A personalised hotel service: Guests are asked about special requirements after making their reservation.
Twenty years was “frankly, more than enough” with Ritz-Carlton, and although initially he had thought of retiring, Schulze soon realised he wanted to “go on to create a masterpiece”.
And so, with some other Ritz-Carlton executives, Schulze set up the West Paces Hotel Group, through which he has developed his masterpiece — the luxury brand Capella.
“I thought Ritz-Carlton was excellent, but I felt a dream piece could be created,” he explains. “I was dreaming about a hotel where every guest gets exactly the service that he or she wants, where every employee enjoys his part of the company. He doesn’t work for the company but is part of the dream and the objective and the purpose. People come to work to create excellence,” says Schulze.
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The first step, he says, was to “forget the rules of hotels”.
“Every hotel has a check-in and a check-out time. Well, we don’t in Capella, because the guest doesn’t want it,” says Schulze.
“Why do we have hours of operation for restaurants? It’s for the convenience of the hotel, not the guest. So we have no hours of operation. If the guest wants to eat dinner in the restaurant at 3 o’clock in the night, it’s the guest’s decision, not ours.
“That’s why we call every reservation and say: what can we do for you, what do you want, how can we serve you, how can we help you experience the location, do you have a dietary need, an allergy need? We are here for you. So that’s a totally new dimension.
“I couldn’t do this — Ritz-Carlton is a great company, with great hotels — but I couldn’t do this in a 600-room hotel. Impossible. That’s why Capella is only 100 rooms in most cases,” asserts Schulze.
As with Ritz-Carlton, human resources is a key part of the Capella philosophy, with guest satisfaction monitored monthly by Talent Plus and feedback being given to the hotel team.
“I expect that over 90% of the guest in the hotels says I want to come back and I want to recommend you. Satisfaction I expect in the high 90s, but intent to return and intent to recommend, we measure on a scale of one to 10 — we only count nines and 10s and we expect that to be over 90% intent to return. Eight doesn’t count. Then we interfere, the corporate team will go back,” says Schulze.
Capella is still a very new brand, following the opening of Breidenbacher Hof, a Capella Hotel in Dusseldorf, Germany in 2008.
It has since signed and opened hotels in locations from Mexico to Singapore, and in November, will debut in New York with the Setai Fifth Avenue.
Location is vital to the success of the brand, and Schulze says “believe me, I am not exaggerating, for every Capella we have accepted we have at least 30 other opportunities”.
In order to fully serve the needs of guests — who Schulze says want to be connected to the culture — the Capella teams must be experts in their locations.
“Our connectivity to the local life is very important, that we understand and connect to the local people. That’s very different from how it was 25 years ago. We are there — we help to connect the guests to that life,” he explains.
The company also has a second brand, Solis, which is for hotels of 100-plus rooms. A project is already planned for Doha, marking West Paces entrance to the region.
As yet, no Capella hotels are agreed for the Middle East, although having opened the Ritz-Carlton Dubai, Schulze is keen for a flag here.
“Obviously I would like to be in that market, it’s a good market, it is totally understood when we go to this market that our whole intent is to be the leading luxury hotel. The key is service,” says Schulze.
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