I really think unique hospitality is this notion of warm engaging service, its having colleagues who feel great about themselves and having them interact with guests who also feel great about themselves.
My dream vision right now would be we get to the point where people think about Fairmont as an experience they want to have, whether they’re a colleague or a guest and they’re not thinking about ‘you’re a colleague, we’re a guest’ and they’re not even thinking about us being a hotel company, they’re really thinking about I want a Fairmont experience and that’s a very warm personal engaging experience.
If we get that kind of emotional attachment in our brand we will be unstoppable. The trick is how do you appeal to the emotion, but provide them with the rationale to keep reinforcing themselves.
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One of our former vice president of operations used to say ‘in a Fairmont, the colleagues don’t look up to the guest, they don’t look down on the guest, they look the guest right in the eye.’
And there’s something very real about that and they have to be confident in themselves, in their knowledge of their job and their community and their knowledge of how they’re going to be supported by management to have that direct interaction with the guests.
The guests also have to be comfortable enough with who they are to be able to interact like that with the colleagues. That doesn’t work for everybody, we’re not ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen – we’re real people helping real people get something done, hopefully in a memorable exciting way.
What is it that you love about being involved in the hospitality industry and being the president of Fairmont?
What I love most about the industry is that it is a very complex and dynamic business – there are so many different aspects to this, food and beverage, golf, retail, spa – you’ve got the real estate, the operations, the pricing, you’ve got all this electronic distribution you’ve got technology – its is a fascinating complex business – you don’t get bored.
What do I like most about Fairmont? Our people – we have a value system that’s all about respect, integrity, teamwork and empowerment and when you have 30,000 people thinking the same way – I can go to a Fairmont I’ve never been to before and I can walk in and can get a feeling from the colleagues – I’ll stand in front of 300, 400 colleagues and feel like I’ve come home.
I’ve never met these people before and they’ve never met me and that is a very unique thing. You just don’t find that in companies anymore.
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