Small Luxury Hotels thanks Canadian travel trade

With Canada as one of its top source markets, Small Luxury Hotels of the World CEO Filip Boyen paid a personal visit to Toronto to thank the Canadian travel trade for another strong year.

Boyen was joined by representatives from 16 of SLH’s properties from around the world, including European conutries such as Italy and France to Asian destinations including Hong Kong, Thailand and Laos.

While Canada is already SLH’s third-largest source market, Boyen told PAX that there is “still a lot of potential to grow” in terms of Canadian clientele and properties. Currently, SLH counts only two Canadian properties within its international portfolio: Trout Point Lodge of Nova Scotia and Vancouver’s Georgian Court Hotel.

“We need to get more hotels in Canada – there are very few here,” Boyen said, adding that while SLH has some Canadian properties under consideration, it’s too early to say when those will be announced. “Clientele in Canada is very free-spending, educated, they know what they want and with our unique hotels which are rooted in the community we can offer these once-in-a-lifetime experiences.”

Agents play a large part in the success of SLH, Boyen said, with 80 per cent of its overall bookings made through the travel trade; he added that of all agent bookings worldwide, 60 per cent are made in North America.

Since he entered the CEO role in 2015, Boyen told PAX that he has made it his top priority to ensuring guests enjoy quality experiences consistently across the SLH brand.

“I’ve already let four or five hotels go because of quality reasons. In principle, we’re making it harder to join the brand and harder to stay with it,” he said. “Consistency is a key issue – if you want to provide a luxury product, you’re dealing with top level agents. They demand, expect and deserve a consistent level of quality across the board. There’s no way an agent or traveller should have a great experience at one property and then go somewhere else and find it unacceptable.”

Boyen added that as the tastes and demands of luxury travellers continue to evolve, the international SLH team (headquartered in London, with offices in New York, Singapore and Shanghai) continues to grow as well, with the addition of sales staff in regions as varied as Russia, Brazil and the Middle East.

“All the travel trends point in the same direction – the educated, high-level traveller is fed up with the big brands; they want something personal, unique, informative and immersed in the culture. As hotels, we need to be facilitators in helping our clients discover the destination.”