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“Suddenly, space is luxury”

With his hotel resorts, Sonu Shivdasani redefines pleasure. His guests look for a consumption experience not based on golden faucets. No longer is superexpensive wine the ultimate luxury, but salad that one harvests oneself.

INTERVIEW/ALEXANDER GUTZMER
PHOTOS/MICHAEL CLEMENT

Mr. Shivdasani, you come from an international background, your family is wealthy. So the topic of luxury is not new to you. What does luxury mean for you personally?

Sonu Shivdasani: My current definition of luxury is different from what it was 15 years ago. The idea I have in mind today is that of intelligent luxury. Luxury is that which is rare to us. It is different from one person to another. It is influenced, for instance, by childhood memories and the culture you come from. For people living in Asia, it has always been a luxury to visit European cities like Lisbon, Barcelona, Florence – very old cities that reflect, through their unique cultural history, high civilization.

Art as luxury?

S: Yes, this cultural depth is what people are looking for today. In general, it is the small things that count, and that form a certain contrast to normal life. This is the way in which I think of intelligent luxury.

What exactly do you mean by intelligent luxury?

S: I mean a kind of sensitive, sustainable consumption, preserving resources and the environment. That’s what I call intelligent. The idea of what is luxurious depends on an individual’s circumstances. In the 21st century, many people live in cities, leading a rather stressful life in a fast-changing world. In this situation, new things matter: Suddenly, space is luxury. Or let’s stick with the topic of environment and pollution: The reliable availability of fresh and highquality produce is a real challenge and therefore a luxury. There is a desire to be more sensitive to the environment. People want to buy intelligently. This is what the hotel business has to respond to.

What consequences do you draw from that?

S: We try to offer our guests a great choice, a great holiday experience and great quality. But we achieve all this in a sustainable way.

What about the old ideas of luxury?

S: The traditional concept of luxury was defined in the 19th century. People then had more time, and most of them lived in the countryside. For them, fresh organic salad for instance was not rare. Today it is. When you live in Paris, New York or Shanghai, getting an organic salad picked fresh from the garden can be more difficult than getting a 1982 Mouton Rothschild.

Expensive wine is no longer a luxury?

S: We offer fine wines, too and the 1982 Mouton Rothschild incidentally is available. But fresh rocket salad from our own garden is more rare to our guests. It is also “true”– in other words something that they can cherish. People want to buy intelligently. This is why we do not fly our products in, but produce them locally. In our resorts, the branches from trees are used as compost.

And your guests cherish that?

S: Some of our guests argue that the salad from this soil is the best salad they ever had. People want to feel the product, rather than just consuming it. This is why direct contact with our customers is very important to me.

You come from India. Does that influence your idea of luxury?

S: In fact, my background is both Indian and highly international. My parents are both Indian. They come from an area that today belongs to Pakistan, and had to migrate. I was brought up in England, in a very English establishment, and spent three years in Switzerland. In this time, I learned to live as a cosmopolitan. Now I mainly live in the Maldives and in Thailand. So my wife and I have always been exposed to different cultures. This openness to different cultures influenced me a lot.

Still, let me ask again: Are the ideas Indians have of luxury different from those of Western customers?

S: I think the idea people have of luxury mainly depends on the economic development of their home country. When you come from a rural background and suddenly become wealthy, you want to travel to different cities, maybe even show off your wealth. In this situation, you might prefer ostentatious, ornate environments. After a while, this changes. You then want the complete opposite; you prefer to be exposed to local cultures, to local people. You want a fine dining concept but also a local influence. You want purity.

And you satisfy this desire?

S: One of our catch phrases at Soneva is: no news, no shoes. When our guests arrive at our resorts, their shoes are taken away. Walking barefoot is very luxurious, because you can’t do that easily in metropolises like London. It’s relaxing and has a therapeutic effect. This is what we understand by luxury today.

Do the newly rich from the BRIC countries follow you in that?

S: There are people in India who have been rich for several generations. Now they have become the country’s super rich. They mostly like our ideas. But certainly, some entrepreneurs don’t understand what we do. Consequently, some of our competitors offer the more traditional luxury: polished bathrooms, gold and marble everywhere, air conditioning and so on. Our resorts in the Maldives don’t have air conditioning in the restaurants. People from cities want one thing more than anything else: fresh air. Take Toronto in winter: People there spend all their time inside, so they have no exposure to fresh air at all. Therefore, space is important for them. Business people in China or India live in crowded cities. And you know what our guests from India appreciate most? A clear view of the sky. Due to pollution, you cannot see the stars in India any more. This makes looking at the sky the ultimate luxury. So we built an observatory with an extremely powerful telescope.

So your Russian or Indian guests today have a different understanding of luxury than in earlier days?

S: Both Russia and India have changed a lot. Today, it is the people who make intelligent decisions that achieve success. And these are precisely the people who are open to intelligent luxury.

Your resorts mostly cater for wealthy people. Is intelligent luxury also a concept for the middle class?

S: Absolutely. A lot of what we do is not terribly expensive, it just requires some initial thinking. Sand on the floor, for instance, is not expensive. Our philosophy SLOWLIFE is universal. SLOWLIFE stands for “sustainable, local, organic, wholesome”; and then “learning, inspiring, fun and experience.” This is increasingly attractive also for less affluent people. Human beings today are searching for a greater truth. They do not want to consume for the sake of consumption only.

Is this the new corporate responsibility?

S: Definitely. We entrepreneurs have to be able to give answers to our clients. People are not going to give up the idea of luxury, so we have to change the perception of what luxury is.

And you act on this responsibility?

S: One example: We have made our resorts carbonneutral. We built a windmill in India that is supported by the money our guests pay. But we want more, we want to become a zero-carbon company. By early 2011 at the latest, the Soneva Fushi resort will rely completely on renewable energy.

Where does this new responsible thinking on the part of companies and customers come from?

S: From necessity. There aren’t enough resources in the world, we can’t go on like this. 90 percent of predatory fish are said to have been fished already; we have to start restoring our oceans to the state they were once in.

This rethinking is essential especially for the tourism industry.

S: True. The environment is changing, and this has an impact on the travel industry. The Mediterranean Sea might at some point become unswimmable, being so full of jellyfish and algae.

Apparently, there is a whole philosophy behind your business idea. Can that philosophy have an impact beyond the resort business?

S: Yes, we have such plans. We want to distribute the system that we have to produce Six Senses Water; and we would also like to supply the Maldives government with the solar panels that we use at Soneva Fushi. Also, we have designed a luxury boat with a diesel engine. Why not offer such boats for sale?

We talked a lot about wishes in this interview. What is your last big wish?

S: I would be happy if our philosophy had a real impact, and if we could show the world what the SLOW LIFE concept can do.

SONU SHIVDASANI

is founder and CEO of the hotel management company “Six Senses Resorts & Spas.” His company develops, builds and manages luxury resorts and spas primarily in Asia. Shivdasani is the son of Indian parents. He studied English Literature at Oxford, and he also spent some of his early childhood in Nigeria and Switzerland.