Welcome to Episode 2187 of On The Road Edition with Stevie Kim. Today Stevie meets Rocco Forte at the luxury 5-star resort of Verdura in Sicily.
In a wide-ranging conversation, Sir Rocco discusses his Italian origins, the definition of luxury, and coping with stress in the hospitality industry.
Sir Rocco also offers some helpful words of advice for those considering a career in the hospitality sector.
More about today’s guest:
Sir Rocco Giovanni Forte is an English hotelier and the chairman of Rocco Forte Hotels. His group of 15 hotels in the UK, Italy, Belgium, Germany and R...
Luxury is about making a guest stay as comfortable and as seamless as possible. You have to try and interpret the guest's needs before he actually asks for anything.
Welcome to another episode of On the Road Edition hosted by Stevie Kim. Each week, Stevie travels to incredible wine destinations, interviewing some of the Italian wine scene's most interesting personalities, talking about wines, the foods, as well as the incredible travel destinations. All righty. My name is Stevie Kim and this is the Italian wine podcast in this wonderful resort which is called Verdura. That means vegetables, but I have
But I was born in England, but both my parents of Italian origin. My father arrived in England when he was three years old with his father and my mother was born in England and her parents came to England after the first world war.
Luxury is about making a guest stay as comfortable and as seamless as possible. You have to try and interpret the guest's needs before he actually asks for anything. And you have to personalize his stay. That's what luxury is about. Obviously you have to have a nice environment, a nicely decorated hotel. You have the most beautifully decorated hotel, but if the service is wrong, it's not good, then the guests won't come back.
I have, they're all wonderful. All my hotels are individual. They all have their own personality. There's a strong sense of place with all of them. I always say my most beautiful hotel is Villa Igiea which is in Palermo on the waterfront and that's a building built in 1903 Sicilian Liberty style.
Forte, R. (2025, December 15). Ep. 2187 Rocco Forte at the Verdura Resort | On The Road With Stevie Kim [Interview transcript]. Italian Wine Travel with Stevie Kim. CEOInterviews.AI. https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1061117/
MLA
Rocco Forte. "Ep. 2187 Rocco Forte at the Verdura Resort | On The Road With Stevie Kim." Italian Wine Travel with Stevie Kim, 15 Dec. 2025. Transcript, CEOInterviews.AI, https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1061117/.
BibTeX
@misc{forte2025_1061117,
author = {Rocco Forte},
title = {Ep. 2187 Rocco Forte at the Verdura Resort | On The Road With Stevie Kim},
howpublished = {Interview transcript, Italian Wine Travel with Stevie Kim. CEOInterviews.AI},
year = {2025},
month = {dec},
url = {https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1061117/},
note = {Speaker-attributed transcript with timestamps}
}
