Elliot Moss
Welcome to Jazz Shapers with me, Elliot Moss, bringing the shapers of the business world together with the musicians shaping jazz, soul and blues. My guests today for this finale Jazz Shapers of the season are Rossella and Huw Beaugié. I hope I’ve said that properly, we’ll soon find out, they’ll tell me otherwise if I’ve got it wrong. Co-founders of The Thinking Traveller, a travel brand specialising in high end, exclusive villas and experiences. Check out their website, it’s extraordinary. While holidaying in Stromboli, an island near Sicily, newlyweds Rossella and Huw were so captivated, they sought a way to leave their lives in Paris where Rossella was a cell biologist and Huw an engineer, and design themselves a life in Sicily. In 2002 they made their move, relocating to Palermo and initially launching a walking tours business before friends offered their villas to rent. Rebranding as The Thinking Traveller, Rossella and Huw built slowly, investing in the villas they took on and creating a team driven by local knowledge. Having joined forces with a similar business on the Greek Islands in 2021, The Thinking Traveller portfolio now includes around 300 properties across Sicily, Puglia, Corsica and Greece, all of them offered exclusively. And here they are right in front of me, the happily married couple.
Huw Beaugié
Very much so.
Elliot Moss
They’re both smiling, going “Where do we go with this?” It’s lovely to meet you both, two for the price of one, it’s a special BOGOF edition. I’m going to start with Rossella. Huw apparently set this business up and you joined him. I want to get my facts right, is that correct?
Rossella Beaugié
It is. At the time I was, I’d just finished my PhD and I was quite happy with my research and it was then when I started accompanying him in my spare time whilst I was looking for a job in Sicily in research that I actually decided that slowly that it was quite interesting and research at the time in Sicily wasn’t giving me the same opportunity I had in Paris or in San Francisco before, so I said well I can start doing it with him. So it was, it was a quite light-hearted decision, it wasn’t okay, I’m going to abandon my career and join him forever, it was like, okay let me do these walks with you and visit these villas with you and help and then it just absorbed me completely so I almost forgot to look for another job in research.
Elliot Moss
And why Huw, had you left the brilliant world of engineering and cars to go and do a travel thing? What possessed you?
Huw Beaugié
Well it was actually a longer journey than that because I was an engineer but that was, that was actually in Bologna in Italy so, quite a while before I met Rossella. I then went to Paris and I did a Masters there so, cut out of the world of work for about a year and then took a job in marketing in Paris so I was actually working as a marketeer in Paris, although it’s easier to say I was an engineer for some reason, I don’t know. I met Rossella and after probably a year or so I was just getting fed up with what I was doing, I was getting fed up with the corporate game, I’d always wanted to be an entrepreneur and I’d aways wanted to start something up. I was the sort of guy who used to have three business ideas a night in dreams and then wake up and forget them all. And it was actually the end of ’98, just after I met Rossella, my younger brother was killed in a bicycle accident and, so that was obviously a very difficult time, and it was really at that time that I just thought what the hell, life’s too short, I can’t be doing with this sort of climbing the greasy pole, I’m going to jack it all in and start something by myself so, that’s when I started coming up with ideas for real.
Elliot Moss
And the travel piece? Why travel?
Huw Beaugié
Always loved travelling. So, we went to Sicily, as you mentioned in your intro, it was November, it was cold in Paris, we climbed up Stromboli, which is this crazy volcano in the Mediterranean and it was sunny and we went swimming and at that point we both just said to ourselves, “Look, it would be lovely to come and live here for a bit.”
Elliot Moss
That making the leap Huw, was it, obviously you said it was related to the ‘life is too short’, has that been the mantra for the two of you ever since or has, has that sense of risk and your relationship with it changed with the years?
Huw Beaugié
Maybe one for Rossella?
Elliot Moss
Rossella.
Rossella Beaugié
No, go ahead. Go ahead. He’s the risktaker but we have tried to live our life at the fullest and really trying to enjoy every opportunity and, and really catch the opportunities. That was the same for me before even meeting Huw but with the company and the kids, it’s strange how for me probably having children and becoming a mother has tuned down a bit my sense of wanting to take risks so, we’ve, in the last 22 years, Huw has been more the visionary, the leader and that I’ve been the one trying to keep things together in a way.
Elliot Moss
And has that been Huw because again it goes back to that moment, that very, almost incomprehendible moment in your life when everything changes. Is it because you keep going, “It kind of matters but it doesn't matter”, is that, what’s the internal dialogue for you?
Huw Beaugié
There is a bit of that for sure but I think, I mean to be fair that goes back further than that so, I moved to Italy when I was 23, I didn’t speak a word of Italian and went to work in a production line as an engineer. That was very much “let’s see what happens, doesn’t really matter”.
Elliot Moss
And why, why was that there so young for you?
Huw Beaugié
I’d graduated in 1990 as an engineer, I didn’t have a job and there was a recession on at that time in the UK. Italy was actually doing extremely well and in particular, diesel engines were doing extremely well. Bit of a dirty word now but that’s what we were making and so I was offered this job in Italy and I jumped at it. It sort of combined everything for me and everything I’d wanted, sort of getting away, a new adventure, learned a new language, met a new bunch of people and had a really interesting time.
Elliot Moss
But that metaphor again of learning a new language, I mean both of you are bilingual, trilingual, whatever you are from Italian to English, so hopefully your Italian is pretty good now. Rossella, is it?
Rossella Beaugié
Very good.
Elliot Moss
Very good, yeah, excellent. Good. She’s now blushing slightly. Is that leap into the unknown, although Rossella, your attitude to risk is different, is that still, is it fun or are you, are you the one, I know you were saying you’re the one that wants to keep things kind of in balance. Do you see Huw’s fun and live through it or are you constantly kind of going, “hold on, I do see it, I don’t want to do that, that’s you and I’m happy with my joy”, I’m just trying to work out where that inter-relationship goes as well.
Rossella Beaugié
This is getting deep into couple therapy isn’t it.
Elliot Moss
Well I don’t charge very much, I just figured we could kill two birds with one stone here.
Rossella Beaugié
I recently almost had to remind myself that that’s exactly what I liked in Huw, his like risk-taking because it is true, because he has been much more risk-taking than me, I’ve been more the conservative one but on the other hand we have jumped on opportunities together a number of times, I mean we had a really nice lifestyle in Palermo twelve years ago and at some point we decided, and we decided quite quickly, we said well do we want the kids to grow up in a very comfortable life, probably even nicer life in terms of you know, being able to go on a sailing boat every weekend, going around visiting all the villas, the kids come and where we were taking them around because it’s been really a family business, we’re doing everything with the kids. “Oh, we’re going to see this villa in Marsala on Sunday.” “How many pool has it got mummy? One or two?” And I was like, “Oh my god” and then we decided to move to London with them to make their upbringing a bit more international and get them all fluent in English and for us to be here, we thought it was important at that stage to manage the business from here because the office has always been here and we decided what in three months, two months, and I was a bit terrified but actually, it’s been an opportunity as well and before that, I did go to do a year in Berkeley when I was 25 and then, and then I went to Barcelona, then I went to Paris and so, the risk-taking is in me, it’s just it’s been probably toned down by having to compensate Huw being much more risk-taking.
Elliot Moss
I was going to say, without going into couples therapy and don’t worry, we will return to the business story here, that actually, it’s embraced the thing that you fell in love with and then work out where the transference is going on and who’s playing what role and why Huw. It’s all Huw’s fault obviously.
Rossella Beaugié
Yeah, always.
Elliot Moss
We’ll be coming back for more, I’m only kidding, I promise, it’s equal. We’ll be coming back for much more from Rossella and Huw and we’ll be talking much more about the villas, the aesthetic and how they have built this fabulous business across some beautiful parts of Europe and beyond. Right now though it’s time to hear a taster from the Positive Disruptors podcast, a new podcast which can be found on all the major podcast platforms. Kieran John, a lawyer at Mishcon de Reya, talks to leaders who have taken innovative approaches to make a positive impact. In this clip we hear from Chris Rigby, co-founder of the venture consultancy, Colab-8.
You can enjoy all our former Business Shapers – and they’re racking up, there’s about 500 of them I think – on the Jazz Shapers podcast and you can hear this very programme again if you pop the words ‘Jazz’ and ‘Shapers’ into your podcast platform of choice. My guests today are Rossella – I hope I said that nicely, just like you did Huw before – and Huw Beaugié, co-founders of The Thinking Traveller, a travel brand specialising in high end, exclusive villas and experiences. I guess we’d better talk about the villas and how you built this collection. I’ve read a bunch of stuff about, about the business. The website, as I mentioned right at the beginning is beautiful, it’s kind of the M&S equivalent of, what M&S do for food, you do for, for villas and the like. When you first started Rossella, curating this group of villas, what was driving you aesthetic? Was it personal? Was it about the people you had in mind? Where did it come from because if you look online and people will, I know you will, you will see stunning, individual, characterful, beautiful, I mean I know you don’t like to use the word ‘luxury’ but kind of just tasteful, tasteful properties with real heart. Where did all that come from?
Rossella Beaugié
I think we were quite lucky because we had been as Huw mentioned, “offered” beautiful properties by friends and friends of friends and they were truly beautiful and the ones, there were a few that needed a bit or work because maybe there were, they had been built in the ‘70s but they were in stunning locations so, I think unconsciously what we went for was, a) the stunning location, really beautiful, unique corner of, for the first few years was Sicily and then when we expanded the same, just the most beautiful places in the regions where we’d been and then properties with charm, which had the soul, which had something to tell, so we don’t really like to deal or offer condominiums or stuff that has been done to be rented, it’s usually properties that the owners deeply love, one that puts their story in it and this is what our guests really love to find, so it is an experience to rent the villa, it’s not just “I’m going to spend a night there and, you know, I pay for my accommodation.” The first experience is really being able to sleep in these properties that had been or are big castles or old Masseria restored and had painted ceilings and the family portrait or in Greece you have obviously more modern ones but still where the owners have chosen carefully every single piece and the location has to be amazing.
Elliot Moss
Every one is a different universe in a way, it has its own little feeling. An excellent background in biochemistry to prepare you for this world of villas. Just tell me that about, tell me about that leap and was it a leap or is it just that, you know, humans are interesting and complex and you can be a biochemist one day and then you can be a, a designer another. I mean, they are quite different.
Rossella Beaugié
It is but it’s the second you said because even when I decided to choose my career, I’ve always been interested in beautiful aesthetics, I’ve always loved languages, it was not coincidence that to do after my graduation when I wanted to do research, I picked Berkeley and then I picked Barcelona and then I picked Paris, so I…
Elliot Moss
Good choices. Oh really, yeah.
Rossella Beaugié
I was interested in beautiful places, not just in beautiful cells to, to investigate. So, and I had deep down I think every Sicilian you read it in the feedbacks that our clients leave us after coming back, we do have a very deep sense of hospitality and welcoming, so the idea of showing, especially after having lived abroad and in a time when Sicily was really known just for mafia or boring stuff like pizza or, I don’t know, it’s your mum dressed in black or you know, those boring things, being having the pride of sharing the deepness of cultural heritage and biodiversity and beautiful scenery and walks etcetera, really made me proud so it was quite easy. But what I learned doing research was that really attention to detail and being very precise and very accurate in whatever we do and that, and Huw is the same, we transferred into the business and it’s quite unusual.
Elliot Moss
Well this is the thing, the attention to detail Huw, I was going to pick up because obviously you’re more responsible for the tech and the user experience but that user experience has to be imbued with gorgeous photography, with a really wonderful journey, a customer journey, it starts there but it’s got to, it’s got to reflect and complement the very properties and the places that you’re taking people to. That is the engineer in you as well and as much you went into marketing, is that right and is that again, the leap is not really a leap at all, it’s just you’re, you’re a precise kind of person?
Huw Beaugié
Yes, I think so. And I think that actually both Rossella and I, we have a very sort of precise, technical side to us, we’re both scientists but we also have a creative side to us so, you know, in the early days, we took all the photographs together, we’d be out dressing the villas and Rossella would sort everything out and I’d be behind the camera and I’d take my shots and then we’d go back and process them and as you said, we’d get them up on the website and make sure that all the words were just right, you know, read through everything ten times before it went live, ensure that every description was perfect, that we were giving our customers exactly what they were expecting. So, yeah, I think that, that attention to detail was just there from the beginning.
Elliot Moss
Obviously, the industry, hospitality, travel was somewhat affected when the global pandemic, Covid-19 happened and you had a decision to make, you ploughed on, there were loyal people that said, I think I read that something like 85% of all those clients that were about to take places, pushed their place on, they kept their deposits and they went and, then went and did the thing. But that’s a jolt and it was a massive jolt for your business and I think at that point you were probably looking at options. Just tell me a little bit about the thought process around not just surviving but thriving and why you then looked towards private equity and why you then looked towards a merger. Maybe Huw start with that.
Huw Beaugié
Well, 2020 started out very well, January, February, we got into March and this express train just came straight at us, you know, nobody was expecting it. I think the travel industry hadn’t seen anything like that, you know, maybe since things shut down in 1939 and it was terrifying. Immediately, our clients started calling us up saying, you know, “What’s happening? What are you going to do about it?” We had an office in, in New York at that point with, with several people on the sales team. That turned overnight from a, you know, a very successful sales office to an uncontrolled refunds office operating until late in the night UK time so, unfortunately, we, we just had to shut that down. That was the first and only major casualty it turned out of the pandemic, apart from sort of large parts of our sanity probably.
Elliot Moss
Well, I want to ask you about the sanity thing because we’ll come onto I know, we’ll then quick briefly talk about the merger and things but it’s one thing being an employee in a business and it’s hard thinking about your own security and of course when people personalise this stuff it’s about, it’s not about the job, it’s about what the job gives you, which is money, which enables you to put food on the table, really practical things. When it’s your business and both of your business and you’re sharing in it, Rossella and Huw together, how did you manage that level of stress because I can only imagine, I mean I had my own stress as a part-owner in a business, it was pretty, I mean it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to deal with but it’s yours only, so just take me back to that time if you want to, you probably don’t, but just tell me how you got through it do you think.
Rossella Beaugié
We went through, on a personal level we were obviously like everybody else and locked down at home with the kids so, always trying to be positive with them and for them so, when it comes to priorities at the end of the day, my first priority is being a mamma so, I had to ensure that there was enough tranquillity and serenity home for their sake and that kept me going and stopped me from getting over worried because at the end of the day, it was the day-to-day, okay let’s you know do lunch and dinner and go for walks and chat and have nice picnics. The way the team stuck with us, working day and night, not knowing, you know, some people just calling up and say, “Hey, you know why don’t you reduce my pay by 50%”, well, before the, the furlough came.
Elliot Moss
Furlough, furlough, yeah.
Rossella Beaugié
That was really amazing and that also gave us strength and really this positive feedback that we had something unique, that people really wanted to see that with us, stick with us and, and make it last, so it was fantastic and it was the same with the owners, and it was the same with the clients sending amazing letters and saying you know how…
Elliot Moss
Which is testament, testimony to, testament to the fact that for years and years and years and years there’d been strong relationships both within the business and then into the tentacles of, of everybody else. The merger briefly, and bringing, bringing another business online, was that, do you see again that, would that have happened if, if the pandemic hadn’t have happened?
Huw Beaugié
It certainly wouldn’t have happened at that time so, one of, one of the things that happened during the pandemic, apart from securing and strengthening our internal and external relations as a business was that we started talking a lot more with competitors, people that we’d perhaps been sort of skirting around for years, suddenly became great sort of virtual friends and we would create these groups, you know thinking perhaps that travel had been hit particularly hard and commiserating with each other about how things were going and sharing stories and ideas about how to get through and one of the companies that we, well the people in particular, Dimitris and Anna from White Key, which was a, a Greek business based in Athens, specialising in villas in Greece. They’d started back in 2008, we’d sort of watched each other but we’d never been in contact and within eighteen months of starting talking, we’d merged, we actually acquired their company and so we now have offices in London and in Athens.
Elliot Moss
It sounds very good, I mean we can think of the next place we’re going to open and we’ll, I’m interested as well so we’ll work out which part of the world we’re going to go and, and go and conquer. Much more coming up in my final chat with Rossella and Huw Beaugié and we’ve got some typically high energy music from Ezra Collective, that’s in just a moment, don’t go anywhere.
Huw and Rossella are my Business Shapers, the Beaugiés, are here, kind of, I mean you know you have your name as well but we will give you the stage name as you call it, they are the people behind The Thinking Traveller. Here you are two decades in both of you, not just your marriage, as they roll their eyes, but also the fact that you, that you are together and working in this place. Is the passion still there for the product?
Rossella Beaugié
Absolutely.
Elliot Moss
And what is it today that you still love that you loved when you found your first villa?
Rossella Beaugié
It’s the human connection at all levels. The people that work with us who are amazing and the people we meet in this journey on both sides, so the owner of the villas because all the villas we work with, work exclusively with us so…
Elliot Moss
Yeah, I read that. Just you. Yeah.
Rossella Beaugié
…it’s kind of a partnership, so we talk on WhatsApp any time, day and night, weekends and…
Elliot Moss
How do you manage that? There’s a lot of them.
Rossella Beaugié
300 after twenty years actually is nothing if you consider how the world of rental has exploded in the last five years everybody says and peaked and they have like 30,000 villas, so 300 is really, it’s, it’s a community, it’s a community of owners that want to be with us and believe in us, sometimes complains if there’s enough bookings but we then try to find solutions together and…
Elliot Moss
Do you bring them together ever? Do you have a kind of an annual get-together?
Rossella Beaugié
We used to, we used to, we haven’t done it for a while but there’s lots of personal relationships, not just with us but with the people that work with us, the people on the ground. We have, have a fantastic team in every destination that really sits there with the owners and say okay yes, we, or maybe we can change this, a jacuzzi here would be fantastic and because we work exclusively with them, it’s really a partnership but we try to improve, you know, the brand of the villa and the experience of the clients.
Elliot Moss
I mean funnily enough people talk about words like ‘brand’ and they talk about technology and they talk about scale and here we are, and what you’re really saying is, there’s 300 human beings with 300 beautiful properties and your job is to ensure that human beings love these memorable experiences. That’s sort of it in an essence but do you want to get bigger, Huw?
Huw Beaugié
Well, I think, I mean you mention brand, I think that the brand is very much a consequence of the other things that you just mentioned, you know it’s a very real brand, it’s not designed in a studio and made up, it’s something that comes from a living, breathing organism which is this community of 300 villa owners and a very passionate team that we have of 150 odd people.
Rossella Beaugié
And the bigger community of our guests that keep coming back.
Huw Beaugié
And the huge community of the guests but also on the ground, I mean the thousands of people that we give, indirectly, work to through the villas, through the experiences, you know, each villa will have approximately, I don’t know on average about five people probably between gardeners and, and cleaners…
Rossella Beaugié
And sous chef.
Elliot Moss
My chef that I’m going to have in my, in this vision I have now, I’m, I’m visualising with you two here, I’m going, “It’s going to happen.” I’m going to bring the family and they’re going to have a chef. What else are they going to have, gardener? Someone looking after the swimming pool, obviously.
Huw Beaugié
Absolutely.
Elliot Moss
Who else? And what other?
Rossella Beaugié
The yoga teacher, the masseuse.
Elliot Moss
The yoga teacher. Mmm.
Rossella Beaugié
Do you want Italian classes for your kids?
Elliot Moss
Of course.
Rossella Beaugié
Do you want a kayak or tennis.
Huw Beaugié
Your boat skipper.
Elliot Moss
I need a boat skipper. This is, your, this is really good. Can I have a yoghurt maker along with my yoga?
Huw Beaugié
It’s not just breakfast, Elliot. We do…
Elliot Moss
I say, I saw the photos and I’m like I want that breakfast, I want that breakfast in front of me.
Rossella Beaugié
It’s true. Pasta making or pizza or whatever it is and yeah, cooking classes.
Elliot Moss
But everything, whatever people want basically. And, and, and do you foresee anything stopping you achieving what you want to achieve in the next few years? You know, what, is there a new vision or is it just “we’re just going to keep delighting people. We’re just going to keep being the Conde Nast Number 1 Choice, which you have been I think for the last seven years or something, crazy numbers.
Huw Beaugié
Yeah, eight or so.
Elliot Moss
Eight, that is.
Huw Beaugié
Yes, one more.
Elliot Moss
One more. Don’t get your facts wrong, Elliot. Eight, eight years, I mean that’s…
Huw Beaugié
In a row.
Rossella Beaugié
It is a lot.
Elliot Moss
It’s pretty extraordinary.
Rossella Beaugié
I very much hope that we, we can keep delighting people still and the way we’ve done it and evolving our concept of hospitality and the services we can provide and, and more beautiful villas around, yeah.
Elliot Moss
Just before I ask you your song choice because this, this hospitality word has come up a couple of times. You mention Will Guidara, who has been on the programme recently and he obviously coined the phrase, “unreasonable hospitality”. What’s the definition for you of hospitality?
Rossella Beaugié
It’s interesting. Many years ago when for the first time we had a friend helping us to choose the right words for our mission, what came very spontaneously was, we want clients to have their best holiday ever and we want them to come back. And it, it keeps happening, we get this spontaneous feedback, “We will definitely be back. It’s going to be difficult to go back to normal life after this week” and people are really blown away by not just the villa, by the service, the warmth with whom they are welcomed by the house staff and our team and it’s, that’s it, just making people really happy and wanting to come back with us.
Huw Beaugié
Yeah, I think it’s, if the quality of the accommodation and the environment is a given, then it’s about anticipating people’s needs and surprising and delighting them so, you know, really going, going beyond what they expect.
Elliot Moss
Thank you both for your time today on this, the final edition before the summer. What perfect timing! I wonder what, who did that then, I wonder how we worked out that one out, Stu, the producer, very clever man. Just before I let you go, and it’s been lovely seeing you, what is your song choice and why have you chosen it?
Rossella Beaugié
We chose a song by Pino Daniele, who is a, a singer, was, from Naples, quite well known in Italy, dedicated to Sicily and he encompasses I think our love for Sicily, obviously Sicily had to be that because that’s where it all started and it’s the love of Sicily and the love of the sun and the, he says the people that understand that it’s time to change and the vibrancy and the light and it’s just not Sicily, it’s, it could be any little Greek island as well, it could be Corsica, like really our regions, so we really like that.
Elliot Moss
That was Sicily from Pino Daniele, the song choice of my Business Shapers today, Huw and Rossella Beaugié. They talked about wanting to surprise and delight everyone that comes to stay in their villas, absolutely critical in the hospitality world. They talked about the fusing of the precision and attention to detail alongside the creativity and the critical nature of that inside of their business. And finally, that important thing when you work closely with someone whether you are married to them or you just have worked closely for many years, don’t forget the other person’s talent and the appreciation of it. Absolutely central to any working, brilliant partnership. That’s it from me and Jazz Shapers, have a lovely weekend and have a lovely summer.
We hope you enjoyed that edition of Jazz Shapers. You’ll find hundreds more guests available for you to listen to in our archive, to find out more just search Jazz Shapers in iTunes or your favourite podcast platform or head over to mishcon.com/jazzshapers.