Dishing It Out in Style
Four Seasons service is unstinting-and priced accordingly
I hate it when people mispronounce my name. So imagine my dismay when the front-desk manager at California's posh new Four Seasons Hotel Westlake Village mangles it right off the bat.
"Welcome, Mr. MAR-kles," she says. "Did I say that correctly?"
"No, it's Mar-KELS," I reply wearily.
"Oh, yes. Thank you, Mr. Mar-KELS."
In a hotel where it's de rigueur for staff members to address all guests by name, I figure I'm in for more of the same miscues.
But the bellman who shows me to my room gets my name right. So do the hotel operator when I call to schedule a wake-up call and the hostess who greets me in the restaurant. Even the Spanish-speaking maid wishes me "Good night, Meester Marrr-KELS," after placing a pair of cushy terry cloth slippers at my bedside and turning down the Egyptian cotton sheets for the night.
Over the course of my three-day stay, I'm never called Mr. MAR-kles again, thanks-I learn later-to the luxury-hotel manager's "recognition" service standard, which requires workers to match names with faces and pass along proper pronunciations to ensure that any initial slip-ups aren't repeated.
Having one's name pronounced correctly might seem a minor perk compared with the hotel's grander luxuries-the Romanesque indoor pool and opulent spa; the resplendent waterfall, Chinese pagoda, and on-site orchid greenhouse, the choicest blooms from which adorn the 270-room hotel's guest suites. That's on top of the plush Persian rugs, massive flat-screen TVs, sunken marble tubs, custom-designed mattresses, and dreamy goose-down pillows.
Top shelf. Yet that seemingly small act of personal respect says far more about why Four Seasons is consistently ranked among the world's pre-eminent hotel brands. It's one sought out not only by a highfalutin clientele willing to pay for the privilege but also by a who's who of property owners eager to sign costly, decades-long management contracts for the chance to hang the vaunted Four Seasons insignia on their hotels. And the privilege doesn't come cheap: The Four Seasons in Washington, D.C., and San Diego recently sold for about $800,000 per room, or $170 million and $250 million, respectively.
Indeed, one devoted group of hotel owners was so enamored of the brand that it recently purchased the company for $3.37 billion. Approved by shareholders earlier this month, the deal puts Four Seasons-which includes long-term management contracts for 73 hotels and full ownership of one-into the hands of a private partnership among Microsoft's Bill Gates, billionaire investor and Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal (both of whom already own multiple properties managed by Four Seasons), and company founder and chief executive Isadore Sharp, who retains management control and a 10 percent stake.
Nearly scuttled by some shareholders, who believed the company could fetch more if the chief executive had been willing to consider other bids (he wasn't), the deal speaks volumes about the 75-year-old Sharp's steely resolve to stay true to his longtime strategy: to deliver superior service-everything from getting guests' names right to having been the first to offer 24-hour room service, one-hour pressing, and overnight shoeshine-even to the detriment of short-term profits.
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