The Spirits Company That Builds Destinations: Laura Sileo Pavat on Pernod Ricard

At the EHL HumanX Summit in Lausanne, Simone Puorto sat down with Laura Sileo Pavat, Global Brand Homes Director at Pernod Ricard, who has also spoken on a panel. Most people know Pernod Ricard as one of the largest premium spirits companies in the world. Fewer know it is also, quietly, a major developer of travel destinations. That second business is the one Sileo Pavat runs, and it recently earned the company a place at the World Travel and Tourism Council. The full conversation is available to watch below.

A spirits company in the travel business

Sileo Pavat is proud of the WTTC milestone, because it recognises something the travel industry has been slow to notice. Pernod Ricard has been developing destinations for fifty years, opening distilleries, cellars and châteaux to visitors. A quarter of a century ago, she said, these were visitor centres, almost a necessary evil, a shop and a guided tour bolted onto a production site. Today they are a pillar of the business.

Along the way the company helped open up whole regions. France is not only Paris, she pointed out, Scotland is not only Edinburgh, and Kentucky is not only Louisville. The figures are large. The Kentucky Bourbon Trail draws around 2.7 million visitors a year, Scotland's distilleries around 2.2 million and Ireland's around 1.1 million. Across its own sites, Pernod Ricard welcomes roughly a million guests a year.

Keeping it personal at scale

Simone described a recent wine trip through France and northern Italy. At one large winery he felt like a number. At a tiny producer making a few thousand bottles, he had a wonderful time. So how does a company of Pernod Ricard's size, co-leader in spirits and owner of more than two hundred brands, hold on to that personal feeling?

Her answer was that size is not the point. Whether the site is the small Scapa distillery in the far north of Scotland or the large Jameson Bow Street in central Dublin, she said, the human connection should feel the same.

The five elements

Sileo Pavat has a clear theory of how that connection is built. She talks about five elements that make a brand experience work. The first three come from the company itself: the place, often a beautiful site or one built with well-known architects; the product; and the story behind it, drawn from one of the largest brand portfolios in spirits. The last two decide whether a guest feels looked after or feels like a number. They are the people and their attitude.

The people are both the staff the company hires and the guests who arrive, each with their own expectations and cultural background. The attitude is trained. Pernod Ricard coaches everyone, from craft ambassadors and guides to chefs and bartenders, to be what it calls creators of conviviality. Her proof that it works is simple. At Jameson Bow Street, more than ninety percent of online reviews name the guide or the ambassador who showed people round. Nobody is told to ask for that. It happens because of the connection itself.

From products to experiences

People increasingly want experiences rather than products. For Pernod Ricard, Sileo Pavat said, that is not a new idea but an old one. The founder, Paul Ricard, used to say you should make a new friend a day. The point was always the human moment, two or more people sharing something over a glass.

So the company does not separate the product from the experience. When it opened The Chuan, its first malt whisky distillery in China, in 2024, it created the whisky and gave it a home at the same time: a distillery with a restaurant, tastings and an experience, set at the foot of one of the country's sacred mountains. The place where the whisky is made is also the place it is discovered. The work, as she puts it, is to turn visitors into people who appreciate the good life.

Technology takes the painful part

The interview closed on the HumanX theme, technology and humanity together rather than one against the other. For a business built on brand experiences, Sileo Pavat said, choosing one over the other would be close to impossible. The human element is fundamental and always will be. Technology earns its place when it serves that human element rather than existing for its own sake, the way a booking system quietly makes life simpler.

She was honest about the strain in the industry. Hospitality is hard work, and you do it when everyone else is at leisure. Her bartenders in Cognac and southern Ireland are shaking cocktails while their friends are out enjoying the evening. If technology can take the repetitive and the dull, the planning and the invoicing, it removes the painful part of the job and leaves people ready for the encounter. That encounter, she said, is where humans add the value that nothing else can. It is the whole reason Pernod Ricard gives people to travel in the first place, the chance to meet someone.