Since the age of 16, Geoffrey Kent has had one vision: adventure by day, security and luxury by night. The founder and co-chairman of Abercrombie & Kent, and Monaco resident, has achieved more in one lifetime than many of us could only dream of.
From his home in the south of Brazil where he is riding out the crisis with family, Geoffrey Kent spoke to Monaco Life about how his company reacted when Covid-19 hit, what luxury travellers should be considering in future adventures, and why 2021 will be the year of the bucket list.
Monaco Life: Throughout your many years in the luxury travel industry, have you experienced anything like the crisis brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic?
Geoffrey Kent: I started Abercrombie & Kent in 1962 and I have been through many revolutions, epidemics and catastrophes. But this one is different. This is SARS, 9/11, the 2008 financial crisis and the Great Depression all rolled into one. This pandemic is a disaster for the travel and tourism industry to date. Africa, Tanzania, courtesy Abercrombie & Kent When and how did you react?
I knew this was coming. I didn’t know it was going to be as bad as this, but I knew it was going to be bad. So literally within weeks we scaled back the company to bare operating level and myself and senior management all took large pay cuts. The intention was to keep the company running on bare bones, so our top staff could remain. We have done this in the past – with 9/11 and SARS – and we have always been able to pay the money back eventually. As a result, we are able to still have 55 offices all around the world continue operating through telecommunication.
Finally, some green shoots are starting to appear, and I think travel will come back when they find a vaccine or cure, particularly on an international basis.
The problem is there are different countries with different rules, so New Zealand is saying they may only open the border with Australia, the UK is applying a quarantine… everyone will be relying on travel information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organisation (WHO). When people do decide to travel, they will definitely travel locally to begin with. Given the lockdowns, there are suggestions that 2021 is going to be the year of the bucket list adventure. Do you think that this crisis will give people the motivation to finally travel to places they always wanted to go, but never found the time or opportunity?
Yes, because we just don’t know if another pandemic is hiding around the corner. So if there is a gap, people are going to want to see the things they have always dreamt of seeing. How can you possibly live on this earth and not see the pyramids, for example? By the way, I think people would be very foolish to simply book their trips online, because if something like this happens again when they are on holiday, they have to consider how they are going to return home. Egypt, Aswan, Woman at the Abu Simbel temples So how did A&K react when the crisis hit?
As soon as it happened, we were able to get 100% of our clients home and safe. We immediately chartered jets and had our companies on the ground (we cover 135 countries) working around the clock to get these people back. So, I think some will be saying: “Yes, I want to go there in 2021, but what if something happens again? How do I get home? What if I catch something? Who will take care of me?” These feelings of fear will become the elephant in the room. Was it a challenge to get everyone home? As the founder of the company did you feel responsible for the safety of everyone?
Myself and my partner Manfredi Lefebvre are both from Monaco, and of course we had a huge responsibility. Many of our clients are our personal friends, so we moved within days to get everybody back. We worked with our three tour operating businesses – A&K Australia, A&K America and A&K UK, and all our 55 ground operating companies. Because we own everything, we were able to get everybody back very quickly – we didn’t have to go to any board of directors for approval. We just said: “Right, let’s get everybody home, now.” Have you learnt anything from the lockdown?
I have been doing this since 1962 and I don’t think I learned too much from a business perspective. It’s an exaggerated form of the 9/11 and SARS crises that we went through. But what I did learn from a personal perspective is that being locked down with my family has been a silver lining. Usually I travel 287 days a year, so I have never had this luxury. Bhutan, Paro, Geoffrey Kent at a Private Grand Tshechu festival at the Isuna Lhakhang Monastery The global luxury travel ecosystem, valued at 1.54 trillion, provides employment for around 62 million people and generates tourism taxes that go back into local communities and fuel business opportunities for travel providers. Do you agree that the contribution of luxury travel to the recovery of so many economies, businesses and families cannot be overstated?
Absolutely. 10% of the world’s employment comes from travel and tourism; 10% of the world’s GDP comes from travel and tourism, it is essential. People who make cheese, sell flowers, operate taxis… they are all affected and so many have lost their jobs and livelihoods.
The airline industry is also a major concern. We have never seen this before. We have always had airlines, they are your main bridge to tourism, but now the industry is in jeopardy.
Another thing that worries me is nobody is in the nature reserves and parks now protecting endangered species from poaching. Five rhinos were killed just recently because no one is watching them in Botswana, South Africa, Kenya. Who is going to pay all the game wages? The are no fees from tourism to support the government.
If I had never been to Africa before, this is the first place I would go to start reinjecting money where it is desperately needed. Africa, Uganda, Queen Elizabeth National Park Do you see any luxury travel trends emerging over the next six to 12 months?
I think people will travel to where it is safest, so Australia and the Australasia area, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea. I think Americans will definitely stay around the Americas and when they do venture out, it will be in places like South America.
Europeans might be a bit more adventurous and go to Africa, or see some of the rarer parts of Europe by helicopter perhaps, as well as the islands – Seychelles, Maldives, Caribbean. Also, cold places like Iceland and the Poles are becoming very popular.
I think people will want adventure. The high thread count sheets and Dom Pérignon when you enter a room is over. People still want exotic, beautiful suites and wonderful food, but nothing ridiculous. The expense will be in having great local guides to teach you as much as possible so you can return home with an experience that you will never forget.
The future is going to be tailor-made travel and people will want to travel with their families and share their experiences together. The great thing about A&K is what I call the ‘A&K cocoon’. So you book in America, you come to Africa, and you are always being taken care of in this cocoon without ever knowing it is around you. What is next for Geoffrey Kent?
I have my own trips that I am organising, which I call ‘Inspiring Expeditions by Geoffrey Kent’, with my wife Otavia, and I am going to kick off as soon as we can. I’ll probably do a private wing safari within the Americas which could include Alaska. I am also putting one together for Australia, especially the Kimberlie, and New Zealand. I would also love to do one around France, perhaps driving a Ferrari to all the best places in the country. And of course, I would also love to do Africa, Botswana, Namibia, and maybe Mozambique. It will be something simple, unusual and exotic.
Reactions to FEDEM’s request to annul a bill protecting employees from dismissal during the health crisis have come swift and hard from trade unions, the National Council and the Prince’s Government.
A can of worms has indeed been opened. When the Federation of Monegasque Businesses (FEDEM) announced last week that they were appealing to the Supreme Court to nullify an emergency law passed in Monaco disallowing unfair dismissals, it sent shock waves through the Principality.
Philippe Ortelli, who heads up FEDEM, was clearly a man on a mission, angry with the law and ready to fight for what he claims is an impingement on employers’ rights. “This text excessively and radically limits the possibilities of dismissal (…),” says Mr Ortelli in his request to the court. “By this measure, we consider that the legislator has disproportionately infringed the freedom of work guaranteed by our Constitution, as well as the faculty to break an employment contract, a component of this freedom.”
His strong words were soon followed by outrage among supporters on the other side of the fence. The first to speak out were the trade unions, who have long fought against a law which allows employees in Monaco to be fired without reason or delay. The idea that employers could unceremoniously axe staff for any reason during a major health crisis was unbearable.
“This law was passed following the abuse of certain bosses,” said Olivier Cardot, Deputy Secretary General of USM. “The National Council and the government made a good decision with this law. This appeal demonstrates the perfidy and the infamy of the FEDEM.”
It was Health and Social Affairs Minister Didier Gamerdinger who publicly denounced the dismissals of several employees that occurred as the Covid epidemic was hitting fever pitch.
Then the government shot back at FEDEM’s move, saying: “If some employers in the Principality had not used redundancies at the start of the crisis, while other simple and more humane employment solutions were available to them, it probably would not have been necessary to ‘strictly supervise these breaches of the employment contract’.”
The National Council also had some choice words, with Thomas Brezzo, President of the Legislation Commission, saying: “This government bill took up a unanimous National Council bill, and was promulgated by the Sovereign Prince in accordance with the Constitution. This is proof of the unity of Monegasque institutions around this protective text for employees, a natural counterpart of the state support provided to employers by the CTTR. Recall that at the origin of this text, there were dismissals without reason at the beginning of the crisis, which shocked everyone.”
He added: “In addition, the temporary dismissal ban, justified by the crisis, will be lifted with the end of the health emergency on 18th June. This appeal clearly translates a will to promote a dogmatic ideology instead of defending in a pragmatic way all the actors of our economy, as did the National Council through numerous proposals.”
One member of the National Council, Corinne Bertani, sits in a rather awkward position as both a council member and a member of FEDEM’s executive committee. She said she was unaware of Mr Ortelli’s filing until after the fact, and that she is not in accord with his decision.
“I fully assume my role as national adviser, working with all of my colleagues to defend the general interest and protect the population and employees of the Principality,” said Ms Bertani. “This text also makes it possible to save many companies in sectors directly impacted such as events and tourism, thanks to measures to preserve their treasuries in particular. I cannot therefore be in solidarity with the position of the president of the FEDEM, not having been consulted on the one hand, and approving on the other hand without reserve the devices contained in the law challenged more by ideology in my opinion, only out of a desire to support the economy on the road to recovery.”
A decision on the fate of the law is out of everyone’s hands except the court’s at this point, but come what may, Philippe Ortelli has certainly made himself a highly unpopular odd-man-out on this one. The question still stands though as to whether the court, who must decide purely based on the law and not feelings, will rule to defend the employees or take the side of their bosses.
The European Commission has issued a new, and somewhat controversial, European budgetary proposal that includes a recovery fund to help coronavirus-battered economies rebound in the coming months and years.
The recovery plan, thrashed out with French President Emmanuel Macron and GermanChancellor Angela Merkel, is raising some hackles within the EU as it heads into uncharted waters.
The main sticking points for some countries include the way the measures will be allocated. In the plan, there will be transfers of money across the 27-nation bloc, as well as the creation of a system that entails financing through debt issued in the bloc’s name.
In order to make the recovery package a success, the EU Commission must find common ground with EU leaders and forge compromises that will satisfy the involved parties. This is no easy feat, as different countries in the Union have wildly different economic philosophies, making compromise rather tricky.
The package put forward is to be comprised of a mix of grants, guarantees and loans that come to a grand total of €1 to €2 trillion over the next few years. Only a small portion of this will be cash in hand, the rest will come in the form of financial wizardry, such a leveraging.
A point of contention is sure to be how much money comes in the form of loans and how much in grants. France and Germany think €500 billion in grants is fair, whilst “the frugal four” – the Netherlands, Austria, Denmark and Sweden – think it should be a “loan only” situation coupled with reforms.
The Commission is proposing both, pitting more fiscally conservative countries against those who have a more socially-minded approach. How the EU leaders handle this will be interesting in terms of setting new standards and forging bonds that will last far into the future. The Commission hopes to allay fears of the more conservative countries by attaching strings that include the recipients using “sound economic policies and structural reforms.” This sounds logical, but could be contentious for the hardest hit places, namely Italy and Spain, who dislike the idea of northern countries dictating their policies and holding purse strings.
Loans would be paid back over time, just like individuals paying off a mortgage, but the grants would essentially be “free” money. The question of the legality of obtaining this money is still up for debate, primarily because the EU is not allowed to run at a deficit and this would surely incur debt.
A possible solution to this thorny problem creates some problems of its own. A new tax could be assigned on future revenues after 2027 to repay what the Commission borrows now. Some governments will not like this, as it looks suspiciously like fiscal integration, something some are not ready for.
If a new tax can’t be agreed upon, then the repayments could also be made via higher national contributions to the long-term budget.
The funds would have to be spent on what the EU deems long-term priorities, such as becoming carbon-neutral by 2050, digitalising the economy and investing in innovation and research.
The European Commission holds a triple-A rating, so obtaining money would not be difficult. It simply uses government guarantees from the joint EU budget as security. The money would be made available as soon as possible, over the next two to three years, though the complexities and newness of such an endeavour means that it possible no one will see any help until 2021.
Though the proposal is just that, not a line in the sand, the leaders who would normally veto such a plan outright will have to tread carefully. No one wants to be seen as the bad guy who scuppered a plan Europe urgently needs in the midst of a pandemic. The weight of France and Germany will be heavy, and the consequences of getting their way, if they do, will have long-term repercussions. In fact, the passing of the plan could mark a shift in EU integration binding the Union together in ways hither-to-for not seen.
The Transition Forum 2020 is returning this Thursday offering four weeks of interactive online talks aimed at the protection of the environment by today’s best innovators, business leaders, investors, politicians and visionaries.
Under the theme of ‘Time to scale up’, this year’s Transition Forum is gathering together world class speakers and entrepreneurs to share their insights and urge people to up the ante with regard to collective action toward transitioning to a lower-carbon economy.
As the health crisis has prevented public events from taking place, the Transition Forum – which is normally held in the Principality – has gone digital and will be broadcasting their talks, lectures and discussions live.
“We are at a turning point in history, engaged in a battle against climate change that we cannot afford to lose,” says Founder and President of Transition Forum Lionel Le Maux.
From 28th May to 25th June, a new topic will be explored every week on the subjects of food, housing, mobility and production and consumption. Five live streaming panel discussions per week will be given in both French and English, followed by interactive question and answer sessions. Additionally, group and one-to-one networking opportunities via a dedicated event platform are available during and after the talks, and contacts will be accessible for one year after the event.
The goals of the forum are varied. They look to identify cutting edge innovations as well as to find financing for these innovations. They also showcase successful initiatives used by companies, countries and individuals worldwide to spur action.
As all the sessions will be recorded, missed “episodes” can be accessed by registered participants to watch at their leisure as many times as they wish. Monaco Life readers will receive 15% OFF tickets with the code TF20-Monaco!
For more information, visit the website at transition-forum.org
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