CREDIT: Glenn Baglo, Chuck Russell, Vancouver Sun Leanne Chan, of Beringa Communications Inc., works on preparations for the Living Shangri-La exterior plaza for today’s opening. The Shangri-La will be the city’s tallest building at 60-storeys.

Walking into Vancouver‘s Shangri-La Hotel upon its opening some time in the first quarter of 2008 will be like walking into the Island Shangri-La in Hong Kong, or Shangri-La Valley Way in Singapore, only on a more “intimate” scale.

Shangri-La is renowned across Asia and the Middle East as one of the most luxurious of five-star hotel brands. Its properties feature soaring atriums and pampering service.

The standard and style of accommodation in Vancouver, said Stephen Darling, Shangri-La’s vice-president for North America, will be “commensurate with the best of the best” in Asia, with sincere hospitality delivered “in a way that works in Western Canada.”

However, while Hong Kong Shangri-La’s 565 rooms rise 56 stories, and Singapore‘s 755 rooms sprawl across three wings, Vancouver‘s 120 rooms will be neatly contained in the first 15 floors of a 60-storey tower at the corner of Georgia and Thurlow.

The remainder of the tower will be apartments and live-work spaces.

Darling said the size relates directly to the Shangri-La brand’s level of service.

“To deliver the Asian standard of hospitality and style in a Canadian environment is a whole lot easier to accomplish in an intimate hotel,” Darling said.

To accomplish the same service in a facility of 400 rooms or more “would be nearly impossible.”

Darling added that basic services will be available to the building’s residents and be included in their strata fees. That will allow the Shangri-La to offer amenities such as a 5,500 square-foot fitness centre and 6,500 square-foot spa and large swimming pool, that wouldn’t be found in a 120-room hotel.

Room service, housekeeping and laundry services will be made available to building residents at market rates.

Though ground for the building won’t be broken until January, Darling anticipates he will start with a staff of 125 — approximately one staff person per room.

He added that a one-to-one ratio is typical of the “top end of the market” in Canada.

In Hong Kong and Singapore, Darling added, the ratio is closer to 1.25 to 1.5 staff per room, and in developing countries staff ratios can be as high as 2.5 to three per room.

Beth Walters, a hospitality-industry consultant with Panel Kerr Forrester, said that labour costs and regulations in North America make it difficult to maintain the highest level of service.

In her experience in travelling in Asia, service can include stationing staff members at either end of the corridor on guest floors whose job it is to tidy up rooms any time a guest leaves, 24-hours a day.

“In North America, that’s not common practice, necessarily,” she said. “It’s partly a function that the North American audience may have different needs, but also of just the fact labour rates are considerably higher.”

Walters said one-to-one “would not be an uncommon number” for a five-star facility, and in North America it is not uncommon for the five-star facilities to be smaller.

In Vancouver, only the Sutton Place and Pan Pacific Hotels have five-star ratings, though Walters noted that the five-star rating can be incredibly difficult to hang on to for reasons unrelated to staffing.

CREDIT: Glenn Baglo, Chuck Russell, Vancouver Sun Architect James K.M. Cheng with a model of the Shangri-La hotel-residential development.

Darling added that the level of food and beverage services adds a big qualification to staff ratios. He said the bigger Asian properties — destinations unto themselves — will have five or six restaurants and much more demand for staff.

Darling said labour costs are higher in Canada, but he said the Shangri-La compensates through training and in “empowering” staff to make decisions that typically fall on another layer of management that exists at facilities in developing countries where education levels and English proficiency are not as high.

The cost to hotel guests to maintain Shangri-La service, Darling added, will depend on the market at the time the hotel opens in 2008, but he anticipates it will be competitive.

“Our goal is to be the rate leader,” he said.

Currently, Darling added, the average room rate for a five-star property in Vancouver is just under $200 per night, but to state what they expect it to be by 2008 would “be premature.”

However, on the residential side of the project, developers have found the Shangri-La brand name to be a significant enticement.

The developers, Westbank Projects Corp. and Peterson Investment Group, have opened a display centre at 1166 Alberni St. Rennie Marketing Systems is handling sales.

Approximately 75 per cent of the development’s residential units, comprising 227 live-work condos on floors 16 to 42, and 66 estate suites on floors 43 to 59, sold in the first 10 days of pre sales, said Ian Gillespie, president and CEO of Westbank Projects. He said buyers are indeed buying the Shangri-La brand.

“What we’re finding is that people are coming out and saying ‘I stayed at the Singapore Shangri-La, and it was the most amazing experience,” Gillespie added.

They understand, he added, that it is a quality of service that isn’t available to apartment dwellers elsewhere in Vancouver.

Bob Rennie, of Rennie Marketing Systems, said service and security were key selling points.

“For world travellers, [Shangri-La] has an amazing following,” he added. “How much more people are willing to pay is hard to equate.”

However, Rennie admitted he was caught off guard when those invited to preview the suites started snapping them up.

“It’s not like Yaletown where people spend eight weeks looking and then line up to buy,” Rennie said. “Everybody who came in early to preview before our opening wrote the cheque, and our average unit [price] is a million and 50,000 [dollars].

“I know the market is sustainable, but when you see it, it still catches you off guard.”

© The Vancouver Sun 2004