Condo Hotels

For prospective owners to be enticed to buy into condotels, PRCs or DCs, the developers and managers have to deliver experience, not just four walls. As with any effective marketing, it is the sizzle that sells, not the steak.

The sizzle is not really the marble baths with gold-plated fixtures, as these kind of amenities are almost the baseline of expectation. The sizzle includes the spa, restaurants, gym on or off-site, the theaters, etc. But even these are also part of the basic expectation.

What owners want more than anything else is to be pampered. They want to be wowed inside and outside their suites.

Owners paying $300,000 for a unit have different expectations from those paying $25 million.

The majority of condotels lie in the 4-star to 4.5-star service range, and so developers, managers and owners are happy to provide and pay for maid and concierge services.

Five-star facilities, however, require butler service for those who have made the connection between pampering and butlers. Concierges pamper and offer marvelous service, but they are limited to front-of-house activities. They rarely do anything in guest or owner units short of delivering items or perhaps taking care of emergencies for absentee owners.

If you are planning or already working on a four-to-five-star service, feel free to contact the Institute to ask about assistance in creating a concierge service and/or butler service.

The Institute offers everything from a turnkey service — finding the personnel, establishing the service, and managing it — to itemized options such as training existing personnel.

For more information please read the following articles by the Chairman:

The Institute is a Founding Member of the International Luxury Hotel Association.