The brand is already carbon neutral and by 2011 Shivdasani hopes to turn off the diesel generators at its Soneva hotels to become carbon zero. “The environment definitely inspired us,” says Shivdasani as he sips his green concoction, a clear believer in his own philosophy. “Financial profitability doesn’t come by focusing on the numbers; it comes on inspiring your hosts [and] creating a concept that values and inspires them,” he continues. “Then they can create a fantastic experience for our guests, then the guests remain and they come back again and again and that’s what leads to financial profitability.”
His approach is clearly working. Over 30 percent of Soneva’s business is generated by repeat customers. The firm’s core philosophy is one of “intelligent luxury” — a saying the couple coined, which refers to their desire to offer luxuries of the highest standard in a sustainable environment.
Shivdasani admits there can often be a fine line between luxury and eco-consciousness. “You certainly have to be careful about what you market. If you market the ecology people say ‘why I’m spending so much for an ecological resort?’ and people sometimes perceive ecology as cheap so what we try [to do] is promote our intelligent luxury. It is indeed luxury but still sustainable.”
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Six Senses has been better insulated from the global economic downturn than other hotel brands. Numbers were down around 20 percent across the board in the third quarter of 2009, says Shivdasani. While he notes that this year’s winter months have been weaker than previous winters he adds that he expects to see an increase in the number of bookings for the last quarter of 2009 as Europe’s bad weather continues.
“This winter has been softer than we’d hoped,” he says. “Rather than a recovery, this winter will actually be worse than last October, November and December, which could be because people had already booked their holidays in July and August and they didn’t cancel when Lehman Brothers went bankrupt.”
A firm believer of the “W” shaped rather than the “V” recovery, Shivdasani is under no illusion that the next two years are likely to be tough for the hospitality industry as a whole. His strategy is to look to emerging economies such as India, China and the GCC to make up for losses felt in Europe — Six Senses largest clientele. “It’s going to be tough for the next two years and all we can do is try and get more market, claw more market share from our competitors. Look at new markets in India and China to stimulate more business,” he says.
The hotelier also plans to increase its market share in the GGC. In addition to Zighy Bay in Oman, Six Senses also operates a Hideaway property in Ma’In, Jordan and a spa in Port Ghalib, Egypt. It also plans to open a spa at the Al Bustan Palace in Muscat this year as well as open an additional hotel in Petra, Jordan in the near future.
Shivdasani also hopes to increase its GCC clientele by five percent. “Overall it’s (the GCC market) is still relatively small but we would like to build it up to about five percent. If we can get five percent that would be a good share because it’s a small market but very affluent. If it’s five of our guests it will most probably be eight to nine percent of our revenue because the average spend is higher and they take the bigger villas.”
Despite the downturn Six Senses has managed to maintain its pipeline of new hotels. “The supply is a bit like a tanker, even when you turn the engine off you still continue to cruise along for another six miles and we have that at the moment when the engine has been turned off, new openings are happening because they were conceived a few years back,” he explains.
Although the Shivdasanis are keen to continue growing the brand, both are aware of losing their carefully crafted identity so plan to eventually operate over ten clusters across the world. “We will eventually have ten clusters with five to ten properties rather than having 50 properties in 50 different countries spread out,” he says.
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