matters like the valet parking system or the bathroom products used but the devil is in the detail, as they say.

The 'attention to detail' approach that Cooper professes to in terms of hotel management could also be used to describe his personal management techniques. When questioned about his preferred style, he joked: "I described it as bothersome recently. One of my executives laughed and said ‘I didn't know you knew you were bothersome!'

"But I like to have a detailed picture of what is going on. Fortunately, we have a tremendous culture in Ritz-Carlton and that culture is what really underpins our success globally."

Service is the crux of Ritz-Carlton's success and one that it has sought to capitalise on more recently with the establishment of a 'Leadership Centre'.

Companies in a number of sectors from banking to healthcare, to retail are calling on Ritz-Carlton expertise to help them keep their customers satisfied. The company is using its rich service resource to teach others how to stay a step ahead of the competition and develop staff and customer loyalty.

The hotels have traditionally had a more formal take on luxury service with dining dress codes, exclusive internal facilities and a strict service policy. Referring to staff members as the 'ladies and gentlemen' attests to such formality.

This was installed to cater for the mature, wealthy folk that patronised the hotels but Cooper points to a shift in the demographics of the clientele.

"You've got a younger luxury traveller staying in our hotels than 25 years ago," he says. Disputing my suggestion that this may because of the increased accessibility of travel these days, he puts his own theory forward for the change: "I don't think that it's necessarily the ease of travel that has broadened the customer base."

"I think it is the acquisition of wealth in different countries. And the acquisition of wealth at a younger age."

An alteration in clientele has forced a reconsideration of the image that the chain wants to project to its customers.

In the continual process of brand adjustment, Ritz-Carlton is making an effort to react to the increasingly global marketplace to ensure that its hotels remain as appealing as ever.

The difficulty lies in making this transition without alienating existing clients. The result is a change in design strategy and an evolution of the service philosophy.

Hotel design has swung from a classic look to a more casual, sophisticated elegance. Lighter, more neutral tones are used and highlighted by location-specific accessories in a design format that Ritz-Carlton call 'consistently inconsistent'.

"Every hotel is designed individually," Cooper elaborates.

"We don't have any hotels where we share architects or designers. Guests today are looking for individual experiences and they expect us to create a hotel in Istanbul that reflects the location. But it's got to be subtle."

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