I met Simon Spiller, Hotel Manager of the Brenners Park-Hotel & Spa in Baden-Baden, in 2017. After the hotel school of Lausanne and an MBA at HEC Lausanne, Mr. Spiller trained in the world of luxury hospitality, discovering places like Cairo, Bali and Dubai through brands such as Raffles and Four Seasons.
The Brenners Park-Hotel & Spa belongs to the Oetker Collection, which also owns other renowned destinations, such as Le Bristol in Paris and the Hôtel du Cap-Eden-Roc in Antibes.
We spoke with Mr. Spiller about quality, the personalization of service, and what makes a hotel iconic.
Continuity is a key to success in managing teams within a luxury hotel, and it contributes to a hotel's iconic character. How do you create and preserve your hotel's legendary quality?
The hotel has 104 rooms. That gives us the chance to get to know our guests and to look after their wellbeing day to day. When there are children, we organize a dedicated welcome and offer them special attentions. I have a young son myself, and my family and I sometimes stay in hotels together. Letting children relax considerably eases the parents' task, which makes the stay far more enjoyable for everyone.
We have guests who come back every year, our repeaters. We keep in touch with them throughout the year. We think of their birthdays, for instance: it's a chance to send them our best wishes. At the Brenners Park-Hotel & Spa, every detail matters. When a guest stays with us, they receive their own personalized letter on arrival. We speak in it about the reason for their stay: a family holiday, a ceremony, a wedding anniversary, an exhibition at the Frieder Burda Museum, an event at the Festspielhaus… Guests come back because of details like this. Knowing and caring about the reason for their stay allows us to deliver a better experience.
Another important factor is continuity in the hotel's management. Mr. Marrenbach has been here since 1997. Before him, Mr. Schmitz remained director for thirty years. That is fifty years of leadership within a single hotel, and therefore remarkable continuity in its management. Our teams know our guests and anticipate their needs. Generations of employees have followed one another to deliver excellent service to our guests. They pass on their know-how, and each new generation adapts it to its era, taking quality even further. Excellence takes time. When it is passed down from generation to generation, the experience becomes something sublime.
The hotel changes and develops with great care. We don't renovate by simply replacing what we have; each of our new rooms is the result of precise study. Our interior decorator is Countess Bergit Douglas, a member of the Oetker family, who has worked with the hotel for more than 25 years: she knows the house and our guests extremely well. So there is a perfect balance between the quality of our service and that of our product. Finally, our guests are always associated, in one way or another, with the life of our establishment.
Can a hotel's specific feature turn a destination into a genuine reason to be there, rather than simply a place to stay? Isn't your health center your main asset for attracting guests who come purely for that experience?
We created a unique space at the hotel: Villa Stephanie. It's a fantastic asset alongside the hotel itself. It includes a treatment center and our spa, where we offer our detox and slimming programs. This additional offering is very important for preparing the hotel's future by setting us apart from the competition. We work in partnership with Brenners Medical Care and with our own doctors. The center is attached to a small villa with 15 rooms, where every service is highly personalized. We ask guests what they would like to eat and prepare their menus according to their wishes. A butler is on hand to answer every request. This offering attracts guests who come to our hotel purely to live this experience.
The town itself is also an asset and a reason to stay at our hotel. It is a spa town where, for centuries, men and women have come to rest and enjoy the benefits of the thermal waters. Baden-Baden is a small town with a great deal to offer. On one side you have the town center and the Baden-Baden park, and on the other, the Black Forest. Our location at the foot of the park immerses us in nature that is more than a century old. This closeness to nature is wonderful. The flower-lined Lichtentaler Allee, through the changing seasons, is extraordinary and perfect for a moment of calm. Along this path leading to the town center, you will find trees that are 300 to 400 years old. It is an oasis of relaxation where nature shines through. This park also embodies the history of the hotel and of the town. Many historic events have taken place here.
The hotel itself is part of this history. We are in Baden-Baden, close to both Switzerland and France, an interesting part of Europe. The hotel has hosted many events: we welcomed, for example, Charles de Gaulle and Konrad Adenauer for their pre-meeting ahead of the peace agreements at the end of the Second World War. That is unique. People come here for special occasions; that has been true for a long time, and it will remain true in the future.
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