The Art of Belonging - John O’Sullivan - Defining Hospitality

I couldn't re- I couldn't believe I couldn't remember the, the year I got married, but we almost came in contact with each other in 2002 because my dad offered to buy us, or pay for our hotel wherever in the world we wanted to go after getting married up the road in Sayulita in Mexico.

And I picked the f- I was like, "Even, like, the Four Seasons?" And he said, "Yeah." And they had this service at the Four Seasons Bali where you could stay up in Ubud, and then they would pack your, your bags and bring you down on one of those little buggies, and then be down at the beach.

But there was that bombing that happened right around then, so we changed it.

W- we wound up staying in Mexico and stayed at all these wonderful places in, around Mérida, um, these beautiful old haciendas.

Beautiful.

One of the things I remember is one of the first places that we went to, they set up ...

There were only two groups.

There was a man and my, my wife and I staying there, and they set up this beautiful dinner on the veranda.

He had a table.

I had a table.

They had a microscope, or a telescope to look up at the stars.

And my wife and I were just starting out on our life journey together, and then we started talking to him, and it turned out that he was supposed to do this trip with his wife, but she had recently passed away.

And he w- and he would, they would go there.

It was their annual trip, and he talked to us for a little while, and it just really impressed on, on me that that idea of love and journey and partnership, it could just end at any moment.

And he was honoring his wifeBy continuing on that journey and sharing some of his life experience with us, and I, it just, I think it just deepened that memory of our honeymoon sitting there with the telescope.

And, and it was sad, but also beautiful and amazing.

Um, so I'm sad I didn't get to see you in Bali, but I al- we also had this incredible experience in the middle of the Yucatan.

Yeah.

And, you know, you touch on so many things there, don't you? The difference traveling and not being a tourist, but being a traveler versus the whole idea also of just places have got different echoes, different memories.

And if I think of Bali, um, one of the things we used to do, by the way, just to not mess with people, but, um, just I think an obsessive attention to detail was that before, if you were moving from one, uh, property to the other, which is about from Jimbaran Bay to, uh, Ubud, we would actually video your room so that when we then would get to the next hotel, we would play the video and make sure is that everything was in the exact same location.

So for example, if the book was at a 45-degree angle on the table in the hotel room that you left, it would be at the exact same angle, uh, when you arrived in your other hotel.

So I think it is also the, the, the wonder- and I, you, I, I think it's, again, one of the things from hos- from the hospitality industry, and specifically Four Seasons, is this total healthy obsession for wanting to do something memorable.

Not, not, not to try and be smart about it, but to create those amazing memories for people.

It's, it, it's, it's almost intellectual hospitality or cerebral hospitality of where, yes, you know you're going to have your name used, but how do you, how do you go above that to be able to also make those truly memorable moments go, "How did, how did they know that? How did, how did-- why is the book at the exact same angle as it was in the last room, at, at the last place?" But they've changed the bookmark.

Which is the other thing I used to love doing.