Hotel Growing Pains – Why New Properties Are Often Not The Best Properties

Hotel Growing Pains – Why Service Is Often Compromised At The Newest Luxury Hotels

For me, there’s nothing more exciting than a new luxury hotel! The idea of a fresh and sparkling room, with state of the art technology, spotlessly clean common areas, and fresh decor often tempts me to book these places as soon as they open, but my experience tells me otherwise. As most frequent travellers can attest, there’s a period within a new property opening where service levels can often be below what you would expect, commonly referred to the hotel growing pains.

We recently ran our first PointsWise giveaway, with Andy Duncan receiving a one-night stay at the recently opened JW Marriott PARQ Hotel in Vancouver.

Andy had nothing but positive things to say about the hotel (phew), though my experience on the backend coordinating the stay was anything but great. I should have known better, but the opportunity to send someone to one of Vancouver’s finest new hotels had a lot of ‘bling’ factor, and in the end everything worked out. I’m going to share what happened, how it didn’t live up to expectations, and compare it with a more seasoned property within the brand.

My Experience Coordinating The Stay

Considering that PointsWise is a website that teaches Canadians how to leverage reward programs for awesome travel experiences, it made sense to redeem Marriott Reward points for Andy’s stay. The JW Marriott Parq is a category 8 hotel, requiring 40,000 points per night, which is more than the Ritz-Carlton Hotel I just booked for my trip to Jakarta. One of the reasons I love the Marriott program is you can book a hotel stay for a friend or family member using points. Simply make the reservation online, and call Marriott to have the other person added to the reservation. Simple right? Or so I thought…

I emailed the hotel about a week prior to Andy’s stay to let them know it wouldn’t be me checking in, and requested concierge service to arrange a special welcome amenity. After what I would consider a longer than normal wait time, I received an email back from one of the front desk managers, who had the following to say:

In order for us to use your Marriott Rewards Membership you would need to physically be staying at the hotel.  I do see that your points were used to make this reservation so we can make the exception in this case, however we will not be able to honor the benefits of your Gold Elite Membership unless you are staying at the hotel

This was news to me, and I had actually just finished changing the name on a different reservation for a friend who was staying at a Marriott property in Italy using my points (without issue). I emailed back and asked if the policy had changed, and if so, could he elaborate on the details. I got the following message back.

My apologies for the delay.  Certain hotels may make the exception regarding redeeming a Rewards Member’s points if the member is not staying at the hotel, however technically, in order for us to use a member’s profile, the member themselves has to be staying at the hotel.  That said, we can certainly make the exception

This response again took a little longer than expected, so in the meantime I had reached out to Marriott who confirmed I can still use Marriott Reward points for other people, even when not staying at the hotel myself. Clearly this front office manager was not completely familiar with the program policies, and rather than seeking clarification, he just continued to offer that they were willing to make an exception for me.

We were now about 6 emails deep, and I requested to speak to a senior member of management to get further clarification. That email went unanswered…

New properties often have new management, and in this case the hotel growing pains were related to a front office manager not knowing the program policies. What should have been one email turned into half a dozen, with my last email being completely disregarded. This is not what I expect from a 5-star luxury hotel.

My Experience Coordinating A Welcome Amenity

If ever you’re going to experience hotel growing pains, it’s usually in the soft product, and can often be felt when trying to coordinate special requests with the concierge. I want to mention that all of the concierge team I communicated with were prompt, friendly, and professional, but again, the whole process took way more effort than it should have. In the end, from my initial request to receiving a copy of the receipt for my credit card charge, we exchanged a whopping 21 emails.

The request was simple – we wanted to have a bottle of champagne and some chocolate covered strawberries in the room for arrival. The cost for this would be billed to us. Easy right?

• First the concierge sends an order form and credit card authorization form which must be faxed back. There are no chocolate covered strawberries on the menu and the form has a blank line where a return fax number should be
• The concierge confirms that they can make strawberries, and provides me with a fax number
• I fax the order form and authorization to the number provided and wait to hear back. After a day I email to find out they didn’t receive it, or it may be misplaced. They would have someone follow up with me the following morning as to the whereabouts of my credit card information
• The next afternoon I email back as nobody followed up with me. I get a response asking to resend the form, and I accept that my credit card info is floating around somewhere in the fax world never to be seen again
• I get an email back from the concierge saying that everything is set for Mr Ott’s arrival. Great, except Mr Ott isn’t who’s staying, it’s Ms. Andy Duncan, which has been clarified about 300 times by this point
• I email back saying that Brad and I won’t actually be at the hotel, and that I would like the welcome amenity and any other communication with the guest to be for Ms. Andy Duncan only
• I get another email saying everything will be great
• I’m quite honestly concerned at this point, and ask the concierge to forward my request for a senior manager to reach out to me (which was previously ignored by the front office team), and that email goes unanswered also
• After I notice a charge on my credit card for more than the price listed on the order form, I ask for a receipt (which should have been sent anyway, in my opinion), which they forward a couple of days later

 

This seems like a lot of effort to coordinate a welcome amenity, and to top it all off, they delivered the amenity to Mr Andy Duncan (I must have clarified it was Ms more than a few times) and left a note saying they had champagne for them too, addressed from room service.

In my experience arranging flowers, chocolates, or any other welcome amenity for a hotel guest, it’s usually addressed from the person paying for it, but I guess not at The JW Marriott Parq Hotel. This was a classic example of hotel growing pains, where the staff just weren’t able to communicate with each other on a level consistent with 5-star standards.

Why I Tend To Choose Seasoned Hotels

Hotel growing pains are inevitable, and I completely understand. My complaint is that these properties often charge comparable prices with other established hotels in the market, and fail to deliver on a service level that’s expected when paying a premium for a luxury hotel stay. This is why I tend to avoid new properties for the first 6-12 months after opening, and instead choose hotels that have ironed out the kinks.

Recently I stayed at The JW Marriott Hotel in Beijing. Same brand as the Parq, similar property in terms of amenities offered and size, about a third the price, and it was a completely different experience. I coordinated a private tour of the Great Wall of China in two emails with the concierge (from the other side of the world). Furthermore, I was there for two days and wasn’t sure which day to choose, as I wanted the best weather. The concierge said he would meet me during check-in with a weather forecast to help me decide, which he did, and I ended up having a once-in-a-lifetime experience with all of the credit going to him (the other day ended up being very foggy with poor air quality). As if the service couldn’t get better, he even had a framed picture of me from my trip and a handwritten card waiting in the hotel room when I got back. Now that’s impressive.

Sure, the JW Marriott Beijing rooms had nothing on the new Parq Hotel, but the service level was in a different league, which is what really differentiates a true 5-star property from the rest.

Hotel Growing Pains Bottom Line

I think there are rare examples where hotels do a great job at minimizing hotel growing pains, such as The Four Seasons Hotel Jakarta, which had only been open for 9 months when I stayed, but the service levels felt like they had been operating for decades. Ultimately I think it comes down to what you value more when determining where you stay. If you just want the newest and nicest room with all the latest technology but don’t care about the little details in service, by all means choose the brand new property. However, if you’re like me, and really appreciate the small touches and seamless service deliveries, stick to a more established hotel while the new property works through opening issues.

On another note, we’ve just launched another giveaway contest, this time at The Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Toronto (check out our contest page here for more information) where I expect the service level to be phenomenal given they’ve been around a bit longer, and it’s a Ritz-Carlton. I just hope I can use my Marriott Reward points for our winner without exceptions being made…

Have you ever experienced hotel growing pains at a new property? Tell us about your experience in the comment section below!