WITH the St Regis Doha ready to open its doors, the luxury brand is further boosting its presence in the Middle East, following its regional debut in Abu Dhabi last year.
Paul James, global brand leader for St Regis and Luxury Collection, says the brand’s rich traditions are brought to life through signature features that guests can relate to easily.
“While our first hotel was opened back to 1904 with our flagship hotel, The St Regis New York, we are still a relatively young company having begun our global expansion in 1999. Today while we evaluate what we stand for we wanted find out what’s the story that comes out of New York that continues to this property so successful. And one of the key things we touched upon was the music that plays in the lobby as a guest walks in. While this might not be of relevance to some, we researched to find that jazz was our niche, and very much an integral part of the St Regis legacy.”
This led to a new partnership for St Regis and jazz with the iconic Jazz at Lincoln Centre (JALC). As part of this new partnership, the first Jazz at Lincoln Centre venue outside of the US will be introduced at the new St Regis Doha when it opens doors shortly.
“The St Regis Rooftop Ballroom in New York City has played host to some of the finest jazz musicians in history with artists like Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman, Dizzy Gillespie and Dave Brubeck playing in the hotel. So we went to Jazz Lincoln centre and spoke about creating venues in places that we go. And now St Regis Doha will be the first property with the Jazz Club. What is really important is the level of the quality of the jazz offered. We are looking to build five of these clubs across our properties,” says James.
James adds that Doha would be an ideal venue since the city is looking to position itself as an emerging cultural centre in the Middle East.
Since 2010, there has been plenty of development activity for St Regis.
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Room view of the soon-to-open St Regis Doha |
Last year St Regis opened in Bangkok and Florence. “It was the start of what would be a slew of hotel openings in 12 months. After announcing St Regis Doha and our two hotels in Abu Dhabi, St Regis will take its brand China in Nanjing and Shenzhen. The St Regis Miami will open shortly and The St Regis Mauritius Resort later in the summer,” he adds.
In the Middle East St Regis will also open The St Regis Cairo and The St Regis Amman in 2014 and 2015 respectively.
James is quick to add that St Regis is not looking to build in mass destinations. “These are markets where we know we have opportunity and customer demand. If I look at the performance of the brand, it normally takes a luxury hotel at least two years to find its stability. We on the other hand have doubled our portfolio but never dropped below fair market share as a brand. That only means we are bringing hotels to market faster it would normally happen and we are keeping up with competition if not outpacing them.”
St Regis recently held its first-ever global general manager’s conference to understand and maintain the same level of focus and service in all our hotels.
James adds: “Nothing replaces the value of having all these general mangers under one room to discuss how to get the best out of butler services or find out what truly adds value to our guest experience.”
Speaking about St Regis butler service James says: “The butler service is not about the white-gloved, overly servile service. The butlers we have are predominately female, around 30 years of age, speak more than one language and the reason why they are in that job is because they want to make your stay with us memorable. As a function it’s the same, but the delivery is entirely different. We want to use that to create relevant experience.
“If you over work trying to create an once-in-a-lifetime experience, you almost end up commoditising those experiences. That does not define the luxury value.”
St Regis offers an aficionado programme which is about creating great experience, so that the guests have access and knowledge about them. These programmes are evolved on various passion points of the St Regis customer and the ones that are the most popular are the usually the simplest. This can vary from giving access to the Ferrari pit lane in Singapore or engaging with the head tailor with Brioni in Beijing.
“So experiences are critical but they have to be honest and relevant to the customer,” he says.