“I am not a politician. I am not a hotelier. I am simply a businessman who got into the hotel industry via my then-girlfriend, now my wife,” said Mickael Damelincourt, managing director of the 263-room Trump International Hotel Washington, D.C.
With an international business degree, it is not surprising Damelincourt does everything against the industry norm. “When we started hiring our 450 associates, we did not contact hotel schools or other properties,” he said. “Our team comes from a variety of sources – one of our best reception clerks, frequently praised on TripAdvisor, is the daughter of guests who liked our hotel so much they thought perhaps their daughter would like to try it. A colleague is an Afghan refugee who wanted work, which required passion and smiles.”
Damelincourt had been perfectly happy running Trump Toronto when ‘the family’ asked him to move south to open the controversial conversion of the U.S. landmark Old Post Office. (That was before the head of the hotel family decided to run for the presidency, and Damelincourt’s business plan changed dramatically). The hotel still soft-opened as planned in September 2016 with the grand opening on October 26 attended by the entire family.
Damelincourt personally answer most online postings and said he has been appalled by comments from people purporting to have, say, used the spa before it opened. “Yes, we have had to find new markets as there are some who cannot distinguish hotelkeeping from politics, but it has been a revelation to find pockets of wealth in small private companies in the Midwest, and we have a religious niche, and the Middle East and Asia, led by China, are growing substantially,” he said.
Damelincourt is just as involved in distribution as he is in daily operations. “My morning meetings start punctually at nine and lasts a minimum of 45 minutes,” he said. “I ask participants to block an hour and a half. I have 10 taking part, in rotation, but the format is pretty standard,” he added. “First, we do what I call ‘guest attention,’ going minutely through every incident, good or bad, from the last 24 hours. Next someone reports on a given challenge, perhaps describing the customer service he experienced in a particular mall. Finally, we study tomorrow’s guest arrivals.”
Since Damelincourt is invariably in by 7 a.m., to check breakfast, and often dines in the hotel, he works a long day – sometimes he brings his 10-year-old son, if he is off school. “He loves helping out and gets on well with our younger guests,” shared his father, who has a mission to motivate young people. Away from work Damelincourt mentors mentally-scarred veterans, and at the hotel he continuously urges his team on. Work towards goals to avoid zigzags, he preached.
Damelincourt hates brand standards, but then he is averse to big companies. “Trump is the modern equivalent of what Four Seasons was when it started,” he said. “Trump is led by passion. Donald Jr. and Eric are incredibly involved in every detail.” For example, when the hotel has a group in, one of the brothers may make a welcome video, or come by personally. Individual VIP guests are “staggered” to find personalized welcomes from one of them, on gold-embossed notepaper and personally signed, in sealed envelopes strategically placed on top of the bed.
Return on investment is subtle, in the Damelincourt business plan. “Back in my native France, my mother ran the company’s antiques store and I learned from her that customer service encourages guest loyalty and makes money,” he said. “But that does not mean we do not save every cent behind the scenes. Can you name another luxury hotel company where even MDs fly long-haul in Economy, unless they upgrade using points?”