Five star NZ hotels: behind-the-scenes stats and secrets

Five star New Zealand hotels: behind-the-scenes stats and secrets Champagne baths, rooms full of roses and thousands of kilos of salmon

$34.7 billion: that’s the total tourism expenditure in New Zealand for the year ended March 2016. Up more than 12% on the previous year, tourism is now New Zealand’s biggest export earner (and predicted to reach $41 billion a year by 2025).* With international tourism growing at 19.6%, and Kiwis increasingly travelling within our own country, hotels are experiencing record results.

In 2015, TIA hotel members generated $1.17 billion in revenue. They contributed $815 million to the economy on the likes of food and beverage purchases.

So what exactly are New Zealand hotels’ procurement departments spending their money on?

Stephen Gould is General Manager for Sofitel’s newest luxury hotel in Wellington. Their additional hotels in Auckland and Queenstown are amongst eight hotels in New Zealand ranked as “luxury” by global market benchmarking organisation STR.

Stephen Gould says that well-travelled, sophisticated business and leisure travellers are driving demand for five star hotels – and a corresponding level of service.

“Our staff order and manage literally millions of different items a year, from ingredients for the restaurant to room staging.

Everything has to be, simply, perfect. With a five-star hotel, a superlative attention to the tiniest detail is essential, as the smallest touches combine to create a major impact. And of course we must respond to our customers’ individual requests, however unusual."

London’s Portobello Hotel famously filled a Victorian bath with champagne, for the enjoyment of 90s celebrity star couple Kate Moss and Johnny Depp.

The Hotel Le Meurice, in Paris, was a home-away-from-home for Surrealist painter Salvador Dali, who once demanded that staff bring a herd of sheep up to his room.

Stephen Gould says that, while he hasn’t heard of any Daliesque requests from guests, grand romantic gestures are always popular.

“Staff always need to have copious flowers on hand, as they’re sometimes asked by a guest to fill a suite with flowers."

Catering for everyday guest requirements also means some quite staggering statistics.

For example, in the year from July 16 to June 17, the three Sofitel hotels are expecting to go through: • Over 34 million French pastries.

• 8,554 kilos of salmon.

• Over 1.8 billion millilitres of water
• 127,886 flower buds and stems sourced from New Zealand florists.

• 181,714 candle burning hours.

• 80,023 turndown chocolates.

And if a guest does feel like doing a Moss-and-Depp and bathing in champagne, Stephen Gould says all they need to do, at any top hotel, is simply call room service. Twenty-four to 36 bottles of their favourite bubbles should do the trick.

ENDS

* Tourism Industry Aotearoa

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