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Imagine this: you are on a white lounge chair at the edge of a pool, listening to the sound of the ocean. The music is sweet and you have a glbad of rosé in your hand. Suddenly, Leonardo DiCaprio takes a chair next to you – he's just there to relax too.
This is a scenario that is not totally unlikely in a beach club Nikki Beach, which has 14 in the world.
Lucia Penrod, CEO of Nikki Beach Worldwide, told Business Insider that this family-owned business was founded in tribute to her husband's daughter, Nicole, or Nikki, who died in a car accident at age 18 years old.
"It was a business, but a tribute to a beautiful life that was too young," she told Business Insider. "We decided as a family that instead of spending all our life crying for her life, we would celebrate her."
It began as a beachfront garden in Miami Beach, where the duo raised butterflies.
"She loved birds and animals [so we] created this magical garden by the sea and called it Café Nikki, "she said.
At that time, the modeling and film industries were booming in Miami – and Nikki Beach "took a life apart".
"All the celebrities you can imagine were in town to film, perform, do business," she said. "We had Leonardo DiCaprio at the age of 18."
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She added that celebrities such as DiCaprio had started coming to Nikki Beach because they "felt safe and liked the atmosphere of the place".
As there was a beach right behind the garden, the couple finally decided to enlarge the property to include it as well.
"When we extended it to the beach, people said" it feels like being in Saint-Tropez, in the Mediterranean, "she said, so her husband decided to start another site in Saint-Tropez.
The third launch took place in St. Barts.
"From there, the global expansion has just taken off," she said. Today, there are 14 beach clubs and four hotels and resorts, including the United States, France, the Caribbean, Spain, Thailand, Monaco, the United Arab Emirates, and Turkey. , Italy and Greece.
The six pillars of Nikki Beach
There are three divisions of the company; Beach Clubs, headquartered in Marbella, Spain; hotels and resorts, headquartered in Barcelona; and lifestyle, under which an e-commerce platform, ShopNikkiBeach.com, will be launched in May.
There are also six "pillars" on which Nikki Beach focuses, according to Penrod – music, restaurants, entertainment, fashion, film and the arts.
"Our DJs are well trained," she said. "We avoid hardcore music bump, music plays with your senses, they read the crowd."
She added, "When you come to spend time and money with us, we want to make sure you have the best time of your life."
She said that "fabulous food" is also part of the package.
"This is not Michelin star food, it's home style," she said, adding that Bono was among the guests who completed their cooking.
Beach clubs also offer "art in all places," fashion shows and boutiques, and often host movie previews or interviews with the Hollywood foreign press.
However, Penrod stresses that the mood is "very simple", describing Nikki Beach as "a very feminine brand".
"We do not insist on the most creative, the newest, the coolest or the newest styles of decorating," she said. "We want people to feel at home.
"The base of the brand is organic – the basics are mostly white furniture, cushions."
She added that in Nikki's memory, "all we do is make sure that women feel safe [and you can] spend time in a group or with girlfriends. "
VIP treatment
"When you talk to our customers, they say the staff makes them feel at home. [Whether you’re a] great celebrity or [not], everyone feels like a VIP. This is one of our main elements to encourage people to want to keep coming back. "
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Although everyone feels like a VIP, some distinguished guests count a little more attention.
"Some of our VIPs have special requests, [and we] do everything in our power to make sure that they get exactly what they want, "she said. We do not have a concierge service [but] if you are a good customer, we'll manage. "
She added that this could imply that it comes from specially designed dishes bearing the embossed family name to planning wild follies.
"Celebrities are waiting to party like everyone else," she said.
"A man came and wanted to celebrate his wife's birthday with a surprise party." He wanted to use 1,000 bottles of champagne around the pool for spraying, then had a helicopter filled with rose petals [drop them in the pool] when they started to open the champagne.
"It was amazing."
She added that another VIP guest wanted to be "Caesar of the day", so they procured him a throne and the staff in costume.
"Another wanted to make champagne rain, so we had a huge crate and lifted [him] higher, [then] A pipe was connected to Champagne, and Champagne was raining at Nikki Beach and he was directing the rain. "
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"Celebrities have played an important role in shaping who we are"
Penrod said that although they "try to give everyone the feeling of being the most special person in the world," celebrities occupy a prominent place in this sector.
"Celebrities have been instrumental in shaping who we are," she said.
Every year, the company organizes an all-white birthday party – a tradition that began with Naomi Campbell.
"The first time we opened our doors in St. Tropez, it was Naomi Campbell's birthday party," said Penrod. "She is the friend of a good friend of mine.
"She came in and was indecisive about what she wanted to do." She wanted to be all pink, all green, then she said that she wanted everything white.
"We did everything to make everything white, and everyone had to dress in white." It was very cold that day, [so] all the shops in Saint-Tropez ran out of white jackets because everyone had to wear white. "
She said the party "looked like paradise, as if you were in the clouds".
"It's going so well with our celebration of life, so we said" from now on, that's all. "Naomi has contributed a lot to what we are doing today."
20 years of epic celebrations
In 2019, Nikki Beach is turning 20 – and of course there will be some great epic parties.
"We are going to welcome our 120 best customers from around the world for an invitation-only dinner in Cannes, creating our own special show," she said, adding that all other Nikki Beach venues would also host a great season.
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The brand has also created a table book, a perfume and an album.
"We are shocked and surprised by the growth of the company," said Penrod. "There was no business plan, it was a brand that began as a tribute from father to daughter and that developed organically."
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