Below is an Autogenerated Transcript

Ron: Tell us a story or two about what’s occurred during this whole COVID era.

Nitesh:  So, you know, we came up with the Circle of Care during the COVID times, and we were pushed towards like, you know, we said, “Okay, look, the world needs a lot more care. The world needs a more humanistic approach to hospitality.” And we were lucky in the way that we had already done this with SALT. So, in fact, we were ahead of the game slightly, two years ahead of the game where we have done something like that. We said that now we need to, because, you know, they are saying that, you know, while the whole world will get to us here, we had an opportunity to go to the next level and we came up with new ideas. How can we create new experiences in the community? How can we go to the local people and do something as such? 

Something happened just before COVID. We had a couple staying with us. The lady was from Belgium and the gentleman was from London. The lady is an interior designer and the gentleman was an architect. Now, before every guest comes to SALT, we write to them that we have a program called “Skill Swap.” If you are a journalist, for example, okay. You’re a journalist, a very famous journalist from London, okay. You’re coming to Mauritius, We’ll write to you beforehand, “Would you like to give one hour of your seven-day stay to share your skills with the budding journalists of Mauritius?” The guest says yes, we take care of everything. We’ll get the budding journalists, five or six people around the coffee table or on a computer table. Coffee’s on us. Share your tips. How to become a good journalist. 

Vice versa, too. So if you are coming down here and you want to learn a skill from maybe Jenin and learn how to do the pottery, we do that also. So this lady said that she’s an interior designer. “What can I do?” And we work very closely with a school of less fortunate children, you know, where they are, they are maybe physically challenged with something as such. So we said that, you know what, interior design, you might be very good at drawing. Do you want to come and spend one hour with them? So we went for one hour after breakfast, okay. She came back late-evening after seven hours. When she came back, you know, she was crying, she actually first met Camille Walala who was the interior designer of SALT. And then after that she reached me and she said that she went there for just one hour of education because she feels good and all, but when she spent time with them, she didn’t want to leave them. 

That emotional connection, that care came out, you see. Yeah. The best part was she said—  The care came out of her. Of her. Yeah. I will not say a transformation, but she said something very important. She said to me that, “You know, Nitesh, till now in my life, I always wanted to make a career, money, name, awards. Something has changed today. I want to give it back, too.” Okay, so the joy of giving is always much above the joy of getting something. You know, in our life. We always want that… “Oh, I should get this. My career should go there. I would become this in life.” It’s always that we want, we want, we want. Yes, there’s happiness in that. But those happiness are very temporary. You get it, You are happy for a day or two, now you are still greedy to get something else. Whereas the joy of giving when you give to somebody else–

Ron: Yeah, I call that the joy of serving the incredible gift you get when you give. 

Nitesh: Exactly, when every time you see that person, you feel so happy. This lady has become…it has been a transformational change for her, you know. So that’s why we say we don’t guarantee that we will transform you. 

Ron: But – You may transform yourself as you experience the experiences that we arrange.

Nitesh:  Absolutely. And that’s what –  So your question was that during the COVID time we came up with similar, more experiences, you know, of how we can really delight our guests to go to the next level, how we can help them enjoy and really visit the destination. How can we behave responsibly at the same time? How do we make sure that we live on a good planet for our childrens to come, for the next generations to come? SALT of Palmar is using zero single-use plastic. We said in all the other hotels, what can we do? So while we went out with the plastic bottles all out from all the hotels, no plastic water bottles in any of the hotels. So we are going in that direction. So it’s getting spread out to all. So basically what happened was that SALT of Palmar became a lab, you know, all these things became successful and spread out.

Ron: But even your cultures, like some of the things you’re doing in China, for example, or things you do here, you can try there and you’re going to be opening in Sharjah, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah, very nice.