Below is an Autogenerated Transcript

And what’s above the line is what we call TPR, taking personal responsibility. So to tie that to where Valamar is today with regards to ‘it’s in our nature to care’, and so we actually are concerned about taking good care of nature to the point where we have planted and where we are actually preserving healthy trees of different species and planting them so the guests can learn about them. And we’re putting birdhouses up in the trees to attract the birds for guests to see that are in the trees. I mean, obviously, we’re taking good care of nature.

And taking personal responsibility would be like, go plant a tree or teach your kid what it is to plant a tree. But that’s not the next level up. The next level up is not just TPR, which is take personal responsibility, but sort of a CSR. And I don’t mean corporate social responsibility. What I mean is going from personal responsibility to a shared responsibility. In other words, a leader could demonstrate ”I’ll take responsibility for that.” That’s TPR. But a leader could also say, “Let’s take responsibility for that.” “Let’s be the ones that get together over here at 7:30, right after we’re off shift. And let’s do this thing together. Let’s work to make this happen as a team.” “Let’s reach across departments or even across resorts to make this guest’s family experience even better than it would be if we did it all ourselves.” But somebody’s got to be the one that reaches out to create that sense of shared responsibility. You know, it’s the organizer. It’s the person who puts together the invitation. It’s the person who makes sure the equipment will be there and makes clear, you know, what’s the goal? That’s the CSR I’m talking about.

And in today’s world, there’s even another level. And I call that GHR, which means generate historic responsibility. Let’s face it, you and I are alive in an era of ecological catastrophes. We’re seeing the kind of fires and floods and droughts and wind events that’s got everybody nervous. At least, some of them really scared, some of them even traumatized. I have a friend who lives in Valencia, Spain, who literally watched the cars drifting down the street that he was driving on the day before. I’ve got family who live in New Jersey, in New York, and literally the woods between those two are now on fire. I mean, the world is whoa. And so it’s not a world in which it’s enough to say we take action to create value for our happy customers so they will give us five star reviews online. Yay! It’s nice to do that, but we could do more because we’re Valamar. And we should do more because we’re Valamar.

So we’re the ones who actually can be the kind of participants in the community or in our family, guests’ lives, or in the lives of the young people who come to our property where they learn about things. And it’s not just trees or birds. It could be things like, what’s a solar panel? Hey, you want to come see? How does it work? I’m 14 years old. I’ve never actually had somebody explain it to me yet. Let me get my engineer to come out here and we’ll run a little class and show you with a demonstration. Whoo! Now, some kids are going to like that. Some parents are going to adore you for it because they don’t know how to do it. And they’re also concerned about the history and the future for their kids. And we know that the some of the good things that we’re going to do at this historic level, we won’t be around to see it, but we’ll know that we contributed to it. Like, there’s a really lovely phrase that says, “There’s two best times to plant a tree. One of them is 20 years ago, so you could sit under the shade. The other one is now.”

So then I think at Valamar, we have the opportunity to do some really extraordinary things. To demonstrate that in the hospitality industry, we’re not just creating satisfaction or delight or meeting expectations or delivering great experiences. We know how to do that. We’re now genuinely earning your loyalty because you want to be loyal with us, because of how will we take good care of you and your family and your precious time and your limited financial resources, where you’d find you’re getting good value for being here with us. And you can see we’re taking great care of our team and our communities and our country and our world. And your job is to make all of this real.