Expensive hotels are still opening in London

In contrast of the closing of a boutique hotel in Manchester, London sees later next month the opening of a new small 30 rooms chic hotel in the heart of Soho. The Sanctum Soho Hotel also provides private cinema, open air spa on the roof garden, a restaurant and a private bar open to residents only.

The hotel has been built with an investment of around £10M with the supervision of the designer Lesley Purcell of Can Do interior design company. This is the second hotel of the Concept Venues Group created by the chef Garry Hollihead and Mark Fuller who owns the Embassy members club in London.

About the hotel, it plays a subtle mix between sobriety and silver shiny theme. Different rooms types are available from Crash Pads (small 13sqm room), Superior Double (25sqm), Deluxe Double (32sqm) and 3 types of suites.

The hotel has already worked out their distribution partner. They decided to choose the growing Design Hotels representation company that fits well with the hotel standards.

Their website is not the best I have seen for hotels like these. It lacks of innovation and doesn't invite enough to discover the hotel. Besides some kind of diaporama on the homepage, you don't have much information about the hotel. In terms of visuals, it lacks pictures on some room types like the Crash Pad (for visitors who has a limited budget).

The booking engine is powered by Synxis (another company getting bigger and bigger every year) and announced rates starting at £175 for a Crash Pad or £210 for a Superior Double room for a Friday night stay in June 09.

The questions is if London needs another boutique hotel. Can it survives the crisis we are living in today? Do you really want to stay in Soho on your visit in London? The hotel needs some bells and whistles for sure to compete with 1,400 hotels in the capital. Also not very far from the hotel, you already have The Soho Hotel that is the 2nd most rated hotel according to TripAdvisor. Good luck to them.

To become the "world most inclined tower"

Capital Gate in Abu Dhabi, which is set to enter the Guinness Book of Records as the ‘world’s most inclined tower.’ will lean 4 times as far as Leaning Tower of Pisa.

Abu Dhabi Capital Gate will accommodate the 5-star ‘Hyatt at Capital Centre’ hotel and will provide the most exclusive office space in . The tower forms a major part of the Capital Centre development, a $2.2 billion business and residential micro city being constructed around the thriving Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre.

The new 200 room, 5 star hotel to be operated by Hyatt International will open in late 2009 and will be the first Hyatt operated hotel in the UAE capital. In recognition of its significance and its stature, Hyatt International has named the hotel 'Hyatt at Capital Centre'. It will be one of the most exclusive business hotels in the world.

Capital Gate leans westward an astonishing 18 degrees; by comparison the Leaning Tower of Pisa leans less than 4 degrees. Because of its unique posture, the tower is being constructed on top of an incredibly dense mesh of reinforced steel. The dense mesh sits above an intensive distribution of 490 piles which have been drilled 30 meters underground to accommodate the gravitational, wind and seismic pressures caused by the lean of the building. Its graceful, asymmetric diagonal structure, known as a ‘diagrid’, supports the tilting external load of the building and we believe that this is the first building in the world to use a pre-cambered core. Other diagrid buildings include the in NYC and the “Gherkin” in London.

Besides being believed to be the 'world's most inclined' building, Capital Gate also features 728 unique custom-made diamond-shaped glazing panels. Due to the structure's curving shape, each pane of glass is different and each will be fitted at a slightly different angle.

Analysis on the promo film "Freddy Frees Friday" from Radisson Hotels

Radisson Hotels part of the Rezidor Group and Carlson Hotels are going through a major facelift recently. Not only on the management front (Hubert Joly became CEO of Carlson Hotels, Jacques Dubois is now COO of Rezidor ...) but also on the online experience (their website has changed a lot last time I checked).

What is more inventive is this short film that was published on different video sharing sites in early June announcing the fantastic promotional campaign "Friday is Freeday". That's right you can stay for free on Friday in Radisson Hotels this summer if you stay Saturday or Thursday as well.

To promote this campaign, a 7'30 film has been created called "Freddy Frees Friday". A microsite has also been launched for the occasion.

The question is does this activity has been successful in terms of visibility and viewership.

Did Radisson make some return of investment with the production of the movies vs. awareness of the promo campaign?

Clearly, Radisson has been advised to distribute the video everywhere. The film and the "behind the scenes" video are available on YouTube, Dailymotion, Vimeo, Viddler and Metacafe (maybe more).

If you cumulate the number of impressions - meaning each time a visitor clicks on the video, not necessarily views the whole movie - the film has received 2,900 impressions within 2 months.

Dailymotion ==> 10 views

YouTube ==> 568 views

Vimeo ==> 2323 views

Viddler ==> 1 view

Metacafe ==> 2 views

Clearly 2 distribution channels are better than others. I am even surprised to see Vimeo clearly a big winner for the promo video. But as a whole, I believe these results are disappointing for the Radisson marketing team. When you are such an International brand, you would expect much more viewership, especially with such a professional film.

So what did the marketing team miss? Any ideas? (I will try to get Radisson giving their analysis on the comment box)

In the meantime please vote.

Holiday Inn Mayfair needs some serious renovation

I was having a drink last Friday with a friend of mine at the Holiday Inn Mayfair after failing to find a quiet corner at the bar of the Radisson The Mayfair.

I was really shocked to see how tired this hotel is from the reception, the elevators, the toilets. And then the bar which smells like an old ashtray with really really tired furniture and fabrics all around. I just can't believe why such a reputable brand like Holiday Inn allows this kind of hotel to be associated with their brand. Some websites classify the hotel as 4 stars. Just by looking at the reception and the bar, it doesn't deserve more than a 2 stars. I was glad to see that TripAdvisor reviews seem to be in line with my findings.

The only goood thing about this hotel is the location. But in London West End, could it be enough to attract customers with so many hotels in the area? I mean this hotel still charges around £180 per night (I have checked the best price you could get for a Saturday night in September).

I hope with the massive re-branding campaign Holiday Inn is conducting, they will also remove this kind of hotels out of their directory unless they decide to do some major renovation.

Been there #15...

Yauatcha
15 Broadwick Street, London, W1F 0DL

I have tried Yauatcha on Tuesday for the 3^rd time since the opening. Yauatcha is the sister restaurant of the overtyped and expensive restaurant Hakkassan. The owner of both restaurants is also the master creator of Wagamama restaurant chain.I was able to get a table booked for 4 people the same day for the evening. I wasn’t excited by the friendliness of the staff. I think the restaurant is so popular and trendy that the reception staff doesn’t really care about giving the extra smile to you but the people who were serving our food were friendly and helpful.

Overall, the food is still very very good. And this is why you are coming back to this restaurant. We had some seabass and prawns steamed dim sums, followed by some excellent Mongolian lamb (looks similar to the crispy duck but with lamb) and also some Singapore noodles. The service is quick and efficient. But it’d better be because when you have the table at 8.15pm, you are told to leave by 10pm for the next reservation. Having said that, at 10.30pm, we were still at the table with our drinks with no pressure from the staff to get us out from the restaurant.

The bill came out to £32 each with 6 beers and 3 glasses of Chardonnay. Strangely enough, they serve the wine in some canteen type glasses, which was quite odd for me being a Frenchman. I will come back again for sure for the excellent food they serve there. I didn’t have enough space in my stomach to try the desserts exhibited on the ground floor. Next time maybe…

Been there #16

The Only Running Footman
5 Charles Street, London, W1J 5DE

I have tried a pub / restaurant in Mayfair on Friday. The place is quite famous: it is called "The Only Running Footman, part of the Meredith Group. The restaurant room is on the 1st floor so you could enjoy a bit of quietness and privacy away from the crowd of the pub on the ground floor.

We have eaten some good quality food there. I had for a starter snails "Neathercleave farm snails, laver-bread and duck fat toast" which was delicious and quite surprising for an English pub. I have always thought English couldn't stand snails and frogs. I was wrong then.

To start off with, I had some weird cocktail of Martini Bianco, Vodka with Olive jus which was absolutely awful. Don't know why I have followed my friend to taste this. 3 of these cocktails cost us £24 !!!
For a main course, I had the dish of the day which was a superb duck confit with a yummy mashed potatoe and spinash. We had a bottle of Bordeaux "2004 Château Pey de la Tour, Bordeaux Supérieur" with a reasonable price of £30 (which you can find in Waitrose for £8). We didn't have anough space for dessert but I have finished my meal with an expresso and a digestive drink "Mirabelle".

I thought the service was good even though it took a while to get my cocktail in the beginning. The décor of the room was simple and neutral.

The bill came to £45 per head with 4 people but we drank cocktails, wine and digestive. So not surprise here. Alcohol is always expensive in London. All in all, a good gastro pub in Mayfair.

Been there #17 Yauatcha

Yauatcha
15 Broadwick Street, London, W1F 0DL

Last night, I had another nice dinner at the famous Asian London eatery Yauatcha (opened in 2004 by Alan Yau, the owner of Busaba and Hakkasan). The restaurant earned a 1 Michelin * in 2005.

The food is still superb with exquisite dim sums from pork buns, spare ribs, mango rolls, crispy duck rolls, Singapore Noodles, Mini Pak Choi and so on.
This time, I was innovative enough to try a new dim sum - the chicken feet - quite strange texture in your mouth. Didn't like those feet to be honest.

Service is still very quick, efficient and friendly. The damage per head came at £30 per head.

I would recommend to go on Sunday evening as it is less crowded. Lower ground floor is still my favourite.