The concept, our 'offering', has always been about adding value by reducing pain points and eliminating friction.
For Monte-Bougainvillea this means things like transfers from, and to, the airport or train station. This takes away the hassle of finding, waiting and paying for a taxi. We are there to pick you up before you arrive.
When you arrive at the villa you are greeted and walked through a welcome tour of your apartment and the grounds. This is when you get your car keys against a simple cash security deposit. No contracts, no paperwork, no extra fees. Just leave it with the tank full at the end. Anyone who has ever rented a car will understand the pain and friction often involved.
Spending a week in the Algarve may easily get you tempted to cook something yourself seeing all the easily available fresh produce at very low prices. But that's all the more because you noticed you already have all the basics already supplied in the apartment; spice rack, salt& pepper, olive oil, vinegar, and you have the equipment necessary pots& pans utensils& dishes. A full kitchen. Of course you'd need to clean up afterwards, but everything you need like dish towels, rags, sponges, and soap are already there.
No matter what time of day or night you arrive, we are there to greet you. Odds are you have travelled a few hours to get here. You may be hungry, thirsty or tired or any combination. Finding your apartment pre-supplied with everything to get you through your first day or night, like coffee/ tea, water, wine, milk, bread, butter, jam, oranges etc. is part of our stress reduction welcome. But if rest is what you want you'll be happy to find a 4 star hotel style bedroom set-up with high quality bedding, slippers, bathrobes, towels and even the little candy.
In the bathroom we found it obvious to supply a little courtesy soap with little shampoo and body lotion bottles. We would expect anyone coming for a week or more to bring his/her own shampoo. But we want to provide something, just in case. And we want to add that detail as a matter of quality. Something better than nothing. Every detail counts.
Over the years however we've noticed a few times where big hotel brand names announce changes to their practices that make us smile. It's always about the 'environment' but more often than not it's just greenwashing some cost savings. Usually they are just copying what we already do here as a matter of good reasoning. We've also noticed a general tendency to get rid anything plastic. That's a good thing.
Now these little bottles of shampoo, soap and lotion are being rightly targeted more and more as one of the world's environmental disasters. Putting re-fillable pump bottles we did consider before but there could be doubt about the quality of what's in the bottles. There is a lot of cheap doubtful stuff easily available. We simply found no better way yet. So little bottles remained.
Over those same years we also noticed just how much plastic and waste is involved with these little perks. I don't have statistics but I'd say less than half the opened bottles are fully used. Which means we end up collecting body wash and transferring the contents to a big bottle we use for ourselves. Body lotion is mostly thrown away as well as all the little soaps. They never get used up and are not really recyclable, eh.
And this comes to a point we no longer feel it gains us any points. So we ask ourselves what's the point? Could nothing be better than something in this case? Like everything else we do at Monte-Bougainvillea, the solution to this would hopefully be a cost and quality improvement for both our guests, and us. Cost savings are good for us, sure. But just taking the bottles away doesn't leave much for the guests in term of quality.
We want a solution that can in no way be interpreted as just a cost saving yet still be an environmental saving and if we can get operational efficiencies, why not. So it will be re-fillable pump bottles, yes, but what's in it for the guests is a well renowned quality brand product to eliminate any doubt this is a upgrade.
Now we've reached the end of the little bottle stock and we are very happy to announce we will change our ritual. We have stocked up and will pre-supply each apartment bathroom with big 375ml bottles of Rituals Hand Soap and Rituals Body &Shampoo from their Karma collection. No more, no less.
For us it's less handling, less waste, less plastic and less recycling with hopefully even happier guests.
The gains in friction reduction due to smoother skin are certainly worth the few extra cents. It all makes a lot of senses with a very pleasant fragrance.
For us, that's a point worth making because now that too is included.
You're welcome ;-)
S&jc
www.Monte-Bougainvillea.com
See you soon?
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