I realized that human contact was what attracted me most. So I naturally turned to the hotel business, which I never left! After running two hotels in France, I tried to restore a village in China, in partnership with a foundation, with the idea of opening a 22-key boutique hotel. Following this adventure, I was offered the position I hold today at Maisons Particulières.

What is your role as Night Experience Manager at Maisons Particulières?

In accepting this position, I wanted to demystify night work in a hotel, as there are still a lot of preconceived ideas about it. My role is to ensure that the day ends perfectly for guests and staff, and that the next begins smoothly.

Maison Souquet and Maison Proust are small houses (20 and 23 rooms respectively), which means you need to be extremely versatile, observant and have a lot of common sense. This can range from the number of towels available between the evening and breakfast so that there’s no shortage, to customer requests that have to be dealt with immediately, to staff management. What I like most of all is the diversity of our customers. Every room is different at Maisons Particulière. Each person also comes for a different purpose, with a different personality. Some customers come for a wedding, others for a birthday… I make sure I remember all this information so that I can personalize each customer’s stay, with pleasure and sincerity.

Moreover, each Maison has its own soul. No matter how much we try to unify procedures to offer a certain standing and develop as a Collection, it remains essential to respect the identity of a place and therefore adapt the experience. Maison Souquet is much more discreet than Maison Proust, which is more outward-looking. Their locations are different, and so are their customers. My role is to accompany the imagination of the place, to maintain an atmosphere, a décor, the history of the Maison. The Maison Proust recounts the life of this great writer, moments spent with his friends, passionate and informal literary get-togethers. The Maison Souquet is a former brothel. We enter the intimacy and discretion of a place steeped in a very different history. We have to convey that, and that’s how we put a smile on our customers’ faces.

What qualities and skills are essential to your job?

It’s essential to know how to smile and give a smile. It’s a job at the heart of human relations: you have to be serious, but also very flexible, with your time and your moods. You have to be able to react quickly and positively to any situation, at any time of the day or night.

What challenges do you face in your night-time work?

The main challenge lies in the fact that I’m often the only one handling all the requests, and that this must not affect the quality of the service provided.

What’s more, customer behavior may differ at night, depending on their level of satisfaction or cultural habits.

What do you think is the key to delivering a memorable customer experience?

The human touch. It’s essential to be prepared for each customer’s arrival, to understand the purpose of their stay, and to be responsive during their stay, so as to leave them with a wonderful memory that will last a lifetime.

Apart from the Maisons Particulières Collection, which hotels inspire you most?

The Brando in French Polynesia and the Shangri-La in Paris. They’re very different hotels, but I like their positioning and the customer experience they offer. Personally, I need to rediscover the idea of Nature: having at least a courtyard, a garden. And I like the art of codes. It evokes high standards, respect and subtle politeness. In the teams, the men are shaved, for example. The concierge gives out his business card.

I also love buildings that are historic, steeped in history. You’re plunged into an imaginary world where a multitude of people have come before you.

You have expertise in Sustainable Development, with the Green Globe certification you obtained in 2021. What is your approach to sustainable practices in the hotel industry, and how do you see them evolving in the years ahead?

Sustainable development practices in the hotel sector vary widely, depending on the level of awareness among guests and staff, and the size and technical characteristics of the establishment. The choice of a voluntary approach is always predominant, based on the principle that each individual is responsible for adopting the right gestures for the planet.

For the future, I’d like to see harmonized rules and simple measurement criteria for energy consumption and waste production, so that hotels can be supported or penalized according to their efforts.

Well-being at work is also one of the pillars of sustainable development in our organizations, and probably the best lever on which to focus today, because without passion, no one can achieve perfection.

What is your Hospitality philosophy?

My philosophy is to make people smile and leave happy. Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin summed it up very well: “To invite someone is to take care of their happiness for as long as they remain under our roof”.