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Business Traveller

The Major Hotel Brands Go Boutique. Behind the Scenes of Starwood's Hotel Lab in New York. The Return of an Icon. Going Behind the Scenes of the Plaza Hotel in New York. Discovering Hong Kong from "Sunrise to Sunset."

Aired May 10, 2008 - 09:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


ANDREW STEVENS, CNN GUEST HOST: Hello, and welcome to the show. I'm Andrew Stephens.
New York, London and here in Hong Kong have all got one thing in common. They're the hubs that connect the global economy. So much so, there's a new phrase that's been coined. It's called ni lon kon (ph). Any big company will have some sort of presence here. So if you're traveling on business, the odds are you're going to be staying in a hotel in one of these cities. So on this month's program we're going to be getting to grips with the changing face of the hotel industry.

Coming up, we go behind the scenes of Starwood's hotel lab in New York, the Great Eastern promise, the major hotel brands going boutique in London, and exploring the hidden gems of Hong Kong from "Sunrise to Sunset."

In the past, business travelers were interested in pretty much three things -- a comfortable bed, a decent shower and of course a good breakfast. Nowadays though, our traveling lives have become more complicated. We're working longer. We're working harder. And we're spending more time on the road. So when we do get some time to ourselves, we want more than just the basics.

In New York, London and Hong Kong, hotels are now competing to offer their guests a unique experience. And even the old dogs are up for learning new tricks.

John Maynard Keynes had the right idea, innovate or parish. And that's what drives the hotel industry, keeping up with and fending off competition, continually introducing new ideas. It's all about efficiency and experience, service and substance.

IAN SCHRAGER, HOTEL ENTREPRENEUR: Microsoft comes out with Words one, Words two. Things evolve, telephones, cars. Why shouldn't hotels continue to evolve like every other industry as well? When they have a boutique hotel operator around the corner that gets $100 more in rates than they get in their property, they're asking themselves, well, what is going on.

Somebody from International Hilton told me that many, many years ago, who owned the Waldorf, which is a spectacular hotel in London with spectacular public faces in London, in a good area. And a couple of blocks away, number one Aldridge (ph) gets 100 to 200 pounds more in average daily rate. So they ask themselves why is that. So they're all trying to figure this out with the great restaurants, the great bars, the happening lobby, the visually arresting hotel rooms. It's become the rule now.

I actually think -- you know, I could talk about this forever. It's the future of the business.

STEVENS: And Marriott International is taking heed. Teaming up with Ian Schrager himself to launch Addition, its first boutique brand later this year

BILL MARRIOTT, JR, CHAIRMAN, MARRIOTT INTERNATIONAL: We wanted to get into that space. We didn't feel we had the talent within our own company to do it. We have the operating talent and know how, the engineering talent and know how. And he has an incratic (ph) creative design side, P.R. side in terms of getting the buzz and getting the action and that type of thing. And we think although we're different people and have different backgrounds, we think it's going to work very well.

STEVENS: Marriott has the experience and now the guidance from the man behind Studio 54 to tap into a sector that's too good to miss out on.

MARRIOTT: To young people, it's lifestyle. It's different. It's exciting. It's people who like the bar scene. It's people who want a different experience in hotel stays. And they're all very popular. They're running very high occupancies and very strong in rates.

STEVENS: Going boutique may be a money maker if executed well. There's a danger of trying too hard to be all things to all people. Chain and boutique -- can hotels really be both?

NIGEL MASSEY, CEO, THE MASSEY PARTNERSHIPS: Never. The chain hotel has a personality now. You've got two types of chains. You've got what I call the bland, impersonal chains -- I'm not knocking them -- with big international names. But they are and will forever be locked in on a name. And all the imagery of the name can sadly be a little colorless.

But you have an individual hotel, a boutique hotel. It has the added advantage originally of being what I used to call a born-again building provided it's edgy, provided you have the right product.

STEVENS: Hotels that already know they have a good product aren't feeling the pressure to enter this market.

The managing director of the Intercontinental in Hong Kong does not see boutique hotels as a threat.

JEAN-JACQUES REIBET, MD, INTERCONTINENTAL HONG KONG: Well, I think it's good to have these boutique hotels. But I don't think that the customers coming to our hotel will patronize and will go to the boutique hotel. It's a different type of products and different clienteles. I mean, a boutique hotel certainly cannot offer what we offer, the variety of five restaurants with famous names like Nobu and Jicas (ph). And our experience, truly global. I mean, it's typical Intercontinental.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Welcome to the presidential suite.

STEVENS: Even so, the Intercon has spent $70 million renovating its flagship hotel in Hong Kong over the past seven years. It's clear that there's still a need to keep ahead of the curve.

How do you find out what your competition is doing? Do you send people down there undercover?

REIBET: Yes, we do. We do. I think I would be naive if I was going to ignore the competition. In order to be better, I need to know and I have to know what my competitions are doing and their latest projects and their latest innovation, you know, to watch and do even better. You know, that's the secret of it.

You cannot -- you cannot be too pretentious and think that you're always the best, you know. And it's all about consistency. It's all about giving the service, you know, to your customers 365 days a year.

STEVENS: In Hong Kong there's another hotel that knows all about service and delivery. Celebrating its 80th anniversary, the Peninsula continues to attract guests for afternoon tea. But the hotel insists this heritage is only part of its success.

RAINY CHAN, GM, THE PENINSULA: We are the oldest hotel in Hong Kong. But we're also probably one of the most innovative, creative in terms of technology for the city. So these are what our travelers look for. They want traditional services. We have a great heritage. But we also have the technology. And that all takes time, planning and obviously investment. It is very, very important that we keep updating and keep up the needs of our travelers.

STEVENS: One need that has increasingly become a trend is extending business trips for a bit of down time to make the most of the cities we're in.

CHAN: Our business travelers don't want to just come for work anymore. Especially when you travel over a long distance, you want to take home something that's more than a good business meeting. A bit of culture and a bit of relation, it all presents itself to stay a couple of days extra.

STEVENS: The reality is not all of us can extend our stays. In London however, no matter how pressed for time we are, the boutique hotel chain Guestinvest is determined to bring the culture to us.

JOHNNY SANDELSON, CEO, GUESTINVEST: We've got entertainment here in the Nest, which is opening during the summer. And we've got five floors of different public exhibitions going on. Lakes is obviously famous around the world as a celebrity haunt. And there we're going to have more literary readings and conversations with great novelists. Chiswell Street is opening up as dance and theater. And our old hotel, not old hotel, but established hotel, Guest House West, we're going to make a house of comedy.

STEVENS: Turning each hotel into an art house in something Sandelson believes business travelers need.

SANDELSON: I think business travelers have seen a lot. They're sophisticated travelers. What they're looking for is something new, something at the end of the working day to take their minds off it and see perhaps a bit more of the city they're traveling in. It's fine to give them their white wine and their comfort bed and their security. What they're looking for now is something which perhaps money can't buy, an experience which will change the way they look at the world, an experience to go home and talk about at dinner parties.

STEVENS: Coming up after the break, we see how two major hotel chains have tried to make being on the road more bearable with their new boutique brands.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

STEVENS: Welcome back to CNN BUSINESS TRAVELLER, a special edition on hotels.

Every hotel wants to create the best possible experience. After all, nobody wants a lumpy mattress or a leaky tap or that scramble around in the middle of the night trying to find the light switch.

The Peninsula Group in Hong Kong has actually built a special laboratory to test new ideas and monitor the existing ones.

Now, this room tells them what's going on in each of their hotel rooms right around the world. For example, the Peninsula in Chicago, room 811, is occupied. The do-not-disturb sign is up.

Now, if you follow me around the corner and I'll show the nerve center of this laboratory. This is where the bathos (ph) are, the experts who are creating the next generation of creature comforts.

A control panel there, which is wireless, and of course for that we need software that's being written over here.

And as far as communications are concerned, the telephone. This is the latest generation of the telephone, not yet installed. But it will carry Bluetooth and Sky (ph), which means it can be used pretty much as a mobile phone. And if you want to make a call from the shower -- and let's face it, some of us do -- this panel here will allow you to do that.

So plenty of work being done at the Peninsula, but it's not the only hotel which is going to such lengths to create the perfect stay.

With the success of its W brand, Starwood is poised to launch a new chain of boutique hotels under the name of Aloft. They've seen a gap in this market, the middle ground between budget and high-end boutique.

This looks like a hotel, feels like a hotel but, in fact, it's just a mockup. Starwood wants to test everything. So here in a warehouse 45 minutes from Manhattan there are two rooms, a lobby, restaurant and bar.

BRIAN MCGUINNESS, VICE PRESIDENT, ALOFT: It allows us to test all of the furniture, fixtures and equipment that will be going into the Aloft hotels in 2008. So we have all the equipment brought in here, all of the furniture brought in here, and we bang around on it. We test it to be certain that all of the fabrics and the designs hold up in year one as well as in year five.

STEVENS: The Aloft team are committed to creating a hotel in which business travelers of the future will want to stay.

MCGUINNESS: We've designed around psychographics, people who are tech savvy, early adopters. They like the next best thing. They have a sense for design. And that's who we're targeting as our customer.

STEVENS: This mockup allows them to select the best technologies through trial and error. Standard locks on the doors are being changed so they can be opened with cell phones. Choice of soft furnishings have also been an issue.

MCGUINNESS: We're surprised at fabrics and how they don't necessarily hold up and what you need to do to actually engineer them so that they work in a commercial application as opposed to primarily residential.

STEVENS: In tune with current trends, Aloft has been generous with space in the hotel rooms, nine-foot-high ceilings and oversized windows, along with a big bathroom and walk-in shower. Guests will also have more control over their space. They'll be able to choose the room as well as the floor.

Starwood hopes to open 17 Aloft hotels by the end of 2008 and as many as 500 by 2012, and will be included in Starwood's Preferred Guest Loyalty Program.

With rates in the $150 range, Aloft will compete with other new subsidiary brands, like Cambria Suites and Hyatt Place. So to fend off the competition, the mockup will hopefully ensure Starwood gets it right when the doors of the first Aloft hotel opens in June.

Try as they might to create the best experience, a hotel laboratory can never fully iron out all the hassles of traveling, the queuing in the hotel lobby, waiting for a room key, for somebody to come and pick up your bags. It can actually take quite some time before you fully settle in your room, which is why one major hotel in London is doing what it can to keep things really simple.

Hyatt has launched a new hotel brand, Andaz. It's boutique but not as we know it. They call it casual luxury. There's no check-in desk. There's no concierge. Guests are shown straight to their rooms and checked in there, a seamless experience from airport to hotel room.

The first Andaz is here in London's business district. Formerly the Great Eastern Hotel, Andaz has already made an impact with regular guests.

AMAUD DE SAINT-EXUPERY, GENERAL MANAGER, ANDAZ: When you talk with a guest, they will tell you straight away they felt a difference in the way they are welcomed. It's not impersonal. It's very personal by the way we deliver service.

STEVENS: And that's the whole point. Andaz in Hindi means personal style.

Hyatt wants to focus on service and guest name recognition. Each member of staff is trained to deal with every request or inquiry so that a guest will never be redirected to someone else.

SAINT-EXUPERY: It's all about trying to exceed guest expectations but by adding a distinct (ph) tailor-made approach for every guest. So we give the guest a choice of being welcomed in the hotel. If a guest is very busy, he'll go straight to the room. If he's got the time then we can welcome him really, even go so far, we give him a drink.

STEVENS: Hyatt also wants to ensure that there are no surprises when it comes checking out, so there's only one rate. Everything is included.

SAINT-EXUPERY: When we did the research, we found out that a lot of business travelers were pissed off about getting a lot of extras like the Internet calls (ph). So we decided to include in the price, breakfast, laundry, mini bar, movies, Internet.

STEVENS: No matter the style or service, room rates are often a deciding factor. One night at Andaz is $700.

For a new take on pricing, we need to look at a sandwich chain founder for inspiration.

The man behind Pret a Manger, Sinclair Beecham, has launched the Hoxton, a budget boutique hotel with a unique pricing system. Rooms start at $120, up to a ceiling of $380. But every three months, rooms are sold for as little as $2 online. That's about the price of a Pret sandwich.

MASSEY: The most important thing is that the people buying them were not and are not what I thought, which were backpackers. Far from it. They are merchant bankers. They are lawyers. They are businessmen. They are hedge fund. They're people for whom a deal is too good to lose.

STEVENS: The last sale was in April. There were half a million hits in 19 minutes.

MASSEY: And I think the people like Sinclair Beecham are ahead of the game, who continue looking at ways, what do we do next, knowing that within a year or two years, the others are going to follow.

STEVENS: There's a whole host of new hotels that suit all business travelers and all sorts of budgets, all part of the ongoing drive to make being on the road more bearable.

When we come back, the return of an icon. We go behind the scenes of the Plaza Hotel in New York. And discovering Hong Kong from "Sunrise to Sunset."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

STEVENS: High tea at the Peninsula -- it's a must do for the well- heeled traveler coming to Hong Kong. And that's because places like this offer an increasingly rare glimpse into Hong Kong's colonial past, a time when the sun hadn't set on the empire. Essentially, nothing really has changed here for the past 80 years.

For venerable old hotels like the Peninsula, keeping tradition alive is a key part of their success. And that's why New York's Plaza on 5th Avenue closed its doors for a revamp for two years, to keep the spirit of the place intact.

SHAN KRIGE, MD, THE PLAZA: At the apple of New York's eye, there's expectations from everybody around the world, from New York City and from the staff as well. So there's no pressure involved, but the stakes are very high. But that's what gets you up every morning and pushes you to do the best that you can.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We can get this polished, please. Nice and beautiful. (Inaudible). Thank you.

ESTHER REENDERS, DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS, THE PLAZA: It's a fine balance between guest experience and making sure the hotel is fully functioning at 100 percent.

Today, we're again a full house. A lot of guests will probably attend the function and try to stay as long as they can in their rooms, so please work very carefully with housekeeping and front desk and make sure whatever they need.

KRIGE: Before, we were 805 rooms. Now, we're 282 rooms. So it's definitely a different positioning. So the challenges are obviously in the staffing. You know, you've got to find the best people out there to deliver the experience. Really just letting everybody know that we're back, we're the icon of New York. We have fantastic rooms and it's a new five-star experience.

We have definitely the high-end leisure travel that's coming from Europe, Asia, from the United States. It's the traveler that's looking for that extra five-star experience. And also the business travelers, we're looking at the CEOs of companies that will want to come to the hotel to do business in New York and make the multimillion dollar deal.

We really need to focus on the personalized service and that's what we're about with the new Plaza. The smaller guest room, count butlers on every single floor, gold-plated fixtures in all of the rooms -- so really, we want to know you as a guest.

You know you've got the best of all worlds. You've got the Oak Bar Restaurant. You've got the Palm Court that exudes the old-world history of the Plaza. You've got the new -- the movers and shakers of New York are going to come up to the Rose Club and sit there and make their million- dollar deals. Or you can sit down here in the Champagne Bar and sip on the finest champagne that is available.

What I love about our hotel is it has the sense of history, the 100 years. But it's poised through this $400 million to be ready for the next 100 years with brand new plumping, heating. And it's an icon of New York.

STEVENS: This area is known as the Grand Street Market in central Hong Kong. It's a place where you can get a little more of the traditional slice of the sights and sounds of this bustling city. When you're traveling on business, it is important to get out of your hotel room and to actually do a little bit of exploring.

We'll Hong Kong's socialite and business woman, Preveen Crawford, gives us her ideas now on what she does between "Sunrise and Sunset."

PREVEEN CRAWFORD, SOCIALITE AND BUSINESS WOMAN: People think that Hong Kong is a concrete jungle, but outside Hong Kong Island and the main city area, there's a lot of greenery. You'd be surprised, but this is a hidden paradise.

Well, here we are. We are the Ponto Oh (ph) Village near Key Water (ph) Bay (ph). Not many people know about this place. And it has got the freshest seafood you can find in Hong Kong.

We can actually take out own seafood and have the chef cook the way we like it.

Besides having a beautiful scenery, there's also hiking tracks for people who like to hike. So you can kill two birds with one stone, go hiking, get hungry, come on down and have your lunch or dinner.

My brother, my sister-in-law and my nephew.

This is the old Hong Kong. Actually, the whole of Hong Kong was like this before they changed it to skyscrapers and neon lights and bars.

I think we will -- we will have it deep fried, fried probably. All right, they're ours. We're going to eat them.

OK, this is a live sea urchin. And once they open it up, it is just a little messy, yellow, eggroll thing. And the Chinese love to scoop it out and make omelets out of it. So we will be trying that later.

Dig in.

Well, Gouta (ph) Old Village is a great place to go during the day. But at night, we've got to go somewhere else. We've got to go back to where the action is.

My favorite place is the China Club. They serve great Chinese food and the art and decoration in the club is magnificent.

So this is the terrace of the China Club building. And look at this whole scenery behind me. We are right in the center of Central in Hong Kong. It is definitely one of my favorite places.

Everybody that comes here, including friends and clients, we always bring them here. This is one of the places that I will always introduce to my clients and friends.

STEVENS: And if you've only got time for just one thing in Hong Kong, well, maybe it should be this, a trip on the famed Victoria Harbor.

Well, that's it for this edition of CNN BUSINESS TRAVELLER. I'm Andrew Stevens reporting from Hong Kong. We'll see you next month.






ANDREW STEVENS, CNN GUEST HOST: Hello, and welcome to the show. I'm Andrew Stephens.

New York, London and here in Hong Kong have all got one thing in common. They're the hubs that connect the global economy. So much so, there's a new phrase that's been coined. It's called ni lon kon (ph). Any big company will have some sort of presence here. So if you're traveling on business, the odds are you're going to be staying in a hotel in one of these cities. So on this month's program we're going to be getting to grips with the changing face of the hotel industry.

Coming up, we go behind the scenes of Starwood's hotel lab in New York, the Great Eastern promise, the major hotel brands going boutique in London, and exploring the hidden gems of Hong Kong from "Sunrise to Sunset."

In the past, business travelers were interested in pretty much three things -- a comfortable bed, a decent shower and of course a good breakfast. Nowadays though, our traveling lives have become more complicated. We're working longer. We're working harder. And we're spending more time on the road. So when we do get some time to ourselves, we want more than just the basics.

In New York, London and Hong Kong, hotels are now competing to offer their guests a unique experience. And even the old dogs are up for learning new tricks.

John Maynard Keynes had the right idea, innovate or parish. And that's what drives the hotel industry, keeping up with and fending off competition, continually introducing new ideas. It's all about efficiency and experience, service and substance.

IAN SCHRAGER, HOTEL ENTREPRENEUR: Microsoft comes out with Words one, Words two. Things evolve, telephones, cars. Why shouldn't hotels continue to evolve like every other industry as well? When they have a boutique hotel operator around the corner that gets $100 more in rates than they get in their property, they're asking themselves, well, what is going on.

Somebody from International Hilton told me that many, many years ago, who owned the Waldorf, which is a spectacular hotel in London with spectacular public faces in London, in a good area. And a couple of blocks away, number one Aldridge (ph) gets 100 to 200 pounds more in average daily rate. So they ask themselves why is that. So they're all trying to figure this out with the great restaurants, the great bars, the happening lobby, the visually arresting hotel rooms. It's become the rule now.

I actually think -- you know, I could talk about this forever. It's the future of the business.

STEVENS: And Marriott International is taking heed. Teaming up with Ian Schrager himself to launch Addition, its first boutique brand later this year

BILL MARRIOTT, JR, CHAIRMAN, MARRIOTT INTERNATIONAL: We wanted to get into that space. We didn't feel we had the talent within our own company to do it. We have the operating talent and know how, the engineering talent and know how. And he has an incratic (ph) creative design side, P.R. side in terms of getting the buzz and getting the action and that type of thing. And we think although we're different people and have different backgrounds, we think it's going to work very well.

STEVENS: Marriott has the experience and now the guidance from the man behind Studio 54 to tap into a sector that's too good to miss out on.

MARRIOTT: To young people, it's lifestyle. It's different. It's exciting. It's people who like the bar scene. It's people who want a different experience in hotel stays. And they're all very popular. They're running very high occupancies and very strong in rates.

STEVENS: Going boutique may be a money maker if executed well. There's a danger of trying too hard to be all things to all people. Chain and boutique -- can hotels really be both?

NIGEL MASSEY, CEO, THE MASSEY PARTNERSHIPS: Never. The chain hotel has a personality now. You've got two types of chains. You've got what I call the bland, impersonal chains -- I'm not knocking them -- with big international names. But they are and will forever be locked in on a name. And all the imagery of the name can sadly be a little colorless.

But you have an individual hotel, a boutique hotel. It has the added advantage originally of being what I used to call a born-again building provided it's edgy, provided you have the right product.

STEVENS: Hotels that already know they have a good product aren't feeling the pressure to enter this market.

The managing director of the Intercontinental in Hong Kong does not see boutique hotels as a threat.

JEAN-JACQUES REIBET, MD, INTERCONTINENTAL HONG KONG: Well, I think it's good to have these boutique hotels. But I don't think that the customers coming to our hotel will patronize and will go to the boutique hotel. It's a different type of products and different clienteles. I mean, a boutique hotel certainly cannot offer what we offer, the variety of five restaurants with famous names like Nobu and Jicas (ph). And our experience, truly global. I mean, it's typical Intercontinental.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Welcome to the presidential suite.

STEVENS: Even so, the Intercon has spent $70 million renovating its flagship hotel in Hong Kong over the past seven years. It's clear that there's still a need to keep ahead of the curve.

How do you find out what your competition is doing? Do you send people down there undercover?

REIBET: Yes, we do. We do. I think I would be naive if I was going to ignore the competition. In order to be better, I need to know and I have to know what my competitions are doing and their latest projects and their latest innovation, you know, to watch and do even better. You know, that's the secret of it.

You cannot -- you cannot be too pretentious and think that you're always the best, you know. And it's all about consistency. It's all about giving the service, you know, to your customers 365 days a year.

STEVENS: In Hong Kong there's another hotel that knows all about service and delivery. Celebrating its 80th anniversary, the Peninsula continues to attract guests for afternoon tea. But the hotel insists this heritage is only part of its success.

RAINY CHAN, GM, THE PENINSULA: We are the oldest hotel in Hong Kong. But we're also probably one of the most innovative, creative in terms of technology for the city. So these are what our travelers look for. They want traditional services. We have a great heritage. But we also have the technology. And that all takes time, planning and obviously investment. It is very, very important that we keep updating and keep up the needs of our travelers.

STEVENS: One need that has increasingly become a trend is extending business trips for a bit of down time to make the most of the cities we're in.

CHAN: Our business travelers don't want to just come for work anymore. Especially when you travel over a long distance, you want to take home something that's more than a good business meeting. A bit of culture and a bit of relation, it all presents itself to stay a couple of days extra.

STEVENS: The reality is not all of us can extend our stays. In London however, no matter how pressed for time we are, the boutique hotel chain Guestinvest is determined to bring the culture to us.

JOHNNY SANDELSON, CEO, GUESTINVEST: We've got entertainment here in the Nest, which is opening during the summer. And we've got five floors of different public exhibitions going on. Lakes is obviously famous around the world as a celebrity haunt. And there we're going to have more literary readings and conversations with great novelists. Chiswell Street is opening up as dance and theater. And our old hotel, not old hotel, but established hotel, Guest House West, we're going to make a house of comedy.

STEVENS: Turning each hotel into an art house in something Sandelson believes business travelers need.

SANDELSON: I think business travelers have seen a lot. They're sophisticated travelers. What they're looking for is something new, something at the end of the working day to take their minds off it and see perhaps a bit more of the city they're traveling in. It's fine to give them their white wine and their comfort bed and their security. What they're looking for now is something which perhaps money can't buy, an experience which will change the way they look at the world, an experience to go home and talk about at dinner parties.

STEVENS: Coming up after the break, we see how two major hotel chains have tried to make being on the road more bearable with their new boutique brands.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

STEVENS: Welcome back to CNN BUSINESS TRAVELLER, a special edition on hotels.

Every hotel wants to create the best possible experience. After all, nobody wants a lumpy mattress or a leaky tap or that scramble around in the middle of the night trying to find the light switch.

The Peninsula Group in Hong Kong has actually built a special laboratory to test new ideas and monitor the existing ones.

Now, this room tells them what's going on in each of their hotel rooms right around the world. For example, the Peninsula in Chicago, room 811, is occupied. The do-not-disturb sign is up.

Now, if you follow me around the corner and I'll show the nerve center of this laboratory. This is where the bathos (ph) are, the experts who are creating the next generation of creature comforts.

A control panel there, which is wireless, and of course for that we need software that's being written over here.

And as far as communications are concerned, the telephone. This is the latest generation of the telephone, not yet installed. But it will carry Bluetooth and Sky (ph), which means it can be used pretty much as a mobile phone. And if you want to make a call from the shower -- and let's face it, some of us do -- this panel here will allow you to do that.

So plenty of work being done at the Peninsula, but it's not the only hotel which is going to such lengths to create the perfect stay.

With the success of its W brand, Starwood is poised to launch a new chain of boutique hotels under the name of Aloft. They've seen a gap in this market, the middle ground between budget and high-end boutique.

This looks like a hotel, feels like a hotel but, in fact, it's just a mockup. Starwood wants to test everything. So here in a warehouse 45 minutes from Manhattan there are two rooms, a lobby, restaurant and bar.

BRIAN MCGUINNESS, VICE PRESIDENT, ALOFT: It allows us to test all of the furniture, fixtures and equipment that will be going into the Aloft hotels in 2008. So we have all the equipment brought in here, all of the furniture brought in here, and we bang around on it. We test it to be certain that all of the fabrics and the designs hold up in year one as well as in year five.

STEVENS: The Aloft team are committed to creating a hotel in which business travelers of the future will want to stay.

MCGUINNESS: We've designed around psychographics, people who are tech savvy, early adopters. They like the next best thing. They have a sense for design. And that's who we're targeting as our customer.

STEVENS: This mockup allows them to select the best technologies through trial and error. Standard locks on the doors are being changed so they can be opened with cell phones. Choice of soft furnishings have also been an issue.

MCGUINNESS: We're surprised at fabrics and how they don't necessarily hold up and what you need to do to actually engineer them so that they work in a commercial application as opposed to primarily residential.

STEVENS: In tune with current trends, Aloft has been generous with space in the hotel rooms, nine-foot-high ceilings and oversized windows, along with a big bathroom and walk-in shower. Guests will also have more control over their space. They'll be able to choose the room as well as the floor.

Starwood hopes to open 17 Aloft hotels by the end of 2008 and as many as 500 by 2012, and will be included in Starwood's Preferred Guest Loyalty Program.

With rates in the $150 range, Aloft will compete with other new subsidiary brands, like Cambria Suites and Hyatt Place. So to fend off the competition, the mockup will hopefully ensure Starwood gets it right when the doors of the first Aloft hotel opens in June.

Try as they might to create the best experience, a hotel laboratory can never fully iron out all the hassles of traveling, the queuing in the hotel lobby, waiting for a room key, for somebody to come and pick up your bags. It can actually take quite some time before you fully settle in your room, which is why one major hotel in London is doing what it can to keep things really simple.

Hyatt has launched a new hotel brand, Andaz. It's boutique but not as we know it. They call it casual luxury. There's no check-in desk. There's no concierge. Guests are shown straight to their rooms and checked in there, a seamless experience from airport to hotel room.

The first Andaz is here in London's business district. Formerly the Great Eastern Hotel, Andaz has already made an impact with regular guests.

AMAUD DE SAINT-EXUPERY, GENERAL MANAGER, ANDAZ: When you talk with a guest, they will tell you straight away they felt a difference in the way they are welcomed. It's not impersonal. It's very personal by the way we deliver service.

STEVENS: And that's the whole point. Andaz in Hindi means personal style.

Hyatt wants to focus on service and guest name recognition. Each member of staff is trained to deal with every request or inquiry so that a guest will never be redirected to someone else.

SAINT-EXUPERY: It's all about trying to exceed guest expectations but by adding a distinct (ph) tailor-made approach for every guest. So we give the guest a choice of being welcomed in the hotel. If a guest is very busy, he'll go straight to the room. If he's got the time then we can welcome him really, even go so far, we give him a drink.

STEVENS: Hyatt also wants to ensure that there are no surprises when it comes checking out, so there's only one rate. Everything is included.

SAINT-EXUPERY: When we did the research, we found out that a lot of business travelers were pissed off about getting a lot of extras like the Internet calls (ph). So we decided to include in the price, breakfast, laundry, mini bar, movies, Internet.

STEVENS: No matter the style or service, room rates are often a deciding factor. One night at Andaz is $700.

For a new take on pricing, we need to look at a sandwich chain founder for inspiration.

The man behind Pret a Manger, Sinclair Beecham, has launched the Hoxton, a budget boutique hotel with a unique pricing system. Rooms start at $120, up to a ceiling of $380. But every three months, rooms are sold for as little as $2 online. That's about the price of a Pret sandwich.

MASSEY: The most important thing is that the people buying them were not and are not what I thought, which were backpackers. Far from it. They are merchant bankers. They are lawyers. They are businessmen. They are hedge fund. They're people for whom a deal is too good to lose.

STEVENS: The last sale was in April. There were half a million hits in 19 minutes.

MASSEY: And I think the people like Sinclair Beecham are ahead of the game, who continue looking at ways, what do we do next, knowing that within a year or two years, the others are going to follow.

STEVENS: There's a whole host of new hotels that suit all business travelers and all sorts of budgets, all part of the ongoing drive to make being on the road more bearable.

When we come back, the return of an icon. We go behind the scenes of the Plaza Hotel in New York. And discovering Hong Kong from "Sunrise to Sunset."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

STEVENS: High tea at the Peninsula -- it's a must do for the well- heeled traveler coming to Hong Kong. And that's because places like this offer an increasingly rare glimpse into Hong Kong's colonial past, a time when the sun hadn't set on the empire. Essentially, nothing really has changed here for the past 80 years.

For venerable old hotels like the Peninsula, keeping tradition alive is a key part of their success. And that's why New York's Plaza on 5th Avenue closed its doors for a revamp for two years, to keep the spirit of the place intact.

SHAN KRIGE, MD, THE PLAZA: At the apple of New York's eye, there's expectations from everybody around the world, from New York City and from the staff as well. So there's no pressure involved, but the stakes are very high. But that's what gets you up every morning and pushes you to do the best that you can.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We can get this polished, please. Nice and beautiful. (Inaudible). Thank you.

ESTHER REENDERS, DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS, THE PLAZA: It's a fine balance between guest experience and making sure the hotel is fully functioning at 100 percent.

Today, we're again a full house. A lot of guests will probably attend the function and try to stay as long as they can in their rooms, so please work very carefully with housekeeping and front desk and make sure whatever they need.

KRIGE: Before, we were 805 rooms. Now, we're 282 rooms. So it's definitely a different positioning. So the challenges are obviously in the staffing. You know, you've got to find the best people out there to deliver the experience. Really just letting everybody know that we're back, we're the icon of New York. We have fantastic rooms and it's a new five-star experience.

We have definitely the high-end leisure travel that's coming from Europe, Asia, from the United States. It's the traveler that's looking for that extra five-star experience. And also the business travelers, we're looking at the CEOs of companies that will want to come to the hotel to do business in New York and make the multimillion dollar deal.

We really need to focus on the personalized service and that's what we're about with the new Plaza. The smaller guest room, count butlers on every single floor, gold-plated fixtures in all of the rooms -- so really, we want to know you as a guest.

You know you've got the best of all worlds. You've got the Oak Bar Restaurant. You've got the Palm Court that exudes the old-world history of the Plaza. You've got the new -- the movers and shakers of New York are going to come up to the Rose Club and sit there and make their million- dollar deals. Or you can sit down here in the Champagne Bar and sip on the finest champagne that is available.

What I love about our hotel is it has the sense of history, the 100 years. But it's poised through this $400 million to be ready for the next 100 years with brand new plumping, heating. And it's an icon of New York.

STEVENS: This area is known as the Grand Street Market in central Hong Kong. It's a place where you can get a little more of the traditional slice of the sights and sounds of this bustling city. When you're traveling on business, it is important to get out of your hotel room and to actually do a little bit of exploring.

We'll Hong Kong's socialite and business woman, Preveen Crawford, gives us her ideas now on what she does between "Sunrise and Sunset."

PREVEEN CRAWFORD, SOCIALITE AND BUSINESS WOMAN: People think that Hong Kong is a concrete jungle, but outside Hong Kong Island and the main city area, there's a lot of greenery. You'd be surprised, but this is a hidden paradise.

Well, here we are. We are the Ponto Oh (ph) Village near Key Water (ph) Bay (ph). Not many people know about this place. And it has got the freshest seafood you can find in Hong Kong.

We can actually take out own seafood and have the chef cook the way we like it.

Besides having a beautiful scenery, there's also hiking tracks for people who like to hike. So you can kill two birds with one stone, go hiking, get hungry, come on down and have your lunch or dinner.

My brother, my sister-in-law and my nephew.

This is the old Hong Kong. Actually, the whole of Hong Kong was like this before they changed it to skyscrapers and neon lights and bars.

I think we will -- we will have it deep fried, fried probably. All right, they're ours. We're going to eat them.

OK, this is a live sea urchin. And once they open it up, it is just a little messy, yellow, eggroll thing. And the Chinese love to scoop it out and make omelets out of it. So we will be trying that later.

Dig in.

Well, Gouta (ph) Old Village is a great place to go during the day. But at night, we've got to go somewhere else. We've got to go back to where the action is.

My favorite place is the China Club. They serve great Chinese food and the art and decoration in the club is magnificent.

So this is the terrace of the China Club building. And look at this whole scenery behind me. We are right in the center of Central in Hong Kong. It is definitely one of my favorite places.

Everybody that comes here, including friends and clients, we always bring them here. This is one of the places that I will always introduce to my clients and friends.

STEVENS: And if you've only got time for just one thing in Hong Kong, well, maybe it should be this, a trip on the famed Victoria Harbor.

Well, that's it for this edition of CNN BUSINESS TRAVELLER. I'm Andrew Stevens reporting from Hong Kong. We'll see you next month.

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