What is Luxury? Probably you start to think about Louis Vuitton, Dior or Christian Louboutin? Before I entered Ritz Paris, my understanding towards Luxury was quite first level and superficial. I assumed that once stylish, well-designed bags/accessories were attached with famous brands and expensive prices, then they were.

During my IMBA study in IAE Paris-Est (École de Management), as a non-hotel major student, I was lucky enough to enter Ritz Paris as a Room Service intern for 6 months. My main job was to prepare for the amenities (food and drinks), for each room before the guests entered their room. Surprisingly, I’ve learnt and obtained so much more than that, including chances to :

• Slightly experience the products (e.g., room, deluxe, signature suite)
• Taste the wide-ranging desserts from François Perret (Never forget the taste of Le mille-feuille!)
• Observe how Ritz Paris created its pricing structure based on the Fashion Pyramid Model (from the entry level to the dream one).

Right here, right now, let me take you behind the scenes of Ritz Paris. Below are the 3 key learnings that I’d never linked to my perception towards Luxury before.

Luxury is not about arrogant, self-centered or mean people but about a group of dedicated people, who are willing to work and communicate with each others.

I would say the composition of Ritz Paris’ employees is truly diversified and almost like a mini-United Nations – you could find people from Asia, Africa, Europe and the States. Although we had such a diversified team, the common language was undoubtedly French.

Hotel is a highly collaborative environment. You must communicate with your colleagues to make things happen or to build some personal bonds with them. Even if I had an Intermediate French level, it’s still difficult and suffering for me to get used to my colleagues’ speedy talks. But don’t worry, you’ll learn and survive! With the positive pressure, you could practice French during / after your work with your friendly colleagues. In fact, my French listening and speaking progressed quite a lot during the internship.

Luxury is not about the romance but about the organized, detailed way of working and efficient operations.

What do you mean? Let me share my daily working routine as below.

• Based on the list of today’s guest arriving time, I had to list out the correct quantities of peanut / jam tarts and fruits and asked the fruit and dessert room to provide.
• Then I had to clean the silver baskets, stands and bell-shaped cloches nicely and place all the food and drinks on them.
• Then based on the client preference or health conditions, I personalized different set-up for each room.
• Lastly I had to move all these items with the room service table and allocate them correctly in the room listed (I was so picky… I even checked the angles of tableware to ensure that all the set-ups look professional and standardized).

As a room service intern, you had so many tasks to handle, and sometimes you had the emergency (Clients might arrive much earlier than expected), it’s essential that you had the capacity of prioritizing your daily operational tasks. Then you could work efficiently and accomplish your mission on time.

Luxury is not about the fame but about the collective efforts from a group of diligent staffs.

Do you know that before you enter your room, how many groups of people work and make the perfect Ritz Paris dream room for you? 5-6 groups at least, and each group is responsble for a specific mission. It’s necessary to respect other colleagues’ efforts as well. For example, when I sent my amenities into the room, I probably saw another group of colleagues handling the bed or laying a hand-writing card for the client. I dared not even touch the bed or enter the restoom in case of prolonging the overall room preparation time, which might cause a serious trouble for the whole working group.

After this article, do you have different opinions or perceptions towards Luxury? Share with me in the comment part below!