Upping the Luxe Factor

Time for reflection:
Sanctuary on Camelback Mountain
in Paradise Valley, Ariz.

With luxury meetings on the rise again, gone are the days when simply putting attendees up in a glitzy room with a famous five-star name was enough to keep them happy. Whether it’s a subtle, graceful touch or the grand, sweeping stuff only the deepest of pockets can buy, increasingly refined attendees expect something unique from their meetings, and properties big and small are eager to provide.
     Drawing on luxury’s big-name chains as well as the unique offerings of more intimate folios such as Small Luxury Hotels of the World and Relais & Châteaux, M&C presents 42 of this year’s most inspiring luxury perks.

The ride in
1. High-level attendees likely will appreciate something more for the airport-to-hotel shuttle than a mere limo. Antique cars, BMWs and Hummers all make smart statements. The crown jewel of the motor troop, however, is the Rolls-Royce Phantom. If possible, get a proud Phantom owner to personally chauffeur your party, as the Hotel Roger Williams did for its New York City opening early this year.
    2. What could be better than being whisked from airport to hotel in a private helicopter? One answer, provided by Avon, Colo.’s Park Hyatt Beaver Creek Resort & Spa: skipping the hotel entrance in order to alight on the property’s main mountaintop, ski equipment in tow, for a truly ski-in experience. 
    3. When a bus coach is necessary, the 25,000-acre Lajitas Resort, in the desert hideaway of Lajitas, Texas, turns the ride into a more festive affair by setting up several pit stops along the dusty road from El Paso International Airport, invoking the cowboy spirit with margaritas, rattlesnake cakes, and professional bullwhip or shooting demonstrations.
    4. Keep in mind that the attendee’s trip begins long before the plane touches down at the airport. Hotels like The Point in Saranac Lake, N.Y., and the Lake Placid (N.Y.) Lodge, both of which offer private jet service direct to their Adirondacks grounds, will help arrange the initial limo ride from a VIP’s home to the jet pad.

The meeting room
5. St. George, Utah’s Red Mountain Spa keeps things lively and refined with tart candies and tiny hand toys. For the especially adventurous, ergonomic chairs can be replaced with chair-size fit balls. 
    6. W hotels will waft their trademark cool lounge sound through the meeting room upon request, as well as provide a subtle whiff of lavender to awaken and calm attendees. 
    7. Don’t underestimate the power of a majestic view. Saint Tropez, France’s new La Tartane provides a meeting room with a retractable ceiling, wowing attendees with both nature and technology. 
    8. In Switzerland, Le Mirador Kempinski Lake Geneva arranges board meetings on its yacht, set luxuriously adrift in the middle of its namesake lake.
    9. The Four Seasons Hotel Houston brightens afternoon meetings with a rejuvenating round of chilled, fruit essence-scented towels. 
    10. Vancouver, B.C.’s Opus Hotel furnishes the meeting room with designer lounge-style couches and chairs and gel mood lighting. And, if requested, the chic property will serve personal oxygen bottles instead of a coffee break.
    11. Toronto’s Windsor Arms Hotel will call in its spa professionals to administer hand- and foot-pamperings during the actual meeting. (Note: This might not appeal to everyone.) 
    12. Another Windsor Arms touch: A personal stenographer will write up the meeting’s minutes and create a printout of same for attendee distribution.

Gone camping:
The
elegant
tent
treatment
of The
Resort at
Paws Up
in Greenough, Mont.

Activities
13. The Resort at Paws Up, amidst the sweeping vistas of Greenough, Mont., offers adventurous guests a distinctly high-end version of “roughing it” camping out in luxury tents on feather-down beds, with a designated campfire butler at their disposal. 
    14. A recent sales meeting at the Ritz-Carlton Bachelor Gulch in Vail, Colo., treated its top 20 sellers to a sparkling cocktail reception at the Golden Bear, one of Vail’s highest-profile jewelry boutiques. Winners were presented with a $1,000 gift certificate to spend amongst the clinking glasses.
    15. What says “We think you’re fabulous” better than a group trip to Saks accompanied by a dedicated troop of personal shoppers? The Ritz-Carlton Chicago, a Four Seasons Resort, is happy to arrange this. The Four Seasons Hotel Miami can set up private in-room viewings of the latest fashions hosted by a personal shopper from the local Neiman Marcus. The Conrad Dublin in Ireland offers its own version of the treatment, cheekily dubbed “retail therapy.”
    16. The Mandarin Oriental New York conducts its therapy with personal fittings for items from the famously fit-obsessed Thomas Pink clothing line.
    17. Lajitas Resort and the Four Seasons Resort Jackson Hole (Wyo.) both take a more rustic approach to service, fitting VIP guests with their own customized cowboy boots that can even carry a corporate logo if desired. 
    18. If you’re going off-site, you might as well go far off. Such is the lesson taught by big-thinking Destination Services of Colorado Inc., based in Avon, which will fly guests from mountaintops in Vail to their Aspen counterparts. “Actually, one group was flirting with the idea of taking a helicopter from Denver to Phoenix for an evening,” says Danielle Mason, DSC sales manager.
    19. Santa Monica, Calif.’s oceanside Shutters on the Beach treats attendees to a photomontage of famous movie stars driving their Thunderbirds along the Pacific Coast Highway and then looses them onto the famous roadway behind the wheel of the real thing, with a stuffed picnic basket tucked into the backseat.
    20. The 52-acre Sanctuary on Camelback Mountain in Paradise Valley, Ariz., gently leads guests to inner peace with its “horse to heart” program. In emulation of horse whisperers, attendees learn to talk and interact with Sanctuary’s stable dwellers under the eye of a life coach, on hand to prescribe specific healing exercises between horse and human. 
    21. Arlington, Va.’s Ritz-Carlton, Pentagon City knows that learning something new is a luxury. Accordingly, the property moves beyond generic cooking classes and enlists its chef to deliver more specific seminars on food and wine pairings, plate design and table etiquette. 
    22. Upscale destination management company Allied Monte-Carlo will put guests through an all-day study of the mystical art of feng shui. 
    23. Some hotels can arrange for a group jaunt to the local farmer’s market under the tutelage of the property’s executive chef. At the Four Seasons Jackson Hole, executive chef Ken Gladysz takes guests shopping for groceries then brings them back for a group cooking class, serving up the results as a hearty, educational and distinctly native dinner. 
    24. Fountain Hills, Ariz.-based DMC Bella Palazzo can elevate the standard art lesson to an event by holding it in a private home’s backyard, a replica of Monet’s garden at Giverny. 
    25. Only a property as lovely as Holderness, N.H.’s Manor on Golden Pond could snowshoe groups out to the wilderness for lessons in winter survival and animal tracking.
    26. To impress golfers who’ve seen every green, the Four Seasons Resort Nevis offers a particularly popular night golf option, played with glow-in-the-dark balls, poles and clubs.

Table for two:
An intimate dinner
at the Mirror Lake Inn
in Lake Placid, N.Y.

Dining
27. The Four Seasons Whistler leads guests on a horse-drawn sleigh under starry night skies to a log cabin in the woods for private fireside meals. The hushed, sweet tones of the property’s banjo player give the ride its magic. 
    28. At Lajitas, groups in rafts or canoes can set off on an overnight drift up the Rio Grande, gourmet dinner included. 
    29. Lake Placid, N.Y.’s Mirror Lake Inn specializes in charming dining spots, such as the peak of its Olympic ski slopes or its small floating dock. This past winter, the property tried something new: a tented dinner on the ice of Mirror Lake. 
    30. Honolulu-based DMC Weil & Associates combines the luxury penchant for private residences with the new chef-as-celebrity wave by serving dinner at the chef’s own home. 
    31. Catering kitchens and separate service entrances in the Four Seasons Hotel Miami’s premier suites can be occupied by an on-call chef preparing a lavish in-room meal.

Set amid
lavender-tinged fields:
Cordevalle’s Clos LaChance
winery in St. Martin, Calif.

Team building
32. The Lodge at Cordevalle in San Martin, Calif., takes advantage of its famous Clos LaChance vineyard with a round of competitive grape stomping. 
    33. A touch of celebrity instruction will elevate any activity to luxury levels. The Best of Boston, a DMC, recently enlisted four Olympic rowers as team coaches for a recent sculling regatta along the Charles River. 
    34. The Four Seasons Nevis relies on celebrity ships, with two 70-foot-long America’s Cup yachts sailing from the resort’s private pier for some friendly competition between attendee teams.
    35. Destination Services of Colorado upgrades familiar team-building exercises with a dose of tech glamour. Instead of a standard Jeep rally, the DMC designs search-and-rescue missions and sends giddy attendees off in Hummers or snowmobiles with nothing but a GPS system to guide them.

Turndown service
36. Taking a cue from the disposable camera trend at weddings, Weil & Associates surprises attendees with a new digital camera for turndown on night one, on the condition that they take photos and videos of the day’s activities. By the second night, the DMC begins broadcasting a montage of each day’s events to attendees’ rooms, presenting a polished DVD for turndown on the final night. Another popular turndown item for Weil in recent months: the ever-present iPod.
    37. Get personal. The Ritz-Carlton, Lake Las Vegas, makes a habit of procuring photos of high-level guests’ loved ones and leaving them at their bedsides. When one attendee identified Wonder Woman as her personal hero, the service staff left the attendee her very own Wonder Woman costume in the closet.
    38. There’s nothing like Conrad Hotels’ stash of cuddly teddy bears to enhance this home away from home. Equally endearing: Aspen’s Little Nell leaves vintage bedtime story books, supplemented by little bags of jelly beans. 
    39. To ensure that its famous fire pit gets group use, the Avon, Colo.’s Park Hyatt Beaver Creek leaves guests ultimate s’mores kits, including gourmet chocolate and specialty marshmallows.

Check-out
41. A growing number of hotels and airlines are working with companies like BaggageDirect, which sends agents to pick up a guest’s luggage, security check it on site, hand over the VIP’s boarding pass and shuttle the bags to the airport. 
    42. In Santa Monica, Calif., Shutters on the Beach provides guests with a menu of complimentary services available on checkout day. Among them: The hotel will go fill a guest’s car with gas for departure. (Guests are required, however, to foot the gas bill.)