In their elements

03 January 2002 by
In their elements

British hoteliers may think that they have their fair share of challenges at the moment, but not many have to contend with the elements. Jenny Webster and Ben Walker report on four international hotels that do just that.

Imagine a hotel that claims its guests spend most of their time underwater, but which doesn't even have a swimming pool; and another that has battled for survival against rivers of liquid fire. What would it be like to run a hotel so high that it makes your guests feel queasy? Could you attract guests willing to sleep in subzero temperatures - and get them to pay for the privilege?

In the following four spectacular locations, staff and guests alike engage with the elemental forces of ice, fire, water and oxygen.

ice

Believe it or not, there is a hotel where guest-room temperatures plummet to an icy -10ºC. There are no radiators, no minibars, no televisions and no en suite bathrooms. Guests sleep on beds made of snow and ice, and are asked to vacate their rooms by 8am.

While this may not sound too appealing, there is clearly a market for this lack of creature comforts, as this hotel runs at virtually 100% occupancy during its key operating months, achieving rates close to the published rack rates. These are the unique operational points of the 90-room Icehotel, in Jukkasjärvi in Swedish Lapland, one of only two ice hotels in the world (the other is in Canada).

As the name suggests, the Icehotel is made out of thousands of tons of snow and ice taken from a nearby river that freezes over as winter approaches. For two months, sculptors saw and chisel windows, doors, columns, desks, beds, chairs, tables, lamps and sculptures to create the overall structure. The result is an eerily quiet giant igloo, a setting that seems perfect for a fairy tale.

But the business of running the Icehotel is no fairy tale. Some 11,000 overnight guests brave the icy temperatures during the hotel's relatively short high season, which lasts from mid-December until it melts at the end of April. Most guests are probably secretly relieved to find that not everything takes place in the chilly climes of the igloo. Adjacent lies a more familiar world, a conventional hotel building where guests check in, pick up the warm clothing that is included in the price of their stay, and have dinner. As it gets dark, they make their way over to the igloo for their chilly night.

Before turning in, they might stop off at the Icebar, a bar within the igloo built entirely out of ice, selling flavoured vodkas to anaesthetise the senses. Not surprisingly, the vodka is drunk out of glasses also made of ice - drinkers need to wear gloves to hold the glasses, which melt slightly during the drinking hours and are smashed at the end of the session, to be recycled into new ones for the following day.

When it comes to bedtime, guests collect sleeping bags that can endure temperatures as low as -40ºC. They then retire to beds made out of blocks of ice, covered by wooden slats and a mattress with reindeer skins on top. The temptation is to leave on multiple layers of clothing to guard against the icy temperatures, despite recommendations from those giving out the sleeping bags to take off as many clothes as possible. "You will not be cold," is the message.

Strangely, that message is true. The toasty sleeping bags really do protect against the cold but, warm as they are, there's no chance of a lie-in. Guests are woken with an early-morning hot lingonberry juice, and are booted out for a sauna and breakfast in the main hotel. This is because preparations to welcome day visitors - some 33,000 during the season - need to be made. At an entry cost of SKr100 (£6.65) per person, this is a valuable revenue stream to the business.

At the end of April, the final guests check out, and summer activities such as sampling the local culture and going white-water rafting kick in at the permanent hotel until October, when the process of building the Icehotel starts again. And because each year it is started from scratch, it can genuinely claim to have unique aspects. As art director Arne Bergh concludes: "Nature gives us the opportunity to experiment with form, space and technique every year and, like snowflakes, no two icehotels are the same."

fire

Davide Corsaro saw his hotel and restaurant destroyed in 1983, invaded by molten lava seeping through windows and doors. After the family business had been rebuilt on the same land, it nearly happened again last July.

This time, the Corsaro family and firemen used mud banks to divert the advancing lava away from the 19-bedroom Hotel Corsaro and 30-seat La Capannina restaurant. Both are housed in the same building in a refuge 2,000 metres up Sicily's Mount Etna.

But why rebuild on such an obviously dangerous spot? Co-owner and manager Corsaro explains that, with no disaster fund from the Sicilian authorities, it was economically necessary. Furthermore, a fierce regional and family loyalty compelled him to remain on the land where his grandfather had started business as a snow vendor in the 1930s.

With no access by road and no telephone, La Capannina reopened in 1985 on a slick of smoking, black magma. Even today, the lava beneath remains warm. It becomes clear that Corsaro has a love-hate relationship with Etna, the highest active volcano in Europe. "We work and eat thanks to this location," he says. "We breathe fantastic air and meet a lot of people who fall deeply in love with Etna."

The peak months for visiting the volcano are August, September and January, when the hotel has about 400 guests each month, mostly Europeans in the summer and Italians in the winter. However, winter can be difficult and, in November and December, trade drops dramatically. There were only about 30 guests last November. "If you need one loaf of bread, you have to go 20km to the nearest town," says Corsaro. "Snow, ice and storms await you, and little work, unless the conditions are favourable for skiing."

Corsaro has found it hard to recruit casual workers because of the hotel's location. There are four permanent staff, two seasonal, and as many as 15 for special occasions such as New Year's Eve. This winter will be particularly hard, as the running of the ski lifts and cable car remains disrupted after the July eruptions.

The volcano gives and takes with the same hand. Corsaro explains: "The interest in Etna is because it is still active, so generally eruptions are positive for business. For example, this July the hotel was full of journalists for those two weeks of strongest activity.

"On the other hand, the restaurant was empty for one month after the eruption because of the restricted access. But the eruption has provided us with publicity for years to come."

water
At the only underwater hotel in the world, Jules' Undersea Lodge, there are no safety restrictions on how long guests can stay - only financial ones. "They can stay as long as their credit card keeps going," says general manager Rick Ford.

According to Ford, the world record for the longest uninterrupted time spent underwater was made at the Florida hotel in 1995, when trainee astronaut Rick Priestley stayed for 69 days without surfacing as part of a Nasa-funded space project.

Jules' Undersea Lodge is off the coast of Key Largo and guests must scuba dive 21ft beneath the surface of the sea to reach it. The Lodge sits on legs about 5ft off the bottom of the protected Mangrove Lagoon, which enables visitors to enter the hotel through the floor, like surfacing into a small swimming pool. It is filled with compressed air which prevents water from rising and flooding the rooms.

After entering the "wet room", guests can get changed and take a shower. Two bedrooms and a shared living room, each with huge windows, branch off from this central space. The lodge usually accommodates two couples but can take as many as six. It is monitored by three full-time staff from a command centre at the edge of the lagoon, from where fresh air, water and power are delivered via umbilical cords.

Guests eat and sleep underwater. Two full-time staff, including Ford, have the triple role of scuba instructor, chef and waiter rolled into one. Even guests who have never scuba-dived can learn the procedures necessary to stay at the lodge with a three-hour class.

Ford says that, since opening 16 years ago, the lodge has been having its best 12 months to date, with about 50% occupancy (700 guests). But, since 11 September, "the phone hasn't been ringing so much".

The lodge was not originally designed as a hotel but as a mobile research laboratory. This has its drawbacks. "How do you get a return on an investment of $4.6m (£3.2m) when you've only got two bedrooms?" Ford asks. "Adding more bedrooms just means increased maintenance costs. We were very lucky that we were able to acquire the hotel at far below its construction cost. We're real happy with what we've got."

air

A drink of "maté de coca", an infusion of leaves from the cocaine plant, welcomes guests arriving at Hotel Monasterio, a dizzying 3,400 metres up in the Peruvian Andes. Despite its association with class A narcotics, the drink is clearly not stimulating enough for everyone. Coca leaves alleviate the symptoms of altitude sickness, but general manager Laurent Carrasset says that, for some guests, nothing except plain oxygen, administered via a mask, will do. Carrasset himself suffers from nausea, insomnia, loss of appetite, irritability and breathlessness every time he returns from his native France.

Most of the hotel's 148 staff do not have the same problem. They have lived all their lives in the historic city of Cuzco, founded by the Incas in the 15th century, and therefore have a bigger lung capacity than their European colleagues. The French kitchen staff and Belgian regional manager may have developed the Cusquenaians' rosy cheeks, but they would need years to match their lung size.

The hotel is taking steps to combat altitude sickness, which affects about 30% of guests, who mostly arrive on a rapid flight from sea-level Lima. An oxygen production tank is being installed which will pipe oxygen into 50 of the hotel's 123 bedrooms. The system should be up and running by the end of the month. Guests will pay a surcharge of about $25 (£17) a night for the bedrooms.

Most guests - 45% North American, 15% South American, 10% British and 30% from mainland Europe - come to explore the remnants of the Inca civilisation, and stay for three or four days.

Owner Orient Express also has a nearby 31-bedroom lodge inside the Inca citadel, Machu Picchu. Turnover for both properties is about $10m (£7m) a year, and Carrasset says that, despite the effects of 11 September and almost 50% of the hotel's clientele being from the USA, occupancy for last year was 70%.

The oxygen production tank was formerly used in miners' accommodation in the Chilean Andes. At the hotel, it is part of a $4.5m (£3.1m) refurbishment of the former 16th-century monastery, which includes five additional suites, a bar in the lobby, and a new restaurant.

(For details of how to win a break at the Icehotel, see Caterer, 3rd January 2002, page 19)

Icehotel

981 91 Jukkasjärvi, Sweden
Tel: 00 46 980 66 800
Fax: 00 46 980 66 890
Web site:www.icehotel.com

Owner: Jukkas AB
Opened this season: 13 December
Rooms and suites: total 90 (this year made up of 70 rooms and 20 suites); two "conventional" bathrooms are situated at one end of the Icehotel
Rates for coming season: double rooms, SKr1,960 (£130.22); suites, SKr2,960 (£196.80); all double occupancies include morning sauna and breakfast
Season: December to end of April (normal hotel continues to run during summer)
Other activities available: ice fishing, skidooing, dog-sledding (mushing)
Turnover: about SKr500m (£3.2m)
Within igloo structure: Icebar, sponsored by Absolut vodka; cinema; separate ice chapel
Average length of stay: one night - most guests combine a night in the Icehotel with a two-night stay in log cabins within the hotel's grounds
Staff: 100

Hotel Corsaro

Piazza Cantoniera - Etna Sud, 95030 Nicolosi (CT), Sicily
Tel: 00 39 095 914122/7809902
Fax: 00 39 095 7801024
Web site:www.hotelcorsaro.it

Occupancy: 50%
Average achieved room rate: £44
Number of rooms: 19
Turnover for hotel and restaurant: L700m (£224,000)

Hotel Monasterio

Calle Palacios 136, Plazoleta Nazarenas, Cuzco, Peru
Tel: 00 51 84 24 1777
Fax: 00 51 84 23 7111

E-mail:info@peruorientexpress.com.pe
Number of rooms: 123
Occupancy: 70%
Turnover for Hotel Monasterio and Machu Picchu Lodge: $10m (£7m)
Average room rate: $170 (£119)

Jules' Undersea Lodge

Key Largo Undersea Park, 51 Shoreland Drive, Key Largo, Florida 33037, USA
Tel: 00 1 305 451 2353
Fax: 00 1 305 451 4789
E-mail: info@jul.com
Web site: www.jul.com
Occupancy: 50%
Average achieved room rate: $250 (£174)
Number of rooms: two

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