Ep. 35 Slow - A Daring Shift in Hospitality with Serdar Kutucu - CEO, Slow

ABOUT Serdar Kutucu:

Serdar's LinkedIn profile: linkedin.com/in/serdar-kutucu-0808021b

Websites: https://slowness.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/slowness/

Bio: 

Since April 2020, Serdar is Chief Executive Officer of Slow, a collective of people, places and projects around the world that reframe the ways we live, work and interact. Based in Berlin, Serdar oversees the strategic & brand development as well as all operational efforts. The portfolio of Slow currently includes a farmstead in Ibiza and a treehouse in Tulum and will soon add a creative campus in Berlin as well as a little palacio in Lisbon, providing not mere physical spaces but a journey to an altered state of being.

Previously, Serdar was Chief Operating Officer of Design Hotels, a global hospitality brand based in Berlin. He oversaw various business units, including business & portfolio development and brand management. Serdar had joined Design Hotel in 2008 as Director of Business Development and played a vital role in shaping the company’s collection of 350 independent and design-driven member hotels – in over 60 countries. An aesthete with a natural affinity for brand narrative, architecture, and design, Serdar soon assumed leadership of Design Hotels’ brand strategy and continuously developed the company’s business in alignment with its vision to create original hospitality experiences. 

With his deep understanding of the travel industry, gastronomy and hospitality, paired with a wealth of experience in marketing, communications and business innovation, Serdar aims to strategically develop the Slow brand … Serdar holds a master’s degree in international business administration from the University of Vienna.

 

SHOW INTRODUCTION:

I have heard it said that travel changes us, mostly for the better. We go and return with a different view on things, new learnings and realizations. It draws us together and often can shed light on the differences of our human experience. Hopefully, a new awareness brings us all together in the shared meaning of being human.

We all expect good design in the hotels we visit but the experience of a hotel stay is more than the architecture. More often these days guests are looking for something deeper. A hotel stay that aligns with the search for meaning and a purpose driven approach to deciding to go out and go far. 

What if we sought out hotel destinations where a stay was not only about a good night’s sleep – though that should be a given – but where the place was a collective of people, places and projects around the world that reframed the ways we live, work and interact.

Perhaps the place you would go to is a farmstead in Ibiza or a treehouse in Tulum or maybe it’s a creative campus in Berlin as well as a little palacio in Lisbon, and each of these provided not mere physical places but a journey to an altered state of being.

And then there is the hospitality company called SLOW who dares to be slow in the face of everything around us that seems to be speeding by. SLOW chooses to create places that not only creates memorable locations and does more than shift the velocity of experience, it seeks to alter a guests’ state of being. SLOW conscientiously defies conventions, and embraces the imperfect, the strange and the indigenous. 

Serdar Kutucu is the Chief Executive Officer of Slow. 

Based in Berlin, Serdar oversees the strategic & brand development as well as all operational efforts. 

Serdar was Chief Operating Officer of Design Hotels, a global hospitality brand based in Berlin. He oversaw various business units, including business & portfolio development and brand management. Serdar had joined Design Hotel in 2008 as Director of Business Development and played a vital