The Luxury Collection believes that sustainability is not just a program – it’s a perspective. Through local sourcing, culinary heritage, and ecological responsibility, we don’t just preserve places, we enrich them.
In order to take this philosophy from vision to action, we partnered with MAD, a food sustainability non-profit founded by renowned chef, René Redzepi. Together with MAD, The Luxury Collection developed a bespoke curriculum to elevate our culinary program and educate chefs on sustainable practices.
For three days, a group of chefs from Luxury Collection hotels around the world participated in an intensive training program in Copenhagen (MAD Academy) where they heard from sustainability experts who inspired and equipped the chefs with strategies to drive meaningful change within their culinary operations at their respective hotels.
We recognized that telling the story ourselves could be met with skepticism, especially given widespread greenwashing in the hospitality industry. To ensure credibility, we relied on an influencer strategy, selecting Claire Dinhut (@condimentclaire) to share the story authentically with her audience.
Objectives:
A creator with 1.1 million TikTok followers, Claire Dinhut (@condimentclaire) has cultivated an audience deeply interested in stories about food, history, culture—and condiments. A Harvard-educated historian who spent much of her childhood on a grain mill in France, Claire brings both credibility and authenticity to the culinary space. Her values align closely with The Luxury Collection’s commitment to local sourcing and sustainability, making her a natural partner for this project.
We sent Claire to Copenhagen to attend MAD Academy alongside chefs from Luxury Collection hotels worldwide. There, she learned from leading voices in food sustainability and explored what “local” truly means. Following the Academy, Claire traveled to three Luxury Collection hotels represented by attending chefs: Solaz, a Luxury Collection Resort, Los Cabos; The Romanos, a Luxury Collection Resort, Costa Navarino; and Hotel Grande Bretagne, a Luxury Collection Hotel, Athens.
At each destination, Claire documented how the chefs applied their MAD learnings within their kitchens and communities. She also visited local producers, showing how hotels partner with these suppliers to incorporate sustainable, locally sourced ingredients into the guest dining experience.
Claire created a multi-episode TikTok series that began at MAD Academy and continued at each hotel, candidly sharing both the triumphs and challenges chefs faced as they worked to implement meaningful change. The series included:
We also shared a recap video created by Claire across our owned channels, taking followers through her journey from MAD Academy to each hotel.
Once the videos were shared, we used an intentional Community Management strategy to participate in the narrative as it unfolded. The Luxury Collection joined the conversation by replying to comments from interested viewers and leaving comments like “Where are we going next?” This generated buzz for the following episodes and encouraged users to be invested in the series.
To drive visibility, we whitelisted Claire’s videos to our target audience using interest and behavior markers. This allowed us to increase the reach of this content while preserving the authenticity of the message through Claire’s established credibility.
In November, we sent Claire back to Copenhagen for the second MAD Academy cohort. This time, she brought her followers along in real-time, sharing videos recapping everything she learned alongside the chefs each day (Day 1, 2, 3). She also shared an overview of the trip, teasing the different Luxury Collection hotels she would be visiting in the year ahead. This not only generated anticipation for the next chapter of the series, but also demonstrated that The Luxury Collection’s work with MAD is ongoing, evolving, and deeply embedded in the brand ethos.
Across owned and earned content, our series with Claire achieved 11.2M impressions. Partnering with a tastemaker whose audience aligns closely with our brand allowed us to amplify both reach and impact, earning 51% more impressions on Claire’s channels than the 4.4M impressions generated from the campaign content on our own channels.
We saw 148.9K total engagements and a strong 2.83% engagement rate among content posted on Claire’s platforms, but the most impressive result is seen from the audience’s enthusiastic, authentic connection to Claire’s content. For example, when Claire shared her experience at the tomato farm in Athens, viewers shared their love of tomatoes, fascination with farming practices on display, and an overall interest in the series with comments like:
“This is the coolest series! Love seeing all the behind the scenes at the different hotels”
“Love this series, it’s going to be the basis for my 2026 Euro travels from Australia!”
“Never thought about it but it makes sense that the different type of soil would affect the taste of the produce”
We saw these types of reactions when Claire shared her recaps from MAD Academy in the second iteration of the series as well. This community feedback showed that our continued work with Claire generates deeper connections and true excitement for The Luxury Collection’s sustainability initiatives:
“Truly looks so amazing. So inspired to hear how people are getting so creative with sustainability 👏🏻✨”
