Pinar Kartal Timer was general manager of Pera Palace Hotel, Jumeirah, in Istanbul, Turkey, when I interviewed her for The Luxury of Attention. The book notes that she has since become Co-Founder and Managing Partner of NEXT PHASE Hospitality Management and Consultancy in Istanbul.
In our conversation, Timer described herself as a perfectionist for whom good is never enough, and she was clear that this applies to the luxury hotel business as much as to her own work. What struck me was that she held a second thought alongside the first. A team cannot live at a perfectionist’s pace without being appreciated, coached and given time to improve. She said plainly that continuous learning does not happen overnight. The operator who holds both ideas at once grows the operation. The operator who holds only the first burns the team out.
“It’s not enough for me and it’s not enough for the luxury hotel business. We must always strive for excellence, building on our strengths and narrowing our weaknesses.” Pinar Kartal Timer, then general manager, Pera Palace Hotel, Jumeirah
She also took the time to interview every person hired into the hotel, whatever the position, because in twenty minutes she could read the one thing no resume would tell her. On guest knowledge, she was candid about where the industry is heading. Knowing more about guests allows more personalization, and when a guest shares nothing in advance her team learned to find public information online and shape a welcome amenity around it. In the book I treat that practice carefully: the team reads what the guest has chosen to make public, and nothing more.
In the book, Pinar Kartal Timer appears in Chapter 7, In Pursuit of Perfection, where her account frames the tension between a perfectionist’s standard and a team’s capacity; in Chapter 8, The Human Touch, where her interviewing practice and her description of the ideal employee stand as a hiring checklist; and in Chapter 9, Knowing Your Guest, where her online research into arriving guests illustrates predictive anticipation, including the writer who found a chocolate box embossed with the cover of their latest novel.
“Hotel employees should be friendly but not pally, assertive but not rude, kind but not weak, humble but not timid, and proud but not arrogant.” Pinar Kartal Timer, then general manager, Pera Palace Hotel, Jumeirah