Stealth Luxury

Rustic yet regal:
Romantik Hotel
Neumuehle in
Wartmannsroth, Germany

For medical meeting planners, the most tangible results of the pharmaceutical-marketing regulations enacted earlier this decade involve the rule that drug companies cannot pay for doctors to stay at luxury hotels -- even if they offer competitive pricing -- since this might create the appearance of a bribe. In many cases, the change is easy to make: Whereas before, a group of doctors might be housed at a Ritz-Carlton or a Four Seasons, now they’re put in a more moderate Hyatt or Westin.

But for world-renowned doctors accustomed to the height of luxury, anything less might not suffice. Judy Benaroche Johnson, CMP, president and CEO of Rx Worldwide Meetings Inc., based in Plano, Texas, knows this from experience. She recently planned a meeting for a large group of Korean doctors at an upper-upscale hotel -- the market tier just below luxury -- in Florida. The front desk staff was rude, showerheads fell onto guests in their rooms, the air conditioning wasn’t working in meeting rooms and a fire alarm was ringing all day.

“They were so offended that they weren’t taken care of, that we didn’t respect their visit while they were there,” she says. “The week before, we were at the Ritz-Carlton in Orlando, and it was beyond flawless. They just get it.”

Dr. Robert Green, managing director, medical communications, for the Continuing Education Alliance in Greenwich, Conn., sees physician attendance falling and education suffering because the hotels aren’t up to snuff.

“When you take a meeting in the city hotel box, you’ll have much less capacity to inspire the mind than if you were taking the doctors to a property that’s more stimulating,” says Green. “In the end, what suffers is the patient population, because people don’t come to meetings.”

For meetings that require luxury -- but won’t set off red flags by the hotel name alone -- site selection takes a bit of sleuthing. Here are some pointers from Johnson and other meeting planners and hoteliers.

Quiet class: Watermark Hotel & Spa, San Antonio

Pick an independent hotel

The best way to find a hotel without an obvious luxury brand is to look for one without a brand at all. Hotels such as the 99-room Watermark Hotel & Spa in San Antonio and the 60-room XVBeacon in Boston offer a luxury experience without a big name. The Watermark is right on San Antonio’s Riverwalk; rooms feature wrought-iron four-poster beds, leather-topped desks and elaborate marble bathrooms. XV Beacon has high-tech rooms (including the bathrooms) and offers a chauffeured Lexus to all guests.

Besides word of mouth, there are three good ways of finding one of these hotels. One option is to use a third-party site-selection firm, with representatives whose job it is to know which hotels will be best for which meetings. A second way is to ask a hotel representation firm (a company hired by hotels to help increase sales), such as the Krisam Group or Associated Luxury Hotels, to proffer their most upscale selections. For example, James Schultenover, president of The Krisam Group, suggests the following hotels and resorts:

* The 775-room Grand America Hotel in Salt Lake City, which is one of two five-diamond hotels in Utah;

* The 679-room Hotel del Coronado in Coronado, Calif., a historic hotel on the beach that was the setting for the Marilyn Monroe film, Some Like It Hot;

* The newly renovated Rancho Bernardo Inn in San Diego, where each of the 287 rooms has a private patio and a 20,000-square-foot conference center opened this year;

* The 255-room Sanctuary at Kiawah Island, S.C., a golf paradise with five championship courses;

* The 171-room Lodge at Torrey Pines in La Jolla, Calif., with meeting space that looks out on the golf course;

* The 98-room Sanctuary on Camelback Mountain in Paradise Valley, Ariz., a rejuvenating haven built into the side of a mountain.

All are luxury hotels; none shout it from the rooftops. On the other hand, Schultenover discourages member properties from trying to downplay their status or their resort components by cutting off the “resort and spa” from their name in the contract, for example.

A third option for finding luxe independents: Search the catalogs of hotel marketing portfolios, such as The Leading Hotels of the World, Relais & Chateaux or Preferred Hotel Group.

With any of these methods, be sure to solicit a verbal recommendation from someone you trust, as upper-upscale ho-tels often will be lumped in with the luxury properties.

For small meetings, Design Hotels represents more than 140 gorgeous, memorable, high-style properties all over the world, most of them offering authentic luxury. The 60-room Chambers Hotel in Minneapolis and the 125-room Setai in Miami, for example, are relatively new, and both are often cited as the best hotels in their respective cities. The Chambers (sister hotel to the Chambers in New York City) is bedecked with more than 200 pieces of art from the owner’s private collection, while the Setai inspires tranquility with its contemporary Asian design.

NEGOTIATING THE RISKS

Planners who favor a luxury hotel for a medical meeting need to make a clear, reasoned case for their choice to stand a chance of getting a pharmaceutical client to approve, says Judy Benaroche Johnson, CMP, right, president and CEO of Plano, Texas-based Rx Worldwide Meetings Inc. “You have to say, ‘I understand this might seem like a luxury property, but look at the value you’re going to get,’ ” she says.

The key is to present a range of choices to the company’s decision-makers, whether they’re compliance officers, procurement departments, in-house meeting planners or executives. Explain which property is the luxury hotel, show price comparisons and leave it to the company to decide.

Of course, the case must be made that the property in question is, indeed, under the radar and not one that flaunts its frills. Even so, big pharmaceutical firms in the public eye, such as Merck, GlaxoSmithKline and AstraZeneca, often will say no to anything resembling luxury; smaller companies generally worry less about perception.

Also, note that the type of meeting matters. Contract research organization meetings don’t have to adhere to the guidelines as closely as so-called key opinion leader meetings (gatherings of physicians who influence their peers’ medical practice), notes Johnson. Of course, internal pharmaceutical meetings -- the ones that don’t involve doctors -- can use luxury properties, though it still is important to keep such events from appearing lavish. -- J.V.

Find something new

There’s an element of risk with choosing a new, untested hotel, but the potential rewards are great. First of all, the physical state of the property will be without the wear and tear of time and use. Second, a new hotel will not have established a presence among laypeople. Case in point: The Umstead, in Cary, N.C., is situated conveniently a few minutes from Raleigh-Durham International Airport. The 150-room hotel, which opened in January, offers more than 10,000 square feet of indoor meeting space and was designed by Frank Nicholson, who has 20 Four Seasons and 40 Ritz-Carlton hotels under his belt. As a new property, it’s still far from winning immediate recognition as a luxury hotel.

Alternatively, look for hotels with a storied reputation for service but also with a recent name change. For example, the former Four Seasons Newport Beach became The Island Hotel a few years back; service at the 295-room hotel is up to a similar standard, but the name hasn’t yet become nationally known.

Choose a lesser-known brand

Names that are synonymous with luxury -- Ritz-Carlton, Four Seasons, Peninsula, St. Regis and Mandarin Oriental -- aren’t the only luxury brands out there. Check out Orient-Express Hotels, Trains and Cruises; Raffles Hotels & Resorts; Rocco Forte Hotels; Rosewood Hotels & Resorts, and Shangri-La Hotels & Resorts for a lesser-known luxury experience.

KSL Resorts, a small luxury chain, offers posh properties such as the 474-room La Costa Resort & Spa in Carlsbad, Calif. (where a new Executive Learning Center has the capacity for 84 attendees), and the 300-room Barton Creek Resort & Spa in Austin, Texas, which recently was acquired by KSL and given a major upgrade. Barton Creek offers four top-rated golf courses.

“Unlike some of the more opulent luxury resort brands, KSL Resorts exude a relaxed aura of luxury,” says Michael Erickson, La Quinta, Calif.-based vice president of sales for the chain.

Or find a brand that’s just breaking into the United States. A prime example: Jumeirah. The Dubai-based company behind what many consider the highest-class hotel in the world, the Burj Al Arab, recognized for its iconic sail shape, is expanding into the Western world at a rapid clip. The 515-room Jumeirah Essex House in New York City is one of the company’s latest conquests; in London, the 220-room Jumeirah Carlton Tower also is a prime choice. The Essex House, a classic New York hotel on the southern edge of Central Park, formerly flew the Westin flag; Carlton Tower, in the high-rent Knightsbridge district, used to be a Hyatt. Both are undergoing complete renovations.

Taj Hotels & Resorts, headquartered in Mumbai, India, is another chain that recently has broken into the U.S. market, in this case with the 201-room Taj Pierre in New York City, formerly a Four Seasons, and the 273-room Taj Boston, formerly a Ritz-Carlton. Both are grandes dames in their respective cities.

LXR Luxury Resorts & Hotels, which owns and manages mostly U.S. properties, has been plucking upscale hotels and dramatically renovating them. And though the word luxury is in the brand name, the hotels are discreetly renamed.

“Our concept is the very opposite of that of traditional luxe hotels that are showy and over-the-top,” says a spokesperson for LXR. “We don’t scream luxury or push it; we deliver it.”

Ritz-Carlton founder Horst Schulze has created two new brands that he hopes will surpass Ritz-level service. For now, their names are known mostly by travel gurus. Both have unique strengths: Capella Hotels & Resorts are at a higher level of luxury than Sol’s Hotels & Resorts, but Sol’s offers larger properties. The 406-room Solis Chicago Hoteland Spa debuted earlier this year, and the 105-room Schloss Velden, A Capella Hotel, opened in late May, in Austria.

Another smart option, suggests Robert Green, is to look for a brand that is close to the top: InterContinental, JW Marriott, W, Sofitel and Park Hyatt are options that fit this category. They generally can provide a near-flawless experience -- at just half a rung below the Four Seasons.

VIEW FROM THE TOP

In the wake of regulations on pharmaceutical marketing put forth earlier this decade by the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America and the Office of the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, many pharmaceutical meeting planners see the words Ritz-Carlton as the gold standard of where they cannot bring a meeting. Ritz-Carlton’s New York City-based director of pharmaceutical sales, Anne DiGregory, right, talks to M&C about how she handles that fact.

M&C: Have you lost business because of the regulations?

DiGregory: Each company has interpreted the guidelines differently. There isn’t a company out there that used to book us that doesn’t still book us. But since the guidelines have been active, we definitely have seen a decrease from those companies.

M&C: How has your sales process changed?

DiGregory: I have a list of pharmaceutical companies and a list of which departments can book us and which can’t. If I know a company won’t book us if a product is already on the market, we do meetings for their research and development side, where it would be pre-market, and where it might not be in the news. We always pursue incentive programs and internal meetings where they have their own employees there, not clients. They’re not subject to the guidelines; they’re just subject to perception.


M&C: Is the Ritz-Carlton ever a better deal than a lower-tier hotel?

DiGregory: That’s a big part of why we didn’t lose a ton of market share to begin with. Our business model is such that it’s so group-friendly, and we end up being a great group value. We quote the lowest rate right away with pharmaceutical companies. We know we have to be at a very competitive rate to be considered. -- J.V

Get lost in Europe

The European hotel landscape is vastly different from that of the United States, and therefore it can be difficult to identify what constitutes a luxury hotel. Johnson says Europe’s notoriously inconsistent star-rating system might work to a meeting planner’s advantage, as some luxury hotels in one country might be rated the same as an upscale hotel in another.

For example, Radisson hotels might be considered standard properties in the United States, but Radisson SAS is a luxury brand in Europe, notes Anne McDonnell, CMP, group supervisor, meeting services, for the QD Healthcare Group in Greenwich, Conn. Hilton is another brand with a surprising supply of gems; many of them are concentrated in Europe, such as the new 380-room Hilton Molino Stucky, Venice, which promises to be one of the top meeting hotels in a city not traditionally known as a meetings powerhouse. The property, which opened in June on the Venetian island of Giudecca, has more than 20,000 square feet of meeting space.

European hotel brands also are not well known among U.S. residents. Steigenberger and Kempinski are two luxury brands that thrill overseas residents but don’t quite register here. The nicest property in the Hague, according to Johnson, is the 255-room Steigenberger Kurhaus Hotel, which lays claim to a rich heritage of famous guests -- but which probably won’t raise red flags for a U.S. pharmaceutical company.

Low-key luxe: Turtle Bay Resort in Oahu, Hawaii

Go best-in-brand

Hotel marketing portfolios, such as Summit Hotels and Resorts, Historic Hotels of America and, in Europe, Romantik Hotels and Restaurants International, stake their claim just under the luxury level. But some hotels within those collections provide a true luxury experience; group sales managers generally will be frank about which properties are considered the best.

For example, within the Romantik portfolio, the top hotels are the Seehotel Sonne, a 40-room gem on Lake Zurich, Switzerland, that’s more than 350 years old but is in fantastic condition, and the Hotel Neumuehle, a 29-room retreat in rural Germany, an hour from Frankfurt, known for its cuisine. With these portfolios, even if the hotel isn’t officially luxury, it likely will be unique enough to impress most doctors.

Take the same approach with a meetings-friendly management company like Destination Hotels & Resorts or Benchmark Hospitality. DH&R is the brand behind Houston’s 144-room Hotel Icon, housed in a remodeled bank building, and the 210-room Estancia La Jolla (Calif.), a conference center built in a classic Spanish/California style. Benchmark’s 443-room Turtle Bay Resort in Hawaii also is a top choice, because of its secluded location on Oahu’s north shore (and yes, sometimes Hawaii is a reasonable choice for a strictly business meeting, particularly if attendees will be arriving from both East Asia and the western United States). The 210-room Bedford Springs Resort, a Benchmark property opening this summer in Bedford, Pa., promises to hit the company’s highest mark yet. The historic hotel has been restored completely, thanks to a $120 million investment, and will be an ideal choice for Northeast companies looking for privacy.

Pick a resort-heavy city

Marketing regulations frown upon the use of resorts for physician-attended meetings; however, a resort generally offers a greater draw than a city hotel.

A balance can be struck via resort-focused cities -- places that aren’t classic resort destinations, but where the hotels exude a leisurely feel. Judy Johnson uses Scottsdale, Ariz., for example, because the Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport has great airlift, and because rates are a bargain, even at top hotels, during the summer. “Yeah, it’s hot there, but where isn’t it hot in the summer?” she points out. Check out Scottsdale’s 194-room Hotel Valley Ho for a pleasant surprise. The place has been wholly refurbished (to the tune of $80 million) in a quirky, midcentury modern style, with furniture straight out of 1960s sitcoms and bathtubs sitting smack in the middle of some of the guest rooms.