Below is an Autogenerated Transcript

Ron: So in a sense, the LUX’s shining position already was presuming a kind of intimacy and care with the guests. Above and beyond, amazing service. To shine. The guest shines.We shine. It’s a shining moment.And then salt is an entire brand to bring about that caring, authentic engagement. And then the whole group went from“We make each moment matter” to “We care about what matters”. Speak about that. 

Nitesh: A big thanks to your good self, Ron, and uplifting service because we have always learned the six levels of service.What you helped us to bringing was a seventh level of service, which was LUX* Shining.You know, you help us with the building blocks, you help those with the common service language and It all helps us to build a culture because yes, training can be done and training is very important.

We went more than 10 or 20 times over training. We double it every year, you know, very important.And all these things leads to make a culture. So what happens is when the culture is built, even if a new team member comes in, he gets submerged in this culture. As in, “Oh, my God, I’m into this now.”I’m into…and he behaves since day one into the culture as such. And that helped us achieve the LUX* Shining. We went from “We make each moment matter” towards  “We care about what matters” in the sense that, you know, what we felt during this COVID was, the most important word which came out was “Care.”

It was all about how much I care for you, how much I care for people, how much we care for our planet. So whilst everybody was in lockdown, our team worked very hard to create a full circle of care. Inside that, we came up with different new innovations, ideas. How can we care for guests?

So for example, one of them was collective care, where we said that, you know, we are fortunate but there are some less fortunate peopleWho are maybe physically not well. Things as such. How can we bring them inside of a workforce? How can you bring them and work together? How can we take the society community together forward? We Came up with an idea in LUX* Tea Horse Road that, you know, how can we take the community forward? We now do English classes for the whole community over there.We teach all the village children English classes because we have the capability to do so, you know, and it’s always good to have that support of the society.One of the things which we did was, in SALT, was to So, for example, you know, in every hotel you get a paper envelope, okay. We went to one of the jeans factories over here, and when they made the jeans, the corners got cut out. We collected all the corner cloth, and we made envelopes with that. We made a keycard holder with that. So we don’t give paper.Instead, we give a jeans envelope which the guests take with them.You know, all the old towels, we make a mat for the pets.You know, the discarded bedsheet, we made handbags with them. Instead of using paper bags or plastic bags as such.So waste?? went into that one.We came up with this Farm to Fork. So what we realized was that within the LUX* collective, the culinary art is very sacred. We said,“So how can we connect people, our plate and the planet?” The three pieces together. 

Okay. We said that, okay, our food concept will be homegrown, homemade, island-fresh, farm-fresh, zero waste. So everything from the island, okay. So we don’t have to fly in lots of stuff from outside.And then what happens is that when you do this, it’s also good for the health, physical and mental health, of our guests.So that’s also at the care because we care about what matters.

So we are preparing our food which is good for our planet, which is good for the health of the guests, which is good for team members. So it is good, clean, and fair food. So we went into a slow food concept as such, you know. All of the chefs became members of the Slow Food concept. So Slow Food is a kind of concept which has started from Italy and it’s an association of chefs where they say that they will only use food ingredients where it has been grown without any chemical fertilizers or something as such, you know.It uses local ingredients, it supports the local people as such.That’s what we said. We care about what matters. 

We did something very phenomenal at SALT. You know, so in Mauritius, what happens is that at a young age, certain people, suppose they go into drugs or something as such, and if they are jailed, when they come out, the society does not accept them because, You know.Yeah, there’s a distance as such. So what we did was that we partnered with an island beer company over here who has got some plots of land from the government. Along with partnership with them, we trained all these people – ex-convicts – into permaculture, into agriculture.They were trained into that and they would produce all the greens and the herbs and everything and we’ll get it to the hotel.

So they get an income, they get partially included inside the society. The society starts accepting them. The garden is at a distance, so safety for the guests also, you know. So it works in a very good way.So we bring the society along with us. And it’s permaculture. So it’s something that’s up forward in terms of where the environment and society want to go anyway. Exactly. 

So we bring in all those directions. How we can care for people. How can we care for our guests?

But we did a lot of things, for example, at SALT if we can continue in this answer, we said that all our products will come locally.And initially it was not easy. It was, you know, we could not find anyone who could make the crockery for us. So we found one lady, Jenin. She used to do pottery as a hobby. So we approached her and said, we would like you to make our cups and mugs and water glasses and plates and all. She was like… “I don’t have the equipment. I’m not prepared for that.” Visit first, visit second, visit third…On the sixth visit, she left her dog behind me.

Take this guy out. But finally she agreed. And today she is so proud because she makes all our dinner plates.She makes side plates, she makes our starter plates, she makes water glasses, She makes our coffee mugs. She’s employing other people. Exactly. 

So it’s a complete circular economy over here. You know, everything stays on the island itself rather than importing something from outside. So that’s what we are trying to do, is take our community forward along with us.

Ron: So the SALT brand was already into this whole connected community circular caring for what matters.

Absolutely. Yeah.