NZ Herald December 2011

You dream it, she'll make it happen

Jacqui Spice, the founder of luxury concierge business Touch of Spice Group, gets to see how the other half lives. In fact she takes the next step - she figures out how they might like to live and then sets about making it happen while they are in New Zealand.

Named one of American Conde Nast Traveller's Top Travel Specialists for 2011, Spice started her career on super yachts in her 20s, based in the Bahamas and Europe. Her work then, as now, was about sourcing and supplying whatever her clients needed. She still remembers organising the transport of a specific pot of yoghurt on a jet from New York to Croatia for a United States client. "That was an expensive pot of yoghurt," she says.

It was a world where "expectations were very high and nobody took no for an answer", she says.

Spice set up Touch of Spice in 2005. She had been working as the general manager of customer service at The Spire Hotel in Queenstown and had heard numerous complaints from overseas visitors that they couldn't get any response from tourism operators after 5pm.

Spice's initial business model for Touch of Spice was to work for a handful of clients from her home. Her mission statement for the business was and is: "We are 24/7, we think outside the box and never say no."

The list of five clients grew.

"There was a domino effect, clients were telling their friends."

Six years later she has five divisions in the company: private villa collection, personal concierge service, events, weddings, and travel and leisure. The luxury concierge company now employs 13 staff across its office in Queenstown and its 18-month-old second base in Auckland.

The Touch of Spice private villa business came about early on, when Spice was asked by clients who owned rarely used beautiful holiday homes if she could rent them out when they didn't need them. She looked at the typical holiday home rental market and thought she could take it to the next level, providing more of a tailored service for guests. She started with four properties and now has more than 40.

The villas' rates range from $500 to $20,000 a night. Spice can organise chefs, florists, stylists, outings, anything is possible. The entrepreneur, who has also been named byConde Nast Travelleras one of its "Top Villa Specialists" in the world in 2009, 2010 and 2011, has provided homes for a number of high-profile TV programmes includingAmerica's Next Top ModelandThe Bachelor.

For her travel and leisure business, targeted at inbound visitors, Spice and her team focus on providing a backstage pass kind of approach.

"It's about being very creative," says Spice. The team might organise a flight to The Hills Golf Course outside Queenstown and an opportunity to meet Michael Hill.

Spice understands what well-heeled visitors to New Zealand want. "They want to see the best part of New Zealand that they can," she says. "They want to understand the culture, they want to be immersed in it. They want to go fly fishing, taste the food, meet the people, bush walk, go to high country stations." The travel expert has organised for CEOs from the US to dine with top-level New Zealand business people while they are in the country. The New Zealanders will host the meal. "It's about connecting people to other people. They make friends and business associates," says Spice.

The Touch of Spice events division organises gala dinners, creative events such as re-enactments of the World of Wearable Arts with recent winners. The company organised some big Rugby World Cup gala dinners during the tournament and orchestrated the formal Britomart precinct opening which involved 600 people.

For weddings, the entrepreneur is now developing a concierge division in the corporate market. During the Rugby World Cup, businesses were calling the company, wanting to turn it on for overseas corporate clients who were in town. "They were wanting to show them a really good time, the best New Zealand had to offer, to find them something unique," says Spice.

She continues to be entrepreneurial in her thinking.

"I'm looking at what other businesses I can get involved in that complement my brand to help the growth of where we are going. For me this is the tip of the iceberg."

NZ Herald Business 29 December 2011
Photo: Richard Robinson