Suite Dreams

With the Trump opening and more luxury spots on the way, the competition in the city among high-end hotels for big-spending travelers—VIPs, celebrities, the garden-variety rich—is hotter than ever. And the secret to victory? Give the guests what they want

By Noah Isackson

(page 5 of 6)

Oral Clarke, a butler at the Park Hyatt, with Penny, a Chihuahua that belongs to a colleague

For the record, the service mantra makes particular sense for the old guard, since they can hardly keep up with newcomers in a can-you-top-this? competition over the latest amenities. Still, the new spots also tout service. The Trump Hotel, for example, arrives with attachés—personal servants who will be on hand to do anything for guests "as long as it's legal," says the attaché director, Rose Dizon.

"Anyone can build a fancy building," says Darling, the regional vice president for Shangri-La Hotels. "But the magic comes from the way that the service is orchestrated and how they anticipate rather than respond." Put another way, the strategy is based on the fact that, among certain clients, all presidential suites, spas, and porcelain teacups begin to look the same.

As a result, all hotels find themselves in the anticipation game. At the Park Hyatt, the reservations staff begins researching guests at least three days before they arrive, Googling names and contacting travel agents, secretaries, and personal assistants to figure out why they're visiting and what they prefer. Hypoallergenic pillows? A specific vodka? An in-room training session with the city's best yoga instructor? Again, "as long as it's legal," says Gerry Feltmann, the hotel's executive housekeeper who, not too long ago, spent a good part of his morning separating M&M's at the request of a guest who wanted a bowl filled only with the turquoise variety.

Often, the intelligence will be used to prepare an "amenity" or welcome gift for the guest. This fall, in advance of a visit from a California winemaker, the Four Seasons found one of his 2005 chardonnays, sawed the bottle in half, and filled it with flowers. On another morning, the staff left a present for a visiting American artist—a model of one of his paintings using white- and dark-chocolate-covered strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries. "It's an icebreaker," says Willimann. "We are trying to figure out what makes you tick and then supply it."

At The Peninsula, a guest's profile grows with every order and, certainly, whenever the staff notices something particular. "If someone doesn't like scallops we'll update their profile so it never happens again," says Graham Elliot Bowles, the chef de cuisine at Avenues, a restaurant in The Peninsula. "Everyone dictates whatever experience they want to have."

"What we are trying to do is anticipate what you need," says Rick Segal of the Park Hyatt Hotels. "It's so difficult to read your mind, but that is what we are trying to do."

The hotels are less open about another form of marketing—associating their brands with celebrity guests. "It's a clear mark that you're the best of the best when a specific celebrity stays with you," says Robert Prohaska, the director of sales and marketing at the Trump Hotel, "because celebrities are very—what's the word I'll choose very carefully—'demanding' in their approach. By having a celebrity stay with you, it's almost a mark of approval." Although no hotel admits to actively recruiting specific celebrities or confesses that it publicly discloses who stays there, all acknowledge that, yes, word gets out, and the attention helps in marketing. Call it luxury by association.