In the rarefied world of luxury hotels, there is one member of staff who, perhaps more than any other, holds the keys, literally, to guests’ happiness – and thereby the reputation of the entire hotel – in their hands.
It’s not the housekeeper who changes the 1,500-thread Egyptian cotton sheets on your bed each morning, nor is it the Michelin-starred chef who oversees the preparation of your 12-course tasting menu for dinner.
It’s not even the suave general manager who learnt the delicate art of VIP pampering at the world-famous École Hôtelière de Lausanne in Switzerland. It is, in fact, that rather enigmatic looking individual stood behind a polished wood desk in the corner of the lobby, often hidden somewhere discreetly between reception and the lifts.
The concierge – elite examples of which may be identified by a pair of golden keys pinned to the lapels of their immaculately-pressed tailcoats (signifying membership of Les Clefs d’Or, the profession’s international body) – acts as local expert, offering their wealth of knowledge and on-the-ground connections as a complimentary service.
In the world’s finest hotels, they have been known to move heaven and earth in order to assure the satisfaction of high-paying, high-profile and, sometimes, high-maintenance, guests.
From staging wedding proposals in the Dubai desert with engagement rings delivered by falcon (Burj Al Arab) to filling a guest’s bath with water from Brighton beach so they could take a ‘seaside’ dip without leaving London (The Ritz), nothing is too much trouble.
Meaning ‘keeper of the keys’ and dating back to medieval times where their predecessors looked after the castles of European nobility, the modern concierge’s list of duties is so much more expansive, and esoteric, than in days of yore.
Part city guide, part ‘best pal’, part psychologist and part, on occasion, provider of access to a world of luxurious possibilities that not even the most ‘in the know’ local could ever hope to attain.
(Les Clefs d’Or code of conduct, however, does forbid them accepting requests that are “illegal, unethical or immoral”).
But with the bulk of their work traditionally involving more mundane tasks such as arranging transport, obtaining theatre tickets, and recommending and securing restaurant reservations, theirs is a role which, you might have thought, is under threat from the ever-advancing march of AI.
There are, after all, a whole host of smartphone apps and digital services all clamouring to hail you a ride, find you the best Korean BBQ in town or get you front-row seats for Harry Potter.
And there can only be so many guests with needs so extravagant as to require a real life ‘Gustave H’, the fictional concierge played by Ralph Fiennes in Wes Anderson’s, The Grand Budapest Hotel.
Sonia Vella is the head concierge of The Peninsula London, a five-star hotel in the British capital’s swanky Belgravia district
Not so, says Sonia Vella, the head concierge of The Peninsula London, a five-star hotel in the British capital’s swanky Belgravia district. Sonia has nine concierges in her team, including one, David, who is a former London black cab driver and has therefore done ‘the knowledge’, a rigorous test that entails knowing every single street within a six-mile radius of Charing Cross.
“We come into play when the guest cannot get what they want elsewhere; for instance, from digital sources,” she explains. “Our guests are not after a transactional relationship.
What they are really trying to find is a local friend. You know how when you visit another city, it’s always best if you know someone who lives there. That’s ultimately what [our guests] are after.
There’s an overload of information and possibilities (on the internet) and people are starting to have uncertainties about what’s real and what’s not. So we’re having guests come up to the desk with the suggestions they’ve got from ChatGPT or wherever, and they’re asking us to fact-check them.
And many times we’ve had to correct them, and the guests have come back and told us that our recommendation was right – whether that be for a restaurant or shopping district – and that the suggestion they got from the internet was totally wrong.”
Sometimes that local friend is also something of a local celebrity.
Harry Hollywood is the head concierge at the Four Seasons Toronto where the now-worldwide chain originally helped pioneer the modern luxury hotel concept.
An ex-model with the looks and charm to match his name, Harry is often asked to accompany guests on walks around the upscale Yorkville district which surrounds the hotel, pointing out the best designer boutiques to shop at (Harry knows all the owners and can make introductions that often lead to discounts) and restaurants to eat at (a flash of his smile can secure even the most hard-to-get table).
Harry’s connections are more than just skin deep, however, and they come, he says, from approaching the role of concierge as a lifestyle, not just a job.
“Luxury isn’t a product, it’s a feeling,” he says.
“So a day in my life would be putting in a full day’s work here at the hotel, and then afterwards I would go and check out a new restaurant or attraction, just to establish connections with them.
I do that because if a guest wanted to go to any one of the 17 Michelin-starred restaurants in Toronto tonight, they’d probably use an app or AI, and they’d find that there’s nothing available.
Since the Michelin Guide came to Canada in 2022 (the Four Seasons’ own restaurant, Café Boulud, is in it) there can be up to a three-month waiting list for some of them, and frequent travellers don’t tend to plan that far in advance.
With digital that’s where it would stop. With me, I’d know the manager and with a simple call or text message, I’d be able to get them a table for the night.”
For some guests, getting the dinner they want can involve Harry making more complex arrangements:
“We had a high-spending guest who was trying to impress his girlfriend, and he wanted to show her his favourite hotdog from Cleveland where he was from. So he called me and said ‘I need to get to Cleveland immediately’. I thought he just wanted me to book him on the next flight out but no, he wanted me to hire him a private jet so that he could fly to Cleveland and back that night. I have connections so I managed to get him a jet on the runway within two hours flat, and the guests got their very expensive hotdog.”
The allure – not to mention convenience – of having access to a concierge who can arrange practically anything for you at any time of day can be rather addictive.
What to many might seem like a decadent luxury can, to some extremely cash-rich but time-poor individuals, become an indispensable necessity.
To serve them, a new kind of service has emerged over the last 25 years, based on the traditional hotel concierge but leveraging the technology of the internet age yet without using it to replace the human touch.
Harry Hollywood is the head concierge at the Four Seasons Toronto where the now-worldwide chain originally helped pioneer the modern luxury hotel concept
The pioneers of this sector are Quintessentially who have been offering 24/7 concierge facilities to their members since 2000.
Headquartered in London, they have over 40 offices all over the world from which 200 concierges – or, as Quintessentially refers to them, lifestyle managers – attend to the needs of their 10,000+ clients.
Though communication is mainly electronic or phone-based, clients are allocated their own dedicated lifestyle manager and encouraged to meet with them at exclusive events organised by the company. It is this hybrid style of service that is just one of the differences between them and the raft of newer, app-only services.
“There’s always going to be the need for that one-to-one personal relationship,” explains Lucy Telling, Quintessentially’s global head of lifestyle services.
“The tech and AI is there to support our lifestyle managers so that we can harmonise with them, truly understand trends and better predict what our members might be up to so that we can offer them a better service.”
That service – which costs from £7,500 to over £50,000 per year (plus joining fee) – can, as with their hotel-based counterparts, cater to the more outlandish requests, Lucy reveals.
“We’ve closed off sections of the Great Wall of China for an intimate dinner and arranged private tours of the Oval Office. Another member wanted to join in the training session of a famous Premiership football club so we sorted that along with a photo of them in the dressing room with the team.”
These definitely aren’t experiences that a smartphone, or even AI, is likely to be able to easily source in the near future.
So, hopefully, it’s fairly certain that the Sonias, Harrys, Quintessentiallys, and Gustave H’s of this world will continue to do the job they love, pampering their lucky guests in time honoured fashion.
To quote Mahatma Gandhi (even though the post-colonial Indian nationalist, famous for his ascetic lifestyle, probably wasn’t thinking of five-star hotel staff when he said it): “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others”. And as of yet, thank goodness, there’s still no app for that
