EVENT - LUXURY MICE CLUB LEADERS KICK OFF 2025 IN STYLE (France)
On Monday January 13, the fourth edition of the Luxury Mice Club Leaders took place at the Plaza Athénée for a round table discussion and meetings, interspersed with opera and a haute couture fashion show. |
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EVENT - LUXURY MICE CLUB LEADERS KICK OFF 2025 IN STYLE (France)
On Monday January 13, the fourth edition of the Luxury Mice Club Leaders took place at the Plaza Athénée for a round table discussion and meetings, interspersed with opera and a haute couture fashion show. |
Catégorie : Europe - France - Économie du secteur
- Expériences exclusives
- Tendances, avis d'expert - Associations et Syndicats - Événements
Article rédigé par Romane Le Royer le 20-01-2025
 The round table, on the theme of “The luxury customer experience in different cultures”, moderated by Emmanuelle Llop and Annette Bottichio, brought together different points of view on the personalization of the hotel offer
Crédit photo © Fabrice Sudaka – Luxury MICE Club Leaders
As usual, a round-table discussion preceded the event, in the woodsy ambience of the ephemeral chalet set up in the courtyard of the palace, overlooking the skating rink, to prolong the festive season. For this first meeting of the year, Emmanuelle Llop, a lawyer specializing in tourism law, and Annette Bottichio, an expert in commercial support for hoteliers and a member of the GBTA France management committee, proposed a discussion on the theme of “The luxury customer experience in different cultures”.
Among the fifteen or so guests present were representatives of Luxury MICE Club partner hotels, including Cheval Blanc Paris, Les Étangs de Corot in Ville-d'Avray, Six Senses Crans Montana and Kimpton St Honoré Paris. But also players in the luxury gastronomy sector, such as La Manufacture de Chocolat Alain Ducasse, and tour operators, such as Cosmopolis, which represents foreign incoming agencies in the incentive and upmarket travel markets.
Emmanuelle Llop and Annette Bottichio began the discussion by reminding us of the importance that culture and origins can play in the expectations of ultra-luxury hotel guests, and what this means for these hotels in an era of personalized services. How, then, can we establish a framework for answering the questions and anticipating the expectations of these customers?
Anticipation is the key word
Satisfaction questionnaires, for example, are a useful tool for understanding different cultures and their associated desires. Relais & Châteaux, represented here by Isabelle Jaouen, sales and marketing manager for Les Étangs de Corot, uses the responses to these forms to draw up customer profiles: “This enables us to cross-reference a number of different types of information. From a classic satisfaction questionnaire, we can zoom out from a single customer and anticipate visits from similar customers”.
Other hotels choose to call on in-house experts for specific regions of the world, who work on a daily basis to personalize and refine their offer, as Floria Pakatchian, Sales Director of the Kimpton St Honoré Paris, points out. These people, dedicated to these specific markets, ensure a welcome in the customer's language, and respect their conversational codes.
This cultural personalization is as much a matter of instinct as it is of ongoing training, according to the experts at this round table.
“We have to allow ourselves to ask the customer questions, because we're going to learn more about their lifestyle and consumption habits,” said Floria Pakatchian.
However, it's not a question of pigeonholing customers based on cultural criteria. Tourism customers are increasingly looking for authenticity, rather than the transposition of their customs abroad. Here too, you need to know how to adapt your offer: a New Yorker will have different desires from a Californian or a Texan, and are therefore far from an “American archetype”. Hence the need to let yourself be guided by your customer, through dialogue, both upstream and on arrival.
The round table concluded with the consensus that “from now on, the customer is no longer asked to adapt to the offer. It's the hotel that proposes, but the customer who disposes”. Armed with these words, the participants in the discussion then moved on to the meeting area at the heart of the Haute-Couture salon. In a festive atmosphere, the partners of the Luxury MICE Club Leaders were able to discuss their event offerings with buyers from all horizons, always in the luxury sector.
It was also an opportunity to extend the round table discussions with the rest of the participants, as well as to enjoy a lyrical and visual show, in the image of the haute couture fashion show by stylist Aurélia Steiner and inspired by the House of Dior, to the sound of “L'amour est un oiseau rebelle” sung by soprano Sophie Arama.
The event would not have been complete without the celebration of the first anniversary of the Luxury MICE Club Leaders, with the crowd singing along. A magical anniversary, which already heralds a wonderful year 2025 for Sonia Arama and Gérald Hampel, who are already looking ahead to the club's next events.
 The Salon Haute-Couture at the Plaza Athénée was decked out in all its finery for the networking evening, which featured not only opera, but also fashion.
Crédit photo © Fabrice Sudaka – Luxury Mice Club Leaders
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