| |
The brand spanking new Conrad Tokyo is one of the hottest places to stay in town. Rooms are designed on a ‘city’ or ‘garden’ concept according to their views over the skyline or the Royal Hamarikyu garden and Tokyo Bay. Business travellers are well catered for with airport limousines, three banquet rooms and meeting rooms with the latest audiovisual and technical facilities. The wow factor is secured by having Gordon Ramsay’s new restaurant on-site. After a hard day’s work, relax in the spa with 10 treatment rooms or work out in the fully equipped gym and aerobics studio.
|
Count this as one of the most conveniently located and discreet hotels in the archipelago. That said, this is an [address] for intimate occasions, business or personal. The hotel is on the smaller scale and consists of a couple of floors in the middle of an office building, so there’s no grand entrance. The location allows for a last-minute dash to the bullet trains going west to Osaka and Nagoya.
|
The Grand Hyatt opened in 2003, along with the whole of the Roppongi Hills complex. Just as the overall development by tycoon Minoru Mori has worked, so indeed the hotel at the heart of the new complex is proving to be a winner. Cheesy aspects of the place, and a rather inconvenient lobby, can be overlooked in favour of the fact that this is now, quite suddenly, the most fashionable hotel in the city. Service has improved recently and management is confident.
|
After 43 years of history, Tokyo’s oldest and most venerable hotel—still with one of the greatest lobbies in the world—faces the shifting sands of the hotel business with confidence. The Okura is tied in with the US Embassy across the road and it serves as a port of call for visiting heads of state and government. It is also very attractive to the Japanese, who flock to its restaurants and bars, which are among the most prestigious in Tokyo. That said, the overall atmosphere—the guest rooms— isn’t what it once was.
|
The movie that put this hotel on the map, Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation, hasn’t actually done it any favours. People feel they know these hushed corridors, quietly hissing lifts and uniformed staff, and they want something a shade more lively than this oh-so-accurately-observed hostelry. The view of Mount Fuji from the New York Bar is still what it was, stunning, and the celebs keep coming. But increasingly the centre of gravity in Tokyo is Roppongi. The management has a challenge.
|
| |