Thoroughly modern Meurice
The German army knew a good hotel when it saw one, which is why General Dietrich von Choltitz, their last military commander in Paris, was occupying room 203 in the Meurice when the city was re-taken by the Allies in 1944.
The Wehrmacht had first checked into the Meurice in 1940, just three years after the hotel's second major refurbishment of the 20th century.
If you set aside a few aberrations in the 1960s, the next major changes to the grandest address in the Rue de Rivoli were not revealed until the Meurice re-opened several months late after its latest £450m refurbishment in July this year.
The spur for this latest renaissance came after the purchase of the hotel by the Dorchester group in 1997. The new owners quickly decided the hotel needed a face-lift.
At first it remained open, but reconstruction reached a point at the end of 1998 when it had to close.
"I think we realised we had to shut for a while when there was a fog in the dining room because there was so much dust from the building work going on outside," remembers hotel spokeswoman Claudia Schall.
The closure lasted 15 months and the hotel that has emerged from the dust is a markedly different beast from the one that disappeared under the builders' scaffolding.
The changes are part restoration, part development and part outright change. The first thing those familiar with the hotel notice is that the Rue de Rivoli, which used to be the back door, is now the front entrance.
The old main door, on the Rue Mont Thabor, is now used only for the new banqueting areas. Its use as the main entrance dates from the time when those arriving needed a lot of space to unload their belongings for long stays: in the 19th century some guests even used to bring furniture.
Other changes involved stripping away false ceilings and walls put up in the 1960s. This stripping back has unveiled features such as the spectacular glass ceiling in the Jardin d'Hiver, the room which the hotel is now using alongside the main restaurant for lunch, afternoon tea, and dinner.
General manager Dominique Borri is particularly proud of the new bar in the hotel, the Bar Fontainebleau, which has been restored to much the same state as it was after the 1905-07 refurbishment. The main difference is that it was then a library, so where there were books there are now bottles.
In some ways the hotel would be probably look more familiar to some of its past guests now than it has done for years. Those former guests include Queen Victoria, Picasso, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Salvador Dali and the Shah of Iran, who was dethroned during his stay there.
Higher rates
The number of bedrooms has been reduced from 180 to 160, but they are larger and rates are higher. And occupancy has increased: it was 65% in 1998, but ran at close to 80% in a busy September this year, with the hotel hoping for 70% over the whole year and budgeting conservatively on 64%.
The star turn among the bedrooms is the Belle Etoile suite, which takes up the entire 7th floor with a lottery-winners rack rate of Ffr58,000 (£5,800, give or take) a night. And its value is not just in the room rate. As Arne Meyer, one of the reception staff, points out: "It's not just what the suite costs, it's what the suite guests spend".
This underlines that the Dorchester group wants not just grand hotels but good businesses. To do this the group is clearly keen to make its hotels work for one another. This means branding, albeit of a distinctive sort.
Ricci Obertelli, vice-president and chief executive officer for operations of the group, says: "Our branding has to be subtle. We need to be discreet and we want to avoid certain aspects of globalisation. We don't want too many logos, too much visual branding.".
In practice this means that there is some Dorchester group labelling - in brochures, on the back of menus, etc - but the three hotels in the group (the Dorchester, the Meurice and the Beverly Hills in Los Angeles) are carefully protective of their identities. The branding is intended to be almost subliminal.
Three areas where the hotels help one another are in purchasing - the Meurice has the same German-made cast-iron baths as the Dorchester, for example - staff training, and some encouragement for guests of one hotel to try one of the others.
The Meurice, for instance, traditionally has more Japanese guests than the Dorchester, but the London hotel is hoping that it will be able to attract some of those guests to stay in it when in London. The Meurice and the Dorchester may even offer combined packages using the Eurostar to whisk guests from one city to another.
Staff in London and Paris have already started working in each other's hotel, although work permits make such an exchange with the Beverly Hills more difficult.
During its renovation, the Meurice held on to many of its staff by a special arrangement with the French government whereby the hotel paid wages for some of the time and the government agreed to pay them for the rest, provided their jobs were guaranteed on re-opening.
Loyal staff
The result was that of an already reduced 180 staff in the hotel when it closed, 150 returned. This has now been increased to 300.
"It was mostly kitchen staff that did not come back, although we kept head chef Marc Marchand and key members of his team," says Schall.
The loss of old staff has not stopped the restaurant from quickly returning to its Michelin one-star form under Marchand. Average bills are Ffr900 per person with wine at dinner and a couple of hundred francs less at lunchtime.
British guests still make up 12% of the total at the Meurice, which reflects the long association of the hotel with the UK. In the 19th century it was known locally as the Meurice et des Anglais and Thackeray advised any English visitors to Paris who did not speak French to head straight for the hotel.
All of which would be music to the dead ears of Charles-Auguste Meurice, the Calais postmaster who opened the hotel in 1817 to accommodate the mainly British travellers he sent by coach to Paris. It took 36 hours, a touch longer than the Eurostar: transport, like the hotel, has changed with the times.
Where do hoteliers go for their January retreat? Is it self-catering solitude in Ireland or luxury in a five-star hotel somewhere warm and sunny? Tell us how you relax after the hustle of Christmas.
FACTS:
The Dorchester Group
100% owned by the Brunei Investment Agency.
E-mail: info@dorchestergrouphotels.com
Hotels: the Dorchester, London; le Meurice, Paris; the Beverly Hills, Los Angeles
Net assets: more than £300m
Pre-tax projected profits for 2001: £30m
Staff worldwide; 1,275
Group projected turnover for 2001: £100m
Meurice Hotel
Rue de Rivoli, Paris
Bought by Dorchester Group in 1997
Rooms: 160
Staff: 300
General Manager:Dominique Borri
Occupancy: 65% for 1998 (pre-renovation), budgeted 64% for 2000.
Cost of refurbishment: Ffr450m (£45m)
Rack rate: £350 for standard room to £5,800 for Belle Etoile suite; average budgeted rate £358
Hotel guest profile
From USA: 42%
From UK: 12%
From France: 7%
From Rest of Europe: 17%
From South America: 7%
From Japan: 7%
From Rest of the World: 17%
Contact Sara Guild at sara.guild@webshire.net
Source: Caterer & Hotelkeeper magazine, 12-18 October 2000
