Four Season Hotel and Resort

In 1999, Four Season Hotel and Resort tried to enter the French hospitality market through operating the Hotel George V in Paris. As pioneers, the executive vice president, John Young, and the general manager of the F.S George V., Le Calvez, encountered with lots of problems during the openings of the hotel.  As the world’s leading operator, Four Season is a Canadian basic hotel chain with strong organizational culture. When approaching another new, intense and emotional culture, it is significant for the Four Season to acclimate themselves to the French national culture without losing the corporate characteristics.  

According to the case study, Four Season faced different types of challenges while entering France.  The first one was how to renovate the building under local laws but keep the characteristic of the original historic Parisian landmark.       Being a French employer is a big challenge since you have to “understand French labor laws, business culture, and national idiosyncrasies”.  It’s difficult for F.S George V. to manage employees due to the restrictive labor policy on labor hours, termination as well as union. Another server problem is the culture difference between the corporate and the nation. Management needed to figure out how to incorporate these intense, distinct, skeptical and honorable native elements inside the property. In the meanwhile, some basic standards such as the original norms, attitudes, beliefs and the Golden Rules must be implemented in order to maintain balance between the Four Season global core value and trademark.

The first problem is the physical changes F.S George V. had to undergo to adhere to the local regulations. For example, according to local safety law, food and trash must be transported in different corridors and elevators. Also, more windows needed to be built in the property since the “right to light” law give employee right to work in a window for several hours a day.

Another significant problems was the intangible adaption in the culture direction. Manager had to find out a new management mode to deal with a national culture with different characteristics. For example, it made European employees feel uncomfortable to have conversation with their supervisors about their weakness. As for management, most of them lacked the initiative to take the responsibilities for either decisions making or dealing with employee issues. Additionally, being a doubt Thomas, French step up and follow after the ways are proved as effective. They even suspected the Golden Rule was too American for F.S George V. Another huge difference goes to the guest privilege. Four season view their guest as a priority while the French doesn’t.