Interview: Montage CEO on Delivering an Ultra-Personalized Guest Experience
Skift Take
Delivering a great experience starts long before a guest walks in the door and it a service element that has to be instilled in the staff so it becomes second nature.
Editor’s Note: This interview is part of Skift's CEO interview series. This particular series is with hospitality CEOs talking about the Future of the Guest Experience and the evolving expectations and demands of hotel guests. Check out all the interviews as they come out here. Also, enjoy the previous series on the Future of Travel Booking, with online travel CEOs.
Montage Hotels & Resorts is a luxury hotel and resorts management company that’s built its reputation on ultra-personalized service in warm weather destinations in Hawaii, Mexico, and California.
With just six properties, the brand has become one of the top five highest rated small luxury chains, according to ReviewPro’s analysis of more than 830,000 reviews of 84 hotel brands.
It is also working to attract and cater to California’s growing Chinese tourist base. Montage Beverly Hills is certified “China-ready” by the Preferred Hotel Group, which advises hotels to follow a 25-item checklist to please Chinese guests.
Montage Hotels & Resorts, founded by Alan Fuerstman in 2002, launched a second brand in October 2014. Pendry is a mix of Montage’s luxury service with a lifestyle and design-driven edge and will be run by Fuerstman’s son.
"The way in which we're able to personalize experiences for our guests really adds a dimension that we think will bode well for us," he says in a discussion about the growing market for lifestyle brands.
We spoke with Fuerstman about the challenges of creating
