Four Seasons, four pillars & three seasons

Four Seasons & The White Lotus

Any story about the Four Seasons hotel group must, surely, make some mention of The White Lotus.

First Four Seasons simply provided the backdrops for the first two series of the hit HBO series.

But it then it developed into a serious marketing partnership for season three.

To some degree, throughout these first three seasons of The White Lotus, Four Seasons almost became a character in The White Lotus.

Certainly, apart from thinking first of Jennifer Coolidge as the husky and unhinged character Tanya McQuoid, one thinks of Four Seasons properties in Hawaii, Europe and Asia, with more to follow.

But, after three seasons of partnership, HBO opted to change course and not renew its marketing contract with Four Seasons. So the upcoming season four, filmed in the French Riviera, doesn’t feature a Four Seasons hotel.

THREE OF FOUR SEASONS

The partnership sets the hit TV show’s twisted plots in luxurious settings.

One Four Seasons Resort Maui at Wailea

Two San Domenico Palace, Sicily, a Four Seasons hotel.

Three Four Seasons Resort Koh Samui

65 years strong

Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts opened its first hotel in 1961.

The Canadian-based company is 65 years old and going strong, telling a story of continual innovation and expansion.

Back in the 1960s, Isadore (Issy) Sharp had no plans to open or run a hotel business on a grand scale.

But then the young architect and builder, working with his contractor father Max, designed and built a hotel on a rather unlikely spot in downtown Toronto, Canada.

It had taken more than five years for Issy, still in his 20s, to get financial backing, but the 125-room motor hotel opened on the first day of spring in 1961 and immediately set the standard for all that would follow for Four Seasons.

“We opened our first hotel with a simple principle: treating every customer as a special guest,” Issy says.

By the end of the decade, Issy Sharp had opened three Four Seasons hotels.

Throughout the 1970s, the company burst out of Canada. In 1970, it opened Inn on the Park London (later renamed Four Seasons Hotel London at Park Lane).

Ten more hotels were opened across Canada, along with the first in the US, in San Francisco, Chicago and Washington, DC.

They carried the Four Seasons hallmark based on four strategic decisions. Its four pillars of business.

A Four Seasons spokesperson explains: “The first was about quality. Rather than being all things to all people, Four Seasons would focus on one thing: being the best in each location, with medium-sized hotels of exceptional quality.

“The second was about service — the exceptional service that had made the London hotel so successful. True luxury is defined not by architecture or decor, but by service.

“The third was about culture. Four Seasons had always had an implicit operating philosophy. As the company expanded, Issy Sharp decided to make it explicit. He knew that shared values were essential to the service culture he wanted to create. Therefore, he and his team developed a formal credo, founded on the Golden Rule: We treat others — all others: customers, employees, partners, suppliers— as one would wish to be treated. This became the cornerstone of Four Seasons culture.”

The final pillar is simply “brand” — the culmination of quality, service and culture, it protects the company’s worldwide reputation and fosters long-term relationships.

+ In 1986, Four Seasons opened the first hotel with a full-service spa in North America. Four Seasons Resort and Club Dallas introduced travellers to attentive, round-the-clock service in a leisure setting.

+ It opened its first hotel in Asia in Tokyo in 1992 — Four Seasons Hotel Tokyo at Chinzanso.