best hotels & airlines, The

Global Finance, Feb 1999

Three years running, readers have chosen the Four Seasons-Regent as the best hotel chain in the world in Global Finance's annual poll of business travelers. In addition to its overall win, Four Seasons-Regent also topped the best hotel chain categories in Europe and North America. In Asia readers liked Shangri-La as the best hotel chain, and they picked Hyatt International in Latin America for the second year in a row. In Africa/ Middle East, InterContinental won, also for the second year in a row.

This year Global Finance also asked business travelers to pick the top airlines. Worldwide, Singapore Airlines won hands down. Also the best carrier in Asia, Singapore Airlines received twice as many votes as number two Cathay Pacific. British Airways, which won as the top European carrier, was the runner-up as the world's best. In Africa/Middle East readers voted Emirates as the best airline. In North America the clear winner was United, while Varig won kudos as the best Latin American carrier

Votes came in via fax and mail in response to a survey printed in the October 1998 issue of Global Finance. We asked subscribers to consider location, facilities, amenities, service, cuisine, decor, and other factors in making their hotel choices. For airlines, they looked for the carrier that offers the best customer service, in-flight entertainment, and overall amenities. Respondents are frequent business travelers who are often away from home as much as 20 weeks out of the year.

Hotel Chains

Hotel winner Four Seasons Hotels & Resorts has been expanding globally since 1992, when the Toronto-based company, which then comprised a small group of hotels in North America, acquired Hongkongbased Regent Hotels. Instantly, the chain gained a credible presence in the Pacific Rim, where it continues to thrive.

New hotels in the collection follow a successful formula: They're smallish (usually 300 rooms or less) and serviceintensive, all located in key business districts in major business capitals.

In 1998 the company opened its first South American property with the 400-room Four Seasons Hotel Caracas. This year the chain plans hotels in Mumbai and Bangalore-the Silicon Valley of India-as well as in Egypt, with the Four Seasons Hotel Cairo at First Residence, and in Ireland, with the Four Seasons Hotel Dublin.

Survey respondents appreciate the Four Seasons-Regent not only for its snob appeal and sumptuous decor but laud the hotel's focus on corporate clientele. Business centers operate around the dock; all rooms have private fax machines; limousine transportation for airport transfers or shuttling between business appointments is free. Overnight clothes pressing and shoeshines are complimentary as well, and health clubs provide exercise clothing, the better to keep packing to a minimum.

Another Four Seasons-Regent hallmark: truly personalized service. A database automatically assigns guests the kind of room they like: smoking or non-, high or low floor, even what fiber should plump their pillows and what variety of fruit should appear in the fruit basket.

Other hotel winners, Shangri-Ia and Ritz Carlton, have their own version of business traveler service twists. All city Shangr-la hotels, for example, offer a host of freebies: local calls, airport transfers,American breakfast, and laundry and dry cleaning. International direct-dial calls and faxes are at cost, and all guests paying the published rack rate can count on a 6 PM late checkout.

Like Four Seasons-Regent, Shangri Ia is continuing to expand, though for now only within Asia. In addition to renovation of the Shangri-Ia Singapore-the Tower Wing has received a $54 million facelift-the company is opening two new properties, in Wuhan and Harbin, China, early this year One more hotel in China, the Pudong Shangri-La, Shanghai, opened last August, bringing the total number of Shangri-La hotels in the People's Republic to a dozen.

Airlines

Singapore Airlines' exceptionally strong showing among Global Finance readers comes at a particularly interesting time.The Asian economic crisis has led to sIgnificant drops in passenger volume, and fare wars are keeping prices steady or forcing them to drop. But rather than cut back on service, Singapore's approach to the problem of declining revenues is to upgrade. It plans to spend $300 million on what CEO Choong Kong Cheong calls "redefining the travel experience"

The airline actually began research and development two years ago, review ing every asspect of travel experience in all three classes. Although our current product ranked among the best in the industry, it was time to make a bold and exacting change, explains Cheong.

This includes the overhaul of First Class, which Singapore Airlines reconceived to mimic the grand service traditions of luxury hotels.Arriving customers are met at the curb and escorted to a newly redecorated reception lounge, where premium service staff attend to the check-in formalities. All Ftrst Class cabins have been refitted, reducing the number of seats from 16 to 12. (The designer also created the interiors of the Eastern & Orient Express train line.) Seats resemble private minisuites and include seat-beds, a hoteistyle retractable desk for working or dining, a stationery drawer with writing paper, postcards, and envelopes, a laptop power supply, and a 14-inch, fold-away video monitor, the largest private entertainment system in the sky. Seats are covered in glove-soft leather, supplied by the company that outfits Rolls Royce, Ferrari, and Jaguar.An air mattress embedded in the cushion inflates to even out gaps in the contour ing and to provide maximum support when the seat is completely horizontal. Passengers receive a duvet and sleepwear and on flights longer than seven hours the crew will turn the seat-bed into a box spring of sorts, adding a mattress and fresh bed linens.