Luxury Travel Advisor - March 2008 - (Page 46)

COVER STORY Bob Boulogne Rosewood’s COO Targets Elite Travel Advisors s I enter The Carlyle, A Rosewood Hotel, on New York’s Madison Avenue early one winter’s morning, I’m a bit off kilter. A brisk wind has inelegantly shifted the part in my hair from the left to the right, so I’m in desperate need of a mirror. I also want to rid myself of my coat and an ultrapacked, unwieldy slouch bag, but because I’ve come in through a side entrance, my sense of place is askew, even though I’ve been to the iconic hotel many times. Plus, I’m operating on just one cup of coffee. I approach the hotel’s elevator attendant, making a rapid-fire request for directions. He personally delivers me with quiet authority to my destinations—first to the ladies’ room and then to the coat room—rather than simply pointing me in the right direction. I decide I want to stay here forever with this gentle guide who can create calm out of chaos and who has unwittingly become my ambassador to the world of Rosewood Hotels & Resorts. He’s earned this role because my reason for being at The Carlyle is to meet Rosewood’s chief operating officer, Bob Boulogne, who is in town to be honored by HSMAI as one of the “Top 25 Extraordinary Minds in Marketing” for his work on repositioning the Rosewood brand. Boulogne made the leap to COO at the prestigious luxury hotel company in 2005 after serving as its vice president of sales and marketing for four years. He’s now overseeing operations for a portfolio of properties whose luxury service and unique settings are legendary—no easy task. As I wait for Boulogne in The Carlyle A Restaurant, I absorb the vibe. If this is one of New York’s top venues for ladies who lunch, in the morning it’s the home of the Power Breakfast. Around me in the softly lit, intimate environment are moguls, socialites and executives, with a decent number of highly ROSEWOOD HOTELS & RESORTS CEO: John Scott COO: Bob Boulogne Headquarters: Dallas, TX Portfolio: The Carlyle, A Rosewood Hotel; Rosewood Mansion on Turtle Creek; Inn of the Anasazi, A Rosewood Hotel; Hotel Seiyo Ginza, A Rosewood Hotel; Al Faisaliah Hotel, A Rosewood Hotel; Hotel Al Khozama, A Rosewood Hotel; Rosewood Corniche; Las Ventanas al Paraiso, A Rosewood Resort; Caneel Bay, A Rosewood Resort; Rosewood Little Dix Bay; Jumby Bay, A Rosewood Resort; San Ysidro Ranch, A Rosewood Resort; CordeValle, A Rosewood Resort; King Pacific Lodge, A Rosewood Resort; Rosewood Mayakoba Set to open May 2008: The Mansion on Peachtree, A Rosewood Hotel & Residence (Atlanta) In 2009: Rosewood Sand Hill (Palo Alto, CA); Rosewood Dubai; Rosewood Telluride (CO); Rosewood San Miguel de Allende (Mexico) In 2010: Rosewood Costa Carmel (Costa Rica) Website: www.rosewoodhotels.com affluent leisure travelers thrown in for good measure. As Boulogne extracts himself from a lengthy conference call upstairs, I’m doted on by every attendant in the place and enjoy my own personal pot of English Breakfast tea. Having eschewed the offer of The New York Times to instead read the emails on my BlackBerry, I decide that I can easily set up shop here forever in this pampering enclave rather than function from my desk in Luxury Travel Advisor’s Third Avenue offices. But then Boulogne arrives and we’re off. He’s just returned from the newly opened Rosewood Mayakoba and he’s impressed. The property has 128 suites that surround a series of lagoons and the beachfront; many have docks for the motorboats that transport them around the area, and all have plunge pools. Forty butlers are on hand to cater to guests. But what’s impressed Boulogne the most is the physical aspect of the resort. That’s because during its development, Rosewood ensured that the property related to its surroundings, that it had a “sense of place” (a phrase the company has actually trademarked). As a result, a cookie-cutter Rosewood doesn’t exist; instead, each property is created by architects and designers who use its environs as a guide from which to build. In the case of Mayakoba, Rosewood thought this philosophy through a bit more, deciding to forego the concept of thatched roofs and pyramids, a motif that other Riviera Maya resorts have employed. Instead, its architecture is quite modern. “All of the materials we used to build that hotel are indigenous to the area,” says Boulogne. “The modern architecture allows us to have floor-to-ceiling windows that bring BY RUTHANNE TERRERO 46 LUXURY TRAVEL ADVISOR | March 2008 http://www.rosewoodhotels.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Luxury Travel Advisor - March 2008

Luxury Travel Advisor - March 2008 Contents Editor's Letter Dublin: We Tour the Irish Capital’s Top Offerings Puglia, Italy: Where to go for Complete Tranquility Small Meetings: Inspiring Settings for your Corporate Client The Thompson Beverly Hills: Bold New Style Arrives in Southern California US Grant: Unabashed Luxury in Downtown San Diego Sailing the Danube: Low-Key Luxury on River Cloud II Sin City Spas: The Latest From Some of our Favorite Las Vegas Retreats Bob Boulogne: Rosewood Hotels & Resorts' COO Targets Elite Travel Advisors The Pulse Exotic Car Rental Jetset Report Sightings Source List

Luxury Travel Advisor - March 2008

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