The NPS (Net Promoter Score) in the premium hospitality industry is something far more than a routine satisfaction survey. It is a fundamental measure of loyalty and of a guest's readiness to recommend a property within their demanding, opinion-forming circle. The problem is that in five-star hotels perfect cleanliness, luxury toiletries in the bathroom and excellent service are barely the base value. Clients of the highest material standing (HNWI) are used to those standards. To generate a so-called promoter score, a property must offer an experience that goes beyond the frame of learned hospitality and touches deeper strings. In that challenge the philosophy of quiet luxury comes to the rescue.
The affluent traveler of the 21st century suffers from fatigue with standardized luxury. Gold handles, gleaming marble and loud design have become repetitive at every latitude. A space that was meant to intrigue has become visually predictable. Research on loyalty in luxury hospitality points to authenticity, a sense of calm and contact with real craft as what a guest remembers. A subtle detail wins there over ostentatious splendor – not because it is cheaper, but because it does not repeat in every other property.
Aesthetic predictability and the fast art trap
The vulnerable point of many luxury boutique hotels is what hangs on their walls. Hotel directors often invest enormous sums in interior architecture, only to hang random, mass-market graphics in the suites at the very end. Such fast art is an aesthetic dissonance which a premium guest registers in a fraction of a second. Empty decoration builds no bond, does not intrigue and certainly does not prompt anyone to share their impressions of a stay. We write about the destructive influence of repetitive decorations on an interior's prestige in the article Fast art or real art.
Implementing the solutions of Odoardo Art™ reverses that dynamic entirely. Fitting suites with authorized collector's copies, where every fine art print has an individual number and the maker's handwritten signature, is a non-verbal message of respect for the guest.
The detail a guest notices in the room
Quiet luxury details work at the level of the senses. A guest entering a room where the oak frame of Odoardo Art™ hangs on the wall notices the absence of reflections. Our frames are deliberately stripped of a glass layer, which allows direct contact with the texture of archival cotton paper. The light of the lamps in a hotel room does not bounce off a sheet of glass but softly wraps the work. We analyze the meaning of that architectural move in the text Picture frames without glass. The completion of that experience is a personal letter from the artist. A guest who reads in the evening about the intentions of a maker from the other side of the world leaves with a concrete story to tell. And NPS measures precisely that: whether there is anything to tell.
The rotation of art and the loyalty of a returning guest
A challenge for resort hotels is also keeping the interest of returning clients. If a presidential suite looks identical every time, it succumbs to visual habituation. The answer to that challenge is the Art-as-a-Service model. A quarterly decoration subscription allows a work to be changed smoothly within a fixed, optimized fee. Changing the mood in a room needs only the sliding in of a new oak mini-frame, which relieves the property's technical maintenance department. We discuss that agile operating model at greater length in the publication An art subscription (Art-as-a-Service).
A holistic strategy
A perfectly arranged space, full of authentic oak and cotton fine art prints, becomes a natural and desirable setting to be captured on film. Here, however, another challenge appears: how to make a guest's delight in an elegant interior translate into real business? The ideal partner for monetizing a suite prepared this way is the infrastructure of Odoardo Lens™. Instead of relying on amateur and shaky footage, the hotel makes beautiful cards available in the rooms. The guest, installing no applications, starts a virtual director who guides them through curated shots. A video postcard in cinematic standard arises, published by the brand only with their consent – the text Technology without barriers describes the mechanism. It is also worth removing visible electronics from the room, which we write about in the material Animated space in five-star hotels. A wall prepared for a shot and a tool that finishes that shot solve two sides of the same problem: the guest has something to show, and the material leads back to the property.
Properties that work consistently on such an experience we gather in the Odoardo™ research. The philosophy is described by the manifesto.
Odoardo Soul™
Odoardo Alibi™
Odoardo Lens™
Odoardo Space™
