Every detail. Every thoughtful touch. Every emotion.DEAR GUEST
“ Dear Guest ”
That’s how so many hospitality experiences begin.
But what if we rewrote the letter?
WE’RE HERE
TO TURN YOUR DEAR GUESTINTO YOUR BEST
AMBASSADOR.
THE INTENTION
What if every experience stayed with you, not for what was expected, but for what made it delightfully and intentionally different?
Dear Guest works with hotels, restaurants and private residences to make every welcome, every meal and every stay an experience guests will remember long afterwards. I see things from your guests’ and clients’ perspective. I observe, I feel, I share my insights and bring you what truly matters when it comes to leaving a lasting impression.
Because it is not only about what we see, but above all about what we feel. More importantly, I help you sustain those emotions through clear, practical solutions designed to enrich every guest’s experience.
DEAR GUEST SERVICES
Four perspectives.
One shared standard of excellence.
hotels – restaurants
Mystery Guest Experience
Guest experience assessment
Your guests’ experience, lived from the inside. An exceptional establishment is built through the smallest details. That is precisely where the difference lies, and where its greatest potential for improvement can be found.
You have created a beautiful, carefully considered place with exacting standards. You know your establishment better than anyone. Yet there is one experience you cannot have yourself: that of your guest, from their first online search to the moment they leave, with or without the desire to return.
The feedback you receive is often filtered through platforms, internal teams or reporting tools. Much of what truly shapes the lived experience therefore goes unnoticed. And it is precisely those details that make all the difference today. This is the experience I live on your behalf.
I discover your establishment as a genuine guest, without revealing my identity or following a rigid checklist, bringing the sensitivity and attentiveness I have developed over years in restaurants, hotels and high-end service. I observe every stage of the journey: the quality of the first contact, the ease of booking, the welcome, the coherence of the spaces, the comfort, the atmosphere, the quality of service and the thoughtfulness of every gesture.
After this experience, we meet. I provide a detailed report: a comprehensive account of what your guest experiences. This service is designed for restaurants and hotels. It can be a one-off assignment or an ongoing collaboration, serving as a genuine management tool for the guest experience and the excellence of your establishment.
As a next step, I can also support you with practical recommendations to strengthen the coherence, quality and emotional impact of the guest journey. That is the purpose of Guest Experience Elevation.
“ Your establishment already has a soul. Dear Guest helps you turn it into a complete experience. ”
hotels – restaurants
Guest Experience Elevation
Guidance and implementation
From insight to excellence. An audit only has value if it leads to results. This is where the second stage begins.
The Mystery Guest Experience report offers as realistic a picture as possible of your establishment. The second phase begins where that report ends. However accurate it may be, it cannot bring about change on its own. Without follow-through, it remains a snapshot in time. What truly moves an establishment forward is what you do with it: turning observations into action, every day, on the ground.
This second stage does more than identify areas for improvement. It can also highlight strengths you may not yet fully appreciate, distinctive choices worth developing further and thoughtful touches that already make your address unique. I examine in depth everything that helps turn a visit, a meal or a stay into a memorable experience.
Together, we set priorities. Not a list of corrections, but a clear, realistic action plan tailored to your place, your identity and your resources. Then I work alongside you to put it into practice, whether in a hotel or a restaurant. The solutions are as varied as the observations.
Rethinking a space, the lighting or a presentation. Adjusting the organisation and each person’s role. Developing the offering, changing a product, rethinking a service, an activity or the table setting… so that they do even greater justice to the place. Refining gestures and standards, from the welcome to the guest room, from the dining room to the table, down to the smallest detail.
This is where my perspective truly comes into its own. Having worked across all these worlds myself — decoration, restaurant service, the kitchen, hotels and team management — I know how to bring them together. Where several specialists might each provide a separate answer, I offer a coherent view of the whole.
I coordinate everything so that each change serves one shared intention: taking your guests’ experience to a new level. It is not only about putting things right. It is about elevating and refining, until your establishment reaches a standard it has never achieved before.
“ Insight brings clarity. The solution brings transformation. ”
hotels – restaurants
Hospitality Design & Development
From the first idea to opening day
From the initial vision to reality, supporting every stage of creation. The finest projects are those in which every decision, from the overall plan to the last detail, follows the same intention.
Are you planning to open a hotel, a lodge or a restaurant, whether or not you already work in hospitality? Or to transform an existing property? This service is for you, independently of any other assignment: I can take on the interior architecture and decoration, the project development, or both.
Hotel, lodge, guest house or restaurant: for a new property, I help bring your idea to life through a concept, a positioning, an identity and the right balance between the offering, the space and the service. For an existing place, I bring a fresh perspective on what could evolve, be reinvented or simply find its full coherence.
Designing a place is one thing. Having created, run, served in, managed and experienced it from the inside is another. I therefore see a place not simply as a space to furnish, but as an experience to build: what a guest will feel when entering the lobby, discovering their room or sitting down to dinner; what the staff will experience while working there; what a poorly planned layout or an unsuitable choice of materials can cost, having experienced, studied and corrected these issues myself.
My involvement can cover the entire process: concept, identity, interior architecture, decoration, materials, lighting and furniture. It can also focus on a specific stage: refining an existing concept, resolving an aesthetic inconsistency, preparing an opening or shaping the guest experience within the space.
Designing a place also means orchestrating it. I support the planning of the project: the brief, phases, schedule, selection and coordination of specialists, and site supervision, right through to the final details before the first guests arrive. Because a beautiful space only fulfils its promise when it is delivered on time, well managed and ready to be enjoyed in comfort.
Every project is different. Every collaboration is tailored to what you want to create and what the place is meant to become.
“ A successful place needs no explanation. You feel it from the very first moment. ”
private residences
Private Household Service
The art of hosting & household service
The art of hosting, elevated to the standard your home deserves. A beautiful home becomes an exceptional one when every aspect of its daily running lives up to what it represents.
You have invested in a remarkable place. You welcome loved ones, guests from afar and sometimes distinguished visitors, and you want their stay to be memorable, both for the beauty and atmosphere of the setting and for the quality of what they experience there. In staffed private residences, expectations are high but rarely set out explicitly.
The gestures may be there, but the conventions may not. This is precisely where Dear Guest comes in. I work with your existing staff in the real setting of your home. The aim is not to change everything, but to elevate it: defining clear standards, passing on the conventions of exceptional household service, and refining gestures, presentation, discretion and the anticipation of needs.
For a second home, the assignment may also involve preparing for the season: opening the house, setting up the welcome and training seasonal staff, so that everything is ready when you and, where relevant, your guests arrive. Every assignment is shaped around your habits and your way of hosting.
By the end of our collaboration, your home runs smoothly, with a quiet sense of perfection. You also receive a household handbook documenting your standards and welcoming rituals, so that every member of staff, present or future, can refer to them at any time. This consultancy can also include organising spaces, styling the home or structuring table service suited to your daily life or a particular occasion.
Every assignment is carried out in the strictest confidence, with respect for your privacy and family life.
“ True luxury is when everything feels natural, because nothing has been left to chance. ”
DEAR GUEST BY
Coralie
Michiels
“ I do not come simply to tell you what is missing. I come to help you go further. ”
As an interior architect and decorator, I have always designed and overseen the creation of private and second homes, as well as high-end living spaces in Belgium and internationally. After founding a pioneering interiors concept store in Brussels, I contributed to the development of Flamant Home Interiors stores.
I then had the pleasure of designing around ten restaurants and a boutique hotel. Coming from a family of restaurateurs — Restauration Nouvelle, the Belgian group founded by my father more than forty years ago — I grew up, worked and developed within the restaurant world. From my first steps in restaurant service at sixteen to my responsibilities as a director, from creating concepts to overseeing construction, this world has been the true thread running through my career.
In recent years, I have had the opportunity to oversee the design, construction, site supervision, recruitment and training of local teams, and operational setup of a family boutique hotel project in Senegal: Patrick’s Lodge and Yokan Lodge. Through these experiences at the heart of everyday hospitality, I have learned what no theory can teach: what makes a guest feel expected, welcomed and unique, day after day, with the desire to return.
My love of travel, encounters and adventure has always informed the way I create. I enjoy imagining living places, carefully shaping their atmosphere and cultivating the art of hosting that allows everyone to feel naturally at ease. This journey is more than a list of references. It is the source of a perspective that is unlike any other.
Having been involved in every stage of a project — from the first sketch to welcoming the first guest, from designing spaces to training staff, from creative vision to operational reality — I have developed the ability to see a place as a whole. Not only through the eyes of a decorator, a hotelier or restaurateur, or a discerning guest, but through all three perspectives at once.
It is this comprehensive vision, built on three decades of expertise, that Dear Guest now places at your service.
IN THEIR WORDS
They say it
best…
“ Coralie brought a discerning, sensitive and deeply perceptive eye to our establishment. Her practical recommendations, respectful of our identity, helped us quickly improve our guests’ experience. ”
“ Her approach considers the entire experience, from the guest’s arrival to their departure. She helped us strengthen the quality of service, the coherence of the place and our team’s engagement. ”
“ Beyond making recommendations, she explains, supports and shares her knowledge. Her observations become practical, realistic solutions that teams can easily put into practice. ”
“ Her taste, attention to detail and ability to make everyone feel at ease in the places she creates have always been remarkable. Her interiors are elegant, without ever feeling overdone. Collaborating with her is always a real pleasure. ”
“ Her creativity took us far beyond what we had imagined. Every choice finds its natural place, and the whole truly reflects who we are. Our interior has become distinctive, harmonious and deeply enjoyable to live in. ”
“ Coralie is deeply passionate about what she does. She invests in every project as though it were her own, with heart, high standards and constant care. This commitment is felt both in the quality of the result and in the relationship of trust that develops naturally with her. ”
LET’S WRITE THE NEXT CHAPTER
Dear Guest
Coralie Michiels
coralie.michiels@dearguest.eu ↗+32 (0)475 41 55 30Explore the brochure (French) ↗