Tokyo Hotels Compete for the 'Wow' Factor

TOKYO -- The glowing electronic consoles on both sides of the bed look like something you would find on the Starship Enterprise. Same for the instrument panel over the desk, the illuminated switches, buttons and phone outside the combination walk-in closet/dressing room, and the sensor-operated toilet cover that lifts automatically when you pass within a few feet of it.

These gizmos are standard features of the guest rooms in the new Peninsula Hotel Tokyo, the latest upscale international brand to enter the long-insular hotel market in Japan's capital. Hong Kong-based Peninsula opened the property, which boasts sweeping views of the Imperial Palace, in September. It joins other newcomers such as the two-year-old Mandarin Oriental and Marriott's(MAR Quote) Ritz-Carlton, which debuted last March. The Four Seasons and Grand Hyatt have also arrived in recent years, adding to the array of options for prosperous travelers that already included the 14-year-old Park Hyatt Tokyo and Japanese-owned grand hotels such as the Imperial.

	View of the Imperial Palace from the Peninsula
	Photo: Armstrong

The result is a hotel war at the top end of the market that has raised the bar on service and introduced a decided "wow factor."

The new hotels are designed to dazzle. And dazzle they do, with Michelin-starred restaurants, stunning views over the metropolis of 30 million people and (on a clear day) Mount Fuji, buzzy bars, spectacular lobbies, plush spas, Olympic-sized pools and the ultimate luxury in hyper-crowded Tokyo: space. In these hotels, you'll find expansive guest rooms and roomy beds draped in linens with impossibly high thread counts.

Tokyo is not the only world city with intensified competition at the five-star level, of course. London is embracing posh boutique hotels and saw the opening in November of the first Andaz, the new arty design hotel from Hyatt. New York will get an Andaz Hotel this summer and a new property from Hong Kong luxury operator Shangri-la in 2010. And everyone is in Dubai, or soon will be.

Still, Tokyo, the financial center of the world's second-largest economy, is a special prize -- not least because it was virtually closed to foreign hoteliers until recently. Scarce land, high construction costs and red tape made Tokyo hard to get into. Globalization has opened the Tokyo market, giving many more choices to travelers who favor five stars.

"Tokyo has finally become affordable,'' says Robert Barker, general manager of the Park Hyatt Tokyo. Barker says room rates for a Tokyo five-star hotel average about $500 a night, less than in some other world capitals. "In London, everything is expensive. The world's caught up.''

The Park Hyatt, which opened in a stunning Kenzo Tange-designed high-rise in 1994, quickly became the first international hotel in the city to achieve near-iconic status. Tange designed an elegant aerie for the Park Hyatt atop a 52-story, mixed-use skyscraper in Shinjuku, a then-nondescript district west of the city center, on land once occupied by a gasworks. The Park Hyatt won over sophisticated Japanese and international travelers with its sleek modernization of classic Japanese design and an almost preternaturally attuned, English-speaking staff.

I recently returned to the Park Hyatt Tokyo for the first time in three years. It quickly became clear that the hotel, with a light-flooded lobby graced by tall living bamboo and the 52nd floor restaurant and bar, the New York Grill, still has it. The dreamy, out-of-body mood of the 2003 movie "Lost in Translation,'' much of it shot in the Park Hyatt, captures the ambiance perfectly.

Increased competition has pushed the Park Hyatt to install larger flat-screen TVs in the rooms and freshen the New York Grill, adding cozy booths and seats at the counter for people dining alone or people who just want to watch the theatricality of the open kitchen up close. The hotel also opened an ultra-spacious Tokyo Suite to woo music and movie industry high-rollers.

The Mandarin Oriental, which opened in December 2005, was the Park Hyatt's first international five-star challenger, and it, too, is extraordinary. Located in a Ceasar Pelli-designed high-rise built atop the Mitsukoshi subway station, this sleek hotel is located in Nihonbashi, the ancient heart of Tokyo. Within easy walking distance of Nihonbashi Bridge, a vintage structure now shadowed by an elevated expressway, and other historic sites, the Mandarin boasts wraparound city views and floor-to-ceiling windows that make you feel you are waltzing into thin air above the metropolis.

	Nihonbashi Bridge
	Photo: Armstrong

The Mandarin offers spacious guest rooms and an unusually creative use of fabrics -- not only on beds but on the walls. The hotel commissioned artists and traditional kimono makers to make the fabrics. The stunning split-level lobby on the 37th and 38th floors encompasses a bar called the Mandarin that features only female bartenders. "It makes the bar sexy,'' a forthright hotel public-relations person explains.

The Mandarin also showcases a Michelin-starred restaurant called Signature, run by French-born chef Olivier Rodriguez. The day I had lunch there, Rodriguez turned out delectable dishes such as foie gras and persimmon poached with ginger-scented chutney and seared with cinnamon.

The latest arrival, Ritz-Carlton, uses the high-rise template pioneered by the Park Hyatt and Mandarin Oriental, occupying the three lowest and nine highest floors of the tallest building in Tokyo, the newly built Midtown Tower, which also houses offices and shops. The Ritz-Carlton has an eye-popping, 25-foot-high lobby ceiling, expansive windows with panoramic views of the city and snow-capped, perfectly conical Mount Fuji, and a soothing use of water walls and whispering pools.

The hotel spa is sumptuous. According to general manager Ricco DeBlank, the Ritz-Carlton has sold 200 spa memberships to Tokyoites at $70,000 a year.

When Hong Kong-based Peninsula opened its Tokyo property a few months ago, it became the first stand-alone luxury hotel built in Tokyo in 10 years, forgoing the mixed-use highrise model. This way, says general manager Malcolm Thompson, "You're connected to the subway, you're connected to the street.'' At 24 stories high, the Peninsula is still tall enough to afford views -- especially from its top-floor restaurant/club/bar, Peter -- and the hotel's central location puts it a five-minute walk from the Imperial Palace in one direction, and the neon-washed nightscape of the Ginza district in another.

	Room at the Peninsula Hotel
	Photo: Armstrong

Those electronic gizmos in the Peninsula's rooms, though, are nearly enough to keep you in the hotel by themselves. The city? It'll still be there. Just dial up room service, sit back and enjoy the luxury in one of the world's most impressive new hotels.