Make way for Missoni

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.

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?

Genuine and Generous
The main goal at Missoni, explains Gadet, is to offer genuine and generous service. After all, with its unique design — created by Rosita Missoni in partnership with the interior architect for Missoni Kuwait, Matteo Thun — guests are expecting something different.

A core element of this is the all-encompassing room rate — which includes airport pick-up, laundry, in-room breakfast, mini bar consumption, local newspapers and Wi-Fi.

“It’s an all-inclusive concept,” explains Gadet. “We combine the generous approach with the genuine approach. Let’s say you come to Kuwait, we all know it’s 40-50% occupancy in town, and you want a late check-out.

Imagine we say your room is booked, but then we speak to the manager and you can stay for two hours more at a price. We don’t go into this business.

We don’t lock you out at 12 noon so you have to go back to reception and negotiate. We try to make it easy; if we can give it to you we do, that’s where the generous part comes in — we don’t need to make an extra buck.

“The all-inclusive concept has the same philosophy behind it; it’s designed to make your stay seamless, like the design. It’s about having less procedures.

You get the mini bar included so we don’t have to ask you what you had at check-out. How annoying is that as a guest? We include unlimited laundry, we have an all-singing, all-dancing laundry in house,” says Gadet.

“We include the usual suspects like airport pick-up, although that’s in the Maserati. We include newspapers, local phone calls, breakfast — that’s an interesting one.

As traditional hoteliers, we decide how you are supposed to enjoy yourself because we want you to come to the main restaurant. That’s why we charge tray charge for the room service.

And we definitely want you to come for breakfast because we’ve filled up all these chaffing dishes with a lot of food and if you don’t come to eat there, that’s a waste,” says Gadet, with more than a hint of sarcasm.

“If you order breakfast in-room that means extra cost even if your rate includes breakfast. We don’t do any of that,” he says.

“There’s no tray charge and you can have breakfast in your room anytime. You chose us for the luxury experience, you love your room, you may want to spend some time in your room. With the traditional approach, we actually chase you out of your room. But at Missoni, we want you to enjoy wherever you are in the hotel,” he explains.

I wonder if this causes operations a headache, but Gadet says no — because the room service department is geared up for that.

And, at breakfast in the restaurant, Cucina, there is a modest buffet offering with all hot dishes cooked à la minute, avoiding the problem of wastage.

The housekeeping department is also set differently, continues Gadet.

“We’re off our trolley,” he says, referring to the abandonment of the traditional housekeeping trolleys in favour of sleek housekeeping bags.

“Do you ever enjoy coming out of a room and seeing the neighbour’s trolley with the empty bin contents on the side? These are the things that as traditional hoteliers we kind of almost enforce upon you. [The attitude is] ‘these are the procedures and you have to follow them,” explains Gadet.

Service Style
Procedures aside, it’s the service generally at Missoni that Gadet is most proud of. With the hotel subject to a series of delays, the GM had two years to recruit his team.

“I was the first on board two and half years ago and I carefully recruited. I had my core team with me from the earlier stage and we built from there. We didn’t get rid of anybody. My whole management team has been with me from the very beginning,” says Gadet.

“We have utilised the time to look at the details on service delivery and look at the hotel from much more of a holistic point of view than a design point of view.

So we had regular meetings with our teams from head office, regional office and Missoni and we shared ideas and bounced ideas off of each other. I think that was worthwhile,” he adds.

Together they went on recruitment trips to Rome and Milan and hand-picked the staff, 50 of whom are from Italy. The training that followed was “very thorough but natural”, explains Gadet, highlighting a programme called the Universal Concierge.

“This is based on the Trivial Pursuit knowledge game,” he says. “We made
six sections, each representing a category that we think it is important for staff to know something of.

“It’s often F&B that’s the difficult one: what are your opening hours, do you have something for kids etc? If you go to many hotels and ask anybody these questions, if they’re not working in that restaurant they don’t know. They’ll refer you to front desk.

“We created about 800 cards that are constantly updated; other topics include Rezidor, Middle East, and cultural behaviour. We’ve launched it online now, so in our development centre (training room) the staff play games with each other.

In the daily briefings in the outlets we play 10 minutes of the physical game. The goal is for any member of staff to be able to answer a relevant question. For example, can you tell me where is the best hairdresser in Kuwait, or whereabouts can I get the best Chinese food?”

As a result, like the traditional procedures, Missoni has done away with the traditional concierge desk.

“This is our version of concierge — everyone becomes the concierge so to speak,” says Gadet.

The Kuwait Market
Delays also gave the Missoni team longer to understand the Kuwait market — one Gadet himself was already familiar with as the general manager of Radisson Kuwait, the sister hotel he previously managed in Kuwait for Rezidor before embarking on the Missoni project.

“Like in most destinations in the GCC there has been an enormous growth in Kuwait; it’s very well developed now. There are enormous malls that can compete with Dubai, the infrastructure is fantastic, basically you can almost get everything and anything in Kuwait,” says Gadet.

“In terms of hotels, you could say there’s an oversupply I suppose. I think that there are too many players playing in the same market in Kuwait now on all levels — three-, four- and five-star.

“When we decided to come to Kuwait with this product we didn’t really want to play in the same league, we wanted to really do something different. We wanted to offer something unique and I think it was the right time to do that. I think Kuwait is now ready for something different. They’ve been waiting for a long time,” he says.

Gadet hopes that Missoni will help to change the perception of Kuwait as a purely business destination.

“In many ways we are pioneering; we are doing things for the first time here,” he says.

“People used to say to me ‘why Kuwait, it’s a business destination, nobody will ever come there for the weekend’ — but there are people coming for the weekend so where do they stay? The niche market, where can they stay? So we said we want to create a platform where that niche market feels at home.

“The government is talking about investing in leisure in a big way and it’s good; it’s what we need. I think it’s an underrated destination.
Kuwait doesn’t have to be boring, we have things to offer which are exciting and different. We have a Six Senses Spa, which will add to the leisure element.

We invite you to take your partner at no extra charge, so you may as a business traveller choose us more often or your partner may even want you to choose Kuwait because of it.

We have a mall attached, which adds another dimension to the experience. We have Giorgio Locatelli consulting on our restaurants. We have a lot of exciting things that are very new to Kuwait,” asserts Gadet.

He is realistic, however, accepting that the GCC affluent traveller is Missoni’s main target market, whether for business or leisure. Gadet adds that finding a niche market is all well and good, as long as you deliver upon your promises.

“We have our work cut out, but that’s what we wanted — we said we are going to do this and make a difference. We didn’t want to go into the mainstream market — all they do is undercut each other and that’s it.”

Hotel Missoni’s room rates are “basically comparable with the highest-rated hotel in Kuwait at the moment,” adds Gadet.

“Let’s look at value for money and, for this kind of money, I’m sure we can offer more and we will grow from there, rather than positioning ourselves sky-high rate-wise. I think the customer will appreciated that.

“It’s a bit like we are a Concorde looking down at all the Boeings and the Airbuses. We hold our own at that altitude. We do have to fight, but at least they are our battles. We don’t have to share them with everyone else,” says Gadet.

Ultimately, he takes a long-term look at Missoni’s place in the Kuwait hotel market.

“Luxury doesn’t come over night and here, it’s very much that you have to see it to believe it. What we are doing is delivering the most sexy experience to one of the most traditional markets.

In fact, who we are and what we do is just so mind-blowingly different from what people are used to, so the curiosity factor is enormous. It works for us. People just don’t believe that we have opened this beautiful property in Kuwait,” says Gadet.

Missoni’s ‘new luxury’ philosophy of being generous and not playing by traditional views, will generate its own returns, he adds.

“Being generous is just the way we see new luxury. Hoteliers have become too calculated in the luxury segment; we try to take your money on each turn of the journey. That’s where we said, ‘let’s cut all of this, let’s start again’. We want people to come back to the hotel, to tell their friends about it, and eventually the overall success will come.

It’s not short-term thinking, it’s really long-term,” he concludes.

Missoni and Rezidor
Hotel Missoni is the product of a worldwide licence agreement between The Rezidor Hotel Group and the Missoni fashion house, which was signed in 2005.

The agreement fulfils a dream of The Rezidor Hotel Group CEO and president Kurt Ritter to add a lifestyle brand to the company’s portfolio, which also includes the Radisson Blu and Park Inn by Radisson brands.

Gadet describes the partnership as having a natural harmony. The two firms work very closely together — Rossita Missoni to “transmit our lifestyle” and Rezidor “to guarantee the best service and management”.

The first Hotel Missoni opened in Edinburgh and Hotel Missoni Kuwait is only the second Missoni property in the world. The hotel is owned by the Marafi family of Kuwait, also owners of the Radisson Blu hotel Kuwait, which Kurt Ritter opened as general manager 30 years ago.

“I think when Mr. Ritter had the idea of bringing a lifestyle brand to Kuwait it was only natural that the owning company went along with it,” says Gadet.

Rezidor is now looking to grow the brand, with properties underway in Oman, Turkey and Brazil.

“We’d like to grow the brand particularly in the GCC countries and I think there is a lot of know-how here in the hotel — talented people that can be used for the growth of the company, which is a Rezidor trademark,” says Gadet.

Culinary Arts at Missoni Kuwait
Taking its Italian roots seriously means that food is very important at Hotel Missoni Kuwait, says Gadet.

The restaurant concepts — Choco Café, Cucina and Luna — were created by executive chef Ramon Salto with consulting chef Giorgio Locatelli. The collaboration with Locatelli ensures the authenticity of the outlets and the standards of the culinary team, some of whom are trained by Locatelli in London.

“The Kuwaitis love to eat out and they love to have different choices, but there is a lack of authenticity. There are no genuine concepts, all are franchises or something that has been copied and that is where we want to be different from the rest with the authenticity. We have a very different product,” asserts Salto.

During the two-year, pre-opening period, Salto worked tirelessly to source original Italian products and also makes his own halal salamis and Italian bread.

“I sourced a lot of products myself by contacting producers in Italy or UK or US, finding the product and then putting them in contact with distributors here, so I just created a link that works for everybody,” says Salto.

“I don’t mind that people use the same products we use, I think it will help to bring up the standards of the hotel industry and the rest of the F&B industry.”

Choco and Cucina have already been tried and tested by the local market, with Italian outlet Cucina averaging daily between 125 and 150 covers on the à la carte menu, according to the director of food and beverage Subin Dharman.

“We would like it to grow steadily, however, as we aim to provide absolute quality we take great care of each and every guest and we are not encouraging these numbers to grow too fast,” he says.

Still to open at Missoni in June is Luna, a restaurant on the 18th floor with a spacious terrace.

“You will discover a lounge-bar-restaurant, which will have an Arabesque touch and will be unmistakably Missoni. It is an informal outlet based on Mediterranean cuisine (as opposed to Cucina, which is purely Italian) on a sharing basis, offering dishes rather than courses,” says Dharman.

Meet the team: Sales, HR and Rooms

Katrin Kuhn
Director of human resources
Hotel Missoni is the biggest employer of Italians in Kuwait. To entice them to move from their home country to Kuwait, Katrin Kuhn says it was “about creating an exciting platform for getting an extraordinary experience and exposure”. They will be motivated to stay, she adds, “by our ‘VITA’ way of life that we practice every day”.

“Furthermore we provide excellent, close-by, top quality, full-service accommodation, English classes and further development programmes. We also work together with Italian hotel schools which provide us with trainees — a first in Kuwait.” says Kuhn.

When asked about the costs of recruiting European staff, Kuhn adds: “It is all relative and we do not look at it from a pure cost point of view, but more from a USP and revenue-generating angle. In addition, having a large contingency of young Italians adds to the authenticity of this exciting new hotel brand”.

Hilal Saadé
Director of sales and marketing
The man responsible for promoting Hotel Missoni to the market is focused on driving sales through a variety of avenues.

The brand exhibits at all the international trade fairs — including this month’s ATM — is tied up with a variety of trade partners, such as XO Private Collection, Kiwi Collection and JG Black Book, and also focuses heavily on direct business in the local Kuwait market. Online is also a powerful tool for the hotel, says Saadé.

“The targeted online business so far is 35%. But as a new brand in the Middle East as well as a new hotel in Kuwait, our strategy is to first position the hotel for the niche market, volume will come later. Seeing is believing,” says Saadé.

Elsa Lahoude, director of rooms
For Elsa Lahoude, the priority is ensuring that, just as with all other areas of service, housekeeping “happens seamlessly in our hotel”. Like Gadet, she says “we’re off our trolley”, but won’t be drawn as to the secrets of Missoni’s luxury service.

When it comes to her favourite features of the hotel, Lahoude says: “There are too many to mention, I would say the clever usage of the space and, of course, ‘The Cappuccino Bed’, which ensures a soft landing followed by a guaranteed solid sleep, including pleasant dreams...”