Article Excerpt:
TWST: What is Orient-Express Hotels?Mr. Sherwood: I think what is different about Orient-Express Hotels is the niche that we have carved out for ourselves in the leisure industry. A lot of companies are very focused on providing similar product wherever they operate. So you get the same color schemes, same bedroom layout. Really, it's trying to give you the consistency that many people want while traveling. That is not the area of the market we plan to serve. We look to provide experiences to our guest that are unique and with a very high personality. So whatever country you are in, you will feel that country within the room. The example I often give is The Cipriani in Venice where the fabric on the wall is Fortuny fabric, made in Venice, and the food is not Italian, it's Venetian and very different from the food at our other Italian Hotels. Now, this isn't for all of the market all of the time, but what we have found is there is a growing very sophisticated part of the market that is looking for these very special experiences and is more interested in entertaining something that really reflects the country they are visiting, rather than going to something that is more mass market. And people are willing to pay for that. This has been our formula since we started, and certainly we stuck with the same strategy since our IPO in the year 2000, and it's worked very well for us in poor times as well as in good times. Obviously since 9/11, there have been a number of difficult years, the most difficult one being 2003, with the Iraq war hitting the major European booking window and SARs hurting Asia. But we are seeing ourselves bounce back well. And even in those difficult times we found the premiums we were able to charge over our competitors continued to give us RevPAR of 40%-60% above the highest RevPAR competitor in each market on average. So I think that is the proof of the pudding that this philosophy and this strategy really work.
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