Building Sustainable Luxury - Denise Dupré, Champagne Hospitality

We talk a lot about service and culture on this podcast, and that's important to the guest experience in providing great hospitality, but so is the physical environment you provide hospitality from. To help us understand what it's like to create these, we're learning today from , the founder and managing partner of Champagne Hospitality, a developer of boutique luxury hotels across France and the Caribbean. One of the reasons I was excited to talk with you is as a developer, you have an opportunity to frame this up in so many ways that many people don't, and at this conference, there is the CEO of Deutsche Hospitality saying, okay, there's a lot of demand now, a lot of money moving into the industry. This is a time for us to reinvest into building products, investing in product that is going to give a durable advantage to us as business leaders but also provide ongoing value and benefit to our guests. And development fascinates me because to some extent you have this sort of blank slate where you can create these things so long-winded way of saying it. But I'm kind of curious how you think about new development where there is that blank canvas and you can create some of these new experiences. What are you most excited about in new development as you think about opportunities and things like that for your business?

I can answer that question in one word, and that's sustainability. We are quite serious about taking care of our teams, care of our guests, but also about taking care of the planet, and I think even in luxury hospitality, our guests are going to care about that too. As we are looking at our new builds, we are looking literally across the world at the best expertise, for how do we build in the most sustainable way, not only in the actual building part of it, but what sets us up to operate in the most energy efficient way, what sets us up to have our guests actually help us be part of this solution in a really seamless way? So it still has to be luxurious, it still has to be authentic, but we don't have to spend a lot of energy forgive the pun in executing that. So how do we think about as part of our product of the future in new builds, in operations and even in renovations? So some of the things that we're doing in any kind of upgrade to the hotels is we stop and say, okay, how do we have this be friendlier to the planet, and whether that's zero food, waste cooking, which we're doing in our hotels, whether that's a very biodynamic approach to all of our vineyards and harvesting, whether that is thinking about how we use solar power where we have a lot of sun, whether that is in our beach properties, thinking about desalination at the highest quality level and water processing that is the friendliest, and in the island, water and energy power is really scarce and valuable. And how do we think about that for the long term? Because that for us, I think, is one of the places where luxury is going to need to go for people to feel really good about it. And I think the challenge is to simultaneously have it be a brilliant, authentic, luxurious experience and, at the same time, be modern. And a very simple example we're working on a project right now where electricity is really expensive, where air conditioning is perhaps the biggest expense. So we sort of said look, for hundreds of years, people were really innovative about thinking about cross breeze and how you open and close windows. So how do we go back centuries to that extraordinary cross breeze idea where you can open and close windows and we're going to, by the way, be a little nicer to our guests who have a mosquito screen. So, above free environment, we're not going to go quite back centuries and actually give our guests the opportunity to say I'm not going to use my air conditioning. And in our current marketing we're thinking about differential pricing and by the way, we don't want you to be uncomfortable but most people would say if it's 78 degrees and there's a beautiful cross breeze, they'd almost prefer fresh air. So how do I make it super easy in an operational sense For my guests to opt into that opt out? If it's humid and they're uncomfortable, we're good with that, it's a luxurious day. But how do I get it to be in a place where my guests win, we win, the planet wins and we don't have to use the air conditioning because it's 78 degrees and there's a beautiful cross breeze? Sounds simple, but across every key in the room and thinking about the orientation of the wind and when it works and the right materials on the inside that hold cold, like it's pretty sophisticated, even if it seems simple. So that's one example.

Well, I appreciate that, because I think sometimes, people that give developers enough credit, there is so much that goes into designing these properties and building them that have decades and decades of implications on all the people that work there, all the people that visit. It's a really, really important role, and I'm kind of new to that space, but I was gonna ask you if there's some breakthrough in technology or building materials that you're tracking. What I'm hearing from you, though, is maybe there is, but I'm hearing from you whether it's cutting down on food waste that's a process right Whether it is design and you're almost looking back to see how do we get creative here and maybe there's a technological breakthrough that you're excited about, but it sounds like it's everything right. You're holistically thinking about this.

Yeah, it's both Like how do I use local materials? Those don't require any carbon to move if they're on here, and that can typically be stone or wood or whatever is available locally. How do I think about climate implications for it? But you're absolutely right. There is a layer of modern advancement that we ought to take advantage of too. I mean, they didn't have solar panels hundreds of years ago. We have a lot of sun. We can put those in. We can layer that on top of the fact that we're doing everything we can to have the materials inside be stone that stay cooler. Do it all, if you will. LED lights are pretty standard fare at this point. They use less energy, they don't give off heat, they last longer, and they're operationally better. You don't have to change them as much. Simple example but if you do that across an entire property moat in activation, if no one is actually using a space, why should we light it? But let's not make it hard for people to save energy. My goal is how do we make this so easy? How do you make it so easy for people to be on the team, if you will?

Yeah, that's where you get adoption.