The person you become,  Charles Morris on identity, true stories and the slow beauty of the English coast.

What makes a hotel stay with you after you’ve left? For Charles Morris, the answer has less to do with what a place has than with who you become while you’re there. He and his co-founder Charlotte run The Wonder Agency, the team behind The Gallivant’s marketing. We spoke to him about identity, telling true stories and the quiet beauty of the English coast.

You say people choose places, not products. What do you mean?

A good bed, a deep bath, a good menu: all those things matter. But a list of facilities only tells you so much. People choose a place for what it says about them, and for who they get to be while they’re there. At The Gallivant, that might mean coming in off the dunes, drinking wine grown up the road and realising you haven’t checked your phone all afternoon. That’s not a room you’re buying. It’s a version of yourself. The product is the room. The place is the person you become.

You’ve described storytelling as the oldest technology we have. What draws you to that idea?

It’s the technology of communication. With language comes storytelling, and from storytelling comes society. The bonds that shape people’s lives are made of stories, and there’s nothing more powerful. They’re like spells: say the right words and you can change minds. We’re defined by narratives, and we understand ourselves through them.

Many years ago I heard a really good example of the power of telling stories. It gave two descriptions of the same thing, a person conflicted. The first was factual; this woman is depressed. The second made you feel it; There was once a woman in the middle of her life who found herself lost in a deep, dark wood. You can picture it, feel it and recognise something of yourself in it. Years later I realised it was ripped off from Danté so you know its got chops.

What first caught your attention about The Gallivant?

They have a Head of Happiness. I’d never come across that at any other brand we’ve worked with: someone whose whole job is to be the guest’s advocate. It creates an honest accountability that is really impossible to replicate in any other role. It told me everything about the place.

What makes a holiday memorable?

A holiday should be a sensuous thing, a real break from the everyday, which is what makes a hotel so exciting. It has to think about the whole experience: how it looks and smells, the flavours, the feel of the materials under your hand. The memorable ones satisfy the senses effortlessly. It might be the deep calm of the beach at night, a really good glass of wine at dinner or a bed you don’t want to get out of. The best hotels pay attention to all of it.

What does the way we choose where to go say about us?

Everything. We face endless choices about how to live, every single day, and every brand, place and product is trying to capture our imagination. Each choice ties back to who we are and what matters to us. Do we want to be seen, or do we want to escape? Do the ethics of a place matter to us? Where we go is a small statement about who we are, and who we’d like to be.

So how can someone make their next stay a story worth telling?

Do exactly what you want, and let The Gallivant do the rest.

Isn’t storytelling just a nicer word for spin?

It’s a nicer word for communication. The difference with spin is whether the story is true. It is our job to notice what is there and find the best way to share it. An emotion is an amazingly difficult thing to capture and yet when it happens it feels effortless. To get the feeling of a place across to someone who has never been takes a lot of thought. you have to really carefully observe all the small decisions that give a place its character. Thats where you find the stories.

What is it about this coast that people sometimes miss?

England is wondrous and quiet in its beauty, this green and pleasant land. We have a slow kind of beauty in England, it’s not like the Grand Canyon or the alps that shout out. It’s the kind of beauty that comes to you when you sit, and be still and watch and let the details start to resolve. And at the Gallivant its only and hour from London..

Social media can feel like everyone shouting for attention. What do brands owe the people who follow them?

Realise that people don’t owe your content engagement just because you created it. There’s an exchange of value occurring. People give you their attention and interest, and in return they want something. It’s nearly always one of three things: access, entertainment or education. Access is getting behind the scenes, like watching Littlestone being built, problems and all or learning about a new menu or special. Entertainment is a story that makes you smile, or the dogs, or the dunes at Wine at Five. Education is something you can take away, like Marigold’s plant list, Kristin on English wine or Elise’s perfect day out. Before we publish anything, we ask: what will someone get from this? There should always be a good answer.

What would you say to someone trying to tell the story of their own business?

Understand what your brand says about identity and make sure all of your team undestand it as well. Many brands have a collective approximation of what they are all about. Their team have 100 different similar but not identical understandings of who they are, extrapolate all those directions out across your brand experience and you get something confused. That confusion will translate through to the customer experience.

And finally, a completely free day at The Gallivant: how would you spend it, and what would you order at Harry’s?

Walk the beach. Win at chess in the snug. At Harry’s, the beetroot tarte tatin. Nothing has ever shaken my habit of always ordering a meat main quite like it.