Breaking Away
By Gay Jervey
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(Photo by Per Breiehagen) |
Admit it. You need a vacation. But the idea of leaving the office behind makes your head pound. That’s why hundreds of vacation spots worldwide have reinvented the getaway—creating venues where you can stay connected to the office and still have the time of your life.
It’s not a
moment that Andrea Arena is particularly proud of. But it’s one
that many a business owner can empathize with. Several years ago, she
was vacationing with her then-boyfriend’s family in a beach house
on Hilton Head, S.C. “It was my first outing with them, so it
was important that I make a good impression,” explains Arena,
the 35-year-old CEO of 2 Places at 1 Time (www.2places.com),
an Atlanta-based corporate concierge business.
“Well, I made an impression,” she says with a laugh. It
was not, however, the one she would have chosen.
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(Photo by Milton Morris) |
As Arena tried to
use the telephone to access the Internet, another guest picked up an
extension and disconnected her. “I stormed into the living room
and announced to the entire family—all of whom were in total vacation
mode—that I was going to check into a hotel. I said that I was
going to drive until I got a good cell-phone signal and then find a
hotel so I could work.” She pauses—still bemused by, if
somewhat resigned to, her behavior. “‘Don’t worry,’
I said. ‘I’ll come back in the evenings.’ Sharing
a house with them was no problem, but not having dedicated Internet
service and a strong cell-phone signal was unacceptable.”
Sound familiar? Hundreds of hotel and resort moguls across the country
are banking on it, as they’ve created escapes that redefine getting
away from it all. The new escape mantra is getting away from most of
it—and staying connected to what drives your company.
Resorts in places as far-flung as Bali and the United Arab Emirates
are providing—at the very least—business centers and high-speed
Internet capabilities. “Business amenities have become as common
as running water,” says Marshall Calder, the managing director
of Leading Hotels of the World (www.lhw.com).
Calder suggests that business owners who still want to stay connected
need the extraordinary. At Al Maha, for example, a Leading Hotels resort
and 25-square-kilometer nature preserve in the Dubai desert, there is
no road access; you arrive via a four-wheel-drive vehicle that carries
you over the dunes. There is, however, Internet connection in the tents
where you’ll be staying.
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and Racquet Club, Montego Bay, Jamaica |
So go ahead—take a vacation. You deserve it. Or at least that’s what you should keep telling yourself.
No
Request Too Large
At the end of the day, it’s all about service. “Anything
that a guest may require, we can accommodate,” says Tim Sanders,
guest relations manager at the St. Regis Hotel in Aspen,
Colo. (888-625-5144, www.stregisaspen.
com). “I’ve arranged everything from 1 a.m. European
conference calls to a private jet—which enabled an executive to
fly to a meeting on the West Coast and back in the same day.”
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“Luckily,
the modern business owner is pretty savvy about staying connected,”
says David von Winckler, the general manager of the Serrano
Hotel in San Francisco (415-885-2500, www.serranohotel.com),
which offers
guests high-speed Internet access in their rooms and a 24-hour business
center. The general manager says that what sets the best hotels and
resorts apart is personal service coupled with business perks. “People
are time-deprived,” he says. “We have found that, up until
recently, customers have had more money than time on their hands. So
when they go on vacation, they’re looking to use that time efficiently.”
Kevin Ryan knows what von Winckler means. For 25 years, Ryan, a partner
in an actuaries consulting firm, has been visiting the Half
Moon Golf, Tennis and Racquet Club in Montego Bay, Jamaica
(800-626-0592, www.halfmoon.com.jm).
On a recent trip, he needed to complete an actuarial report. When it
was done, “I took the disc that I had, went to their print shop
and they were able to print it out for me.
It really wasn’t any different than being in my office.” Ryan also took advantage of the cyber-lounge kiosks that the Half Moon has installed throughout the property, which allow visitors to collect and print their emails. “The one I used was close to the bar,” Ryan says with a chuckle. “You can go from the beach to the bar to the emails—and then go back to the bar. It’s almost too easy to transact business.”
While you may not want to be reminded of the office while soaking up rays, it doesn’t hurt to know that all the comforts of the home office are within striking distance. The 291-room British Colonial Hilton Nassau (242-322-3301 www.nassau.hilton.com) now offers the “Office Al Fresco” program, which is a mobile office (including Internet connections) by the beach or pool.
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poolside: The “Al Fresco” mobile office at the British Colonial Hilton Nassau |
At the Ritz-Carlton, Key Biscayne (800-241-3333, www. ritz-carlton.com/resorts/key_biscayne), the pool concierge performs above-and-beyond services—sometimes on the sly. Recently, an executive was lounging on the beach, slathered in Coppertone, when his cell phone rang. This was his first vacation in two years, and he had promised his wife that he would not work. However, the caller needed him to fax a document—ASAP. The guest knew that leaving the pool and beach areas would arouse his wife’s suspicion, so he asked the concierge
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Ritz-Carlton, Key Biscayne |
to take care of
it for him, explaining exactly where in the room he could find the document.
Twenty minutes later, the pool concierge found the businessman sitting
with his wife and informed him, “Your dinner reservations have
been made, sir. Is there anything else I can assist you with?”
“The concierge said that it happens more often than you could
imagine,” says Michelle Payer, the area director of public relations
for The Ritz-Carlton Hotels and Resorts of Miami. “Many times,
people—usually men—have to hide their business calls from
their significant others. They just don’t want the person to know
that they’re not focused entirely on the vacation. And with a
pool concierge and a travel butler, who are attendant to your needs,
you can get things done without physically doing them yourself. You
delegate, just as you would in your office.”
 REST OF THE BEST More hotels and resorts that allow you to stay connected to the mother ship: |
| Delta
Lodge at Kananaskis, Alberta, Canada (888-778-5050, www.lodgeat
kananaskis.com). Sure, this is Alberta’s mountain paradise
(you’ll begin yodeling upon arrival), but business owners
love the property’s knack for coming through with services
such as its in-room offices and (get this) email that you can access
via the TV. Park Hyatt Beaver Creek, Avon, Colo. (970-949-1234, beavercreekhyatt.com). The amenities for slipping in a little business between Black Diamond ski runs put this hotel over the top—particularly the e-Village Internet concierge services. Raffles L’Ermitage, Los Angeles, Calif. (800-323-7500, www.lermitage hotel.com). The PR people behind this place swear in their promotional material that “this is not a hotel.” Maybe. It does feel like a new type of space—albeit one where you still can sleep, buy a drink at the bar and chill in the pool. What makes this hotel (OK, we said it) different is its incomparable technology (e.g., 40-inch TV with CD/DVD players). Don’t miss the three-line phone system, including a cell phone that you can tote around town. You’ll also receive free customized stationery, business cards and fax cover sheets emblazoned with your direct-dial numbers. Kerry Centre Hotel, Beijing, China (86-10-656-18-833, www.shangri-la.com/ eng/hotel/4). Thinking about breaking into the vast Chinese marketplace? This is the place to stay while trying. Part of Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts (the largest Asian-based hotel group in the region, with 38 properties from Fiji to Hong Kong), the 487-room Kerry Centre includes some recently introduced business kicks: free 2MB broadband access, private fax/printer/ scanner machines by request and 24-hour butler service. —Michael McCarthy |
The Ritz-Carlton also employs a “technology butler” on its properties. “The technology butler is a fancy word for an information-systems technician, who is available 24 hours a day,” explains Char Schoeder, the director of public relations at the Ritz-Carlton in New Orleans. “If you have any problems with your laptop or any kind of Internet or technology-related problems, he is on call 24/7 to help you.”
Going
Wireless
There is little doubt that catering to the wireless is the wave of the
future. Several years ago, the Four Seasons Hotel in Las Vegas (702-632-5000,
www.fourseasons.com/lasvegas)
installed wireless capabilities in all of its public places. “Originally,
we saw this as a growing need,” says Russ Ketchum, the regional
information technologies director for the hotel. “From a technological
standpoint, we saw this as something that would become a popular and
necessary item.”
Even Holiday Inn has gotten into the act. Perhaps the
most technologically sophisticated hotel in New York, this 18-story
property in the Wall Street District (212-232-7800, www.
holidayinnwsd.com) boasts a cellular-connect service that transfers
your hotel calls to your mobile phone, and “Smart Rooms”
with secure network printers, laptops and broadband ser-vice. The hotel
also provides a virtual office in each room; you get everything from
paper clips to white-out…but no water coolers.
Loft 523 (504-200-6523, www.loft
523.com), which opened last spring in New Orleans, also provides
wireless capabilities. “This just seemed like a smart thing to
include in a boutique hotel that attracts a high percentage of Internet
users,” says Sean Cummings, who owns Loft 523 (16 SoHo-style lofts
and two penthouses) and the neighboring International House
(800-633-5770, www.ihhotel.com). “When
guests check into the International House, if we see them come in with
a laptop, we always tell them that for a few dollars more they can stay
at Loft 523, where we offer wireless,” says Amy Riemer, the general
manager of both hotels. “And we’re rushing them down the
street.”
Allison Mitchell, the vice president of Microsoft’s world marketing
group, works closely with small businesses. One day last July, she played
golf in Albita Springs, La., shopped in New Orleans until the stores
closed and, upon returning to Loft 523, answered some 100 emails and
approved expense reports before dining in the French Quarter.
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No doubt, Andrea
Arena would appreciate such a day. Although she did split with the boyfriend
she vacationed with on Hilton Head, they remain friends. “We broke
up over conversations about how much is enough when it comes to staying
connected to your business,” she says. “I realized that
there was
no real answer to that question for some entrepreneurs. There is never
enough.”
Arena reflects on a vacation she took with a group of friends from the
Young Entrepreneurs’ Organization. “We were at a hotel in
Cancun. And one of the guys in our group asked someone from the hotel
staff to bring one of their little portable phones down to our beach
cabana. Because we had to have it—there’s comfort in that.
She pauses, “We were like Linus with his blanket.”
Gay Jervey is a regular contributor to Fortune and the New York Times
