Lesley Wong - Guest Focused Hotel Design (Part 1 of 2)

[Episode 29]

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Lesley Wong is the owner and Principal Designer at Lesley Wong Interiors and is a hospitality interior design specialists based in Ontario, Canada. Her guest-first design strategy is focused on crafting customized and beautiful hotel spaces for guests, that are both ascetically pleasing and operationally function for operators. Lesley graduated from the New York School of Interior Design and honed her skills in design and construction with Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts. She has operated her own design firm from nearly 10 years, working with brands including Comfort Inn, Best Western, IHG, and Hilton on creating unique, boutique hospitality environments.
 
You can connect with Lesley on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/lesley-wong-hotels or visit her website at: lesleywonginteriors.ca
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Host: William C Murray, PhD:

William is passionate about service, the hospitality industry, and human experiences. He began working in the service industry at 14 and has never looked back, gaining experience in retail, restaurants, and major hotel companies nationwide. He is an expert in service, hospitality operations, and management, with over two decades teaching at both colleges and universities across Canada.
 
William holds a PhD in Management and multiple degrees in hospitality and tourism. He in an Associate Professor at the University of Guelph (Canada) in the School of Hospitality, Food & Tourism Management at the Lang School of Business & Economics. His research focuses on workforce sustainability and the human condition of workers. He has published work in top journals, including Sustainability, the International Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Administration, and the Journal of Human Resources in Hospitality and Tourism, along with being a co-author of the textbook Snapshots: An Introduction to Tourism, 6th Cdn.
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E-mail: william@theservicecenter.ca
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Transcript

William Murray: 0:00

Hi there, I'm William Murray. Welcome to the Service Centre.

Lesley Wong: 0:07

There's nothing nothing like the real life experience school is great establishes the foundation for you. But that real life experience getting up getting ready showing up and doing the job is where I would say I've learned the most.

William Murray: 0:35

If you've been following along with the podcast, you'll no doubt be aware that the idea of services many layered and multifaceted. It's about interpersonal interactions for sure. But there are aspects of emotional intelligence and human perception, of sociology and psychology, along with how we create both a place and space for service to flourish. Now being a hospitality educator, one of the core courses within my staple of work for a long while now has been about managing facilities, the building and physical environment where in which hospitality services take place. I use a three point system juggling the space as an asset that has value, the space as a source of revenue that generates money and profit, as well as the space within which we create positive human experiences. So, I was very excited to sit down for a long conversation with Leslie Wong, an expert and hotel interior design. Leslie is a graduate of the New York School of interior design and she grew her talents in design and construction with the best of the best - Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts. At the beginning of 2014, Leslie branched out on her own opening Leslie Wong Interiors and put into place her guest first design strategies. The company she's worked for in design include Choice Hotels, Best Western, Hilton, IHG, and many, many more. Leslie's passion for design goes back to her childhood and early days, which we explore as part of her journey. And honestly, the two of us kind of geeked out a bit talking about the power space has on human experiences. It was great fun to welcome Leslie to the show. I hope you enjoy the conversation as much as I did. Let's get right to it. As always, my name is William Murray, and welcome to The Service Center. Hi, Leslie, it's great to see you. It's great to have you on The Service Center podcast, I'm so thrilled that we get a chance to talk about design because I think design is such an important part of the entire service experience. So thanks for joining me.

Lesley Wong: 2:46

Thank you for inviting me.

William Murray: 2:47

I think we're going to have an interesting chat here about the impact that design and space has on on people, both on guests, and on the people that work in those environments. Because we have two sets of human beings that work within an area - we have our guests, and we also have the employees and the talent that live in that space as well. And your focus is on creating these spaces that allow people to excel and to experience more. How did you get into design?

Lesley Wong: 3:24

Well, the story goes ever since I was a little girl, I can remember asking my mom for my first Barbie doll. We're going way back, when when Barbie dolls were a big thing. And it wasn't necessarily to play with the Barbie, but it was to create spaces for the Barbie. I would make furniture and accessories for her out of cardboard and foil wrappers from candy bars. I would make different kinds of things for the Barbie and I always wanted to have a Barbie home. But I made it myself. So that's where it started. And then in my early 20s, I had my first apartment. In your early 20s, you know, your life is work, school and going out. Well, I would forego going out so that I could buy pillows, wallpaper, accessories for my apartment because that was my focus. So from an early age, right from the get go, I've always been interested in interior design. It's always been something that really got me stirred up.

William Murray: 4:31

Now I have to ask because I do have teenagers. I always think there are two types of teenagers - those that spend time designing and curating their room, and those that do not and it's a bit of a mess. Were you a curator of your bedroom?

Lesley Wong: 4:50

Absolutely. I was privileged to have a bigger bedroom than my sister. And so I had had my bed, my nightstands, my little lamps. I also had room for a settee and a coffee table, and I would spread out my Vogue magazines on it - display it well. And I had friends come into my room and they would like, "What is this Leslie?". It was the beginning of the end.

William Murray: 5:16

I had some friends that would curate the rooms. And whenever I visited I would this is a very different space than the one I just left, where my socks were on the floor in a corner. And you had a couple of posters hung with with Mac tack. But yeah, that was about it for my design sets. And then you walk into other spaces and for 15, 16, 17 year olds, they've done it up, right?

Lesley Wong: 5:44

Yeah, that was me.

William Murray: 5:46

So what was it like? What kind of feel were you going for in that room?

Lesley Wong: 5:52

So we're talking all good. This I don't want to date myself entirely. But when I was a teenager, I'll say this and those InDesign will know, sort of like a rose coloured was in. And a forest green was in and wallpaper was was in. And so yeah, that was the colour palette for my room. But, you know, I was experimental too. And then I would try, you know, different patterns with colour and texture. And so yeah, it was it was a good opportunity. In my 20s, I went a little bit more bold and I went with teals and burgundys, and then in my mid to late 20s, I kind of calmed down a little bit, and everything went beige.

William Murray: 6:40

The beloved neutral tones that you could build upon.

Lesley Wong: 6:43

Yeah,

William Murray: 6:44

Now did you have an inkling at that early time when you were curating your own spaces and had an interest for that, that this could possibly lead to a career?

Lesley Wong: 6:55

Definitely not. I grew up in a small northern Ontario town. And interior designers were not around, I went to Northern Ontario high school. And you do those aptitude tests. And the two best career choices for me were either an interior designer or accountant. And like, well, I don't know any interior designer, so I might as well be an accountant. And that's where I thought I was going to end up. I'm very good with math, but I feel you need to be with interior design too. So, you know, it's a bit of a strange mix. But I had no influence, so to speak from someone outside of, you know, my circle of friends who was an interior design. And that was just because we didn't have access to that kind of thing. We're small town, small community. And so when I eventually moved to Toronto, and had the opportunity to go to school and learn and expand myself, that's when I was really yeah, this is what I want. This is where I should be.

William Murray: 8:04

I call that foreshadowing you're teasing something out there in just how you set it in that your environment really does influence how you respond to the world, and in your environment socially, didn't have a lot of interior designers that would have been influential to you and in a particular mentoring path. So that really wouldn't have been something that would have been within your scope of plausibility.

Lesley Wong: 8:31

Yeah.

William Murray: 8:32

But when you come to Toronto, your environment changes.

Lesley Wong: 8:36

Yeah. And I remember so glad I did. Because not to say anything negative about small northern Ontario towns, but Toronto has so much more to show and see and find and the exposure to different things is much greater.

William Murray: 8:55

And what brought you to Toronto?

Lesley Wong: 8:57

Well, in between graduating high school and moving to Toronto, I actually went back to the UK for three years, and I lived in work there. And that's where I had my first apartment. And yeah, I went to school a little bit, I travelled, and really kind of took that opportunity to figure myself out what I wanted and what I didn't want. And then I ended up moving back to Canada. And it was within a year I moved down to Toronto, from that small northern town and really haven't looked back since.

William Murray: 9:33

You talked about going over to Europe, and we call it - I'm using the air quotes for people because nobody can see me - of finding ourselves.

Lesley Wong: 9:41

Yeah.

William Murray: 9:42

And you say you you found what you did want but what you didn't want and I always find the second question. Very interesting. What did you find that you didn't want?

Lesley Wong: 9:51

Well, I can remember thinking you know, this whole working nine to five behind a desk for two weeks off a year was just like, that sounds like a hamster wheel to me. And I'm not the kind of person who kind of fits that mould. I tried. And that's where it became abundantly clear that being an accountant was it for me. And this whole concept of interior design was like, Whoa, I should explore that I should find out more about what's involved. And it took a little while to position myself in the right place for that. But once I did, it was, it was like a no brainer.

William Murray: 10:29

Once people get a taste of what they are interested, though, they do need to position themselves. We need to figure out how to on ramp, how to get on that highway, so that we're heading in the right direction? How did you position yourself to ultimately join the team at the Four Seasons?

Lesley Wong: 10:50

Well, that is a bit of hard work and a little bit of being in the right place at the right time. Working in Four Seasons is very much, I would say a prestigious opportunity. A lot of people work very hard to get there. And I happen to be a very fortunate enough to be chosen to work there. And I say that chosen to work there because I had to go through several interviews to get the job. It's not like one and done and you're in, it was a process. And I appreciate that very much. They're, they're very choosy as to who they bring into their organisation. And for good reason to, it has to be a good fit with everybody else on their team. So I went to school a little bit in study design. And being at Four Seasons, they had the employer programme where you know, they would help grow you and your education and exposure to different things. And so I took them up on it. And I learned a little bit more continued to grow and worked on designing worked in design and construction for Four Seasons, and partnered with different architects on different projects. And it was really an eye opening experience. It really set me on that path of this is what I want to do the education you're talking about.

William Murray: 12:10

Part of that was at with the New York School of Interior Design.

Lesley Wong: 12:14

Yeah, part of it was, yeah, yeah.

William Murray: 12:16

How does going to school and being immersed in, in a school like that, that focuses on interior design, really solidify your direction? What are the foundational pieces that you're getting from an education like that?

Lesley Wong: 12:32

That's a great question. Well, I mean, I think it teaches you the practicality of it all, what's expected and how to do it. But there's nothing, nothing like the real life experience. School is great, establishes the foundation for you. But that real life experience getting up getting ready showing up and doing the job is where I would say I've learned the most.

William Murray: 13:02

You spent 10 years with Four Seasons. And and you did say it's a process to get in with them. They are one of the elite hotel brands for luxury here in Canada. We're gonna go back on a theme here because I think environment influences us being surrounded by a brand like Four Seasons, with their expectations in design, in construction, can't help but influence you.

Lesley Wong: 13:30

Oh, so much.

William Murray: 13:32

I'm curious about how that shaped and formed you. Because that was your school, that was your practical schooling, learning education show up every day and do the job. Billy Joel used to say this is how we do the gig. And that was the gig for you is showing up to the Four Seasons and doing it there. So what were you doing there? And how did that help form you?

Lesley Wong: 13:59

It touched almost everything. From the moment you wake up in the morning, you're fixing your hair, you're doing your makeup, you're you're dressing up like a professional, whether you meet someone or not at the corporate office, your dressing like you're about to meet someone. Very important. I think that carries through to me in my professional work that I'm doing as an individual because now I dress up and I show up like I really mean it, but also in the practical sense and that they had high standards. Every document had to be look a certain way. Even walking through the corridors of four seasons. The carpet was so plush. It was Axminster, and this is what they did at their corporate office. And I thought wow, you know, how much more so then is the hotel that they're inviting guests from around the world into. So everything that you could see and touch and connect to had a huge impact on me because it was at a level that you push yourself to achieve. You're always striving to achieve that five star luxury feel in whether it's your personal appearance or your work habits, your skills. It is carried me through to now. Yeah. And you were based in the corporate office? So you had just mentioned about the environment in the corporate office.

William Murray: 15:27

Sometimes there are brands that have, I call it design disconnect. Is they will show front facing to the guests one design, but at a corporate level, or in a heart of house design area, less so. However, what I'm getting from you is that the four seasons, even in their corporate office is demonstrating through personal presentation and through design of space, that five star level is reflected in everything.

Lesley Wong: 15:58

Absolutely. I can remember one time we had a group from Dubai come in to the corporate office. And I was like, Oh, my goodness, you know, these are pretty important people that are coming in, I don't, I don't know, do I? Do I look them in the eye? Do I scurry away? I didn't know what to do. And they were impressed by our corporate office. And I thought, wow, you know, I get to work here every day and is impressive to someone from Dubai. That's a big deal in my mind. So yes, the corporate office was designed and made to be an extension of the hotel, because you just didn't know who was going to show up for meetings, or presentations or whatever it might be.

William Murray: 16:52

And you were working with architects and other interior designers on spaces for the Four Seasons. And you did that over a 10 year period working on larger and larger prop projects. As a designer, when did you start to get an itch for going out on your own and creating designs that were a little bit more you- that personal expression?

Lesley Wong: 17:30

Well, when I was working at Four Seasons, our son was very young. And I loved my job so much, I would find myself working there longer and longer hours, not because they had to, but because I wanted to. And there arises a problem in that, you know, something's getting sacrificed, and family was not the right thing to sacrifice. And so at that point, I had to sit back and really think, you know, what am I doing? Where am I? Where am I going? How is this all impacting the long term of what we do as a family? And I think it was at that point, I said, Okay, well, we moved out of Toronto to the Durham Region. And it just made sense for me to take a step back, and reevaluate where things were going. So timing was perfect. And at first, I thought, well, is this really what I want to do maybe to take some time off, and I did, it took a little bit of time for myself for my son, and my family. But then it was like- Oh, I can't sit at home and do nothing. This is not me, I need to be busy. I need to get involved. And so it was okay, decorate your home, or decorate a friend's home, or that kind of thing. And, and I realised No, Leslie, you, you need to keep moving forward with this. This is something that's a passion for me, it drives me.

William Murray: 19:02

We can only move around the furniture in our house so many times before we need to paint on a larger palette.

Lesley Wong: 19:11

That's very true.

William Murray: 19:12

So in 2014, you opened up Leslie Wong interiors. I did. Your own business that you founded and you are the principal designer now with a number of designers who work as part of your team. When you leave an entity like the Four Seasons, which would have influenced you, you do get a chance to express yourself and say - this is the design that I will bring to operators and the scope of the businesses that you'll be working with changes. But you brought in an idea of this "guest first design strategy". It is in a lot of what you say, in a lot of the materials that you produce, which is something that attracted me and open up our conversations. I want you to explain what you mean by "guest first design strategy".

Lesley Wong: 20:04

I guess it's from my perspective, as a guest walking into your hotel for the first time. I get excited when I go to a new place like a hotel, because it's supposed to be designed specifically to attract and maintain visitors. That's the whole purpose of their business. So I usually get excited. Oh, what lies behind these doors? What's over here? What's over there? What's new for me to explore? And I get this sort of bubbled up feeling of excitement walking into a new space. Now, I know, I'm not like everybody. But for those of us who are like that, you'll get what I mean. But from that perspective of excitement of what lies beyond these doors? What is here? What is there? I see myself as the guest, and what my expectations are? What am I looking for from a hotel stay? Can you meet my expectations. So that's what the"guests first design strategy" is really about. Seeing things from the guest perspective - what I guess needs to make it a great stay.

William Murray: 21:16

There was an article out of the Harvard Business Review, I believe, was 2010. And the premise of the article, and then at the title of the article was Stop Trying to Delight Your Guests. The author was writing about meeting guest expectations first, instead of always trying to exceed. And in that article, the author points out that it was the 89% of hotel operators and owners have a strategy of exceeding guest expectations in everything that they do, and 87% of guests, in their last service experience did not have experiences that exceeded expectation. And so the author was talking about the idea of make sure that you're meeting those guest focused expectations first. And you refer to it as as making guests feel good and making it feel like it was designed just for them. There's a feeling in your approach for design. The idea of feeling is tricky for us to unpack here, because it's very complicated. But how should guests feel in a space?

Lesley Wong: 22:25

I guess it's slightly different for whether you're female traveller, male traveller and business traveller, family traveller. For each group, there's some slight differences. But in general, I think of the... I think of the program Cheers in the 80s, where they would open the door and they would shout the person's name.

William Murray: 22:46

NORM!

Lesley Wong: 22:46

Hey, exactly. And, you know, it's your home away from home kind of thing, right. And that's what plays in my mind when I think of how does someone feel, or get to feel welcome, or important, or special in some way. And it's those little touches from the very first exchange of smiles, not even... you don't even have the key yet to your guest room. But it's Hi, Welcome to our Hotel! How was your say? Or how was your flight? How was your trip? You know, is there anything that I can get for you, which is like a bottle of water? All those little things, I think, start that emotional connection when you interact with someone. But if we take a step back, even the colours, the textures, the sound, the feel when you walk into the space before you even reach the reception desk has an impact on you. So we recently did a project in Thunder Bay, and it was a young hip urbanite sort of hotel feel that they wanted, and it was bright colours, and clunky fabrics and neat furniture and, and that attracted a certain kind of person. And they'll feel a certain kind of way when they walk into that space. But say, a weary family traveller... well, they're looking for something a little bit more calm, a little bit more subdued, a little bit more family friendly engagement, before they hit that reception desk. And so you have to appeal to a variety of traveller, a variety of guests. And so that can be tricky. So knowing how design impacts a guest is it's really important area of study, I think,

William Murray: 24:42

How much time are you spending with the hotel operators, their marketing team, to really understand who their target markets are, who their customer is and what their customers looking for, as part of your design process?

Lesley Wong: 24:56

Well, we do have an interview that we do with say hotels owners and the brand that they might be affiliated with. And we'll talk about things like well, who's your ideal guest? Who is your current guest? Who would you like to market to? Is there a difference between the two? What do you think they're looking for? What are you willing to offer them? How can we give them that but also enhance, so that you're ahead of the curve, or in the good part of the curve? It's tricky with designing a hotel, because we talked about the design curve and being ahead of the curve. But by the time you implement a design, it can be 6, 12, 18 months later, so the curve has already shifted a little bit. But going through those interview questions to find out who their ideal guest is, it's definitely a great starting point, because every hotel is different. There's some that I've worked on that are primarily servicing families and hockey teams, lacrosse teams, and then others that are servicing more airport travellers. Knowing your guest is very important to the start of the design process.

William Murray: 26:05

I was talking to a hotelier yesterday on a different conversation, and he was saying that he recently in some of his hotels had a lot of sports teams and hockey teams. And he was talking about the state of his hallways. And I was thinking forward to our conversation today. I wonder if Leslie has any ideas on how to design hallways that are more durable for hockey travellers?

Lesley Wong: 26:29

I think you clad them in tile and call it a day!

William Murray: 26:35

They take some abuse, they do!

Lesley Wong: 26:38

They do, they do. I mean, we have standard things like corner guards and 20 ounce wall vinyl weight. But if you've got a 10 year old kid with a hockey stick that's flailing around, well, things happen.

William Murray: 26:49

You do the best you can?

Lesley Wong: 26:51

Yeah, yeah.

William Murray: 26:53

A lot of your work, I would assume is trying to bring together functionality. Because a lot of hoteliers that you're working with will have a very functional approach. I need this space to operate with my guests in a certain way. We're dealing with a standardised footprint. It's a double slab design, what not, very functional space. And then you get to bring your experience of form. How do you see form and function coming together to impact that human experience?

Lesley Wong: 27:30

Well, I think textures and textiles and things that we touch, obviously are a huge point of interest in that I think that's where you know, you you've got the practical casegoods of a hotel guestroom, for example. But how does it feel to touch it? Does it look nice to approach do you want to touch it? Is it something that looks easy to clean? Maintain? Well, from a practical standpoint, but also from, I guess, experience standpoint? You know, do I feel as if this room is cleaned regularly? And does it pass my white glove test? Right. So I think definitely the materials we use as one way of connecting that form and function.

William Murray: 28:14

Well, that's a good place to press pause with Lesley. Just in telling her story, she shared so many neat ideas and lessons - from the importance of finding your circle of like-minded people, to getting real life experience doing the work. For me, the idea of purposely designing yourself as a professional and how you intentionally get ready every morning was powerful. That hammered home that our environments as individuals are the start of everything. If you enjoyed this episode, take a moment to give it a bit of love. Share it with your network, a post send it over to a colleague, and of course, like comment, leave a review wherever you are listening. The Service Center podcast is hosted and produced by me, William Murray, and our cover is created by Jack Designs. Thanks for choosing to spend your time here and I invite you back for more guests, stories, and service insights on the next episode of The Service Center.