As you may know, in addition to his “Day Job”, Phil runs a successful podcast for the hospitality industry called “Hospitality Meets”. The podcast exists to shine a light on the amazing work that happens in the industry and it allows him to meet some amazing people doing amazing things, something he is grateful for.
Back in 2020 (Episode 64) He was able to get some time with one of Hospitality’s brightest stars, Jannes Söerensen. At the time, Jannes was the General Manager of the quite stunning Beaumont Hotel in London. Not long after, he took a sabbatical and we, like so many others, have been keenly waiting to hear what he gets up to next.
That wait is over… and it has been worth the wait.
| Introducing Kepler International Hospitality Academy (KIHA) |
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| The Reinvention of Luxury Hospitality We’re all for shining a light on ground breaking work that people do but rather than letting us explain what Kepler International Hospitality Academy is, we thought it’d be interesting to ask Jannes to explain across a couple of questions. |
| 1. Jannes, you had a successful career as an operator, culminating in your role as General Manager of The Beaumont in London, where you won many awards and industry recognition, both for the hotel and for you personally. Why did you give all that up? I have been extremely fortunate and have worked in some of the world’s very best hotels. The hospitality industry was not a world I had encountered growing up, and especially not the very high-end, luxury aspect of the business, but it is a world that has given me so much. When I entered this world just out of school, at the age of 20, having decided that further academic study was not for me at that stage, I was equipped with a strong curiosity, a belief and trust in the goodness of others, a sense of optimism and no particular aspirations beyond my first apprenticeship role as a lowly page boy. By the time I arrived at The Beaumont, I had worked at The Adlon in Berlin in the Concierge department; the Four Seasons Hotel George V in Paris as Concierge, where I was awarded my Golden Keys; the Hotel Arts Barcelona, a Ritz Carlton Hotel, as Concierge; The Plaza Hotel in New York as Assistant Chef Concierge; The Connaught in London, starting in Front of House and ending as Director of Rooms; and Le Bristol in Paris as Director of Rooms. All are extraordinary luxury hotels in extraordinary locations. What I learned over two decades in this world were valuable life lessons: truths and insights that have taken me on a journey of personal discovery and towards a philosophy of management and hotel-keeping that differs from what I encountered when I first started out. The different cultures, corporate value systems, the individual characters, the interactions and relationships all left their mark and I gained many fulfilling learnings. Helping me on this journey have been some amazing mentors: peers, superiors, guests and supporters. My luxury hotel journey began with a focus on the clients and progressed to a focus on the staff. I came to realise that what was lacking was purpose. That does not mean guests and employees are less important, but that my views evolved. I came to the strong belief that hotels have the opportunity to encourage and inspire. As an industry we have to challenge ourselves to do something meaningful, not creating but solving important problems that affect us all. We have to do something that extends beyond the four walls of the physical buildings we occupy and the beds we sell. We have to question and share our Why’s and not rely on the outdated consumer-driven models of the What’s and How’s. So, I have not given it all up. My journey is far from ended. In fact, I am more committed to the luxury hotel industry than ever. But it needs to change as the world around us changes and our guests change their lifestyles, finding ways to lessen their negative impact on the environment, live more sustainably and more healthily. This change will be driven by people with passion and vision and insight. None of this is being trained for today and so, with a group of equally dedicated industry professionals, we have created Kepler International Hospitality Academy – to prepare the hospitality leaders of today to lead luxury hotels and their teams in this new environment and to respond to these changes, all of which will require new mind and skill-sets. Visit Kepler Hospitality Academy 2. Luxury hospitality is going through a boom time. Just witness all the luxury hotel brands opening recently in London alone, let alone what is happening elsewhere in the world. Yet, you say luxury hospitality needs to change. Why is that? It became increasingly clear to me that the definition of luxury is changing and for an ever-growing proportion of hotel guests, luxury means something different to the opulence and conspicuous consumption we see so often today. I should say at the outset that luxury is a word we struggle to use at Kepler – it is over-used, mis-used and has become meaningless as a word and a concept. But for now it will have to do! More and more travellers care about their impact. They make educated choices about how they live, behave and consume. They seek a new travel model: one that fully understands their needs, that enables them to connect, that allows them to transport their life choices to wherever they may be and that even helps them to elevate those choices. Today, these high-end, wealthy travellers continue to value recognition, comfort, a sense of belonging, new experiences: all things that the best luxury hotels are able to provide. At the same time, they are increasingly concerned with sustainability, the environment and their impact on the world. They are thus faced with social and moral dilemmas. At home, they can live as they choose and actively participate in solutions to the climate crisis. Yet when they travel, they are so often placed in situations where they are constrained from living their life as they want to: from what they eat, to how and when they exercise, to where they sleep. They are offered services and amenities that do not speak to them as individuals or reflect their sense of responsibility to their own wellbeing and that of the planet. This is where luxury hotels so often fail. Luxury hotels today are still a reflection of what monetary success looks like, they are the reward for a financially accomplished life, they are the idealisation of that success. They are palaces of conspicuous consumption and I think they no longer offer what is required today. In fact, they are promoting a lifestyle that clearly needs to change. This overly commercial, short-termist approach of better, higher, faster, bigger, rarer and more exclusive is a problem in this world. We need to change the idea of what success looks like and what luxury is. Yes, beautifully designed and operated hotels remain the basis of our business but it is no longer enough. In this next phase, true ‘luxury’ will need to be sustainable, about community, about lives well-lived, about experience and about belonging. And luxury hotels can lead the way. As an industry, we have to move from problem-creating to problem-solving. Luxury hospitality needs to be an industry that inspires and be a force for good. My vision is that the hospitality community can lead by example and become positive contributors to a changing world for the better. We should take the steer our clients have given us and define what a good life lived looks like, and this is not about lavishness and exclusivity. Luxury city hotels have to lead the way. If the best hotels in the world’s great cities happen to be fully sustainable, happen to promote healthy lifestyles, change the very idea of what luxury is, are human to human organisations, then this will have a halo effect not only on the industry, but on society at large and will inspire a new generation of travellers as a whole. But, of course, this needs people to drive this change. Hence, the 5-Month Senior Executive Leadership Programme we run at KIHA provides the foundations senior hospitality managers will require to provide the motivational leadership needed to turn the industry around and become the force for good that I think it can be and must be. Visit Kepler Hospitality Academy 3. There are many well established senior management courses available for go-getting hotel managers who want to develop themselves professionally. Why are you launching another one and why is it needed? What will it offer that other courses don’t? KIHA was conceived to develop the industry leaders needed to redefine and deliver a new form of luxury in hospitality and to elevate and re-educate the successful managers of today to be prepared to deal with changing circumstances and new ecosystems. We did not find any courses in the market that have the focus on or indeed the expertise to train for all the skill sets required to implement these new models. Schools of hospitality management tend to emphasise technical and financial subjects at the expense of personal development, service, macro-economic and cultural aspects. Many studies in hospitality are focused on the past and at KIHA we are looking at today and to the future. We train today’s hospitality leaders quite differently. KIHA 5-Month Senior Executive Leadership Programme is transformational. Kepler’s intensive, experience-based approach to the development of senior hospitality managers is unique in the international business school world. We balance the three dimensions of business models, service culture and leadership, and especially self-leadership, in a holistic way, to equip our participants to anticipate and satisfy existing and emerging needs in the luxury hospitality marketplace – essential for a reimagined and necessary approach to our business today. We expose students to the new business models required to address the world of today and tomorrow. We teach them to understand the connection between the choices they make in everyday life (their personal practices) and their professional performance as a leader. We enable our students to develop different viewpoints on the impact they have as industry leaders, to explore how the evolving way of life and aspirations of today’s travellers, guests and employees require a complete rethink of current approaches to service provision and to understand the realities of the impact of the sector upon our environment, community and society at large and, most importantly, how to mitigate them. The course is divided into 2 stages, with the first stage taking place in three distinct locations, enabling exposure to real examples of innovation, sustainability in practice and outstanding hospitality. Each location was chosen for the unique perspective it offers on new business and tourism models (Amsterdam), deep service practices and mastery of self (Kyoto), and sustainable systems with a focus on community management (Freiburg/Basel). KIHA is delivered by luxury hospitality practitioners for luxury hoteliers. It is very targeted, it’s very relevant. The coaching and mentoring element is extremely important, especially when it comes to implementing the learnings in the workplace and delivering the student’s individual programme of change, which forms the second stage of the programme. KIHA’s support, in the form of mentoring and ongoing membership of the Kepler Community of Practice, giving access to a global network of executives and peers, carries on long after the formal academic element of the course is done. So many courses focus on input but a course is only of value when the student is able to apply and put into practice what they learnt and what inspired them. Sadly, with so many courses, the day-to-day business overwhelms as soon as the student is back at work and any input is soon forgotten. At KIHA, we enable and guarantee output. The first course will start this October. Entry is selective, with only 15 students in each cohort. The response to our inaugural course has been amazing but there are still a few places left. For further details and to apply – www.kepleriha.com |