Hotel Collector

These days, there are plenty of famous rich folks and big lodging companies trying to build global chains of luxury hotels....

Bill Gates and a Saudi prince just paid $3.8 billion for the Four Seasons chain. Michael Dell, the computer mogul, and Ty Warner, the Beanie Baby billionaire, are snapping up hotels and resorts. The Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group and Peninsula Hotels are expanding fast from their Asian bases. Marriott is spreading Ritz-Carltons around the world. Hilton is building a luxury chain around the Waldorf-Astoria name. And Starwood Hotels is leveraging its St. Regis brand. Barry Sternlicht, who built Starwood, is out on his own and wants to create a line based on the Hôtel de Crillon in Paris.

But personally, I’m rooting for Raymond Bickson. His name may not be as familiar as the others, but you may know his work. Everyone loved Raymond when he turned the Mark into the best small hotel in New York. He’s also done time with several of the great luxury chains, including Regent, Mandarin, and Rafael. Now he’s chief executive and managing director of Taj Hotels, a century-old company that has historically owned trophy properties in India. Among its holdings are more than a dozen palace hotels, including the Taj Lake Palace in Udaipur, a white marble vision set in the middle of a lake.

Bickson has been quietly collecting some of the world’s great hotels and building new ones in key business destinations. Taj has purchased a hotel in Sydney, is converting two classic buildings in Cape Town, South Africa, and is building properties in Doha, Qatar; Dubai, United Arab Emirates; Johannesburg, South Africa; and elsewhere. In London, it owns the St. James and 51 Buckingham Gate. About two years ago, Bickson snapped up the lease of the Pierre Hotel in New York. Earlier this year, Bickson spent $170 million on the 273-room Ritz-Carlton in Boston, the hotel that gave its name to the entire chain. (The property has been rebranded as the Taj Boston.) Last week, he spent $58 million on Campton Place, a stylish, 110-room gem just off San Francisco’s Union Square.

Fifty-eight million may not sound like a lot of dough in the global luxury game, but consider this: The purchase price represents $525,000 per guestroom, a record for San Francisco hotels. Nearby outposts of the Ritz-Carlton, Four Seasons, and St. Regis were all sold or built in recent years for significantly less than $500,000 a room.

Bickson pleads guilty to paying eye-popping premiums for his American trophies. Its what you have to do if you really want to compete at the top, he says. “These locations are triple-A-plus. The buildings are classics,” he explains. “You have to take the long-term view in luxury hotels.”

He can afford the long view. Taj is a part of the Tata Group, which is so tremendous that it expresses its size in relation to the Indian G.D.P. (It’s about 2.9 percent.) Tata has its fingers in just about everything, including steel, cars, jets, food service, software, telecommunications, and, yes, hotels.

But it’s going to take more than just money to compete, and if there’s a fly in Bickson’s luxury-lodging ointment, it’s branding. Taj isn’t well known outside of India and few of Bickson’s new prizes will even use the Taj moniker. The complexities of the lease on the Pierre preclude a name change there. The Taj name was added to the Campton Place name rather than replacing it. The Sydney hotel is called Blue. Those London properties are not immediately identifiable as Taj either.

“I’m buying iconic properties and it is difficult, sometimes impossible, to change the names of those places,” admits Bickson. “It is a brand-image problem.”

But if he’s weak on brand, Bickson is strong on personality and he loves to give great service, two other essentials for a successful luxury hotelier.

The other week, when I caught up with him in his war room at the Pierre Hotel, Bickson looked the very model of a modern luxury hotelier. Bespoke pinstriped suit. Elegant handmade shirt. Gold Bulgari cuff links. Then there was his tie: a sunny yellow field of silk dotted with coconut palms and canvas beach chairs.

It’s one of the things that sets him apart in the luxury hotel world. Bickson remains what he’s always been—a sunny-souled Hawaii guy. Everyone’s ohana (family) to him. And despite his lofty position, he’ll still beat you to the door so he can hand over your coat and proffer an umbrella in case of rain.

“It’s always about taking care of a guest,” Bickson told me a few years ago, just after he took the Taj gig. “The strategies, the real estate, the investments, none of it matters unless you love to take care of people and make them happy.”

The Fine Print

Zagat Survey released its hotel report last week and two-thirds of the 21,000 people surveyed cited “poor service” as their biggest complaint.

You didn’t know Michael Dell owned hotels? Among his prizes is the Four Seasons Hualalai resort on the Big Island. He also recently purchased the Kona Village Resort from Ty Warner, who owns the Four Seasons New York and the San Ysidro Ranch in Montecito, California.