Shaking Things Up
By luring locally based clientele, hotel bars and lounges can contribute significantly to building F&B revenues during low-occupancy periods. But attracting and keeping these close-at-hand guests requires hoteliers to create a comfortable, inviting atmosphere and offer promotions suited to local tastes and habits.
By Rebecca Oliva, Associate Editor -- HOTELS Magazine, 1/1/2002
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Hotel bars and lounges have been making a comeback. Almost any travel journal’s “Hot” list includes hotel bars that are attracting locals with a pleasant atmosphere and top-shelf cocktails. Their popularity is altogether the result of mixing one part strategic planning by F&B managers with two parts smart assessment of the competition and adding a dash of sophisticated ambiance.
In more recent months, however, a sharp decline in hotel occupancy worldwide has left F&B outlets hungry for patrons. While luring local clientele to hotel restaurants is a never-ending battle, more popular hotel bars are for the first time required to make a bigger marketing effort to make locals regular customers after the novelty wears thin.
“When you hit these slow economic cycles, the things you are going to promote are going to be different,” says Dennis Gemberling, FCSI, Perry Group International, San Francisco. “It’s a matter of getting creative and doing things you don’t normally do—packaging wines and specialty drinks with food.”
Although the pastime of going out to eat and drink will not disappear, Gemberling says, consumers will become more economical. He predicts increased sales of Italian and French wines and draft beer, and a decline on high-end drinks such as vodka martinis. In the interim, bars and lounges can build revenues by thinking out-of-the-box to go after non-hotel guests.
Get To Know The Locals
At the pulse of any bar or lounge
lies a tone set by its host city. Gemberling says the first step is
to evaluate the competition and look for what works. Then review which
bars have come and gone, and why.
Following a fad set by the competition, however, is not always the best way to become successful. For example, The New York Palace successfully opened its lavish Villard Bar and Lounge, which is nothing like its chic neighbors. “The trend in New York was toward the more minimalist bar,” says Colm O’Callaghan, director of F&B, The New York Palace. “This is certainly bucking the trend.” With two levels, the Villard Bar and Lounge, located in the Villard Houses of the famed New York City landmark hotel, boasts rare choices in terms of décor and style. Inspired by European history makers such as Louis XIV, Napolean and Queen Victoria, the light colors and luxurious style reflect nothing of a fad. “In a city of trend setters, we needed to do something very different to be successful with the local market,” O’Callaghan says. “It is not designed to be a hotel bar.”
That is evidenced by the fact that less than 20% of Villard’s patrons are hotel guests. O’Callaghan says the lobby lounge in the Palace is the real bar for hotel guests, as it provides the perfect backdrop for getting a quick drink and people watching. Villard is entirely different. Yet O’Callaghan says the bar serves its purpose well. “[The local people] want choices and options,” O’Callaghan says. “They want a different style. We give them that.”
In keeping with its urban image, Villard serves mostly vodka drinks, still popular with the elite city crowd. “It’s still for the sex appeal of holding the martini glass,” O’Callaghan says. Champagne cocktails and other high-end liquors account for a large percentage of other drinks sold.
A similar philosophy and approach to attracting locals is taken at the Park Hyatt Mendoza, Argentina. The hotel’s wine bar, Uvas, which means grapes in Spanish, was designed as a bar for the townspeople, with 80% of its customers residing in the surrounding areas. While the bar largely follows the wine trends in the city, its challenge is to be better, offering more wine selections and building on its atmosphere more than any other bar in the area. The bar’s main attraction is its wine library filled with more than 3,000 bottles of Mendocian wine from 50 different wineries in the area. “Wine culture in this country is extremely important,” says Federico Echais, executive assistant manager and F&B director at Park Hyatt Mendoza. “We needed to include the wine concept here.”
But more than including it, Uvas thrives on it. Mendocian wines are the only wines sold, and Echais says the best sellers by far are priced from US$4 to US$9. As many of the Uvas customers drink only local wine, Echais saw no need to include other labels. “It is part of their lives. In respect to that, we include only Mendocian wines.”
Atmosphere Isn’t Everything
Contrary to popular
belief, appealing to the “in” crowd
through stylish design and trendy F&B offerings only contributes
to a small portion of a bar’s long-term success. To achieve a
high ratio of repeat customers, a bar must offer a comfortable
atmosphere.
The Water Bar at the W Sydney achieves a balance of comfort and style. Situated at the perch of the Wharf, The Water Bar has become a hot spot for locals. While the décor is trendy, it is cleverly done to include comfort as its main attraction. Giant ottomans and cushions lure patrons to sit back and relax. Several areas are set up to give the illusion of mini living rooms, separated by stylized screens. “People are drawn to the bar because it is so incredibly stylish and comfortable,” says Marcus Reinders, F&B operations manager, W Sydney.
At the historic Hotel Jerome in Aspen, Colorado, the J-Bar has a history of entertaining Aspen’s locals throughout its more than 100-year-old reign. But even though it maintains its success with the locals, Hotel Jerome is trying to cater to them even more than it has in the past. “When the J-Bar was in need of structural renovation we wanted to do more than just give it a facelift,” says Dennis McGlinn, bar manager, Hotel Jerome. “We had to make it so that the locals would be attracted.”
The ambiance is casual, yet richly colored and designed for the town famous for its glitz and glamour. Features include pigskin-covered barstools and wooden blinds, which resemble the blinds that once hung in the bar a century ago. The look tried to recapture the atmosphere of the bar’s days past. Yet, its alternative agenda, according to McGlinn, was to be able to compete with other bars and restaurants in the area for the lunch crowd. “We wanted them to be ‘wowed’ when they walked in,” McGlinn says. Since the renovation, the J-Bar has become a popular sports bar and the place for a weekday lunch.
Smart Promotions
As with any hospitality business, rewarding
repeat customers maintains their loyalty. Bars and lounges are no different. “I
think a lot of the reason we maintain local customers is because of
word-of-mouth and our promotions,” McGlinn says. Most of the repeat
customers come because of the specials and come back because of
the comfort, he says.
Finding the right promotions to offer guests comes with getting to know the people and what they want. J-Bar does many sports-themed promotions, such as Monday night football drink specials and raffling off sports equipment. “We do various promotions with the liquor companies,” McGlinn says. “We do drawings that keep customers coming back to check and see if they’ve won.”
At Uvas, management tries to offer ges that lure customers to buy both drinks and food. The bar offers an extensive menu of tapas, which Echais says is perfect; the amount of food and price are low enough for customers to order. “The food is light and is paired well with a glass of wine,” he says.
Uvas also offers wine lectures and related presentations from various wineries throughout the region. “We are doing a lot of events for local customers,” Echais says. The event is usually followed by a wine tasting and a buffet. “We try to offer different wine functions that include food and some sort of tasting event. People are always attracted to that here.” The promotions and wine selections have helped Uvas contribute 10% to overall F&B revenue.
Sometimes, consistency and word of mouth are the best promotions for grabbing business from the local city. O’Callaghan says that once you have promoted, advertised and proven ourself, you can rely on your customers to bring in other business. While times may be tough, O’Callaghan says, “It is one industry that has come back a little sooner. People want to be with other people.”
New Trends In Bars, Lounges
Each year new hotel bars
offer more to customers, whether it is by improved service,
unusual décor or an overwhelming offering of liquors. Here
is a brief list of some of the trend setters and what makes them so.
Martini’s Lounge Millennium Hotel, Minneapolis, Minnesota. This new lobby lounge in the middle of this convention hotel offers a staggering list of more than 400 martinis. Guests can choose their favorite while people watching as the bar has a view of Nicollet shopping mall.
The Bar, The Portman Ritz-Carlton, Shanghai. The Bar makes its mark as Shanghai’s premier place for American jazz. Designed in a contemporary atmosphere, the newly renovated bar offers guests an eclectic collection of malt whiskeys, technologically sophisticated interior design and more than 41 cigar varieties.
La Rivista, Ca’Pisani Hotel, Venice. Following its Futurism-themed surroundings, La Rivista is filled with flower patterns inspired by Fortunato Depero, a Futuristic artist. Eccentric décor, which includes polychrome marble, bamboo flooring, leather sofas, walnut woods and blue star-light materials, is inspired by the Futuristic art movement in the 1930s. The bar specializes in Italian wine and cheese with a seemingly unending menu of red, white, sparkling and dessert Italian wines paired with Italian specialty breads and cheeses.
I-Bar, The Park Hotel, Bangalore, India. Amidst a contemporary boutique hotel, the I-Bar stands out with a “techno-electric feel.” The mood is set with an accent of neon colors, clusters of beanbags and low furniture. Décor is patterned to resemble technology; a wall of woven carpet looks like a circuit board. The design is derivative of the technology-driven world and invokes people to communicate and interact with each other.
Bar du Plaza Athénée, Paris. The newly renovated bar is created by Parisian interior designer Patrick Jouin. Its menu was created by Alain Ducasse and it is situated adjacent to the Avenue Montaigne. Deep colored wooden walls depict a pre-Revolution Paris, but the modern furniture, which includes gray metallic barstools, quietly lets you know this is the place to sip its signature drink, Rose Royal (champagne with a fresh raspberry puree).
Coal, Marcel Hotel, New York. Designed by GoodmanCharlton, Coal targets the young and hip crowd. With a theme described as “urban archeology,” Coal features dining alcoves fashioned out of original brick coal vaults. Adding to the earthy feel, steel beams are exposed to match the steel barstools and orange banquettes.
Bar Noir, Maison 140, Beverly Hills, California. Bar Noir is the latest trend-setter in this stylish city. The bar’s chic black, white and red décor is accented with Parisian antiques and trinkets. Lush furnishings and lacquered wall panels made of antique mirrors and crystal chandeliers complete the early 20th-century look. Its signature drink: The French Kiss, a mixture of champagne and Chambord liqueur.
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