What does the perfect hotel look like?

What does the perfect hotel look like?

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What would it be like if the world was full of wishes? Where everything is allowed and nothing is regulated? What would our perfect hotel look like? We’ve collected all the experiences from hoteliers and guests – and of course our own! All that`s missing is the building plot (and the investors…).

The sun is shining, the outside temperature is 28 degrees Celsius, a gate opens, then everything happens very quickly: You see the building, the driveway, the entrance hall. An employee asks, if you had a good trip. While the employee puts her eyes on the computer trying to find the reservation, you have a look around, make mental notes, tick the boxes or sniff disdainfully.

According to hoteliers, the arrival is the most important moment of the holiday. Many opinions are formed during the first five minutes. A great many! If it’s a couple, the women judge, if it’s a family, the children. But the first question that one asks oneself in this situation is: Why do 95% of the hotels always make the biggest mistakes in these special first five minutes? This starts with the question, if you had a good journey (what can you say, if everything went wrong??) and stops when you are asked to fill in the forms (you have done it online, everyone including Facebook, google and the NSA knows your Adress, but not the hotel?). You also don’t want a glass of cheap sparkling wine or be introduced to even more people, who have any kind of offer. No: you just want a nice, quiet room, you want to go in and open the curtains and the balcony door and admire the ocean. Essentially you want to spend your money in a place that fulfills every desire. But, what are our secret desires really?

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1. Where is the perfect hotel located?

It lies on the ocean. Directly on the ocean. There is nothing nicer than having an ocean view directly from your room, even before your first cup of coffee. Wrapped up in a fluffy bathrobe, you could even stroll along the beach before breakfast, breathe in the salty sea air and crawl through the waves for a few minutes. There is no greater way to start the day.

Seen geographically, the perfect hotel lies just outside an evolved place, because there is nothing worse than a gated location, in which you only meet other tourists and feel as though you are in Disneyland. We can deduce from the experience of the last 20 years that most people are looking for the original village – that can be in southern Italy, in the province, in Andalusia or even on the coast of Uruguay. The advantage of such a place is simple: if you spend eight days at the perfect hotel on the ocean nearby this original evolved village, you can walk three or four times to dine in a local establishment that wasn’t only built for tourists, but for the people who actually live there. You want to get to know the spices, the traditional meals and the local inhabitants, who you secretly admire, because they spend the whole year here.

2. What does it look like?

The perfect hotel is an old building, maybe built in Europe in the mid 19th century. The most beautiful palaces emerged at the beginning of tourism, in Merano, Karlsbad or Viareggio. Some of these buildings were not even planned as hotels, but are former private residences of wealthy landlords or – just like theVilla Feltrinelli on Lake Garda – the summer residence of a famous publisher. The French can’t be beaten when it comes to style: If you look at the big Parisian luxury hotels, you can find many mistakes (ridiculous prices for example), but from the outside they play in their own league – led by the George V. and the Plaza Athenée, just to name a few. However, the perfect hotel has small balconies with a view to the ocean and beach.

There should be a long driveway and, if all wishes were granted, the entrance would be in a stately park. The contract for the architecture would be given to the Italians from Tuscany. In our opinion, nothing can beat an avenue lined with cypress trees.

3. How are the rooms?

The perfect hotel rooms include beds, big bathrooms with sinks and bath tubs, this fundamentals of a perfect hotel room has not change over the last 150 years. However, the perfect hotel only has two room categories: double rooms and family rooms. The world is a large zoo when it comes to “mine`s bigger than yours”. We can do without this when we are on holiday. No President’s Suite for 42.000 euros per night, no upgrade-discussions. All the rooms are perfect, they are all roomy, everybody pays the same price, everyone has a view to the shimmering turquoise ocean. A dream? Yes, but this is exactly as it should be!

PS: Do you have a problem with the light switches now and again? How about having one light switch for one lamp. In the meantime there are lovely, indirect light installations available, but we think the motto of the lighting could be condensed into three words: “Keep it simple.”

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Oh, and something else: There is no carpet allowed in the rooms. Never! The perfect room has parquet flooring. Everything else is out of the question.

4. The Restaurant

Hoteliers have learnt a lot about restaurants and bars over the last 15 years, but, unbelievably there are still many hotels in which you dine as if you were in an old people’s home. “We don’t want to disturb the guests”, is quoted by many hotel directors on this subject. But that is the wrong way! The three percent who feel disturbed by some fantastic music, kids running around, tables that are close together and waiters or guests talking too loud, don’t really belong here or, as it is most of the time: are pleased about a little energy! Any couple who has had a holiday on the Maldives know exactly what we are talking about. People sit opposite each other whispering and just seem to be waiting for something to happen.

And in the perfect hotel there would be no discussions about this: There is no celebrity three star chef (who has given his name, but never shows up). The restaurant is like the small authentic italian place, which you would find on the piazza. Something like “da Francesco”, Piazza del Fico, Rome. You dine together, enjoy simple meals from the region, along with a local wine and everything is splendid.

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PS: Whilst the French are leading when it comes to the outside of the villa and the Italians are responsible for the restaurant as well as the garden, we don’t want to forget the English: We love the afternoon tea tradition! They accomplish what the world is really missing in these days and age: stylish conversation in the afternoon, without a smart phone or iPad reading. High Tea in the perfect hotel would not be quite as conservative as in Downton Abbey, but it would be stylish (Macarons, fresh fruit, Mille Feuille and 1002 different types of tea). Talking about style: for many years there was a trend to have the waiters stroll casually across the parquet. To put it mildly: that is a big mistake! People want to keep their holidays simple, they are in energy saving mode. For this reason it is not only nicer, but also better, to be able to immediately recognize a waiter or barkeeper – and waitresses of course – by the way they are dressed.

5. The Service

A hotel is only ever as good as its service. So they say. What we say is: the most terrible thing about some hotels is forced fake friendliness, an insincere smile and permanently asking if everything is okay. On saying that, hotel service can be quite easy: the guests decide if they want to utilise a particular service. In the days gone by there was a concierge, who had been with the place for 30 years. This concierge could organise a helicopter, which threw 1000 red roses onto the sun bed of your wife. Fausto Allegri from theHotel Splendido in Portofino was just such a man. Today you find an iPad with outdated tips, or brochures. This is an absolute no go.

In the perfect hotel it rains 1000 red roses from the sky every day, just after high tea, just before the first glass of champagne, that you enjoy together with your room companion on the balcony before dinner, with a view to the ocean, somewhere in the south of historic Europe, in a place that maybe doesn’t exist any more. Or yes it does exist: in our dreams!