Mary Gostelow, luxury travel writer/editor and commentator extraordinaire, and I finally managed to land in the same city for a long overdue conversation about issues, insights, and innovation in luxury marketing.I had pegged Mary from her writings (among them, The Gostelow Report and WOW! for KIWI), as a very thoughtful romantic, and keen observer of imagination marketing in travel, with a gift for essence journalism. When she writes about specific luxury brands, and the stewards of those brands, you know 'She is there!' Always up close and personal.
Despite some technical tape recorder issues, we managed to pick up a buffet of tasty offerings from Mary – to be followed up by phone later. Paraphrasing Mary:
- New Breed in Luxury Hotel Development-- We've got a lot of people around the globe who have made a lot of money and want to get into luxury development. They are perfectly happy to have a hotel as a perfect toy. An example of that is Palazzo Sasso in Ravello. The owner made his money out of canned tomatoes, and the Palazzo is his reward, and ours, as well.
- Getting the Basics Right-Thoughtful Luxury-At the luxury level we take so much for granted today—internet connections anywhere; prompt, high quality room service; decent sheets and toilet paper, and much more. How about a good bedside light? How many beds do you get into where you can really read in bed? Or something as simple as controlling the room temperature? Super-luxury is being able to turn on light switches, read in bed, have good bathroom lighting, so you can manage your contacts and shave without cutting yourself
- Something Old, Something New-Something Bold, Something True-There is a definite undercurrent of conflict between an inherent desire for something new, and a genuine appreciation of familiarity with the already-known and experienced. Why do we get the really confident luxury-level traveler, going back to the same place time and again? It could be Sandy Lane in Barbados or fishing in Mongolia. Why not?
- Too Tough to Get To? We should appreciate the desire of individual spenders when it comes to top-level traveling to have an experience that is not easily accessible. In other words, the more difficult it is to get to a place for the leisure consumer, the more attractive it becomes.