Your Building Isn’t Premium If No One Knows My Name: Real Estate Lessons from my Weekend in Las Vegas
They say you can tell a lot about a person by whether they like Las Vegas or they hate it.
One of my favorite movies is Casino. For the kids in the room, it came out in 1995 and stars Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci and Sharon Stone. It's basically about a bunch of degenerates flying too close to the sun.
For some reason that movie shaped my perception of Vegas quite a lot, and I've always been curious what it would actually feel like to be there.
I went there in January for a long weekend to escape this endless rain in London, and I’m happy to report that I freaking loved it.
Not for the reasons you might think.
I don’t gamble and I don’t drink… but in Vegas there’s something for everyone.
One day I went on a shopping spree and bought eight big hats in a second-hand boutique store. A 75-year-old potty-mouthed Chinese-American woman became our chauffeur out there, reading our Chinese horoscopes on each trip. At karaoke one night I befriended a couple from Georgia who were married by an Elvis in a drive-through chapel 40 years ago and come back every year to renew their vows. I took a day trip to the grand Canyon, a deeply soothing and spiritual place.
We won 90 cents in a Whitney Houston slot machine.
Other adventures happened, that will stay in Vegas :)
I mean, don’t get me wrong, Vegas is super weird. I wouldn’t, like, spend too long there.
But I appreciated it.
I stayed in a new hotel towards the edge of the Strip called the Fontainebleau Las Vegas.
The Americans kept calling it the “Fountain Blue”…. it's their hotel I guess.
The hotel is an interesting real estate redemption story in and of itself. It broke ground in 2007, right at the top of the market, with billions in financing and huge ambition - then 2008 happened. When markets broze, the developer filed for bankruptcy and construction stopped when it was 70% complete. So it just sat empty for more than a decade, changing hands while different developers tried to revive it. Finally in 2023, 15 years after it started, it opened when the original owner bought it back and secured the capital to finally get it operational.
The building itself was really nice, a giant resort with about 30 restaurants and a Gucci store in the lobby, but at some point my well-travelled sister turned to me and said:
“I don’t believe a hotel can really be a 5 stars when it’s this big. There’s glitz and glam, but ultimately what makes a hotel seem 5 star is when you walk into the lobby and everyone remembers you.”
The same is true for most real estate - whether it’s an office building, a members club, or a shopping centre.
On my way to see Cirque du Soleil
Glitz Isn’t Luxury. Recognition Is.
For many people, luxury is not just marble, square footage, or the brand of the retail concession in your lobby. Luxury is recognition.
It’s someone knowing your name, that you've been away or even remembering how you take your coffee.
What makes something feel premium, and what earns my loyalty, is the customer experience - how I’m treated and remembered when I walk through the door.
In real estate we train dealmakers. We rarely train customer experience.
Across offices, members’ clubs, shopping centres, we obsess over the physical asset. The finish. The fit-out. The capital expenditure. The leasing strategy. We produce brilliant financiers and dealmakers. What we rarely do is train deliberately and structurally in customer experience.
Not in a fluffy way, but in a commercial way - because this isn’t just about being “nice.”
It’s about loyalty, retention, reputation and pricing power. If no one knows my name, your building is functional. If someone knows my name, your building becomes sticky.
That’s the difference between an asset and an experience.
In real estate, we rarely train operators directly on customer experience. There are so many degrees and accreditations in this industry, but the only course I know that focuses specifically on this topic is the one taught by our team at RealService.
We work with operators and asset owners who want to close that gap, and who understand that customer experience is strategy, not decoration. If you care about making buildings feel premium, not just look premium, learn more about our range of programmes here: https://www.real-service.com/cx-training
To sign up for our upcoming Performance Leasing Workshop - check it out here, the next module is in June 2026: https://www.real-service.com/performance-leasing-workshop
For more insights like this, follow me Chenai Gondo, PhD
The very weird indoor Venice, even the ceiling is fake. It's so kitch. I loved it.
