Business Class

By Kit C.Cauw

Upon opening last year, the Conrad immediately raised the competitive stakes in Bangkok. The Conrad has changed the game entirely. You walk into the lobby and know instantly-the future is here. Conrad is the NOW. I mean, they have a PILLOW MENU! Ever slept on a Shogun Pillow, made from Igusa grass of Japan? What about one of natural rubber? You would have to spend eight nights here to sample each offering.

The hotel's welcome book begins with a quote from Funky Business by J. Ridderstrale and K. Nordstrom postulating that, "In an age of abundance, companies have to work hard to get noticed. Real competition no longer revolves around market share. We are competing for attention-mind share and heart share. . . . We have to attract and addict them."

My attention was captured first by the lobby's design, which feels like a grown-up's play room. Faint echoes of art deco amid low seating. Stands of bamboo fishing poles, light in both colour and stature, curved at their tips, counterpoint massive columns of rich, dark wood towering for three storeys. A carpet of traditional Ikat weaving pattern, something of a collage merging rectangles of varying sizes in a colour spectrum ranging from sand to bamboo, red earth to copper to mahogany, punctuated by swatches of pale steely blue. Above, hand-blown glass chandeliers share the same patterning. This is a lobby that calls for a movie screen and classic Hitchcock and Welles films. The seat cushions are half-a-metre thick and sink to accommodate you when you sit. Thai silk throw pillows catch your elbows and back. Two three-finger tumblers of single malt scotch and you would be hard-pressed to make it back to your exotic pillow.

Design director Michael Fiebrich took Thai elements and materials, then turned them on their end to create the most cutting-edge hotel in a town that prides itself on contemporary design. He has done for design what the best hip-hop artists have done with music-sampled a variety of elements and fused them into a new whole which is both utterly original and massively appealing.

So the lobby's swank. So what? Every new hotel puts on a pretty face. But it isn't every lobby that sets the tone for a fresh trend, a new era. However, you won't be spending the bulk of your time lounging around in the Ikat patterns, trance-inducing though they may be. Most likely you're here for business, not idleness, otherwise you might have been lured to a river hotel with a Thai buffet and cultural dinner theatre.

Indeed, if grand Thai style you seek, Conrad is not your spot. Conrad is not a museum of anthropology; its nod to the host culture comes not in homage to Khmer and Thai kingdoms of yesteryear but in contemporary offerings such as pen and ink architectural drafts of Buddhist temples and the use of fine local materials. Rather than stapling silk to the walls, they set it off with backlighting and lamination between sheets of glass. Rather than running off yet another batch of "ancient Siam" costumes for staff, Conrad brought in celebrated designer Pichitra, whose clients include Her Majesty Queen Sirikit and Princess Ubolrat, to "blend the contemporary and the traditional in a way that's stylish, but will stand the test of time." Don't get me wrong-I am not suggesting that Conrad has purged "Thai-ness" from its design. The hotel is not without familiar motifs. You will find elephants and ceramic urns. The Diplomat Bar features floor-to-ceiling dark wooden shutters that recall the days of trading companies before the advent of air conditioning. The point I am making is that while antiques, artifacts, and classical paintings are indisputably pretty, Conrad
prefers to focus on the new, on art created for this age, by artists of this time.

A major reason to stay at Conrad Bangkok is that its business technology keeps pace with its contemporary design. Internet connections can be in issue in Thailand. Many a morning I have endured the tedium of waiting five minutes to just open my mailbox. If you are going to get anything done, you need speed and Conrad is the fastest rabbit in the warren. While other hotels boast quick connections, most run at 128 kbps, though some hit 250 and occasionally 500. Conrad runs at a whopping 1000, lapping the average competition 7.8 times over.

The second advantage of staying here is wireless connectivity. Practically everywhere. Where others may have wireless lobbies, here you can plop yourself down at the swimming pool, in the Diplomat Bar, Cafe@2, the executive lounge, any of the function rooms and ballrooms, bust out that new wide screen Toshiba or Powerbook and connect. As my host said, "You have to be connected-you can't walk fast enough for IT."

Every business room in the Conrad resounds with the sophisticated modern design of the lobby, though the chair cushions are not so deep. Lighting is intelligent, the stereo surround-sound, the video projection large-format. Take advantage of both conference discussion systems and video conference systems, as well as teleprompters, radio controlled audio-visual podium stations, LCD, and on-line digital signage. A second lobby, the Ruam Rudee Ballroom, allows VIPs and celebrities to slip inside without having to parade through common areas. This is quite practical for security reasons and for the convenience of being in a ballroom.

In addition to its firm grip on the crown of business services, two of Bangkok's hottest and hippest clubs reside in the Conrad. The Diplomat Bar, named for the hotel's location at the heart of Embassy Row, should be the setting of a John Le Carre novel. It feels both ultra modern and classically colonial. With its dark, heavy shutters, cool lighting and live jazz, the club is a film noir waiting to shoot itself. Don't take off your sunglasses. Keep the shaken martinis coming. Check your swizzle sticks at the door.

87, billed as "as restaurant that's a bar that's a club, that doesn't know it's in a hotel" represents a polar shift from the Diplomat. While the Diplomat is sophisticated and refined, more of a drinks-after-work club that draws its clientele from the embassies and offices of All Season's Place, 87 is a cosmopolitan nightclub featuring internationally renowned DJs, musicians and performance artists. The fact that throngs of suits and hipsters and members of Bangkok's creative generation, Thai and expat alike, pack both clubs bodes well for the business traveller. These bars are not merely flashy and stylish-they are hopping and fun. You need not leave the hotel to meet the most interesting people in the city. Many people will begin an evening with drinks in the Diplomat, then glide through the lobby for a late dinner and full-on clubbing at 87.

Whether you stay out till the wee hours or crash after cocktails, your room should blow you away. Again, the design blends echoes of 60s retro with the cutting edge. You get your fruit basket, but you also get three truffles. Instead of a little rubber ducky in the bath, you get a little rubber elephant. Instead of a plain old wall between the bathroom and the main room, you get one of glass, with a silver curtain that rolls closed at the push of a button. There are television controls and speakers in the bathroom as well, so it's just as easy to chill in the tub and watch the tube as it is to kick back in bed. The other chief advantage of the great glass wall is its illusion of creating space. With the curtain open, the already well-appointed room grows by roughly 30%. As with everything else in this stellar hotel, it looks awesome.

Conrad is the top brand in the Hilton line, with currently just fifteen hotels in the world and properties opening soon in Phuket, Bali and Miami. It was Conrad Hilton who proclaimed the oft-quoted axiom of hotel strategy: "Location, location, location." Bangkok's monument to his first name is ideally situated in the up market All Season's Place, which is really the only integrated residential, hotel, office and retail development in Bangkok. In a city where urban planning came as an afterthought, Conrad is at the heart of what approximates downtown, surrounded by commercial centres, embassies and just down the road from Lumpini Park, the gasping "green lung" of this concrete jungle. The Skytrain is an easy walk or a brief shuttle ride from the front door and the toll way to the airport equally close. Proximity to these major arteries is essential in today's Bangkok, yet only a handful of fine hotels can truly boast easy access. While loyalists will continue to haunt the old guard of business hotels, many of which are truly excellent, the capstone of Bangkok's finest is Conrad's to lose. In one quick year, they have exploded onto the scene to dominate in nearly every way. They leave the establishment, including the fine hotel bearing their last name, scrabbling for second place honours, all the while knowing that no one remembers the runner-up in beauty contests, let alone in business. I said they don't play nice, but it's almost unfair what they have done here. Quite simply, Bangkok has a new house and as the boys in Vegas will tell you, the house always wins.