This summer, four veterans of the hospitality industry launched the Kepler International Hospitality Academy (KIHA), an educational programme that prepares hospitality leaders to meet luxury travellers’ desire to make a positive impact. In an exclusive sit-down with OutThere, KIHA co-founder Jannes Sörensen weighs in on the programme’s creation and goals.
Travel with purpose is more than just a fleeting trend. It’s the future of the industry, with sustainable and regenerative travel being growing motivations behind luxury travel heading into 2025 – partly in response to over-tourism, which is now more widely reported on than ever before. In the 21st century, discerning travellers are no longer content basking in opulence on their vacations: instead, they search for upscale experiences that make a positive impact on the world and local communities. That’s the thought behind the Kepler International Hospitality Academy (KIHA), and its Five Month Senior Executive Leadership Programme, designed to train industry leaders for this new impact-positive era.
The programme consists of two stages, taking students to three different cities around the globe for study modules on hospitality innovations, ‘deep service’, and the positive impact business model, followed by in-depth mentorship to help students integrate all they’ve learned into their leadership roles.
In recent years, we’ve seen a noticeable shift in the luxury travel industry, which has begun to step up and do its part for the planet. Given the nature of ultra-high-end travel, which is often inherently extravagant (think private aviation, megayachts, sourcing rare and exclusive materials and foods, etc.), some footprint is always going to remain inevitable, but it’s arguably time the industry takes the focus off excess for excess’ sake. Thanks to the amount of money that flows in and out of businesses that cater to luxury travellers, the potential to make a significant positive impact is certainly there. Even so, high-end hospitality continues to lag behind in some regards. We hope, of course, that the Kepler International Hospitality Academy will help it catch up.
KIHA was created by four hospitality titans, one of whom is Jannes Sörensen (perhaps best known for being one of the youngest hotel General Managers in the United Kingdom when he took the reins at The Beaumont Hotel in London in 2016), who spoke with OutThere about the programme and what it means for the hospitality industry.
Jannes, you have an impressive resume of work experience in numerous luxury hotels around the world, culminating in your role as General Manager of The Beaumont in London and now co-founder of KIHA. In what ways have your experiences in the hospitality industry shaped your work with KIHA?
What the luxury hotel industry taught me over more than two decades were truths and insights that have taken me towards a philosophy of management and hotel-keeping that differs from what I encountered when I first started. I now see a need for hotel experiences that inspire, make a difference, and are a vehicle for change – experiences that are respected for what they put back, not for what they take out. The definition of luxury is changing and for an ever-growing proportion of hotel guests, luxury means something different to the conspicuous consumption we still see today. We have arrived in the post-material world of ‘beyond luxury’.
Having increasingly witnessed some of our most affluent clients express a need for a deeper connection as well as a desire to disconnect from some of the excesses of luxury hospitality, I began to realise that luxury hotels often obstructed rather than enabled the way these clients wanted to live. And I came to understand that luxury hospitality needs to come up with solutions and not be part of the problem.
We did not find any courses in the market that would train for all the skill sets required to implement these new hospitality models. Thus, we created KIHA to develop the industry leaders needed to redefine and deliver this new type of elevated luxury in hospitality and to educate the successful managers of today to be prepared to deal with changing circumstances and these new ecosystems.
KIHA is built around the concept of ‘impact-positive hospitality’, which echoes some of the initiatives you’ve introduced during your time at The Beaumont. When did you start noticing the shift towards impact-positive hospitality and what did that look like?
This shift has been happening slowly for more than a decade now, but I feel it accelerated during and after the pandemic. What I began to see was a significant disconnect between the opulence, excess, and high room rates of the traditional luxury brands versus how their guests live their lives. Many luxury hotels today are content just being a reflection of monetary success, the reward for a financially accomplished life, and the idealisation of that success – I think they no longer offer what today’s travellers require. The post-material luxury client does not seek more of the same: it does not satisfy them. What is more concerning is that luxury hotels today are not only promoting a lifestyle that is no longer desired, it is a lifestyle that clearly needs to change.
More and more travellers care about their impact. Affluent consumers are realising that when you can have or buy anything, the idea of consuming less and giving back becomes a more satisfying proposition. Luxury hotels have not kept pace with this thinking.
What does the phrase ‘impact-positive hospitality’ mean to you?
Sustainability and social responsibility have to be the foundations of ‘impact-positive’ hospitality businesses, and cannot be just this year’s trendy objective. Impact-positive companies have to be sustainable in the long term, and this can only be achieved if it’s beneficial for their stakeholders and shareholders alike, and in tune and in line with their environment. Impact-positive hospitality should be the idealisation of a life lived well, supported by a philosophy of values and service that pioneers a customer-centric, emotions-driven style of hospitality, offering guests full engagement, a sense of belonging, an affirmation and elevation of their beliefs and a global community to be part of.
Ecology, planetary and human wellbeing have to be at the heart of impact-positive hospitality businesses but they need not be ‘eco-hotels’ with all the attendant clichéd visual attributes. Impact-positivity can determine the materials used and the food served within a hotel, but it is also how it works with its community and suppliers and how it can continue to motivate its guests and influence their lives through the lifestyle it portrays. That is of paramount importance– and that is not a lifestyle of conspicuous consumption.
Can you tell us a little bit about how KIHA started and how you became connected to the rest of the team?
Understanding that luxury hospitality needed to come up with solutions and not be part of the problem, I wanted to contribute to that solution, using my experience as a platform to drive positive change. The rest of the KIHA team are similarly focused.
Delivering the new impact-positive service models in the business of luxury hospitality requires acute awareness, rigorous discipline and a deep understanding of the essence of what we do as leaders, combined with business and leadership skills of the highest order. We felt this required a completely different approach to training and development not found in more traditional hotel management courses. Thus, we were impelled to create KIHA.
We have all known each other or about each other for a long time and share many of the same beliefs and values. I first met Philippe Krenzer when I was at The Connaught and he has been a friend, soundboard, mentor and inspiration for many years, having managed some of the world’s finest hotels and now being an inspirational university lecturer and consultant on luxury and innovation.
Jacob Mayne worked with Philippe for decades. With a background in human resources, brand strategy, and business development for some of the world’s largest companies as well as international cultural organisations, Jacob is fascinated by the challenges of leading change, and his ability to read between the lines and apply his genius towards a positive future is inspiring.
I knew about Kenichiro Yokoyama long before I met him in person. Ken is a legendary hotelier and visionary in Japan and has consistently championed a rare commitment to purpose. He is widely celebrated for his marriage of excellence, humility, precise attention to detail, and exceptional and meaningful leadership.
What is your role in the programme?
We are four key partners at KIHA, each bringing distinct qualities, experiences and contributions to the Academy. Not only that, it is important to emphasise that we are all luxury hospitality and sustainability practitioners – not just academics – with lived experiences to impart.
My role is to set the philosophical direction and content of the course, based on my deep passion for new luxury hospitality models and my previous, practical experience, especially at The Beaumont, where we created a customer-centric, human-to-human culture that evolved into the concept of ‘the listening’ hotel.
How did the team go about choosing the cities for the residential study modules?
Each location was chosen for the unique perspective it offers on new tourism models, deep service practices, and sustainable systems with a focus on community management.
In recent years, Amsterdam has been at the forefront of tourism innovation as the city grapples with the negative impacts of ‘over-tourism’. It is the first major city to have developed a multi-stakeholder tourism strategy, “Tourism that works for everyone”. It is the perfect location for exploring today’s changing contexts, envisioning the future of the hospitality sector and building a senior manager’s strategic toolbox for impact-based hospitality innovation.
Home to centuries-old family businesses known as ‘shinise’, Kyoto has gifted us the world’s oldest, most complete tradition of hospitality, known as ‘omotenashi’ (deep service). At the same time, Kyoto is way ahead of the curve on major societal issues such as a shrinking and ageing population, over-tourism and difficulty in maintaining age-old traditions. It is the ideal place not only to learn the principles of deep service but also the links between leadership and hospitality, how to adopt an adaptive leadership style, how to lead change in different environments and develop relevant human offers in line with deep service principles.
In 1996, Freiburg Vauban became the very first district of a major city to aim for what is now called net zero. A group of visionaries created Quartier Vauban, where community and sustainability went hand in hand to create a positive-impact living model. Life there is based on aligning individual choices with the collective interest. Quartier Vauban is proof that living with a planet-positive footprint is possible and it is the most inspiring place to learn about new ways of living, positive impact business models and operations, strategy implementation and leadership for positive impact.
The residential study modules include some cultural experiences, such as learning principles of Japanese hospitality or Dutch cooperation models. Why do you believe it’s important to incorporate elements from different cultures into the programme?
I think it is vitally important to get out from behind the desk and away from the classroom. We have to move from the theoretical to the tangible. We want to use the world as our lecture theatre because that is where the students ultimately practise their craft. More than most business executives, hospitality leaders work all over the globe and not only host guests from many different cultures but also employ people from many different cultural backgrounds. We can and should all learn from each other as this can only enrich us.
In this era of responsible and sustainable travel, greenwashing seems to be rampant among businesses catering to conscious travellers. Do you have any advice for travellers to help them discern the differences between greenwashing (or similar practices) and authentic impact-positive hospitality?
I think that I do not need to advise your readers. They know. And most of it is common sense.
There are three main ticket items to look out for: Build, Energy and Food. How is the building constructed and managed, what is its energy source, and what is on the menu? As much as they should not be there, taking away plastic straws won’t save our oceans. And placing a rustic tree stump masquerading as a table in a freezing lobby does not save the world, especially if someone serves you a beef burger.
We underestimate the knowledge and insights of travellers, and I think that many travellers are not confused but feel patronised.
Lastly, what is your hope for the outcome of this programme, for the future of KIHA, the hospitality workers, their guests, and the industry as a whole?
The old luxury hospitality business model won’t work in the coming decades. We as hospitality leaders can decide if we want to lead the change or stay behind – because the change is happening, whether we want it or not. KIHA will equip leaders to embrace the change and guide them into this new era.
Photography courtesy of the Kepler International Hospitality Academy
