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History of The Ritz-Carlton Essay

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History of The Ritz-Carlton
In 1898, Cesar Ritz left his life as a shepherd in Switzerland and moved to Paris (Sucher & McManus, 2001). He worked in some of the finest hotels and restaurants in the city before opening up his own hotel (Sucher & McManus, 2001). A year later he opened the Carlton Hotel in London, which eventually became The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company (Sucher & McManus, 2001).
Keeping with Mr. Ritz’s vision of excellent personalized service the Ritz-Carlton expanded to North America (Sucher & McManus, 2001). The only hotel to survive the Great Depression and two world wars was the Ritz-Carlton in Boston (Sucher & McManus, 2001). In 1983, the Atlantic-based Johnson Company bought the North American rights to the …show more content…

The most crucial aspect of the hotel market is occupancy (Sucher & McManus, 2001). To address the occupancy aspect, The Ritz-Carlton’s managers focused around two groups, the independent travelers and meeting event planners (Sucher & McManus, 2001).
Independent Traveler and Meeting Event Planners The independent guest was given extra care and attention (Sucher & McManus, 2001). The Ritz-Carlton would meet travelers at the airport with drinks, discount coupons presented on silver trays, serenaded with piano concertos, and even created a hotel room in the airport (Sucher & McManus, 2001). In one hotel, they introduced the “Technology Butler”, which was a staff of technicians on call 24 hours a day to assist guests with computer issues (Sucher & McManus, 2001). This extra care and attention made the customer feel special and made to feel it was all about them (Sucher & McManus, 2001). The Ritz-Carlton knew the event attendees were testing the hotel to see how well they performed (Sucher & McManus, 2001). The Ritz-Carlton needed to show the attendees that their hotel offered something no one else offered (Sucher & McManus, 2001). These event attendees were referred to as the “vital few”. These “vital few” accounted for 40% of annual sales income. The event business pays the hotel’s mortgage and the individual traveler helps with their profit (Sucher & McManus, 2001). The event

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