Ritz Carlton boss: Don’t drop standards

SINGAPORE - The boss of The Ritz Carlton Hotel Company LLC has told TravelWeekly today that while "nobody is immune" to problems like those currently being experienced by Le Meridien, the high-end hotel group's biggest challenge is to maintain its standards despite hard times.

Ritz Carlton president and chief operating officer Simon Cooper, speaking in Singapore, said that Le Meridien's troubles were symptomatic of a turbulent few years for hotel groups.

"We don't have too many locations where Meridien are in direct competition with us, so it won't effect us a great deal.

"But nobody is immune to this. With the pro formas that were made in 1999 or 2000, in many cases there would now be a significant gap, caused by such tough times for the global economy in the last two years."

"The lesson for us as a company is keep doing things extremely well. Maintain standards.

There's an enormous temptation during times like this to erode standards.

"You can make costs savings of course, but it's important that customer satisfaction does not suffer," said Cooper.