Luxury Hotelier - February 2008 - (Page 19)

only a matter of time before it happens.” All of this is part of keeping a not-so-old brand up to date. “Keeping a brand relevant and leading requires one to never assume that where you are today is where you should be tomorrow,” Mr. Cooper says. “We’re no longer perceived as a stuffy older grandfather’s hotel company,” Mr. Himelstein says. “We have a different design, different service standards, and the marketing communications piece in terms of talking to our consumers has changed.” But the growth can’t occur overnight. Developing a Ritz-Carlton can be a long endeavor. For example, the 241-room RitzCarlton, Half Moon Bay (California) took 14 years to come to fruition, mostly because of the rigid regulations of the California Coastal Commission. “Quite rightly, they are very protective,” says Mr. Cooper. The Ritz-Carlton, Dallas, took two to three years of discussion and two to three years to build. “Six years later, you open a hotel,” Mr. Cooper says. “We always had Dallas on the radar; it was a question of getting the right location and the right partner.” Mr. Cooper says Ritz-Carlton is more likely to invest in a property in North America; it tends to only operate properties elsewhere in the world. “We’re less comfortable with real-estate outside of North America and when we find a partner, their business is real-estate. Ours is not,” he says. “The ideal partner for us is someone who is in the business of developing real-estate and needs a luxury hotel brand to do it.” InfoConcierge » FOR MORE INFORMATION: The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company’s Web site features information about each of the company’s open and future hotel properties, as well as its brand extensions, including spas, golf and residences: www.ritzcarlton.com — Green culture means having a serious approach he Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company is green by nature. Simon F. Cooper, Ritz-Carlton’s president and chief operating officer, says the management company must be environmentally friendly because of where its hotels are located—and it has taken that stance since the day it launched in 1983. “We’ve built hotels in beautiful locations that were pristine before we built them,” Mr. Cooper says. “Frankly, most of the jurisdictions we’re in don’t have a lot of formal environmental requirements. [The hotel industry is] almost selfpolicing because there are a lot of these locations [that], for very obvious reasons, may be emerging destinations that don’t yet have a robust environmental strategy.” The company is developing The Ritz-Carlton Rose Island, Bahamas—slated to open in 2010—and is setting a sustainable course from the beginning. The property will have no industrial water refrigeration units that produce cold water to cool equipment. Instead, the water needed to cool equipment will come from the depths of the ocean. In addition, the property will collect rainwater for irrigation. The cruise industry has done a good job of developing conservation programs and guidelines, Mr. Cooper acknowledges. “It’s a great example of something the hotel industry could emulate,” he says. There always will be questions about how to create a truly green hotel. Cooper says the sustainability movement has gained momentum, but it will take American consumers to become activists for it to be a force. “It’s happening informally,” he says. “We’re beginning to see it come up in [requests for proposals]. We’re seeing it in meetings on the West Coast.” Consumers once looked upon green programs as a way for hotels to save T money rather than the environment, but that is changing, according to Mr. Cooper. “We do environmental research about every year because we think attitudes are changing quickly,” he says. “For our guests, the ideal thing is to have unlimited energy, hot water and power, provided we produced it by solar or wind,” Mr. Cooper says. The company also is embracing social responsibility. Its volun-tourism campaign encourages guests to partake in corporate social responsibility activities at the properties. “We’re finding a lot of meetings want to have a corporate social responsibility activity before, during or after the meeting,” Mr. Cooper says. THE RITZ-CARLTON BEIJING, FINANCIAL STREET Building a house for a local family, helping a local orphanage or assembling bicycles for children are examples of programs that a Ritz-Carlton property could undertake. “Properties have been doing it; Cancun, [Mexico,] for years has been protecting turtle eggs and guests go down and help them,” Mr. Cooper says. “When the eggs get laid, they have to be protected. “It’s an employee and a guest interacting,” he says. “It creates a unique experience, a memorable experience and a personal experience.” www.LuxuryHotelier.com | February 2008 | Luxury Hotelier http://www.ritzcarlton.com http://www.LuxuryHotelier.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Luxury Hotelier - February 2008

Luxury Hotelier - February 2008 Editor's Letter Publisher's Letter Inform Network Forever Young Evolution for Jumeirah Insight Diamond in the Rough Amenities Televisions Art in Residence Yield Management Development Wine Lists Marketing to Locals Update Advertisers Index Editorial Index Source Listing Dossier

Luxury Hotelier - February 2008

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.