Vancouver Boutique Hotel - St. Regis Hotel - Blog

We recently celebrated the reopening of the St. Regis by hosting a reception for our friends in the Vancouver media. The “Resolution Keeper” reception was held in the St. Regis Room downstairs in the Hotel and we were pleased to be joined by a large number of guests, excited to see the new face of the St. Regis Hotel.

We were even more pleased that the verdict of the attendees was unanimously positive about the new St. Regis! They loved the gorgeous, redesigned rooms and were completely impressed by the sophisticated boutique feel which has been created by Elaine Thorsell throughout the hotel. In particular, they commented on the original artwork which has been installed in all the rooms and public spaces and left buzzing about the St. Regis.

One of the great things about the evening was having the chance to discuss our boutique, all-inclusive pricing concept with our guests. The St. Regis Hotel has taken the unusual step of including a full range of amenities in services such as free internet, local phone calls and faxes, complimentary bottled water and a full breakfast in every room rate.

Along with touring the hotel, the evening’s guests had the chance to tour our fitness partner, the Steve Nash Sports Club—St. Regis Hotel guests get exclusive access to Vancouver’s outstanding fitness facility. At the party, they were also able to sample products and get information from a number of event partners like Sleeman, Prairie Organic Vodka, Painted Turtle Wine, Sugoi Performance Apparel, Sequel Naturals and Public Myth Yoga wear. In addition, two of our favourite charities, Right to Play and Cyclebetes, were on hand to talk about their upcoming projects.

Thanks to all our guests and event partners for helping us celebrate our reopening with a great night. 



February 11th, 2009

As if we don’t have enough on our plate already, we now have a restaurant and all the headaches that come with it. Half way through January, we decided that it would be in the best interests of the hotel guests if we took over the adjacent restaurant. Although my food and beverage background will be very useful, the thought of having to hire, a chef, cooks, managers, etc. will not take away from the reality that, in the meantime, I will have to be a waiter and some days also the backup cook.

I know that our hotel guests will not want to hear any excuses about the lack of breakfast or service. We’re here to live up to the expectations that we have marketed to our guests, and as a full breakfast is included in the hotel’s rate, we must provide the service no matter what it takes. For now, it means having our breakfast room ready for 6:30 am daily.

I’ve had a week of serving breakfast, it’s been a great way to chat with our guests, it’s amazing what you can learn. Here’s an example. One of the environmentally friendly features in our hotel that we’re particularly proud of is the master electrical switch at the entrance to each room. This switch controls the entire system. It turns everything off in the room with the exception of the outlets so that we don’t upset guests who are charging their electrical devices. One morning, while running around trying to provide breakfast for our guests, I was asked,“ Did you know that my bathroom light doesn’t work?” I answered that we do inspect every room before arrival and apologized for the inconvenience. While our guest was having lunch, maintenance discovered that the master switches were not turned on. In other words, if you get up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom and the master is not on, the bathroom light will not work. Of course, it’s very inconvenient for the guest. So what do you do with this new discovery?

I asked Dave, our engineer, to get a quote for re-connecting all of the electrical systems in the bathrooms, not what I had in mind after spending $11 million on renovating 65 rooms. You’d think that when you have the top consultants in the industry they would think of something like this. My past experience once again proves correct —complete one room before you make any final decisions, sleep in it, live in it, and then make your final decisions based on that.

I just remembered our first guest issue. It was a malfunctioning safe, “my safety deposit box is not working.” “Please press clear, enter the four digits of choice and press lock,” was our response. As you say it, you hear the guest thinking, “do they think I am stupid and don’t know how to operate a safety deposit box?” Later, we discovered that the safe was truly not working. Well, I looked a little harder and, I will never forget this, in the inside of the safe door there is a small plastic tab that needed to be removed to activate the safe. I sent an apology note to the guest with a box of our St. Regis chocolates.

Now, I realize that I probably have a whole hotel full of safes that need to be activated. What to do? I go into every room and end up with my pockets full of plastic tabs. Here’s what happened. At numerous construction meetings I was assured—by the expert consultants—that they had been tested and in working order. Lesson learned, don’t trust anyone, you must physically check every single detail yourself and from then on we did.

Oh, I have another one that’s quite funny, although our guest may not have the same opinion. The St. Regis is fortunate to have beautiful, secure underground parking in the new Hudson tower right next door. The day before we opened, I asked Dave about how the guests would enter the underground garage. “It’s easy, when they arrive at the front door, we take their luggage, issue them a special electronic parking pass and they are on their way.” Our first “parking” guests were given the specific instructions. I followed them to make sure that they were OK but immediately noticed that they were attempting to back out of the exit via the exit ramp. Because the pass would not give them access, I came to the rescue. Back to Dave, “how could this happen?” Dave goes to get the passes all redone and quickly brings them to the front desk. Fortunately, Dave decides to play hotel guest with every card. Guess what, they still didn’t work. Rest assured we now have a very functional parking system.

In the next blog I will probably have a few other engineering issues, until then, let’s deal with a full hotel. Thanks for your interest in the NEW St. Regis Hotel. OBW, check out our new Resolution Keeper package.



February 4th, 2009

Jeremy Roncoroni is quite simply the definition of a gracious host. Impeccably hospitable in multiple languages, he has worked across the World in elite hotels. When we talked about the opening of the hotel and the months of delays which seem to be an inevitable part of every construction project in a market like Vancouver, it was easy to see the drive which helps him set and maintain such high standards for guest service.

"We were originally scheduled to finish the renovations and reopen in May. Given that summer is far and away Vancouver's busiest time for hotels and tourism, we took bookings for the summer and as the opening date arrived and there was no way the hotel would be ready to reopen, we went into rebooking mode. For a hotelier, there is almost nothing worse than a rebooking. Not only do you have to call around and find rooms for the guests, you then have to give up the revenue and also pay any difference in the room charges.

This went on all summer for us and it was a constant torment--in the end, the additional costs caused by the delays were in the neighbourhood of $50,000.

When we set a new official reopening day of December 1, I was determined that this would not slip and I pushed the contractors on a daily basis to make sure that we were on track. At least once a week, someone would raise the possibility of pushing the date back and my answer was always a clear and definitive "not a chance".

The final rush to have the rooms ready was one I would rather not repeat soon. It's not as though getting a room guest-ready is simply a matter of putting all the furnishings in the room and being done with it. Every aspect of every room has to be checked. First there is the furniture, linen and equipment list–just making sure that everything is in the room and is correctly positioned. Then there is hours more work to make sure that everything works properly: lamps, electrical outlets, taps, TVs, internet connections, drawers and closet doors. Everything.

In the end, though, I am proud of the whole team as we managed to open two days early and welcomed our first guests on November 29th instead of December 1st. It was a real achievement and I am proud of the efforts put in to make it possible."