Page 17 - Sphere No.26 (Mar 2010)

15
New Hotel’s Winning Formula
Hong Kong’s latest boutique hotel, the Harbour Plaza 8 De-
grees, is proving to be a popular choice among discerning trav-
ellers. Since the 702-room property opened late last year close
to the old Kai Tak airport, occupancy levels have been high and
it has already won a prestigious industry award – Best Designer
Hotel at the Guangdong Travel Fair.
Hotel General Manager Christina Cheng says the eye-catching
design – its lobby is an optical illusion that gives the impres-
sion of being slightly off-centre – comfortable rooms and tip-top
service have made it a hit with travellers looking for a quality
boutique hotel at affordable rates.
“I think people love boutique hotels because they give you a
good feeling, once you try one, you want to go back,” she ex-
plained. “As well as the design, it is also about quality and service.
Coffee, for example, is not in a big jar, it is made freshly, and the
bread also is fresh. I think it is a worldwide trend – people want to
get away from huge conventional hotels.”
The Harbour Plaza 8 Degrees is located just 20 minutes from the
popular Tsim Sha Tsui shopping area via the hotel’s luxury shuttle
buses. Ms Cheng, an industry veteran who has worked in top hotels
in Macau and Hong Kong, was heavily involved in the staff selection:
among her hires was a Nepalese working at her local coffee shop who
had impressed her with his affable manner and efficient service.
“I think we have opened a happy hotel with really quality service,”
said Ms Cheng. “Our food is really good and international. We focus a
lot on quality and the buffet counter plates are not flooded with food as
we keep constantly putting out fresh food. For desserts we have more
choices rather than big pieces of chocolate cake and cheesecake. The
sushi is freshly made and our beef noodle soup has proved to be very
popular already. We make our own XO chilli sauce.
“You need to have an angle for a boutique hotel and 8 Degrees means
people remember it very quickly. It sounds like baht which is Cantonese
for getting rich. I think the designers have done a really good job, you
walk in and it is a great feeling.”
The hotel has a banquet room, two stylish restaurants, a business cen-
tre, a fitness centre and
an outdoor swimming
pool and whirlpool sur-
rounded by lush land-
scaping. The hotel’s
coffee shop has plans
to open on to the
sidewalk, allowing
al fresco streetside
dining, a rarity in
space-starved Hong
Kong. The immediate
area is well served
by good-value
dining options,
with some of the
city’s best Thai restau-
rants a short stroll away in Kowloon City.
So far, guests have been mostly from Asian countries, in particular China,
Taiwan, Korea and Japan. In future, the mix is also expected to include travellers
from the United States, Europe, Russia and India.
Michael Jackson, Elton John, Jackie
Onassis, Bette Midler and Elizabeth
Taylor, also claims credit for inventing
concepts such as the hotel positioned
as home away from home, the hotel as
theatre, lobby socialising, the indoor-
outdoor lobby, the urban resort and
the urban spa. The very first Schrager
venture was the Morgans Hotel in
New York, in the mid 1980s, followed
by the Royalton and the Paramount,
where guests were encouraged to chat
and drink in the lobby.
If Mr Schrager invented the
boutique hotel, then Adrian Zecha
can most certainly claim credit for
founding its ocean-side equivalent
in Asia, in the shape of the chic
and casual Aman resorts. The first,
Amanpuri, dispensed with any
kind of conventional check-in
area or, indeed, any kind of
central building at all; guests
were housed in fabulously
Issue 26