KAMALIWIRE

Who’s cookin’?

How’s the restaurant industry in New York? Steven Kamali, the hospitality consultant, says the sluggish economy is not impacting hiring rates.

“It’s an incredibly robust period. Hiring has not slowed down, nor has the redevelopment of existing hotels and the development of new ones, which is creating new opportunities for culinary talent across the globe.”

He recently launched an affiliate company of Steven Kamali Hospitality called The Chef Agency, to help hotels and restaurants recruit talent, including general managers and chefs. He has a database of 6,000 international chefs.

Kamali has placed Eric Basulto as executive chef at W Hoboken, and his list of clients includes Michael Mina, David Burke and Stephen Starr.

Kamali projects fees from the Chef Agency to pass $2 million annually next year. —Julie Earle-Levine

(Source: New York Post)

(Source: Gotham Magazine)

(Source: Hospitality Design)

Third-party F&B outlets offer solid results

Hotel food-and-beverage programs are an important way to enhance the marketability and profit margins of a hotel operation. Quality F&B options not only enhance the level of perceived service a hotel has to offer, but also allow an opportunity to further brand the hotel by developing unique concepts that complement the tastes and preferences of the guests the hotel aims to attract.

But when it comes to structuring F&B operations, hotel operators have to decide whether to handle the program internally or hire a third party to operate these services.

Third-party operators are becoming increasingly popular in today’s hotel F&B market, and they offer valuable opportunities to restaurant and hotel operators. When it comes time to decide which route to take, it’s important to be armed with the knowledge of how these partnerships function and how to get the best results. Let’s take a closer look:

1. Overhead costs
Hotel operators that decide to manage their own F&B programs often run into exorbitant start-up costs, depending on the scope of the renovation and equipment needed. These costs can range anywhere from $500,000 up to $1.5 million. By partnering with an outside restaurateur, hoteliers have the opportunity to outsource the majority of these costs to the operator, alleviating major budgetary constraints while taking advantage of the increase in traffic and sales to the hotel property. In some instances, the hotel operator may opt to pay for tenant improvements to incentivize partnerships with outside operators. It’s important to structure a deal that will be mutually beneficial to both parties, ensuring costs are well managed.

2. Staffing
As most hotel managers know, finding and training the right staff can be an extremely tedious task. It takes time and energy to ensure all F&B positions are filled by qualified candidates.

When partnering with an outside operator, the burden of filling these positions is placed on the outsourced party. The restaurant operator also becomes responsible for paying out salaries for these positions, rather than coming directly from the hotel’s revenue stream. This frees the hotel from overhead obligations that can become burdensome and allows greater cash flow that can then be reinvested in additional hotel amenities.

One important point to note, however, is ensuring the staff hired by the restaurant is well versed in the service standards of the hotel in which it operates. The service standards should appear seamless throughout the hotel’s guest offerings. Because the outsourced restaurant operator is responsible for hiring staff that will be actively interacting with guests, it will be beneficial for them to undergo the same training course given to the rest of the hotel’s staff. Ensuring the service standards of the restaurant are up to par with the hotel’s internal standards is an absolute necessity for a successful partnership.

3. Traffic and sales
The main reason restaurants and hotels look to partner up is to enhance traffic, and ultimately sales, of each business. The hotel benefits by being able to offer a comprehensive F&B program without the additional costs and overhead of handling these services in house. This also leads to higher averages in the daily rate and occupancy when there is a strong F&B option in place.

The restaurant, on the other hand, benefits from having a built-in customer base. With at least 100 rooms or more sitting atop the restaurant, there is a secure client base for the restaurant to serve.

4. Branding
Partnering with an outside restaurant operator allows the hotel to appeal to more market segments. Not only do they benefit from offering their own client base a dining experience, but also they have the opportunity to appeal to the restaurant operator’s market base as well. This has a synergistic effect that ends up boosting the appeal of both businesses.

There are many concepts hoteliers can choose for restaurant operations. However, it is important the chosen concept, and operator, complements the hotel’s branding and works to not only satisfy its client base but also extends to others within their market segment. With the hotel industry becoming an increasingly competitive landscape, operators will look to F&B programs as a way to further enhance their brand identity and offer a truly unique guest experience.

(Source: HotelNewsNow.com)

The World’s Highest-Paid DJs

Every so often, the tectonic plates of mainstream musical taste shift. In the 1960s, there was the British Invasion, followed by disco in the 1970s and the rise of glam metal in the 1980s. The 1990s saw the advent of grunge and the resurgence of boy bands, followed by hip-hop’s hegemony in the 2000s. Now, the tables are turning again.

Electronic dance music, better known as EDM, has finally surged from its underground roots and into mainstream consciousness. One need only look at the recent activities of the genre’s most prominent practitioners: last year, Skrillex was one of the main attractions at Coachella; last month, Deadmau5 ended up on the cover of Rolling Stone; last week, Kaskade became the first electronic act to sell out the Staples Center in Los Angeles.

 “I think mainly people were just ready to hear something new,” says Kaskade. “My parents listened to rock and roll; that’s their music. And then hip-hop came along. This is the next generation of music.”

Just as international recognition enriched the likes of The Beatles, The Bee Gees, Aerosmith, Nirvana and Jay-Z, EDM’s practitioners have been cleaning up of late, prompting FORBES to release its first-ever Electronic Cash Kings list. Over the past 12 months, the world’s ten highest-paid DJs pulled in $125 million—more than the payroll of the Los Angeles Lakers.

Dutch born DJ Tiesto tops the list with earnings of $22 million, buoyed by an average nightly gross of $250,000 according to concert data provider Pollstar. Grammy-winning California native Skrillex ranks second with $15 million, followed by Scandinavian trio Swedish House Mafia, which recently disbanded despite pulling in an estimated $14 million.

“I’ve been listening to electronic music since I was 12,” says Skrillex. “Even when I played in rock bands, I’ve been making it … This is the first time it’s gotten so big.”

It’s not just the top three acts making all the money. French DJ David Guetta claims the No. 4 spot with $13.5 million, buoyed by last year’s pop crossover Nothing But The Beat and endorsements with Renault and HP; Steve Aoki, who played over 200 shows in the past year, rounds out the top five at $12 million. Other DJs on the top ten include the aforementioned Kaskade and Deadmau5, as well as Afrojack, Avicii and Jersey Shore’s DJ Pauly D.

Though these Electronic Cash Kings hail from all over the globe, they’ve got at least one thing in common: they all make the bulk of their money by touring. Often toting nothing more than a USB stick and a pair of Pioneer CDJs, their production costs are often negligible, unlike rockers and pop stars who typically take home just one-third of gross ticket sales.

Our estimates include earnings from these live shows—for many artists, that often means more than $100,000 for a night’s work—and from recorded music sales, endorsements, merchandise sales and, in the case of DJ Pauly D, television (we included him on this list because, like his fellow Electronic Cash Kings, he makes at least half his cash from DJ gigs). Sources include Pollstar, RIAA, promoters, managers, lawyers and some of the artists themselves.

                                 

Dance Dance Revolution

Though the term “electronic dance music” is relatively new, electronic music has been around for decades, first gaining popularity through influential early acts like Kraftwerk in the 1970s. So what accounts for the recent rise of EDM? Many prominent DJs credit the new avenues of spreading information that have cropped up in the past few years.

“I think what really changed was social media,” says Tiesto. “Twitter, Facebook really helped a lot. It exposed things to a whole new world. Before that you only could hear [electronic dance music] on the radio at night. Day-time radio would never play it.”

Perhaps more importantly, EDM has found a home in the festival circuit. Concert promoters like AEG, the parent company of Coachella producer Goldenvoice, discovered that they could tap into the burgeoning electronic scene by adding top DJs to their lineups—and what started out as a sideshow soon became the main attraction.

“The Coachella music festival served as microcosm in the evolution of electronic dance music from a niche into a mainstream format,” says AEG chief Randy Phillips. “EDM translates more successfully as a consumer experience in the open field festival environment or in a general admission [or] flat floor venue than it does in large arenas with fixed seats. Efforts to tour EDM stars in arenas across North America have proven to yield uneven results outside of a handful of major markets.”

One of those markets is Las Vegas, where casino mogul Steve Wynn has signed a group of Electronic Cash Kings–including Tiesto, Skrillex and David Guetta–to residencies at his properties; he also started a joint label with Ultra Records to release electronic music. Other billionaires including Ron Burkle are said to be keen on getting a slice of the electronic pie as well. And why shouldn’t they try? DJs are quickly becoming the rock stars of their generation—and now they’re getting paid as such, too.

“Dance music is pretty close to where rock was 50 years ago,” says Afrojack, who ranks ninth on our list with $9 million. “And rock has never died. So I’m sure the same [goes for] dance music.” 

                                                                 Tiesto- $22 million

                                

                                                               Skrillex- $15 million

                               

                                                      Swedish House Mafia- $14 million

                               

                                                           David Guetta- $13.5 million

                               

                                                            Steve Aoki- $12 million

                                

                                                             Deadmau5- $11.5 million

                                

                                                            DJ Pauly D- $11 million

                                

                                                               Kaskade- $10 million

                                

                                                               Afrojack- $9 million

                               

                                                                 Avicii- $7 million

                               

(Source: forbes.com)

SKH Retreat 2012

        

                                                         :: SKH DINNER AT NOBU ::

        

                                       :: WHERE’S KAMALI? SKH DOES FLYWHEEL! ::

        

                                                                :: WE SURVIVED! :: 

     

                                :: BERNARD LOVES HIS L’OREAL LOTION SPF 30 ::

        

                                                                      :: BONDING! ::

         

          :: Karma hasn’t anyone ever told you… NEVER BE THE FIRST TO FALL ASLEEP!! ::

Are Bow Ties the New Hot Hotel Trend?

                                  

When we got a sneak peek at the new look of The Roger Hotel in Manhattan we were a little giddy over the logo which is a simple black bow tie. Even though the logo is plastered everywhere and on everything, we still liked it.

And it got us thinking of two other hotels that sport the bow tie look. Over at The Plaza in New York, the toiletries are outfitted with black bow ties around the tops while at Mr. C. Beverly Hills, Mr. C himself sports a ginormous bow tie for the hotel’s logo which is found throughout the hotel including the bath towels and the toiletries. And down in New Orleans at the W French Quarter a recent room renovation included the addition of bowtie pillows.

Steven Kamali, who was behind the Roger’s reinvention, tells us why they decided to cap off the new look with a bow tie:

The bowtie symbolized a level of sophistication and class. It added a personal touch and figurative personality to the brand.  It also symbolized a transcendence of style from one generation to the next - something classic, is now, hip and modern.

Now four hotels with bow ties is still a pretty slim argument for this being the hot new trend but well, we can hope can’t we?

(Source: hotelchatter.com) 

Hotels that Hit the Road. These pop-ups go wherever the action is

                                

First there were pop-up boutiques, with their short-term leases injecting new life into vacant storefronts. Then came pop-up restaurants, as itinerant chefs began borrowing the kitchens of their vacationing comrades. But, oddly enough, it is the hotel industry that is taking the here-today-gone-tomorrow concept to a new extreme. To coincide with the Summer Olympics, England’s Snoozebox is erecting a temporary 320-room hotel out of shipping containers in a park 90 minutes northeast of London. Each room comes with a bathroom, an air-conditioning unit, a key card and wi-fi access, and the whole hotel can be assembled—and ready for guests to check in—within three to four days of arriving at a new location.

Snoozebox, which rents its rooms for $100 to $300 a night and was valued at nearly $35 million on the London Stock Exchange in May, installed a similar pop-up on the grounds of Windsor Castle for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, and in August it will move on to the Edinburgh International Festival. The company’s rivals are relocating for concerts and car races, with some, including the Pop-Up Hotel, based in Somerset, England, modeling their custom-designed canvas tents after those you might find on luxury safaris. Across the pond in California, Shelter Co. this spring began offering offbeat brides—and anyone else looking to have an elegant soire in the woods—tents outfitted with 400-thread-count sheets, down comforters, coolers of wine and prices on a par with the Four Seasons’. Weekend rates begin at $750.

Snoozebox and its lower-impact brethren provide truly portable lodging. But another pop-up purveyor is doing something sneakier: renting out existing hotels, stocking them with organic bath products and maybe some new throw cushions and then jacking up the prices. That’s essentially what Berlin-based Design Hotels did in May when it took over the San Giorgio Beach Hotel on the Greek island of Mykonos for this year’s high season. To spruce up the beachfront property, which was built in the 1990s and is a few hundred yards from a big nightclub, decorators brought in wicker chandeliers, director’s chairs and sea-grass rugs and renamed the place San Giorgio Mykonos.

“You can spin hotels around that have great bones but are getting really tired,” says Design Hotels CEO Claus Sendlinger, whose company’s 231 hotels include the prestigious Gramercy Park Hotel in New York City and the Dolder Grand in Zurich. The website for the revamped San Giorgio has pictures of straw hats slung over chair backs and emphasizes the hotel’s ability to help travelers with “relaxing from their daily life and just being themselves.” “Through the images we use and the language we use, it attracts the creative class,” says Sendlinger. (And by “creative class,” he means people who are willing to rough it for $189 a night.)

Design Hotels’ first pop-up experiment, in Tulum, Mexico, took over the 15-year-old Cabanas Copal last December. For six-months, the company renamed the Copal’s 85 cabanas the Papaya Playa Project, talked up its “panfried” fish and locally grown aloe vera and raised room prices from an average of $60 per night to $100. During a weeklong stay in January, Kevin Gallagher, a Web designer from Langhorne, Pa., who had vacationed at the Copal three times before, was surprised by what he got in return for the higher prices. “One night they brought in a lounge singer from Berlin, sort of cabaret meets Burning Man,” he says. “But as far as the basics, some of it was lacking.” There was only one sun bed on the beach and a few stray umbrellas, so he and his wife parked themselves on towels. Also absent was the Copal’s customary roving waiter to take drink orders.

So when Gallagher got home, he logged on to a travel site and warned prospective visitors about the minimalist makeover. “At first we thought somehow the cabanas were bigger,” he wrote on the site. “Then it hit us. There were no chairs or tables.” Eventually he and his wife figured out the beds were smaller too.

That’s where the key difference between a pop-up hotel and a temporary boutique comes in. “For a pop-up store, you’re there for an hour,” says Julie Sturgeon, a travel agent in Indianapolis. “With a pop-up hotel, you’re there for 24 hours or more, so customers have time to be critical.”

Then again, if a pop-up flops because of problems with the marketing materials or customer service, everything can be rebranded with minimal effort. That’s exactly what Design Hotels is getting ready to do. In September it will rent out the Copal again, this time for a seven-week stint as a yoga retreat. At least with its newest name, PopUp Ashram, the guests won’t be expecting anything posh.

In England, the Pop-Up Hotel is borrowing a page from Africa’s luxury safaris by setting up custom-designed canvas tents for car races, concerts and other outdoor events.

                              

For the London Olympics, Snoozebox is using shipping containers to build of of its 320-room hotels that take only a few days to assemble and include air-conditioning, flat-screen TVs and wi-fi.

                             

Berlin-based Design Hotels started its first pop-up last winter by renting a 15-year-old hotel in Tulum, Mexico, doing a little redecorating and renaming the place the Papaya Playa Project for six months.

                              

Deisgn Hotels turned to Greece for its second pop-up, renting the San Giorgio Beace Hotel on Mykonos during the high season and emphasizing its new minimalist chic. 

                             

(Source: www.time.com) 

The Roger Rebrands, Renovates in Manhattan

                  

Hotelier and hospitality consultant Steven Kamali has orchestrated significant changes to the Roger—formerly known as Hotel Roger Williams. The hotel is owned by JRK Hotel Group, whose president, John Flannigan, hired Kamali to rebrand the hotel.

The rebranding grew out of an imaginary character and son to Roger Williams, Roger Jr. Inheriting the hotel from his father, Roger Jr. balances the classic, historical nature of the property while providing a casual chic perspective.

Upgrades to the hotel include the Parlour, curated by Kamali and designed by Anna Busta to blend modern elements with old world touches. Kamali also developed new F&B concepts, including a full bar lounge and an intimate dining space on the mezzanine level that’s based on the modern American bistro. In addition, refurbished guestrooms were unveiled in June.

(Source: hospitalitydesign.com)