Pascal Gadet shares a joke with the management team, all of whom have been working at Hotel Missoni Kuwait for two years. Pascal Gadet shares a joke with the management team, all of whom have been working at Hotel Missoni Kuwait for two years.

Louise Oakley visits the Middle East’s first Hotel Missoni in Kuwait to find out from general manager Pascal Gadet why the brand is doing away with traditional luxury hotel procedures in order to offer seamless service that matches its delightful design.

I have a warning for hotel general managers everywhere. If a gentleman by the name of Pascal Gadet checks into your property, call an emergency team meeting — you are quite possibly in the presence of your most challenging guest to date.

Not that Gadet, who over the past two years has developed the region’s first and the world’s second Hotel Missoni in Kuwait, is difficult I should add.

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It’s just he is explicitly against the service standards of a traditional luxury hotel. In fact, most elements of classic luxury hotels that we are all so accustomed to seem to frustrate him.

“Traditional luxury, particularly in Kuwait, means that with every luxury there is a procedure, which is sometimes a barrier,” says Gadet.

“Let’s say you are a VIP guest — you have to be met by the front office manager in many hotels or the duty manager. Is that really something you need after a long flight?” he asks, with obvious disdain.

“When you come to your room, five minutes later the VIP gift comes because the hotel wants it to be fresh, but they can’t get the timing right — you just want to relax and again you have to open the door.

Then you may have the courtesy call, because that’s programmed and then the person in charge of the mini bar knocks on your door, just before the turndown service comes. And all this while, all the guest wants to do is relax. If you are not going to be disturbed, for me that’s a luxury,” says Gadet.

“It’s like the airlines — you have a short flight and you have announcement after announcement. Are you really interested in the outside temperature and the altitude? It’s pretty high, are you going to open the window? I don’t think so.

And it goes on and on and on, and all you want to do is close your eyes. Luxury for me is to have a silent airline.”

In both cases, the problem is that “it’s procedure after procedure” complains Gadet.

Having spent 24 months doing away with these procedures and policies in the creation of Hotel Missoni Kuwait, I think Gadet is entitled to his opinion on the shortfalls of traditional luxury.

What he won’t get away with, however, is simply referring to the concept of Missoni as being “new luxury”. What does this mean? And what has replaced these procedures we are all so familiar with?