Prof. Dr. Carl C. Rohde conducts international Hospitality Trend- and Coolhunt research for the Hotel Management School Maastricht. During his research trips he also does depth interviews with the most interesting General Managers of the most interesting hotels in town. We like to share their insights with you.

Interview with Celso Terra, General Manager at Design Hotel

Celso Terra
Internacional Design Hotel (55 hotel)

“In service you cannot really teach how to smile. People have it or they don’t”.

  1. You and the hotel

I am in the business for many years, though I am not a natural to it. I started at medical school, wanted to start my own yoga studio in Ipanema, Rio de Janeiro, didn’t have money and earned it as a tourist guide. Then the InterContinental hired me as their concierge. I was one of the founders of the Brazilian Association of Concierges. Then my career moved to front office manager. Then we wanted to live in a smaller Brazilian, near Florianopolis and there, after becoming the general manager of a golf course with condominiums and a concours hippique at a lake, I started my own hotel. Ten years later we moved to Europe, sick of Brazilian violence. I became manager of one of the first design hotels on the Peninsula. Then back to Brazil to open a new hotel for the Marriot. And now back in Portugal opening and running this hotel since March 2009. It became the Best Four Stars hotel here according to Public Tourist. We also won a price from the Portuguese Tourist Office. And we are in the Top 500 of Expedia’s best hotels. We are an independent hotel – and a member of the Small Luxury Hotels in the World.

  1. What about Lisbon – how special it is?

Climate, architecture and landscape are completely different from the rest of Europe. You cannot even compare it to our neighbor Spain. Portuguese always were traders, never conquerors. This stimulated a unique understanding of the world – and a more solid multi-cultural flavor to the city than anywhere else.

  1. What makes your hotel special?

Internacional Design Hotel is special on three different layers. First there is the location – at the leading squares of Lisbon. Second there is the history of this place. There is so much of it: we intend to make a book about it. Once, the square in front of us was a roman graveyard. During the Proclamation of the Republics war ship cannons from the harbor hit our walls. During the Second World War this was a centre for many spies. Also the hotel once was lost and won in a casino. Third there is the owner, son of the old one, who is a young man full of fresh new ideas. With him we created the four themes for our different floors. We are international, even up to the name of the hotel. So floor 1 is Urban – for Europe. On the other floors there is Zen for Asia, Pop for America and Tribe for Africa. You’ll find the themes back not only in the design and decoration, but also in the names of the rooms and the floor’s fragrances.

Good design always is more than decoration. There are ideas behind it. Design must radiate what a hotel believes in. And the staff must know and understand and behave according to it. Let us call this Deep Design. Politely saying good morning and good evening is very insufficient, even more so in a boutique hotel. You have to allow your people to be who they really are. That stands for internationalism. At the same time, they have to be professionals. So yes, we put some ‘perspective’, some relaxation in how we treat our guests, but we will never do away our uniforms, because that is how our guests understand service.

  1. What is your biggest ambition for the hotel?

I want to grow, of course, and have an impact on the industry – and also on society. To be honest, I don’t think the hotel industry here is very well run. You have to understand very many things to run a hotel smoothly. Often that is not understood to the full. To many things are taken for granted. I see successful businessmen thinking “I have been in hotels a lot, now I want to run one for myself”. They often fail. They do not have the full understanding. What do you mean by wanting to have an impact on society? This is down town historic Lisbon. Too many building were not taken good care of, or even abandoned. It is very difficult to get a license to change something here. Bureaucracy is a hindering pain. We were the first to get started here and recharge the neighborhood. Now the new Benetton has opened next to us. More good hotels follow now.

  1. What is your biggest worry?

Maybe I must answer those good hotels joining us close by. But I can’t see it that way. I do not see them as competition. Together we lift up the neighborhood. If bad hotels would pop up here, that would be a bit, big worry for me.

  1. What do you consider the most important trends in hospitality?
  2. Hotels with character and design are the biggest growing thing in the market. I am talking here about Deep Design not superficial decoration. Design must communicate a mentality. That mentality must be all over the hotel. It is about managers understanding the concept of the design and translating it.
  3. Staff must be real people. Guest will visit a city’s monuments, of course. But they will speak to the people they meet in their hotel, including the staff. Staff talk should not be the same everywhere, from London to Lisbon, that doesn’t add to the guest experience. Staff talk should have something of a local flavor. Paradoxically enough, in our cosmopolitan hotel this local flavor of the staff does not only have to be Portuguese. It can be a touch of Africa or Brazil as well. In addition to this, I believe people in the hotel business should speak as many languages as possible.
  4. Thanks to the social media reputation can be broken and established far more quick and thorough the ever before. You can find the whole hotel industry fully exposed on the Web, This means as a general manager you have to pay a lot of attention to what is said about you online. Very many of your potential future guests will meet you there for the first time. You cannot control it all, but you must do your utmost to make the first online impression a good one.
  5. Don’t underestimate the power of the low cost airplane companies. They determine what regions very many tourists visit. They also change the way people travel: light traveling is ‘in’. Also the companies teach the many that traveling cheap and spending more on the actual visit is better than vice versa.
  6. We must teach our guests that Portugal is the country of very many secrets. Guest like that. We do good to reveal some of these secrets to them. Until now Portugal is bad in advertising.
  1. Is the definition of Luxury changing in your part of the world/with your clients?

Luxury before was something overwhelming and big and ‘heavy’. Now it is more about being comfortable, totally comfortable. Also everything that saves you time in a smooth and elegant manner is considered luxury. Luxury is less about ‘gold’ and more about perfect, smooth, elegant living. Of course, high quality will always be part of luxury’s heart. The concept of luxury has broadened. Too much gold, too much statement now can look like bad taste.

Traditionally, luxury services often functioned in a master-‘slave’ context. That is not anymore what the most are looking for now. Forget the old butler kind of service. An educated college guy that helps you to your room is often more appreciated now. Most probably you have a better connection to him. Of course, he must be friendly and professional – but nowhere in his attitude like the former slave. Slaves back then, by the way, were more sleep that our educated staff members now. Our clients appreciate their level. And we always want to be on the clients’ side. There are two different ways to define our business. Penny by penny – that is the short term profit perspective. And client by client – that is the long term perspective. I don’t mind losing some pennies. I would never fight with a client who thinks he is entitled to a refund. Generally speaking, I think the Portuguese version of client-centeredness still too traditional.

  1. There is a lot of talk about authenticity as a trend. Do you recognize that? And what does it mean according to you?

Authenticity means that you have something original. A plastic flower today can almost look as the real one, but it isn’t. It has no authenticity. Fake is the opposite of authenticity. I am always putting a strong effort in finding the right authentic people as my staff. These are people who sincerely like to help. You cannot teach people how to smile. It is in their DNA or not.

  1. What are the most impressive innovations you have met in your hospitality years?
  2. All these new ways to cook! Vacuum cooking, for instance, is transforming the speed with which you can offer your guest real quality-prepared meals. You can cook now pretty quickly and with very good results what your mother grandmother took hours.

Internet! - and a bit further: the rise of the app culture. You know that, of course but I have to mention it.