If you’re staying on the 19th floor at the Park Hyatt New York, it's likely you’ve made it in life – or at least know someone who has.
Guests have the opportunity to buy out an entire floor of the luxury Midtown Manhattan hotel for $40,000 (Dh146,900) a night, with a minimum seven-night stay.
The 19th floor gives guests 10,000 square feet of private living space, with each guestroom or suite featuring floor-to-ceiling windows and spa-like bathrooms.
One of the suites includes a 350-square-foot terrace with panoramic views over New York City.
In total, the In Residence package includes nine guestrooms and five suites, with connecting room options and several living areas. Peter Roth, the hotel's general manager, describes the offering as “great value” that he hopes will lure visitors from the UAE.
“It’s great value because if you take the $40,000 and divided it by nine rooms and five suites, then it’s nothing absurd,” Roth says.
Like most of New York, 80 per cent of the hotel's business is domestic and 20 per cent international. Brazil, Mexico and Northern Europe are the busiest overseas source markets, but there’s also strong interest from the Gulf region, including the UAE and Saudi Arabia.
“We see it being great for large families who come with an entourage or we also see it for multi-family experiences. If you think about these four suites, it could be for couples who come with a bunch of kids and then have playrooms and maybe a nanny. It's a very versatile space.”
The new offering, he says, is influenced by what the hotel's customers want post-pandemic – privacy and space.
“Safety is something – at least in our level of product – that people expect. They don't want to talk about it anymore, they just expect things to be taken care of with a certain standard that has a high-level of sanitising and safety.
“And it offers incredible privacy because you now come off the elevator and the whole floor is yours. These sort of very discerning guests, they like privacy and space but they also like a highly personalised approach to the experience.”
Three of the rooms can be transformed to suit guests’ requirements, with options for a playroom, personal yoga space, an office, movie room or a private dining room.
“For the extended stay, the sort of residents' experience that we're creating is ideal because now you are not in a large hotel suite, now you are in a huge apartment. It is perfect for somebody to basically live in New York for a month or for a week and have all the luxury hotel services."
When it's not booked out for the In Residence package, the 19th level reverts to a regular hotel floor.
Covid impact
In March 2020, Park Hyatt New York closed its doors and didn’t reopen for 13 months, as the city battled to deal with the pandemic. “New York came to a standstill; it is a bit science fiction-like," says Roth. The hotel reopened in April this year and found itself “very busy, very quickly”.
“Obviously, the number of vaccinations was key – there was a great degree of vaccination at 70 per cent, and that combined with the restrictions being lifted and it being the beginning of summer, which affected everybody's spirit," Roth says.
“Suddenly, Central Park is packed, restaurants and cafes are open and [so are] the shopping [outlets].
“The last bit that's missing, but it's planned for September, is Broadway. All the shows are coming back on September 1,” he says.
Hotel market
Roth is bullish about the future. He says New York is “reinvigorated” and predicts that the industry will come back stronger than before.
“There's pent up demand so we will do better. 2021, from what we can see, will be very busy. So it's not that it's going to take us five years to recover; it's actually going to be very fast, which is wonderful because it brings more people back to work."
