John Spence, the Karma chameleon who emerged from Culture Club

“We’re all performers on a stage, and our job is to be creative and to entertain.”

An unsurprising attitude towards the hospitality industry from British entrepreneur John Spence, who started out as a music agent for the likes of Culture Club, the Eurythmics and Bananarama before changing tack but not attitude.

Other things about the Karma Group owner are more surprising. For example, the global brand has been around for 30 years now and owns and runs more than 40 properties, many of them sprawling luxury resorts, in 12 countries.

Yet it’s not the five-star accommodation or the five-star food that’s paramount to John (though there is all that, in abundance — and I know, having recently stayed at luxury beach resort Karma Kandara in Bali) — it’s the five-star experiences the guests rave about. And preserving an intimacy and quirkiness you find in the smaller boutique hotels and even backpackers. That’s difficult to do on such a grand scale.

“You know, a lot of people say the best travel experiences they ever had were when they were 21 years old, backpacking around the world and sleeping in hammocks and maybe drinking too much or smoking too much weed,” John laughs.

“It was a wonderful life experience and a wonderful way of seeing the world. Then they grew up and got jobs and got married and had kids. Now they want an element of luxury. But they also want that sense of excitement and freedom and quirkiness they experienced when they were younger. And that’s what we’re trying to offer.”

John says this is largely achieved by involving all the staff in creative decisions. And by avoiding a “cookie-cutter approach — my pet hatred” to resorts.

“So we might have a Nile cruise ship or a trout fishing resort in Scotland or Karma Seven Lakes in Udaipur or a French chateau or Karma Salford Hall which used to belong to Henry VIII . . . All of them are different locations with different experiences. But they all have this underlying Karma ethos: a little alternative, but with a high level of luxury.”

Another surprise: the level of commitment to the communities among which Karma operates, to its staff, and to philanthropy more broadly. Which brings us even closer to the Karma ethos and the meaning of the word.

“It’s that George Harrison view,” says John. “You get the love that you give and there is a strange bounce in the universe and in business that if you are positive and you do good things, then positive things do come back to you.”

John says this applies as much to a property’s architecture as it does to its guests and to its staff. “It’s a responsibility to build correctly and with cultural awareness,” he says. “As for our staff — we’ve been very blessed over the years with a fantastic group of people, over 4000 now, some of whom have been with us for 20 years and more.”

Most are employed locally. “Right from the beginning we believed in empowerment, and that the people who run the resorts should be locals. It’s not just about us foreigners going into a country and trying to monetise everything. We want locals to be responsible for their own destiny. And that’s been quite successful in building a sense of loyalty, too.”

John lived in WA for 12 years and both his children were born here. So he has a strong connection to the State, and hopes to open a resort in Margaret River in the future. What does he like about Perth?

“It never really changes,” he laughs. “Recently I met with a friend here, who I hadn’t seen in four years. He was sitting in exactly the same place at exactly the same table.”

karmagroup.com