Small Luxury Hotels Of The World CEO Paul Kerr Talks Quality

Paul Kerr, chief executive officer of Small Luxury Hotels of the World, appeared on CNBC's Squawk Box Wednesday morning after gaining some attention for their major first quarter growth. According to Kerr, the company has 520 Hotels that span across 75 countries. Hotels in many underdeveloped countries are consistently luxurious in quality, but vastly different in terms of style, reflecting their own unique experience. Their amenities range from spas in some locations to golf courses in others. "We're not cookie cutter type hotels. These are all independent, independently owned by the owners," said Kerr. Small Luxury Hotels of the World has a team that inspects each hotel before bringing them into the fold. This global team of development directors personally inspects each hotel, typically for a 24 hour period. If a hotel is accepted, they're subject to further inspections every 18 months, not by the professionals, but by the costumers in their loyalty program. Kerr said he's seeing hotels popping up everywhere, including outer Mongolia, and Myanmar (Burma), where many wouldn't go for years due to the human rights violations carried out by their military government. "I think there's a lot of this dipping in and out of luxury. So people like to have the, you know, sort of have the rough and tumble," said Kerr. "Well, for a couple of hours, and then they want to get back into their luxurious life, and that's sort of a thing which we really offer." Small Luxury Hotels of the World also caters to the business elite in many other areas, from tourist destinations like Paris, where they have 13 hotels, to business standards like London and New York. Kerr said that currently, they're serving 225,000 club members. "It's all about having a great service all of the time," said Kerr.