Como Hotels and Resorts ’
68-foot yacht , Cameron
“ GUESTS WANT TO EXPERIENCE WHERE THEY ARE AND TO DISCOVER REAL PEOPLE AND PLACES IN THE PROCESS .”
PIERS SCHMIDT
A rendering of the Grand Suite living area on a Ritz-
Carlton branded yacht
A Manohra Dream stateroom cooking and cocktail-making classes . Minor ’ s branded boats are restored 100-year-old wood and thatch rice barges . In June , Minor added Gypsy , a 134-foot , two-cabin vessel .
“ Tourism and hospitality across all segments is becoming progressively more immersive ,” says Luxury Branding founder and consultant Piers Schmidt . “ Guests want to experience where they are and to discover real people and places in the process .”
Rates for Gypsy start from US $ 5,450 for a three-night , four-day cruise from Luang Prabang , Laos , to Chiang Saen , Thailand ; and US $ 6,950 for a two-night , three-day cruise from Chiang Saen to Luang Prabang . Marion Walsh Hedouin , Minor ’ s vice president of public relations and communications , says the company has only seen interest in river cruising increase , so much so that they will add a more modern boat , an Anantara product , in late 2019 .
SPECIALIZED STAFFING Singapore-based Como Hotels and Resorts , owned by billionaires Ong Beng Seng and Christina Ong , has the Cameron , a 68-foot yacht introduced in 2016 to offer an overnight trip between its Maldives resorts , Cocoa Island and Maalifushi .
Initially , according to Chris Orlikowski , Como ’ s group director of PR and communications , the company wasn ’ t sure whether the yacht would be a fixed offering , due to a mixture of both demand and cost .
A full day on the Cameron costs US $ 5,200 . “ And , then , there was also the issue of being able to offer a consistent Como experience on the yacht ,” says Orlikowski .
Here , too , F & B played a role — catching a fish and having it freshly prepared on board , for one — but so too did service . According to Pietro Addis , general manager at Como Maalifushi , it was discovered early on that it was necessary to have a
captain who knew the area and was willing to stop in off-beat locations .
Additional staff training was also critical . Originally , when the ship was only going out half days or full days , the property would typically send a waiter with the crew . “ What we ’ re now doing is training the crew because they need to be full butlers so they will be doing a few months in housekeeping , a few months in F & B , a few months in front office because they need to be able to do everything for the guest ,” Addis says .
Ultimately , according to Schmidt , critical to the branded boat is not simply to replicate your land offering on water .
“ There ’ s a romance and special quality to voyages by sea , and the legacy brands can seize on this characteristic to re-infect some of the romance that ’ s sadly been lost in many of their chains as scale and the pursuit of global domination , consistency and efficiency have begun to conflict with the thrill of original discovery ,” he says .
January / February 2019 hotelsmag . com 55