SONU SHIVDASANI, CEO of Six Senses Resorts & Spas, spoke to Shalu Chandran at ILTM last month.
The brand is very popular with high end clients. How much does the Middle East contribute to that?
It is still relatively small. I would say the Maldives would account for about two per cent of our business and from the Middle East, about three per cent. Apart from Oman of course, where we have domestic traffic from Dubai, particularly on weekends. We are seeing an increased interest from the Arab travellers to sample the Six Senses experience. We continue to work the usual routes of PR and marketing.
Are your Arab guests keen on learning about the “slow life”?
It is certainly a philosophy that’s come of age. But perhaps not yet with the Middle East market. But I feel over time they will accept the philosophy and the values.
Eventually they will realise it’s important. Even Dubai with a lack of sensitivity is now talking about it. Abu Dhabi has its green initiatives with the Masdar project. So I think that sensitivity is improving, perhaps they are five or 10 years behind the loop.
Our success in Oman is one such clear example. In November we were 50 per cent ahead of budget, so we are very positive about the region.
What can we expect in Jordan?
We will open the Evason Ma’In Hot Springs in Jordan this March.
The property lies almost 280 m below sea level. It is set like an oasis with hot springs within the terrain - it will change the resort and spa experience in the Middle East. The property follows the Six Senses philosophy of uncompromised responsibility to the environment and to the community.
Guests can enjoy the many therapeutic benefits of the Ma’In hot spring waterfalls. The spa itself sits directly under one of the natural hot spring waterfalls. Treatments will focus on the properties of the mineral rich waters, providing our guests a once in a lifetime experience.
In Jordan you cannot buy a room only; you have to have the experiences that come with it. The room price includes an experience a day such as dinner on the mountains over looking the Dead Sea and Jerusalem or a local village excursion, among many other things.
How does luxury and sustainability go hand in hand?
That is the Six Senses’ challenge – to demonstrate that we can. One of the phrases that we use is ‘luxuriously back to nature’ which sounds like an oxymoron but when you get it right it’s just perfect. I believe it requires a bit more intelligence and thought. But people quite often say that we are with reference the best of the best. We have the highest RevPar, average rate not occupancy, in all of Asia.
We believe that by 2010 we will be able to turn off the generators. We will be able to have fantastic experience for our guests. Getting to that is trying to understand what the source of luxury is and what is luxurious to the 21st century traveller.
Our wealthy clients live in London, New York, Tokyo, Paris – cities which have pollution, post internet age environments where we are very busy and the world is going at twice the pace. As a result, people have to work much harder; they are stressed and travel 400 hours a year. They are very sophisticated and intelligent and sometimes want to escape from all that.
So luxury is all about having choices. It is a luxury to sit on the beach, feeling the sand under your feet because you cannot do that in everyday life; or having a salad plucked from our organic garden. That’s environmentally friendly, but is also a huge luxury product as it’s very nutritious.
So it’s trying to position ourselves, building within the environment – that’s a luxury for people.
What’s in store for the company?
We currently operate under five brands. The Soneva is committed to offer luxuries of the highest standard. A Soneva resort has a limited number of accommodations and growth in this market is slow; about five properties in 10-15 years. The Six Senses brand will grow faster through management agreements. In Soneva, the mission is Intelligent Luxury, while for Six Senses it is the Slow Life.
In the Six Senses Hideaways, every villa has a pool, which is unique for a brand. Its all about privacy with the Hideways. The Evason properties introduce the Evason Value Proposition, with a greater number of accommodations than Six Senses Hideaway and Latitude.
We also have plans to launch a new brand “Evalution.” The Six Senses Evalution is a strongly environmentally focused resort brand. Our aim is to take the concept to its logical conclusion – a zero carbon resort brand catering to the responsible, international high end traveller.
The materials used will be as local as possible, so there will be a low-carbon input right from inception. It will aim to minimise the impact of travel to the destination by off setting the carbon emissions and encouraging low carbon modes of travel. We hope to open our first property by 2011. We are looking at markets like Morocoo, Madura and Bodrum.
What inspires you? How much of this is part of your lifestyle?
I am inspired by peaceful locations and the motivation to try and help make the planet a better place to live.
We live in our Soneva property in Thailand and so follow that lifestyle completely. My wife, Eva is a big environmentalist as well, so it is a big issue. Owning a private jet or a high performance car is just out of the question. Bicycles are ok. It is also a healthy lifestyle with local, fresh food and the fun of travelling.
Do you see your properties cater to corporate travellers?
We are all about the experiences. It is the corporate traveller who is looking for product and location and we are not very good with corporate travellers, so we will go into cities, but we are aiming really at the leisure traffic.