Four Seasons Introduces Homier Accommodations

<B> Four Seasons Introduces Homier Accommodations</B>

By Lynn Woods

A small but significant increase in extended-stay demand at Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts has inspired the luxury chain to introduce its "Call Us Home" program, which caters to the special needs of guests staying more than two weeks. These long-term guests can request a range of special services before or during their stay, including personalized menus, in-room computer hook-ups and fax machines, a video player and even kitchen equipment, including a toaster, refrigerator and coffee maker.

"The idea was to help business travelers going through a transition that can be highly stressful restore their routine and settle in," said Jonathan Sicroff, Four Seasons' Singapore-based vice president of sales and marketing for Asia/Pacific. "We represent a support system for them when they're overseas."

Sicroff said he introduced the program last spring in response to a fresh influx of financial and legal consultants in Asia, spurred by a change in the economic situation. Some of these travelers stay for weeks and months at a time, and the Four Seasons hotels are an attractive option, especially in countries with a different language and culture.

The hotel staff can help a recently arrived businessperson with all types of needs, from the best route for that early morning three-mile run to having coffee automatically delivered to the room every morning. Guests also can choose to be billed weekly or twice a month and arrange not to have the maid clean the room every day.


<B>Tokyo Road</B>

The Four Seasons Tokyo attracts extended-stay travelers in part because of the high cost of commodities and services in Japan, not to mention the language barrier. John Fleming, consulting director of rooms, said the hotel at any given time has half a dozen extended-stay guests, many of them consultants who have been transferred to Japan. A special rate can be negotiated for stays of six months or more.

Allan Graydon, a fleet manager at tire company Bandag, frequently travels to Tokyo with his wife Caroline for assignments that last from two to six weeks. Temporary apartments are not only very expensive, but must be rented for at least a year, said Caroline Graydon, so instead, the couple stays at the Four Seasons Tokyo. Since the staff speaks English, it's easy to make a request. Through the Call Us Home program, the couple not only enjoys a large room with a balcony and free access to the fitness center, but Allan Graydon also has been supplied with a car and driver.

The Call Us Home program, which carries no extra charge, is an ideal way to market Four Seasons as a viable alternative to apartments, said Sicroff. In Singapore, the Four Seasons is the accommodation of choice for all relocating employees at Cisco Systems. Similar arrangements exist with Merrill Lynch in Tokyo and Arthur Andersen Consulting in Jakarta.

Sicroff said "a surprising number" of these extended-stay guests have families. They are a truly multinational crowd, hailing not only from the United States but from places as far-flung as Cambodia and Germany.

Of the 18 Four Seasons and Regent hotels participating in the program, only one is in the United States--the Regent Beverly Wilshire in Los Angeles. Three percent of the guests at the California hotel stay longer than a month. That amount may seem miniscule, but it's going up, said the hotel's director of marketing Bill Doak--particularly in the wake of an ad campaign pitching the hotel as "your second home."

Most extended-stay guests have traveled halfway around the world to do business with Hollywood, and they'll stay long enough to meet with all the studios. Others are executives in the financial sector, while a small portion are "extremely wealthy people who stay for a month each year."

For long-term guests belonging to pre-existing corporate accounts, the Regent Beverly Wilshire will offer an upgraded room--perhaps one with a balcony--and throw in other requested amenities, as well as honor the corporate discount, of course.