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Jia wears its style on its sleeve. Trendy young people waft around its Philippe Starck interior with an air of practised boredom, and the staff study clothes first, travel documents second. Amazingly, for a city with so many competing highquality hotels, Jia is the first real boutique property. Starck’s pared-down design style mixes modernist minimalism with highcamp retro. But the hotel lacks certain essential amenities for the business traveller. Staff say that they’ll supply ‘business support’, but that’s no substitute for a business centre. The location is close to Causeway Bay MTR station and a 15- minute taxi ride from HKCEC.
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Langham Place is an ambitious, groundbreaking venture for Hong Kong’s newest hotel group. The iconic tower it occupies was constructed on top of Mongkok MTR station and is the first step in an urban renewal that will eventually change the face of Kowloon. As such, its shiny modernity exists in arresting contrast to its surroundings—dirty, rundown tenements already gone to rot. Because of the tower’s urban isolation, the rooftop swimming pool is one of the few in town not overlooked by office or residential windows. It is the first fully wireless property in the city, and sets new standards for technological prowess.
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One of the newest and most modern hotels in Hong Kong, Le Meridien is located in a state-of-the-art technology hub on the western shore of Cyberport, overlooking the Lamma Channel. The development remains controversial, has signally failed to attract its target audience of computer and telecommunications multinationals, and has the atmosphere of a 21st-century ghost town. The hotel, on the other hand, offers excellent accommodation with enough smart and trendy features to satisfy the most upto- date executives. It’s small enough to get away with a ‘boutique’ label, and the out-of-town location offers an alternative vision of Hong Kong.
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