At Hotel Eclat, Beijing, there is a guard of honour of bicycles on the 17th floor corridor – yes, really. This is one – there are fur-covered models, by Prada, and tiny ones and big ones. In themselves they are not unique but well, in a hotel corridor, leading to bedrooms?
Mind you, the owner of this hotel, and its sister hotel, Hotel Eclat, Taipei, is probably just a little eccentric, to say the least. At that hotel, I stayed in room 1010, with a full-sized Murano violin and a – real – $48,000 Hästens bed. I shall always remember that hotel. Similarly, I will always remember Hotel Eclat Beijing, for its bicycles, and its – real – Dalis and Warhols and more modern Chinese art and sculpture than most museums.
These are things that are easy to remember. If only I could send a message to owners and developers of luxury hotels. Please put in something that consumers will remember. It does not have to be a $48,000 bed or magnificent art work, merely something different, so that customers will remember your luxury hotel, and want to come back.