Les Maisons
Q2
You have developed five "Maisons" across the world, from the West Indies, to the Alps and Maldives, what factors do you look for when selecting new sites and how do you approach the topic of expansion?
We do not open new locations lightly. We start off by looking for destinations that attract our clientele: the high-end luxury market. Our focus is on leisure destinations - that is with the exception of Paris where clients can combine say Thursday and Friday for business with a weekend leisure trip with family. When it comes to finances, we need to achieve a certain nightly rate to guarantee the service we want to deliver to our clients. Leisure destinations need to have exceptional components to make them standout and with these metrics in mind, there are only 15 or so locations which meet our eligibility criteria. We must also consider the right size of property and the quality of natural assets such as the beach and or skiing opportunities. We also don’t want hotel sites which are too big – they should be ideally under 100 rooms to guarantee intimacy and exclusivity. Safety and security such as healthcare services, airport infrastructure and the availability of quality staff are obviously other factors we need to consider. Finally, we are not interested in being no.3 or no.4 in the market – we must be no.1. This ensures that our growth strategy is focused squarely on sustaining the quality of our facilities and services.
Q3
Cheval Blanc is part of the LVMH family. What other LVMH brands does Cheval Blanc work with and what in your view sets these brands apart from their peers?
One thing that sets Cheval Blanc and other LVMH brands apart from their competitors is their vision for long-term excellence rather than pursuit of short-term profits. To use an analogy, a wine merchant with an exceptional brand would rather forgo a bad year's grapes than issue a bottle for the sake of commercial profit. Cheval Blanc takes a similar approach to the hospitality sector. When it comes to partnering with brands, Cheval Blanc wants to work with brands which are the best in their fields. In hotel spas, we partner with Dior and Guerlain, when it comes to food and beverage, we work with brands like Krug and Dom Perignon. Furthermore, we co-brand with Loro Piana, an Italian cashmere brand which we can showcase in our Maisons' boutiques as well as work with a number of brands within the group such as Hublot. These partnerships help our brand to reach new audiences through the networks and affiliations built by our brand partners in the LVMH family.