Butlers in the Media

by Steven Ferry

Home builders providing more services for condominium owners in China is a good idea: They dress like butlers and are called butlers, but the idea goes off the rails when we learn that “Each chief butler leads a team whose duties span everything from security and cleaning to repair, maintenance and other services to take care of up to 50 families.” As a profession we risk the concept of the butler being diluted and losing all meaning as the word is redefined into something else, the sheer volume of its use with the new meaning and reality becoming the norm. It reminds me of a time I was lecturing at a university in Thailand and the attendees were under the impression that the profession began in hotels a few years before. The onus is on the butler teaching profession to maintain the standards if they are not to disappear.

Another example of this dilution in the media this month: Equating butlers with digital assistants.

The Institute is dedicated to raising service standards by broadly disseminating the mindset and superior service expertise of that time-honored, quintessential service provider, the British Butler, updated with modern people skills, and adapted to the needs of modern employers and guests in staffed homes, luxury hotels, resorts, spas, retirement communities, jets, yachts & cruise ships around the world.