High-touch service, when deployed thoughtfully, is not an anecdote to efficiency—it’s the hidden alpha in brand loyalty curves. Much like the enduring value of a well-curated art portfolio, exceptional customer service creates compounding returns invisible in the first transaction but undeniable over time.
“Collectors rarely buy art based solely on price or investment potential. What often drives their decisions is the feeling of being understood, guided, and genuinely cared for by someone who shares their passion.” — Doug Woodham, Art Collecting Today
Bay Street has recently conducted a series of meetings with art dynasties in Europe, the Gulf, and Southeast Asia exploring how private family collections—often locked behind private gates—could be softly embedded into luxury hospitality ecosystems. These discussions aren’t about displaying art for vanity; they’re about translating multigenerational craftsmanship into sensory moments. And in these conversations, the consensus is clear: art without context is decoration. Art with high-touch stewardship is differentiation.
In Art Collecting Today, author Doug Woodham writes, “In the art world, value is not only about provenance, but also about placement—who you’re willing to entrust your legacy with.” That same logic applies to service-driven hotels. The “placement” of high-net-worth guests—where they choose to return—is determined not by points, perks, or convenience, but by care. That care must feel rare.
Gitibin’s example of the roses—thoughtfully selected and delivered without hesitation—is a prime demonstration of what we at Bay Street codify in our hospitality investment theses as “Service-Driven Retention Coefficient” (SRC). In quantamental terms, the value of this coefficient rises when a brand creates memorable inflection points that reduce the likelihood of churn and increase the NPV of future cash flows from returning customers.
As Gitibin rightly notes, high-touch hospitality reduces customer acquisition costs (CAC) by maximizing retention and referrals. In our current scoring system, the Bay Score weights CAC-relative-to-CLTV (Customer Lifetime Value) differently depending on whether the company deploys high-touch or tech-only service models. Our internal benchmark: high-touch operators typically see CAC compression between 15–22% over a three-year period when personalization is embedded into operations—not layered on top.
This insight mirrors gallery economics. In Management of Art Galleries, Magnus Resch explains: “A returning collector spends 67% more with galleries that know them personally and curate offerings accordingly.” The same holds true in ultra-luxury hotel ecosystems. Trust isn’t an intangible—it’s a monetizable currency.
As inflation softens and middle-tier discretionary spending compresses, the brands that preserve RevPAR won’t be the ones with the lowest operating costs, but the ones with the highest emotional equity.
Gitibin’s assertion that “trust is built through consistent and positive interactions” is not sentiment—it’s strategy. As Bay Street models forward RevPAR trajectories under varying macro stress scenarios, we’ve observed that high-touch service properties exhibit a smoother drawdown curve during shocks (e.g., tariff hikes, regional instability, FX volatility). Why? Because guests in these tiers don’t just want a room. They want recognition. And recognition isn’t scalable through tech alone.
This is why we’re excited about the rising potential of partnerships between hotel operators and global art families. Several of these families—many of whom Bay Street is now in active dialogue with—are exploring joint ventures that license both their art and their curatorial lens to boutique operators with proven service DNA. These aren’t just decorative initiatives. They’re about experience transmission. They’re high-touch at its highest form.
Just as Gitibin sees every vehicle rental interaction as an opportunity to exceed expectations, we see every art licensing deal as an opportunity to embed soul into service. As Woodham puts it, “Collectors care less about ROI than about the preservation of experience and legacy.” This principle maps perfectly onto today’s ultra-luxury travel consumer.
Gitibin emphasizes staff empowerment as critical. From a quantamental standpoint, this speaks to an operating moat: Service Culture as a Trainable Asset Class. Properties with measurable internal training programs (empathy, storytelling, anticipatory service) have statistically stronger retention metrics—not just of guests, but of staff. In our internal Operator Intelligence Hub, the best-performing teams embed service choreography as a formal practice—often with internal NPS benchmarks and cross-departmental feedback loops.
We believe the next wave of luxury differentiation will be determined not by how fast you respond, but by how deeply you’ve trained your team to know what the guest needs before they ask.
The average traveler may increasingly seek self-check-in, voice-assistant integration, and frictionless digital interfaces. But at the top of the pyramid, the reverse is often true. The more commodified the rest of the experience becomes, the more premium the human layer becomes.
High-touch service is not a relic of the past. It’s a hedge against the future’s monotony.
At Bay Street, we invest where memorability meets margin. Gitibin’s vision reminds us that the real alpha isn’t found in spreadsheets—it’s found in moments, roses, and the hands that still write thank you notes.
– Bay Street Hospitality Quantamental Team
June 2025
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Bay Street Hospitality is a diversified hotel fund series for allocators seeking quant-driven exposure across top countries, operators, and hotel tiers. The fund targets a diversified portfolio in both high-growth emerging markets and stable developed markets, optimizing risk-adjusted returns. The leadership provides structured equity and pivotal strategic guidance to hotel-related investments. The fund establishes joint ventures with best-in-class partners, focusing on deal flexibility, currency considerations, tax efficiency, and clear exit strategies.
