“I am very happy, very…” he says Willie Carballo regarding his life. No wonder, he built a five-star life. As a child he was creative and loved to draw. He fantasized about being an artist, but over time he began to travel and a world of infinite possibilities opened up to him. So, he created a language study abroad company. A “crazy idea” in the late sixties. He was also a pioneer in the dissemination and development of wellness and longevity centers. Since 1979 he has represented La Prairie, the renowned Swiss clinic, in Argentina, Uruguay and Latin America. In addition, he collaborated with the first European spas: Champneys (UK), Evian (France) and Les Thermes Marins Monte-Carlo of the Grimaldi family. Later, with all that background, he created the Fine Hotels, Spas & Resorts of the World platform.
News: What characteristics define it?
Willie Carballo: What a question. Inspire confidence, I am a reliable and persevering person as well. I enjoy life, I am always positive and optimistic. Furthermore, I am a perfectionist, detail-oriented and have a dose of obsession. Working with England and Switzerland makes you obsessive and perfectionist and wanting to do things well.
News: What was the family environment in which you grew up like?
Carballo: A friendly atmosphere. My parents were two positive characters, with joy for life, hardworking, reliable, persevering. I inherited those characteristics from them.
News: What did you want to be as a child? What did he like?
Carballo: I was attracted to drawing, creativity. I drew, I don’t know why I didn’t continue, I loved drawing. But I started working very young with my father, who had a travel agency, and I liked that business. The attraction of travel enters the blood and never leaves. There I decided that this was going to be my path.
News: How did it start?
Carballo: I first worked with my father from the age of 13 to 23, when England gave me a scholarship to study English and marketing in London and that was the awakening of an impressive creativity. They gave it to me because I won a competition on how to sell Great Britain as a tourist without ever having set foot in it.
News: It must have been a before and after for you.
Carballo: Absolutely. I had made countless trips, my mother was also linked to tourism because she worked in a maritime company, but this trip had a different impact. I lived in the house of a charming British couple and, in addition, I lived with countless cultures. I became close friends with an Italian with whom we continue to see each other when I go to Europe, we have celebrated fifty years of friendship. I went out with a Luxembourgish girl, when Luxembourg didn’t even exist for us. I remember that there were eleven Arabs in school. I’m talking about 1969. The world has changed a lot.
News: That was the genesis of his first venture.
Carballo: Yes, I brought up the idea of sending kids to study abroad, something similar to what I had done. I believed it was something very interesting for youth, to break the bubble of General Paz. This is how I founded my company European School Consultant, in 1969, to promote family homestay trips and English language study. It was a crazy idea at the time. Then it diversified, it was replicated in Switzerland with languages and skiing, other studies were included, such as marketing and business, and other sports during the European summers. We also develop it throughout Latin America. For me the most important thing was not the languages, but the coexistence with other cultures. This company is still in force today and is the basis of everything I did from ’69 until today.
News: How did you come to La Prairie in 1979 and how did you become its representative for Argentina, Uruguay and Latin America?
Carballo: I represented Swiss private schools and the director of one of these schools, for young ladies, told me that he had a friend who had a medical clinic, who wanted to meet me to see if I could help them spread it in Latin America. So, I went to a lunch with the director of La Prairie and they made the proposal to me. I didn’t want to know anything because I wasn’t a doctor and it didn’t seem ethical to me. After that meeting in Geneva I went to Paris, where my older brother and his French wife lived. She knew the father of Philippe Junot, Carolina of Monaco’s first husband, and we went to this man’s country to spend the weekend. There, at lunch, in front of everyone, my brother said that La Prairie had made me this proposal and that I did not want to accept. There was a tremendous silence, everyone looked at me like a strange character. I didn’t know what this clinic was or that it was a celebrity clinic at the time, and it still is. Old Junot, in the middle of that silence, told me: “Willie, it seems to me that it is a decision to rethink.” I returned to Argentina, I told my dad’s doctor friend what was happening to me and he gave me the solution. He told me to propose to the Swiss that they hire a doctor for everything related to medical issues and me for the marketing and dissemination part. I proposed it, they accepted it and that’s how my participation in La Prairie began, which continues today; We have been working together for 46 years.
News: Why is La Prairie so renowned? What is its real value?
Carballo: They were the pioneers. In 1931 La Prairie began longevity treatments, a word that is fashionable in the world today. And today they remain unique due to countless factors. They are in Switzerland and that guarantees seriousness, confidence, and the desire to do things well. They have unique rehabilitation and quality of life improvement treatments, a permanent update on scientific and technological issues, and fifty outpatient clinics for different medical specialties. There is no other place like it in the world. There are only a few that try to be similar.
News: I was just talking about longevity.
Carballo: Yes, a topic with which you are machine-gunned everywhere. For me the key or the important thing about longevity is not getting older, but how you get there, getting better. In that sense, La Prairie gives you a better quality of life and that is what we have to look for.
News: How do you get along with age and the passage of time?
Carballo: Very good. I practice 18 holes of walking golf twice a week and work as if I were 40 years old. I am healthy, I eat everything, my hobby is cooking, I love eating, my glass of wine with a good meal is a must, I love chocolate. I am an enjoyer of life, I have just returned from a month-long trip to La Prairie, London, Sardinia, Sicily, the temples of Agrigento.
News: What basic advice would you give to have a good quality of life?
Carballo: The first thing is to be healthy. Afterwards, enjoy life, be in contact with nature, you don’t need to travel to Africa, you can do it in the square closest to your house. Have good affections, family, good friends, surround yourself with positive people. Do physical activity that is pleasant, you don’t need to kill yourself every day in the gym, you can walk, for example. Get out of automatism, many times we are on autopilot, become more aware of everything we do. For example, savoring a coffee, a glass of wine, a meal. Have a hobby, whatever. Trying to sleep better is very important. Eat healthy and be happy with what you eat.
News: What is your emotional world like?
Carballo: I have been married for 33 years, I have two loving children and four loving grandchildren, and very good friends and even friends who have come from my youth. One of the important things in life is to have good affections.
News: What is your concept of luxury today?
Carballo: Years ago, part of luxury was having free time and knowing how to use it. What I call intelligent leisure. I would add something that I always thought about, but that today is much more alive. Being able to enjoy leisure while being healthy. The greatest wealth one can have is health.
News: What is Fine Hotels, Spas & Resorts?
Carballo: A platform for the dissemination of luxury brands. Hotels, resorts, spas, wellness centers, watches, automobiles, champagnes, Mexican tequilas. It is the result of my work with schools and with the topics of wellness and longevity in La Prairie and in the health centers where I collaborated in its dissemination and development. For example, the Grimaldi family’s Monte Carlo sea baths, which was the first famous thalassotherapy center.
News: A dream, something pending?
Carballo: They are insisting on me to write a book. It can be interesting and fun. I’m evaluating it.
