Below is an Autogenerated Transcript

Paul: Yesterday I went to LUX* Le Morne. I saw that hotel a couple of years back. At that time, I knew that it needed a new lease of life physically. But not just that. I was very worried about the team members. “Oh, the company doesn’t care because they’ve refurbished this hotel and that hotel.” I think that was all sort of happening like that. But the hotel was very successful. But I could see there were issues. 

Anyway, we persuaded the ownership, let’s invest some money. Previously we talked about half a billion to refurbish Le Morne. In fact, we pared that down to 125 million. Now that. That is a huge reduction. But how do we achieve it? Because obviously I’ve worked with the designer, we got a great designer who was Mauritian, and I was working with the whole team while I was sitting in Singapore during this whole pandemic. 

I heard. I’ve read about it, but I couldn’t feel it because I didn’t go myself. I didn’t tell the general manager, Jeremy, because I wanted him to be with his family, so I got out of the car. What a wonderful welcome. 

The team, total transformation. I have never in my entire career seen such a transformation that I was welcomed by the lovely Isabel who guided me.And she knew exactly what I wanted to do, what I wanted to see and everything. She couldn’t wait to tell me. We did it ourselves. We did it! 

Ron: Right because you were stuck in Singapore on Zoom, looking at photographs. 

Paul: But when you give people ownership and if they can feel that sense of ownership, then they truly care. I never imagined that an entire community of hotel team members for one hotel would collectively feel that sense of proprietorship. 

They talk to you. Everybody made eye contact. They were all on the tips of their toes.

I said to Isabel, “What is the reaction from the regular guests?” Because previous hotels, whenever you have such a beautiful property that, you know, gets on the little tired side, the regular guests, they actually love it the way it is in a way. Yes, they’d like it refreshed, but don’t change it. 

She said, “You know, Mr. Jones,” she said, “during the whole process we kept all our guests engaged through Instagram and social media. We told them what’s happening, we sent them pictures and everything so that when they came, it wasn’t a surprise.” 

Ron: We care about what matters and they recognize that to your regular guests. Part of what they care about is that place we love to go as a family on our holidays.

So if you’re doing something and you care about us, you’re going to tell us. 

Paul: Exactly.