Pre-Meal for Mar 5, 2025Nothing Formal; Everything Perfect

Happy Wednesday!

I believe the future of luxury is in crafting experiences that are as casual and connected as possible without sacrificing their inherent luxuriousness. A lot of companies are trying to do this; not very many do it well.

This year, my wife and I were gifted a trip to Naviva, an incredible resort near Puerto Vallarta. (The prices are not for the faint of heart, but if you’ve got a big occasion coming up, I can’t imagine a better splurge.) They got a lot of things right — but I was most impressed by their grasp of this idea of modern luxury. Nothing was formal, but everything was perfect.

When you’re trying to create a culture of genuine hospitality, it helps if the experience feels, even in the smallest of ways, like you’re inviting someone into your own home. For example, when a friend invites me to their house, they don’t call me Mr. Guidara, they call me Will. That’s exactly what they did at Naviva; right off the bat, we were Will and Christina. That one detail instantly and entirely made us feel at home.

When I told one of the managers how much I appreciated being on a first-name basis, he shared a story from another high-end hotel he’d worked at.

A regular guest asked to be called by his nickname (which, amazingly, happened to be “Shark.”) Management refused, instructing the team instead to address him as Mr. Jones. Talk about prioritizing a policy over the people those policies were created to serve! It’s a great gift when we earn informality with our customers; in this case, informality was handed over willingly — and rejected. What a waste.

If a guest asks you to call them Shark, call them Shark. I promise, it won’t make everything else you’re doing less excellent. In fact, the opposite is probably true.

Have a good service,

Will