Concierge Confidential 🛎️

Hey everyone.

Today is an exciting “first” for RP WEEKLY: our first guest feature!

This week, I spent an hour with Michael Albanese, co-founder of Element Lifestyle, author, dad, husband, recreational hooper, and hospitality legend.

Michael’s client list includes:

• Silicon Valley founders

• Royal families

• Hollywood actors

He’s had a huge impact on me and was influential in jumpstarting my career and love for hospitality.

To give you an idea of his day to day…when we first hopped on the call he said:

“Life’s been crazy, I was just dealing with 4 billionaires all in London for Wimbledon at the same time.”

lmao.

Now, we’re not here to oogle over the absurd travel lifestyles of the rich and famous. Frankly, I find it rather superficial and uninteresting (although it makes for good quote cards).

We’re here to analyze the art of curated premium experiences and - more specifically - the empathy, intentionality, and authenticity required to delight even the most discerning travelers.

Being a “travel agent” isn’t easy - especially for demanding billionaires, but I find hospitality to be one of the few industries where human “meaning-making” shines brighter than ever.

So thats exactly what I asked Michael about: crafting unforgettable moments in a world of optimization, AI, and algorithms…

Michael’s New Book + Writing with AI

RP: Before we dive in, tell us about your upcoming book!

MA: I’ve got so many stories from my career that I’m excited to share. As an entrepreneurial small business owner, it's brutal, man, at times, and I just didn't want to sugar coat anything.  I'm having a copy edited and…btw do you know Will Guidara?

RP: Dude, I was just going to bring him up. Will’s book “Unreasonable Hospitality” was on the reading list at my last startup. It sounds like what you've written is going to be at that echelon…a book with lessons that transcend hospitality.

MA: No way! He’s an old colleague. I went back and looked at old emails and I used to break Will's balls begging them to get clients in at Eleven Madison Park.

RP: Amazing. So he & others are helping you in this process…Do you use ChatGPT or Claude to bounce ideas off or get feedback on your writing?

MA: No, because I'll tell you - I am not against AI - and I do use it for research. But in terms of writing and creativity, I stay clear of it, because I know how beneficial it would be. I feel like I would get really, really lazy very quickly and start outsourcing all of my creativity to it.

Means vs. Meaning…

RP: In your experience, how do ultra-wealthy people actually make decisions about experiences differently than everyone assumes?

MA: I think the assumption is that the wealthy have a tradition of “lifestyles of the rich and famous” and everyone wants to see how the “other half” or the 1% lives. But in my experience - it is a lot more thoughtful and a lot more curated than one would assume. Most of our clients put a lot of thought into the types of experiences they're gonna have. And because they know they can afford anything anywhere, they've eaten it all, and they stayed everywhere and they've had almost every bucket list experience that you can imagine…they're much more mindful of “how can I have an authentic experience” and it hasn't really nothing to do with money because they know they can afford it....they have the means, but what's the meaning? Right?

MA: This is a true example: an older couple that has a winery in New Zealand…has our clients over for lunch, opens up a bottle of wine, eating homemade soup and homemade bread that they made that day and just talking about the history of the farm and their experiences being winemakers. That costs next to nothing, other than the obligation to maybe buy a case of wine, but that experience of connecting with another human being that's doing something in a space that you love, which is wine, and doing it so small and specific…it’s that artisanal approach that really resonates.

What Can Never Be Automated…

RP: What aspects of what you do could never be automated, and why?

MA: 100% human empathy... You just can't automate empathy. You can't automate the experience of a thunderstorm derailing a flight, and I get a call at 2 in the morning to help a client's wife after an emergency landing in Birmingham. I'm up all night getting her a hotel, a car service, and rebooking her flight. I found a driver to take her from Birmingham to Nashville. That's a real life example within the last couple of months. Now, that doesn't happen all the time - but you just can't automate that. That kind of human response, human empathy. If it was my wife, I would want somebody helping her.

Personal Curation vs. Algorithms…

RP: How do you compete with apps and algorithms that promise similar convenience for travelers today?

MA: I don't feel inherently competitive with apps and algorithms because of the importance of the human element. I mean, I have a personal cheat sheet for New York of all the hidden gems that mean something to me. It may not resonate with you, it may not resonate with another client, but I know what I like. You start to gravitate toward people that like the same things you like, and for the reasons you like them. But when you're getting paid to provide a service, I think part of what they're paying for is my unique perspective. That’s how they get value they can’t find online.

Delightful Tension

RP: What’s your definition of a great hospitality experience?

MA: The barometer for me in a restaurant or a hotel or coffee shop is: you can be in a great city, but there's a tension that's palpable…you don't want to leave this space. You know you should go out and explore the city, but you're so comfortable and so at home in this place. And that to me is the mark of a great hospitality experience... I call it delightful tension because you usually think of tension as bad. That’s rare. That's “soul” to me.

Michael’s Favorite Places

RP: What places do that for you?

MA: The Greenwich Hotel in New York. The Place in Florence. There’s an incredible restaurant in Galway, Ireland called ArdBia which is Gaelic for “high food”. One of the best meals I’ve ever had. I bought their cookbook that I have up in our kitchen. When I went, I didn't want to leave. I was writing and eating and just loving the experience. And it's nothing fancy. It's just down by the ocean and all of a sudden there's a hole in the wall. So, I'm always thinking about creating a space that nobody wants to leave. It’s very intentional. You can tell. It's romantic. That's the beauty of the human experience too, right? That's another thing right up there with empathy.

Advice to Younger Self

RP: If you were starting over today - knowing what you know now - what would you do differently?

MA: I probably wouldn’t (laughs). Ignorance was bliss. I will say, every company has SOPs, “standard operating procedures” and they give some structure and uniformity to a work environment and the way that you work. I never liked them because it was just boring texts. But - what if we created a new SOP, which is a “standard operating purpose?” What that would look like? Why do we do what we do…instead of how we do what we do.

My Takeaway

I love the way Michael thinks and so much of his wisdom can be applied to any endeavor.

Listen. Empathize. Define and cultivate what you like. Then, share it with others in a way that feels natural to you. That is a human-proof experience.

I think its important to understand, too, that little things compound and often pay off in ways you can’t imagine. When you give a client a thoughtful, stripped-down wine tasting as opposed to a more expensive estate tour with all the bells and whistles, you don’t make as much commission, but you delight a client…who tells a friend…who tells a friend. And suddenly, the math makes way more sense when you stop optimizing for the short-term.

Thanks for reading. I hope you got as much out of it as I did.

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