Video Interview: Looking Into 2021 and Beyond with the Ritz-Carlton Featuring Joel Costa
What happens when a luxury hotel has to grapple with a new event landscape? We could only imagine the challenge that so many of our favorite venues and hotels faced during the pandemic; with seemingly endless months of canceled bookings and empty rooms. Now, as restrictions are beginning to lift and we prepare for the possibility of live events in the coming months, Kennedy Events is staying on top of new regulations for in-person events that will keep our clients and their guests safe and healthy.
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Marianne Jackson: Hi. Good morning, Joel. I’m so happy to see you. You’re one of my oldest friends and I am going to chat with you about your role of being the sales and marketing director at Ritz-Carlton Half Moon Bay and now San Francisco. Congratulations.
Joel Costa: Thank you very much.
Marianne: So I want to know what it was like in 2020 for you. I mean, obviously, it affected the hospitality industry. It was so impactful, but like what happened in hotels? Tell us about that.
Joel: I think the biggest change was is that obviously, the levels of business changed dramatically. Half Moon Bay is quite stunning, and obviously, it was very much desired as a location for events and meetings. But unfortunately, with COVID and restrictions, that all changed. So really, 2020 was all about being creative, doing what we could with what we were able to do legally as well as making sure that, first and foremost, we’re protecting our ladies and gentlemen, as well as the ladies and gentlemen who worked with the hotel. So what’s most important to us is to keep everybody happy and healthy.
Marianne: Can I just say that I love that you refer to your entire team as the ladies and gentlemen and your guests as such as well. When I did an event there on your property, that just delighted me. Half Moon Bay has the advantage of the stunning outdoor space where you were able to at least do some outdoor events last year.
Joel: Oh, definitely. At a certain point in the year, the restrictions allowed us to do a lot of things outdoors, which was great. So one of the most creative uses of our space, as you may remember, there are a lot of fire pits around the resort, and so basically our motto was “fire pits are the new conference tables.” So, you know, why not take your meeting, whether it be small or even slightly larger, outdoors and surround yourselves around a nice fire pit, overlooking the ocean? What a great place to interact and be socially distanced and also have the fresh air. So that became quite popular. Then, of course, we have a couple of event lawns as well; so that, that didn't hurt.
Marianne: I can completely imagine major deals being made over the fire pits and s’mores; which you guys always brought out the s’mores, right to the fire pit. Such a lovely touch. So now you’re at the San Francisco property, which is just like this iconic property on the top of Nob Hill. Tell me what you’re anticipating for sales in 2021. What is that looking like?
Joel: Well, right now, the property is still closed.* I closed last year in April, so we're looking forward to reopening sometime in April of this year, we do have some business on the books, um, after that date. So what will remain is whether or not we can actually conduct those events based on restrictions. We have a number of customers that are confident that they want to hold their events should they be able to, so that’s good news. We, of course, do have some other customers that are seeing things on the books and not really seeing things turning around to the pace that they would like to see. So they’re looking at alternatives of moving this year’s event out into 2022 and/or canceling. So, we’re dealing with those as they come along.
Marianne: I imagine that you have a lot of legacy clients. Is that accurate that you have a lot of people that come back to your properties year after…
Joel: …year? Absolutely. I think it’s more about the brand and the service than it is necessarily the property because we see this across all of our properties that are in the Ritz-Carlton brand. The service is, you know, something that we hang our hat on. It’s in our DNA. So, we like to see that our customers are putting their events on the books two and three years out; especially for properties that aren’t convention properties to see future bookings like that is rather unique and wonderful. So, we have some great business on the books.
Marianne: I know a lot of properties are, you know, turning into like broadcast studios and accommodating virtual and even hybrid event demands. So, do you foresee that coming up for this year 2021 and beyond, and do you have your AV team changing their offerings in anticipation of this?
Joel: Yes, absolutely. Our AV partner, Half Moon Bay, and San Francisco have the same AV partner. So all along, they really did, you know, create some great offerings to be able to do things like broadcast from meeting space to meeting space so that groups could split apart. And of course, the broader broadcast to invite people virtually into the meeting so it’s more of a hybrid affair. So that's been working out really well. We actually conducted back at Half Moon Bay, we had a little customer confidence networking event where we did invite about 15 or so customers to come in and our AV partner did all of those little bells and whistles had the broadcast between room-to-room, the remote broadcast, inviting in guest speakers remotely. So that was really nice to showcase what they could do and to give people confidence that they could hold socially distanced events that had that hybrid component to get to the broader audience.
Marianne: That’s amazing. So tell me for a second, is that broadcasting from room to room? So that’s so guests don’t have to move in between different rooms and they’re just with one smaller group throughout the duration of their conference?
Joel: So you could have a speaker with some content in one space with, let’s say you could only accommodate about 10 people socially distance than that space, but then you can have another room where you could accommodate another 20. So when you had 30 attendees, while you’re able to accommodate all 30 in two separate spaces with a simulcast of what’s going on with the speaker.
Marianne: Very cool. I love that solution. So I have one more question for you: when I did the artificial intelligence conference with you at the Half Moon Bay property back in 2017, I was completely gobsmacked at the level of attentiveness and the caliber of service and just like the sheer thoughtfulness that really went above and beyond, um, of being taken care of. I was like, yes, I will always do events at the Ritz-Carlton. Done deal. So I'm, I just want to hear like an anecdote from you of like, give me an instance of what your team did in 2020 to elevate that service, like give me a, give me an anecdote.
Joel: One of the tenets of our level of service is about anticipating our guests’ needs, um, without, you know, whether they have an expressed wish or, or question, um, we anticipate what they want and we deliver on it before them even asking. So, um, we did have a couple of corporate events over the summer last year that we were able to accommodate and these guests didn't necessarily ask too many questions about COVID safety and social distancing. So our team took it upon themselves to provide them with some solutions to handling, you know, whether it be hand sanitizer, whether it be, you know, gloves, whatever people needed to get throughout the day and they created a little care package for each attendee. And then also we help them, um, help identify their own level of comfort. So we provided wristbands for the attendees to wear red, yellow, or green. And that level was, had a little sign basically to signify red meant you’re really COVID risk-averse and you want to stay as far away from people, “don’t even talk to me” or green, on the other hand, meaning, “oh yeah, if I didn't have to wear a mask, I wouldn’t.” So we were able to let our ladies and gentlemen that were serving the guests understand each guest’s need and they could accommodate them and, you know, approach them in an appropriate manner. And I think both of those, those groups that we did that for, we're just blown away by that idea and have used it in other events that they were doing in the future as well.
Marianne: Joel, it has been such a pleasure to chat with you and just catch up and you know, like, you know, I'm personally dying to do another event with you and I cannot wait to partner with you at the San Francisco property, maybe 2022…
Joel: Looking forward to that day. We'll be there for you Marianne.
#end
*This interview was recorded in February 2021. The Ritz-Carlton properties in Half Moon Bay and San Francisco re-opened with COVID precautions in place during the spring/summer of 2021.