Danica: Today I’m joined by somebody who’s redefining soulful hospitality in some of Europe’s most beautiful destinations. So I would like to welcome Billy, CEO from Beaumier Hotels. Billy brings a unique blend of design-driven thinking, luxury expertise, and a deep passion for creating meaningful guest experiences that are rooted in local culture. Under his leadership, Beaumier has become known for its boutique approach, where each property tells its story while staying true to the brand’s ethos of thoughtful, conscious hospitality. So today we’re going to be diving in to what it takes to build a modern hotel brand that balances elegance, community and sustainability, and how to navigate evolving expectations of today’s travelers. So let’s get into it. Welcome, Billy. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Really nice to have you here today. So Billy, maybe you want to give some of our listeners a little bit of an introduction to you. You have a very impressive resume, CEO of some fantastic hotel brands. So give us a quick introduction, Billy.
Billy: So my name is Billy. I’m French, but lived most of my adult life in the US and in the UK, even though I’m making my way back to France this summer. I started my career in retail, actually, in luxury retail, and then fell into the hotel business by accident and fell in love with the business. Started my career on the sales and marketing side, and then moved into the banking and investment side very briefly. And then I stuck to the investment side and joined a private equity group that was working on some of the most iconic luxury hotels in France and Switzerland and Italy. And by that time, I really just caught the bug for the industry, but equally felt like I had the ability to use both sides of my brain and could bring some financial acumen to the process, but also bring some creativity to the development of hotels. Right on the back end of the financial crisis, end of 2009, 2010, I joined a very large real estate group called Global Holdings and had this incredible opportunity to build a hotel group with them from scratch, which today is called Lore Group. You know, you fast forward the 10-year stance I had with the group where we started as investors and we became developers, and then we became a fully integrated group. So I started as a team of one, and by the time I left, I think there were around 1,500 people in the group just pre-COVID. So just an incredible journey of, you know, working on some iconic properties. And then post-COVID, I took over a business called Eden Hotels, which was a 75-year-old business in the Netherlands. You know, really cool to take over a three-generation business and try to put a new lens on it. And did that for about two and a half years, but we were victim of our own success. We recovered from the kind of disaster that was COVID incredibly quickly, and the business performed incredibly well. A couple of years post-recovery, so we ended up having an early exit from the group. And then in recent months, I just took over as CEO of Beaumier, which, you know, it’s been an incredible privilege to take over the group and really looking forward to what’s ahead.
Danica: Now, you strike me as a man who definitely walks your properties, even though there are many of them. So can you describe a time where a guest taught you something unexpected about hospitality? Because I really imagine you, you know, if I was a guest, I’m sure if you were on property, we would meet and we would chat. You’re a very personable guy, so you’ve probably met some wonderful connections over the years. So yeah, does anything stand out where they taught you something?
Billy: That’s funny because you’re catching me at a week where I’m in Cap-Longe right now in Provence and I’ve been walking our properties that we’re opening and learning and take it all in and probably driving some of our managers a little crazy with some little details. But you know what? I’m going to use an example of a couple of hours ago. We have a hotel called Le Moulin, which is connected to the village of Lourmarin, which is this magical little village in Provence. And on Friday mornings, there is a big farmer’s market there that literally takes place in front of the hotel. So I drove down before the podcast because I just wanted to get a feel. This is a big, long weekend in France. Sunshine is out. I knew the market was going to be busy. So I want to see a little bit how We’re reacting to that, how the people from the market are interacting with us. And I saw somebody sit at a place where we have a table and chair. And even though I didn’t speak to that guest, I said, you know what, on market days, that’s the place we should explore. That I wouldn’t have thought about if I didn’t walk the property. during that time. So it was really interesting. This guest was sitting alone, but he was kind of taking it all in and you realize that it’s quite real estate during market day and that we could give our guests a little experience there. So there you go. You know, just what I could think about right now in walking the property and just learning from seeing it live, which is the only way I know how to do this job.
Danica: I love that and I think that you know is credit to you being the DNA of exactly you know what we’ve spent the last 55 minutes talking about of really understanding your guest, responding to it and creating these memorable moments as small as it is just sitting and enjoying what’s happening in the surroundings of your beautiful properties. So I guess, Billy, as we kind of wrap things up, is there anything that you would like to share with our listeners regarding the broad and wonderful topic of guest experience, whether that is personally throughout your career or across the group of Beaumier? Anything that we haven’t touched on today that you think is really important that you would like to get across?
Billy: Well, that’s another big question that you’re asking me here. You know, I feel incredibly privileged to do what I do, right? We’re not saving lives here, you know, but people take their vacations very seriously. They take these moments very seriously. You know, people work incredibly hard. We live a fast-paced life. To be able to create environments where people enjoy, whether it’s a long time, couple time, family time, celebrations. and being able to enhance that is a pretty cool thing to do. I’m going to finish kind of where I started, right? You said something that really resonated with me. You said, you know, in the back of COVID, we had a huge staff shortage in our industry that led us to like basically every hotel in the world would recruit anybody that had a heartbeat, right? Because we were so desperate for staff. And I think moving forward, We really need to think no different than like these tech giants who have thought about making the experience of working at their businesses, you know, really interesting and fun. I think we need to give ourselves that challenge and really put some forward thinking on what are we going to do to make this a great place to work for people. Compensation will always play a part of that debate. And it’s got to be more than compensation, because frankly, there’s always easier way to earn a living than working at a restaurant, a bar or hotel. How do we make this really enriching for the people who at the end of the day, I was saying this only this morning, right? all this time thinking about our brand. We spent all this money investing in CapEx and in our hotels. We spent all this time thinking about operations. At the end of the day, you know, you asked me about a contact with a guest. 99.999% of the contact with the guest is with our young staff members who are just entering this industry. Right. They’re the ones who are making it happen. And, you know, we need to give them the tools, the empowerment and the excitement to do that.
Danica: So let me just bolt on to that, Billy. Like, how do you gather that feedback from your staff that are frontline, having those conversations with the guests? You know, how do you put that in some sort of guest feedback loop to gather those on-property moments and raw feedback? Is there a process in place or is it just something that organically happens with the teams in their daily calls and daily meetings?
Billy: I think it’s all of the above, right? It’s quite formal, you know, but going back to that curiosity, right? When I’m at the hotels, I’m bombarding everybody with questions. Just because I feel the more I learn, the more I know, the more I can have a positive influence on some of the things that we can do to make things better. So I think it really starts there, whether you formalize it or not. I don’t think it’s important. I think what’s the most important is to make sure that you create a culture and an environment where feedback is a natural thing to do, both positive and negative, whether you choose to formalize it or not, to me is secondary, really.
Danica: I mean, Billy, thank you so much for your time today. It’s been really nice to meet you. I’m really pleased to follow you and follow the success of Bermia and come and stay at one of your properties. Come anytime. I have to, I have to. So to wrap things up, if you’re happy, I would just like to do a quick fire question. So just say the first thing that comes to your mind, okay? Sustainability or personalization? Personalization. Free water or free parking? Both. Late checkout or late breakfast?
Billy: Late breakfast. Late checkout is just too hard in our line of business.
Danica: Room comfort or speed of Wi-Fi?
Billy: Wi-Fi is like saying, do you have running water or electricity at this point, right? I don’t think that’s even part of a question anymore.
Danica: Oh, that’s great. Thank you, Billy.
Billy: Thank you for your time. I really appreciate it.
