A hotel concierge is the person a guest turns to for everything outside the room: a table, a ticket, a driver, a doctor, a way into a city the guest does not know. The concierge desk sits in the lobby, inside the rooms division, and is led by a chief concierge. The job is to know the city better than any guide and to hold a network of people in it who will answer the phone.
A day in the role at the highest level
The hoteliers I interviewed describe the concierge’s day as a working relationship with a city. Alexander van Gastel, then general manager of Pulitzer Amsterdam, told me that one of his concierges, who holds the key to the hidden gems and secrets of the city, takes every new employee on a storytelling tour through the neighborhoods of Amsterdam, ending at the Canal House Museum to learn the history of the canal belt the hotel sits inside. In his phrase, the concierge is now chief curator, because there is too much information online to sort through.
Christian A. Hassing, then general manager of Mandarin Oriental, Singapore, told me the work today is to gather first hand knowledge rather than to curate it from books, magazines and online guides, so that itineraries can be tailored to what each guest is looking to experience. Damien Bastiat, then general manager of Ballyfin Demesne, described the concierge as a filter: guests arrive better informed than ever, and once on property they still want reassurance that what they found online is reliable. Marc von Arnim, then general manager of Park Hyatt Sydney, made the same point about the hours it takes to sort through everything online and the second opinion a guest wants afterward, and added that a concierge can anticipate and propose experiences and itineraries tailored to a guest’s likes and dislikes.
The day also runs through the phone in the guest’s pocket. Marc C. Brugger, then general manager of Rosewood Hong Kong and Rosewood Beijing, told me his concierge team is available by text so that guests can seek advice wherever they are in the city, which he described as carrying a concierge with all of his or her knowledge, resources and connections in your pocket. Luc Delafosse, then managing director of Waldorf Astoria Beverly Hills, has a texting service for every guest and in room tablets through which guests can message the concierge team directly. Alexander Pichel, then general manager of Hotel Indonesia Kempinski Jakarta, told me the luxury concierge is here to stay while the way guests communicate with them keeps evolving.
Then there are the days nobody can plan for. Susanne Hatje, then general manager of Mandarin Oriental, New York, told me about a couple who decided on a whim to marry at the Ladies Pavilion in Central Park. The hotel arranged a Justice of the Peace, a photographer and a horse and carriage at short notice, and the chief concierge, Kenneth Abisror, served as the couple’s witness.
What the people in the book say
“While guests have an abundance of local, city-specific information online to dig through prior to and during their travels, the role of the concierge cannot be replaced. They have a personal network that the Internet cannot mimic.” Axel Bethke, then general manager of Qasr Al Sarab Desert Resort by Anantara in Abu Dhabi
“In the age of information abundance, the luxury concierge must take on the mantle of cultural researcher, and have the innate ability to connect the dots with a guest on the basis of sheer perceptiveness.” Taljinder Singh, in A Wealth of Insight (2017)
“While today’s concierge may find him or herself in front of a guest who has more information than they do, pulled from all kinds of websites and review platforms, the concierge is the one with the special network of contacts.” Adrian Gray, in A Wealth of Insight (2017)
Singh, then general manager of The Taj Mahal Palace, Mumbai, gave an example of what he means by perceptiveness: a concierge should be able to recommend and deliver a private tour of a vintage car collection after noticing a guest wearing a T-shirt with a vintage car club logo. Gray, then general manager of Lotte Hotel Moscow, added that the network gives guests privileged access around the city that cannot be bought or found online.
The path to it
The interviews in my books were with general managers and chefs rather than concierges, so what I can say about the path comes from how those leaders describe the desk and who they put behind it. The concierge belongs to the rooms division alongside the front office and guest relations, and the hoteliers in the book treat the desk as a place where the hotel’s local knowledge is built and handed on. Van Gastel has his concierge train every new employee as a storyteller. Patrizio Cipollini of Four Seasons Hotel Firenze told me his concierge team had crafted a wide variety of itineraries for experiencing the city and the neighborhood like a local. Tom Roelens, then general manager of Four Seasons Resort Lanaʻi, blends the concierge and front desk roles into a single Lanaʻi Ambassador. Pichel described a colleague who serves as a guest’s point of contact throughout the stay as a kind of personal concierge.
The path, then, usually runs through the front desk or guest relations, and through years spent in one city building the relationships the role depends on. Many of the general managers in the book began at the front desk or in food and beverage themselves. For the broader questions, see the question on how to know whether hospitality is the right career for you and the question on how to build a long career in hospitality.
What it asks of you
It asks for perceptiveness of the kind Singh describes, the ability to read a guest from a logo on a shirt or a book left on a bedside table. Aaron Kaupp, then general manager of Le Royal Monceau, Raffles Paris, told me that when housekeeping sees a couple of books on local excursions in a room, they pass it to the concierge, who puts something together and presents it before the guest asks. It asks for a network built in person over years, since that network, as Bethke and Gray both say, is the part of the job no website replicates. It asks for honest judgement, because the guest is relying on you to tell them which of the things they found online are worth their time. Nicholas Yarnell, then general manager of Six Senses Douro Valley, told me that in a world where time is the most valuable commodity, the role of the concierge will only increase.