The KMR Success Story

Featured News

Thursday, 16 June 2011 11:36

Shimmy Werner would like to meet you. His brothers Baruch, Avromi, and Shea would like to meet you too. Over the last ten years, this team has revolutionized kosher vacationing with the panache and style of KMR Tours.

Full disclosure requires that I say that I have not yet been to any of their carefully researched and selected hotspots around this country and Canada. But Iâ€™ve spoken to a good number of people who have gone on these high-class vacations with them and the reviews are nothing less than spectacular. In fact, Shimmy Werner explained when we spoke the other day that over 80% of their clients are return customers. The Werner brothers understand a key ingredient of a successful business and are the masters of always keeping the customer satisfied.

KMRâ€”Kosher Mountain Retreatsâ€”has come to mean a great deal more to the kosher consumer looking for unique summer vacations that offer adherence to the highest standards of kashrus in a warm Torah-oriented environment. Some of the superb and unique talent they are able to attract includes much in demand lecturers like Rebbetzin Esther Jungreis and many others. Guests described the experience as being â€œup there,â€ so to speak, with some of our communityâ€™s most excellent Pesach programs over the years.

The four men hail from Monsey. The idea popped into the brothersâ€™ mindset more than a decade ago, Shimmy explains, when his brother Baruch managed a summer camp for boys in Colorado. â€œHe came away so impressed with the Rocky Mountains as well as the resort areas like Vail and Aspen and casually mentioned to us that he thought it might be a good idea to organize a similar type of program, but this time for adults.â€ They in fact did just that, and now the rest is history.

Today, the Werner brothers run three very much in demand annual programsâ€”two over the summer and one Pesachâ€”and for them it is a year-round occupation. â€œWe are always looking back at our programs, analyzing them, and asking ourselves how we can improve and what more we can do for our guests who are our most valuable commodity.â€

KMR has now exclusively engaged Michael Schick Caterers to do their food service. â€œThey are great to work with,â€ says Schick. â€œThey want everything to be perfect and without compromises,â€ he says. â€œThey want their guests to literally enjoy the very best of everything we can offer them.â€

To that end, Michael Schick says that over Pesach in California and at the summer vacation events he practically has carte blanche to go out and be as creative and innovative as possible in the area of food service which has become an art form in and of itself over the years. The guests who attended any number of these programs are simply effusive and gushing with praise about the cuisine, the presentation, and the panache with which everything at KMR is handled.

Perhaps what sets KMR apart is the thoroughness and the detail in the most minute points that others might overlook. For example, Shimmy says, over Chol Hamoed Pesach, a guest came into the lobby and asked Mr. Werner if there was a Judaica store nearby where he could purchase a yarmulke because his was lost while he was horseback riding. Shimmy told the guest that there is no need to search for a store and that all he need do is go to the service desk and ask for a yarmulke which the Werners made sure to bring along. Itâ€™s a small, perhaps even minor, point, but the Werners understand that when 600 Orthodox Jewish men and boys get together over a ten day yom tov, some yarmulkas are going to be misplaced and even lost.

So how does KMR do it and how have they become one of the top three or four programs that are almost instantly sold out whenever they announce a venue? Shimmy and Baruch reiterate that the success is all in the details. In truth though, it goes way beyond that, as Shimmy Werner explains the way their system works. Each brother oversees a different department and focuses wholly and exclusively on that area of programming and, most importantly, guestsâ€™ needs.

The Werner men understand that the guests at their hotel programs are the boss. So if KMR guests feel like kings and queens, it is no accidentâ€”that is precisely the way they are supposed to be feeling.

In just a few short weeks, the KMR team will once again be headed for Lake Louise in Banf, Alberta, Canada. The team will be setting up at the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise, which has to be one of North Americaâ€™s most exquisite hotels in a natural country-like setting that defies description even for someone who spends most of his day slapping words onto paper. The program will run this year from July 7â€“17, and one of the additional great things about these KMR events is that you can participate for as long or as short a stay as you choose.

In August, the men move their hoteling expertise over to one of their favorite spots in the country and where it all started for themâ€”Vail, Colorado. The hotel this year is once again the Vail Cascade Resort and Spa that features fabulous summer appointments and vacation opportunities to both enjoy and explore some of natureâ€™s most awesome features.

It seems that what the Werners have discovered here more than anything else is the ability to enjoy top-of-the-line vacation venues around the country without the need to sacrifice any aspect of Torah study or overall observance. Most importantly, the spiritual aspects of the KMR experiences are overseen by brother Shea Werner, an ordained rabbi from Oak Park Michigan, a Torah scholar, and great lecturer in his own right. Rabbi Werner sees to it that there are daily multiple minyanim from early in the morning and later on, if need be, followed by the availability of daf yomi and other shiurim at all levels through the day and evening.

Thereâ€™s really only one way to convincingly express how serious the Werner brothers are about keeping their customers more than just satisfied. Perhaps the most telling aspect of the KMR story is the far-reaching extent the brothers are willing to go to make each one of these vacation venues the best youâ€™ve ever experienced.

KMR employs their own in-house concierge who may travel with them or be of local origin. The concierge is the point man or the go-to guy who knows everything there is to know about all there is to do, experience, and enjoy in any given city. The KMR man for Vail is Arye Weinstein. How does Mr. Weinstein know about the latest attractions in Banf or the latest craze in Vail or Palm Springs? Shimmy Werner explains that KMR sends Weinstein to the hotels they select for three weeks prior to any one of the above described vacation periods. The idea behind the plan is for the concierge to know everything there is to know about the facility, the area, and city that you as a KMR customer might visit. You might be a stranger in Banf, but not so Mr. Weinstein. By the time you get to Lake Louise this summer, he will know everything there is to know about the place and be ready to share it with you.

Now a decade old, KMR understands that some of their clients may want to try something else or something new, Shimmy Werner says. â€œInevitably they come back and many of them have told me that they enjoyed this or that program but the fact is, they say, it was not KMR.â€ Like I said up top, Shimmy, Baruch, Shea, and Avromi Werner are waiting and are anxious to meet you. This summer might be the perfect time for just that encounter.

Comments for Larry Gordon are welcome at editor@5tjt.com.