The Red Carnation Blueprint: Making Every Guest Feel Like the Only One - Suzie Thompson, Red Carnation Hotels

Josiah: Today, I'm delighted to share a conversation with two people I've worked with for many years, both of whom are world-class experts in guest experience. Our host and guest experience correspondent, Danica Smith, is interviewing Suzie Thompson, an incredible hospitality leader behind the global success of Red Carnation Hotels. This episode is the first in a series we're running with Danica and Suzie in the days ahead, so keep listening to hear how Suzie and her team blend data, culture, and creativity to make every guest feel like the only guest. You'll hear how they curate once-in-a-lifetime experiences, cultivate a culture of empowerment at every level, and how they use technology to facilitate deeper guest relationships. There's a lot here, so feel free to use the chapter markers in your podcast app if you want to skip to a specific topic, but I highly encourage you to listen to the whole thing because I think you're going to enjoy it as much as I did. Let's get into it. 

[intro]

Danica: I'm really excited because today I'm joined by Suzie Thompson, Vice President of Commercial at Red Carnation Hotels. I have known Suzie for many years now. She has been an absolute beacon and icon to me personally in the industry and many others of us. So Suzie has a remarkable track record. She really owns the luxury hospitality space and is responsible for driving commercial strategy across one of the most respected collections of boutique hotels in the world. Some of my favorite hotels from Hotel 41 to Oyster Box, I've managed to visit quite a few in my time. So Suzie, welcome to the show and thank you very much for joining us at Hospitality Daily.

Suzie: Hi Danica and thank you so much for inviting me to be part of the conversation. Super happy to be having this chat with you today.

Danica: So Suzie, for those of our listeners that maybe do not know Red Carnations yet or yourself, would you give us a little bit of an introduction into yourself and Red Carnation Hotels?

Suzie: Yep, it's a pleasure. So Red Carnation Hotels is a family-owned collection of boutique hotels. So we have 18 properties around the world, all very different, but all share a sort of DNA and a commitment to delivering exceptional guest experiences. So we have Ashford Castle, for example, one of our flagship properties over in Ireland. We have the Oyster Box, as you've mentioned, an icon in South Africa. We have a lot of hotels here in the UK, Hotel 41, as you'd mentioned. We also have the Milestone Hotel and residences in Kensington. And we have 100 Princes Street up in Edinburgh, which is our latest opening, which opened a year ago actually, next month. Congratulations. I just had a really exciting first year. And then we have Kedra Safari Lodge. So totally different experience again, our sort of luxury 12 lodges in the heart of the Okavanga Delta in Botswana. So an eclectic collection, but all equally beautiful and interesting properties.

Danica: So many of them are still on my bucket list to stay. But I think what Red Carnation Hotels, I mean, some of your properties have been around for a very long time, but you managed to maintain this timeless elegance, this timeless guest experience that as a brand you really are renowned for. I mean, I remember when we, I first met you in the early, I think it was 2011, 2010, and, you know, Hotel 41 dominated the best hotel in London. you know, for a decade and continues to maintain that prestigious reputation within the industry and with your guests. So I guess, you know, to really kick things off, how do you do it? How do we do it? How do you do it?

Suzie: I do think it's as simple as putting the guest at the heart of every decision that the business makes. and really listening to what our guests want, what our guests love, what our guests don't love, and really being honest about what we do well and what we could do better. But fundamentally, the success of Red Carnation Hotels is the culture of the company. So we're a family owned business and have very involved owners who have decades and decades of hospitality and housekeeping and restaurant experience. And so that culture kind of runs through the business and I'd say the key thing is the investment in training of our people, of our teams, of keeping a culture of empowerment and accountability and putting the responsibility of the guest experience in the hands of our teams to always get it right but always to be looking for opportunities to exceed that guest's expectation. It's always about, this is what the guest is expecting from this day. What can we do so that they have a remarkable experience where they say, wow, I didn't expect that. I wasn't expecting that level of care.

Danica: Yeah, and it's something that when we talk about the guest experience, and I know each of your properties is so unique, but that guest experience of putting the guest first philosophy really runs throughout your concept from, you know, your brand on your website, your positioning to the product itself. I mean, your interior decor, your properties is just absolutely stunning. And then, of course, the people. For anybody that's ever visited one of your properties, the people are just phenomenal. So that kind of guest first philosophy, Suzie, how do you ensure that remains at the heart of everything you do? You mentioned a bit of investing in people and the culture. Is there anything tangible that you can give other hoteliers listening that really want to kind of embed that in their culture?

Suzie: I think it does just come down to training and empowerment. Empowerment is very powerful. It's really hard to exceed the expectations of a guest if you have to go and ask your supervisor if you can do, you know, a small, we call them tiny noticeable touches, but if you can, you know, go that little extra step. If you feel empowered to make small decisions consistently throughout the day that exceeds guests' expectations, that's really where the power is. So it's trust, empowerment, accountability, and then celebrating our team's When we get a brilliant review on TripAdvisor, that talks about the fact that Danica in the restaurant went that little extra step just to make sure that, you know, my daughter had some colouring in to do because they could see that she was perhaps a bit bored. Like all of these examples and there are really hundreds of examples. Yes, there are. Yeah, but it's building a culture where everybody wants to feel like they can make a difference and they'll be celebrated for making a difference. And also they get the guest feedback. And that's also, it's all a cycle of, you know, creating a whole great guest experience for the guests, but also for our teams.

Danica: Yeah. And I think that's really evident online as well. And externally, not just online, externally, like your leadership team, what you do for the industry, you know, right the way across what you do for marketing, Suzie, you in the commercial function. You know, and I saw on your website, you have the power of passion and you are all very, very passionate. Is that something that you look for in recruitment then when you talk about making sure you've got that culture? Because you know what, you really all do seem to be completely obsessed with guest experience and love what you do, which is why you've all been there for so long and it's incredible to witness.

Suzie: Yeah, I mean, selection is a huge part of it. You need to really bring people in who like people and who really enjoy making someone's day. I think you have to have that. You don't necessarily need to come with lots of experience in the industry, but you need to come with a passion for people where you're going to enjoy spending your day, you know, either preparing for a stay or just ensuring that when the guest arrives that they have a really special time. It's not for everyone. So it's really about being able to have an eye for kind of recruiting those special people that enjoy other people fundamentally.

Danica: Yeah, and get celebrated for it as well, which I think is phenomenal. So Suzie, going back to the individual kind of properties that you have, and you look at that guest experience. How do you prepare and kind of deliver different guest experience, different guest expectations at property level and the buying cycle, different personas? Talk to me about that because it's quite complex, I can imagine, in nailing the very different guest experiences with the different guest segments that people come and stay at Red Carnation Hotels for.

Suzie: Yeah, and you know that pre-stay is such an important part and we are constantly looking at how can we get to know our guests as much as we possibly can before their stay. And I think generally speaking, most guests actually want to give you quite a lot of information. We always laugh because a lot of our TripAdvisor reviews talk about, you know, it was my birthday and they brought me a cake. Well, of course, now, you know, after reading a review, it's amazing how many cakes we have to deliver for people's birthdays. But I think generally when people are spending their money and their time in a hotel, it's not just a hotel stay. It really is more than that. And particularly if it's a celebration. And I think it's understanding why is a guest coming? Are they coming because they're going to see a show? Okay, what can we do that would link, you know, that experience into their hotel stay? So for example, we may have relationships with theaters, where we might put a program in the bedroom because we know someone's going to go and watch a show would be an example. But you need to know they're going to see that show to allow the opportunity to be thoughtful. So it's really the pre-stay. So, you know, we still take a lot of our reservations through our central reservations office. And that's a huge kind of opportunity for us as we see it to ask these questions and find out, you know, what is the reason for the stay? And we're able to kind of invest in technology now to help us with the digital collection of that information for guests that are booking through the website, for example. And we've always sort of had this guest preference collection, even going back to when the guest preference form used to be sent by fax when I started at Red Carnation. That's how I've been here now. Yeah. So the principle has always been there. The technology delivery of that process has definitely changed. But the fundamental pre-stay, understand as much as we can about the guests and their reasons for coming to stay, that's the opportunity. And I suppose it's the commitment to following through with the delivery. We've collected the information. There's now an expectation that we're going to do something with that information.

Danica: Yeah, exactly. Don't just ask me for something and then not use it.

Suzie: No, don't let me tell you it's my birthday and then you pretend you didn't know it was my birthday. I mean, then you start undoing, going in the reverse in terms of, you know, exceeding guests' expectations. There's nothing worse than not delivering on guests' expectations.

Danica: and even operationally not being able to deliver the champagne rose petals because housekeeping is so busy. We saw it a lot post-COVID in reviews that happened in many other brands and Red Carnation has always managed to avoid that. And what's interesting, Suzie, hearing you say about your obsession about kind of that hyper-personalization pre-stay, which is such an overused term at the moment, isn't it? Like how can we make the guest experience more memorable and personalized? But you really have been walking the walk for decades now. So in terms of the shift of all of the digital technology that we see that can help you with that, I would be interested to know from kind of obviously Central Reservations and the team there, you know, I've met them in the past, they're incredible. How has the digital transformation enhanced that, hindered it, added, subtracted? Talk to me about the difference there, please.

Suzie: I mean, we have spent quite a few years optimizing our tech stack, as some people in technology would say, because the focus from sort of my role in the business looking at strategy is to future proof. So a lot of what we've been doing, certainly since COVID, where COVID actually gave us this sort of pause, to make quite a few changes then because we didn't have guests, sadly. But for example, Central Reservations was created in COVID. So it gave us that unique opportunity where we had time to centralize our team and refresh those processes and, you know, build consistency into that side of our business. Because yes, we receive obviously a lot of business online, but we still find guests want to talk. to someone, and we need to provide that experience that's still wanted. And off the back of central reservations, we then, you know, had five PMS platforms across the group, which really limited our ability to have that single view of our customer. So we went through a process of upgrading to one PMS platform and really it's about getting our data in a really good place so that we can leverage, you know, the rapidly changing tech solutions that feels like every day there is a new sort of AI initiative that's going to improve efficiency or that's going to deliver personalization or is going to revolutionize upsell or you know, create better loyalty engagement. I mean, lots of these things. But I think fundamentally, you can't really do very much to leverage these new technical tools, unless the data is in a really good place. And makes sense, because these tools are only going to take the data that you have. And if that data is messy and inaccurate, you could really go down the wrong path. in terms of delivering personalization that's not relevant, based on what that data tells the tools about you. So for us, it's been, you know, every conference I go to now, it's just feels like every session is about AI. But I think there's a lot of talk about AI, but not many practical suggestions at the moment as to actually, okay, well, what is that going to do for my business? What's that going to do for my customer? How is that going to be a good thing? And I think that's at that sort of pivotal stage we're at the moment. But I feel like while all of that's getting organized and we as hoteliers in the background should be getting ourselves organized. You know, we don't need to be the innovator and the technology solution, but we need to protect and take care of the data, which is fundamentally that is the data is our opportunity to add value to our guests. And it's our responsibility to make that right. And then we have plenty of startup technology companies that can create the tools. But we still need to take ownership for our data. And I think for hoteliers, that will become the biggest opportunity. You know, it's the most important asset that we have. What other asset in a hotel needs protection? You know, we have data protection because it's so important.

Danica: Yeah. And I think, Suzie, that one of the things that I've admired you so much for as a leader over the years, one of the many, by the way, is even though you come from a commercial background and function, and you're looking at the strategy and the innovation and the growth, you always put guest experience first. And I mean the guests, you know, coming to stay in your property, how are they experiencing the brand, your team, your staff? So when you talk about data and the benefits of data, I think it's so refreshing to hear somebody from your function aligning data with the guest experience and not kind of looking at it as, you know, just purely revenue metrics or how can we segment to upsell this or this guest. So as somebody who's obsessed with guest experience, as I know you are, thank you for that. And I think that's, you know, definitely a unique strategy. You don't often see your function be so obsessed with the guest experience. On the data side, Suzie, tell me a little bit, obviously you know and you're capturing a lot about your guests. How has the guests that come and experience Red Carnation Hotels changed over the last two, three years? Have you seen a shift in the type of guests that are coming to stay at your properties?

Suzie: I think our guests expect more. I think guests, going back to the data piece, give you a lot of information about them and they expect you to use it. So I think there is a level of expectation to creating unique and personalized guest experiences and being able to curate experiences that are unique and special. and can't be found somewhere else. So we've spent the last couple of years really looking at, you know, the experiences that we promote in our destinations and really challenging ourselves to create something unique. You know, there's obviously a list of things that people always do when they come to London, and that's fine. that's probably very well covered. But we're trying to now, you know, work with some of our partners and suppliers to create really unique experiences that can't be found outside of Red Carnation Hotel. So we have lots of great relationships with, you know, organizations where we're able to create curated tours. One of our most popular experiences at the Rubens Hotel, which is where I am today, know is the chef taking our guests for a tour of Borough Market to meet the suppliers of the kitchen and then buying some you know produce and then having a cookery class and just creating things that can't be copied by others and that doesn't exist elsewhere and you know we try to really also look at everyone in the traveling party. So rather than just Mr. and Mrs. Smith, we're looking at Mr. and Mrs. Smith's children, we're looking at Mr. and Mrs. Smith's dog that's coming, because Red Carnation is a very pet-friendly hotel company. And we're making sure that the stay is curated for Mr. and Mrs. Smith, but it's also curated for, you know, Junior Smith and Teenager Smith, who, you know, none of those travelers want to really do the same thing, but they're probably trying to do the same thing to spend some family time. So it's trying to… I think parents are always happy when their children are happy. Well, certainly I am. travel with my daughter, but so it's also, there's an expectation that everyone's going to be looked after, not just the person paying the bill.

Danica: That's incredible to hear. I actually, this is maybe a bit sad, but I got goosebumps when you spoke about those, you know, that creative tour of going to Borough Market to introduce the suppliers, because we've heard that in theory, every conference, every report, you know, booking.com's researchers, and we know that's what guests are seeking, But there's a very, very few brands that are actually successfully today offering those super cool, unique, memorable curated tours. So it's so, so cool. And the fact that you put the book in and not just the, you know, the booker at the center of that experience is really, really nice. Internally, how do you kind of execute that, Suzie? What team does that sit with? You know, if we take the Borough Market Tour of meeting the suppliers with the chef, how did that initiative kind of go from thought to, you know, I'm a guest and I'm going to book this tour?

Suzie: I think we wanted to create some experiences for our guests. So again, listening to what our guests wanted, you know, there was a call out from our guests to kind of, you know, maybe they've been to London a few times, done all of the typical things. But it's like, what's new? What's new that we can do that, you know, when I go home and tell my friends about it that they won't have already done? So there is a desire for doing something different. And it really involves everybody from, you know, the general manager of the hotel to obviously the kitchen in this case, because that would be taking chefs out of their day job in the kitchen. And marketing, obviously very involved in the curation of how do we present that to our guests? Who is this experience right for? Who would be interested in it? And a lot of the experiences that we offer now always have a bit of a sustainability angle to them. So, you know, Recarnation Hotels is very passionate about treading lightly. And, you know, we do work with like-minded business, particularly for, you know, sustainable, smaller companies that provide a lot of the produce that, you know, we serve in our restaurants. So that was kind of born from that. You know, we have these local suppliers. who equally want to do more collaboration from a guest experience point of view and share their story as a brand. And really it came from that. You know, we have another experience, the Milestone Hotel, where in the suite, for example, you can have like a string quartet or brass formation from the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra come to perform in your room. And that comes from our relationship and our partnership with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra through our partnership with the Royal Albert Hall. And it's about building relationships with your partners, your suppliers, and your community to be able to then be creative together and say, well, what else could we do that would be cool and interesting and special? And I think, you know, we spend a lot of time talking about technology and system upgrades. And I think now what's the special thing is allowing time for creativity. I think we almost ran out of time to be creative because we were spending so much time on this website and that CRM and this PMS and that call center. And I think now it's being disciplined to allow time for creative thinking. You know, what experiences can we create that's going to wow our guests? The technology to deliver it, it's there. I think it's making time for creativity and You know, so many things in the hotel operation and certainly from a marketing point of view are completely automated now. You know, we can write content with AI, we can generate images with AI, we can build a website with AI, you can build a brand using AI, probably take you about an hour. But creativity is really now where we can let these tools do those jobs and then use our brains to be getting together and being more creative. And I think that's a really exciting time, especially for teams like sales and marketing, who naturally, you know, enjoy being creative.

Danica: But operations teams… I was about to say, I mean, I would love to be, you know, checking out your guests when they've just experienced like the Royal Albert Hall in the suite. I mean, how cool to be like, bye, leave us a review, we'll come back again. And what's the next experience? Again, it comes back to your ethos and your culture of who you are as a brand in terms of, you know, the passion and obsession with guest experience and credit to you guys to be able to evolve with the expectations of the new guest experience. And that's exactly what guests are seeking. And I think it's really. You know, music to my ears because coming from the hotel tech world, all we hear about is everything we just spoke about, personalization, AI, automation, time and time again. And your two stories of your two curated, memorable experiences. that have really given me shivers. They don't need any technical, there's nothing that really, technology doesn't support those deliveries really at all. They are the people, the partnerships, the location and you. And so that's just so fun in our industry and much needed. And so yeah, credit to you guys for leading the way. It's going to be interesting to see how long it takes for other brands to catch up because not many other people are doing it. Oh, what other cool tools do you have, Suzie, or for the dog, or what other, some of the other properties? Any others? Because this is amazing for the guest experience. I love it.

Suzie: We have plenty. We have, so at Qidras Safari Lodge, which is, you know, sustainable lodge in the Okavango Delta in Botswana. Can't wait to stay there one day. It's amazing.

Danica: It's amazing.

Suzie: Yeah. So one of the guest experiences is really just to basically engage in a sustainability tour. And what that means is to understand, you know, go to the solar panel farm. and see where the energy is generated from or to go to Staff Village and see where the teams live and understand how the reverse osmosis water processing unit works. Because when you build a lodge in the middle of the Okavango Delta, there's nothing to sustain in terms of you have to be 100% self-sustainable. And I think it's interesting for guests to understand, how do you power a five-star super luxury lodge in the middle of nowhere? So that's one of them. One of my favorites is at Bushman's Cliff, which is in the Cedarburg. So it's about a three hour drive from Cape Town, but there's, within the sort of boundaries of the reserve, there's rock art, which is 10,000 years old. So it's like the, you know, the Bushmen 10,000 years ago, painting the walls of these caves. So going on a curated tour with our rock art specialist, is so fascinating because they really kind of describe what, you know, the paintings were potentially depicting from shamans to elephants. I mean, really, truly amazing. And really, that's a great example. I actually was lucky enough to take my family and my friend's family, you know, we have three sort of girls between us and And, you know, for them to actually experience that and to build in an educational part to the trip was truly memorable, really special. And then in Ireland, we have lots of really amazing, unique experiences that celebrate some of the Irish traditional crafts. So you can go and spend the day with family learning how to make traditional Irish soda bread, or you can go and do some basket weaving with another family who's had that sort of, you know, that craft in their family for decades. And Yeah, lots of special things, you know, I spend a lot of my time working with the hotel teams to come up with new and exciting, and there's so many, Danica, I could sit here all day.

Danica: Oh, it's so cool, I know. Because honestly, Suzie, and I know I'm repeating myself, but we know this is what guests want. Like even, you know, on the sustainability side, there was some research from Booking.com where 60% of their guests are looking for the wow factor when it comes to sustainability. You know, and so to go and have a solar panel tour is next level. That's what, that is continuing to push the bar and really surprise and delight the guests, you know, more than your traditional, here's a champagne or a free upgrade in the room. So it's just so lovely to hear that you're embracing the communities, the people, the heritage, the, and really being authentic and It's where I, it's what we hear all day long, but you know, Red Carnations are doing it. And that's why you continue to have the highest guest experience metrics in the world for decades. Isn't it? It really is, you know, as simple, she says in quotes, because I'm sure it's not so simple in the background, but as an ethos, it really is, you know, understanding your guests and having passion, putting them first and having that guest first philosophy. Do you have a particular guest experience story that stands out to you over your career, whether that was something challenging that happened that you turned into success or a particular memorable moment of a guest experience story that you could share with us?

Suzie: I think what we do very well, which is not a particular example, but it's an example of, is where we've had guests that have stayed in one hotel and have learned about another hotel in the collection and maybe a couple of years later they book in to stay somewhere else. And I think there was one example that we had a guest who stayed at the Twelve Apostles Hotel in Cape Town and it was very sort of enjoying because we do these sort of infused gin tasting experiences so and we have our own gins that we've kind of worked again with local partners to create and it's very much about sort of fin boss infusions and all the sort of local nature basically facilitates the taste of the gin and then we were sort of this guest then made a booking to go and stay at Ashford Castle and so we were able to get that gin to Ashford Castle Wow. And actually have, you know, the Freedom Beverage team basically do a gin tasting for them at Ashford Castle, but with this specific Finbos infused and Roibos infused, which Roibos is the sort of tea that grows in the Cedarburg area, gin from the Twelve Apostles. And I think, you know, if you have enough time, it doesn't take too much to be able to facilitate some of these things, but it does take the initiative of the hotel saying, I know this guest is coming to Bic and stay with you in Ireland, but let me tell you, they really enjoyed this particular gin. Let's try and make that happen for them. So I think for us, where we're able to communicate as a team globally, And quite often we do have loyal guests that do like to enjoy other Red Carnation hotels, having experienced one. They quite often, you know, and we, we're very passionate about telling our guests about the bigger collection, but then there's nothing more powerful than that guest, you know, going on to have this kind of linked experience where you start your check-in feeling already like a member of the Red Carnation family. And that's quite powerful, I think.

Danica: It is a really great example of, you know, the highest standard of luxury and service, but the passion and obsession with that individual guest making their experience as memorable and as from the heart, where heart felt as possible, which is, you know, Red Carnation Hotels through and through. And that's why you are the amazing collection of properties and brand that you are.