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You Can Go Home Again, but Why?
gTHE journey itself is home,h wrote the peripatetic 17th-century Japanese poet Basho. And maybe it was, for him. But for a modern wandering soul, can a hotel room ever achieve the comforts of home? Entering one, the first thing I do, like most travelers, is get my bearings: figure out where everything is and how it all works, toy with the best configuration of lighting and temperature, arrange things just so in a quick simulacrum of home.
But there are forces working against this impromptu home-making, many arising from deficiencies of design. It takes only one scalding under a strange shower, or a few minutes trying to puzzle out the snooze functions (gdream timeh?) on a complex alarm clock, to stir a longing for onefs real home.
Then there are the placards scattered about, shilling for the roomfs merchandise, primly hectoring the guest not to waste towels, broadcasting ominous warnings. (One personal favorite: gDo not leave the bathroom door open while showering or you may trigger the hotelfs fire alarm.h) Finally, there is the loss of environmental control: no way to summon a favorite afternoon radio talk show, or make a good cup of coffee.
There is a place, however, where many of these failings have been conquered though intuitive technology and smart design, a place marked by such endemic comfort and ease that home itself begins to seem like a downgrade. It is the newest Peninsula hotel, a 24-story building opposite Hibiya Park in the Marunouchi district of Tokyo, with what may be the worldfs most fully thought-through hotel rooms.
There is nothing new, of course, about a high-tech, upmarket Tokyo hotel that gently baffles and impresses its jet-lagged Western visitors, as the Park Hyatt did in Sofia Coppolafs gLost in Translation.h Even midmarket hotels here commonly feature things like remote-controlled curtains, fax machines and flat-panel televisions. And many other details of Japanese life, too — like taxi doors that seem to open on their own, motion-triggered bathroom-soap dispensers and seats that automatically turn around at the end of a shuttle trainfs run — are designed to function as smoothly as possible, with no awkward moments or wasted motions.
But the Peninsula, which has become a pilgrimage site of sorts for hoteliers since it opened in September, takes this approach to a new level. The visitor fresh off a discombobulatingly long flight and a two-hour, traffic-choked journey from Narita Airport is ushered into a quiet, softly lighted cocoon where every contingency seems to have been anticipated.
Need to call home to confirm youfve arrived? The phone panel shows the time there. (It also advises on hometown weather, and notes holidays.) Feeling dried-out from the flight or the Tokyo winter? No need to waste half an hour with a shower; just adjust the humidity. Need to perk up for a meeting? Pop an espresso pod into the Lavazza machine behind a sleek cabinet door, press a button and youfve got crema.
And the innovations go well beyond that. When the phone rings, the radio or television is automatically muted. When it rings at night, the bedside sconce glows just enough so you can answer it. The bathroom phone features a digital filter to screen out telltale echoes. When you push the gspah button in the tub, the lights soften and the radio shifts to a station playing calming music.
To make Skype calls, no need to set up your laptop; just push the phonefs Skype button. If you want to continue a phone conversation in the hotel lobby, take the portable phone with you. And if you want to keep talking on the street, it shifts to a cellular network.
The myriad clever ideas on display were field-tested in advance by employees who spent a night in a model room in a gbunkerh beneath the companyfs offices on Repulse Bay in Hong Kong. gThe detail was to the point where I opened the blinds to a huge wall mural of Hibiya Park,h said Malcolm Thompson, the Peninsula Tokyofs general manager. (He previously managed the Park Hyatt, where he oversaw its star turn in Ms. Coppolafs film.)
The man behind most of this is Fraser Hickox, the longtime head of the companyfs electronic services department, who oversaw more than 20 engineers for two years as they tinkered their way through various versions of the room. Although Mr. Hickox, an Australian based in Hong Kong, has a Ph.D. in radio physics, he likes to keep his rooms accessible for nonscientists. Unlike the users of automated homes, free to puzzle out complex systems, hotel guests may have the learning curve of just a single nightfs stay. gThe real secret to technology,h he said, gis that you shouldnft have to think about it.h
Technology per se is the easy part, Mr. Hickox added. The real work comes in anticipating its best use. For every innovation in the Peninsula rooms, there is a story. The wall-panel Internet radio, for example, sprang from a chat Mr. Hickox had with a Japanese guest at the Peninsula New York. After a day of enervating meetings, he wanted to retreat with a touch of home — in this case, listening to the Japanese broadcaster NHK on his own shortwave radio.
The nail dryer in the rooms also came from a conversation Mr. Hickox had, with a woman who was waving her hands in the elevator of the Peninsula Chicago. gShe was quite distressed,h he said. gShefd had a manicure in the spa and had tried to dry her nails with a hair dryer. Apparently thatfs a no-no.h
Another innovation, the wall panel showing outdoor temperature, humidity, wind speed and direction, was inspired by a stay at the Hotel Concorde La Fayette in Paris. gMy wife asked me, eWhatfs the weather like?f h Mr. Hickox said. gI looked out the window and saw a big burly Frenchman wearing a T-shirt and shorts. Then I saw someone wearing a coat.h
Mr. Hickox admitted that he and his staff have done gsome silly stuffh in their pursuit of the ideal amenity. At the Peninsula Hong Kong, they installed stock tickers. gWe thought our clientele would be interested in following the market,h he said. gThe only person who watched them was our technician, to make sure they were working right.h Other technologies, including one that Mr. Hickox said would lower the brain frequency to eight hertz (gto help guests to relaxh), never made it out of the bunker.
Even at Tokyo, not everything is perfect. (English-language wall panels, Mr. Thompson said, have put off some Japanese guests and will be altered.)
But the team has done well with more elementary problems, like unwanted interruptions. This is a classic difficulty for service-conscious upscale hotels: delivering amenities to guests often involves, as Mr. Hickox put it, gsomeone bawling at the door every five minutes.h This is why there are privacy buttons, accessible from not only the bed, but both the bath and the frosted-glass enclosure containing the Toto toilet (itself a technological marvel, with autolift heated seats, a battery of bidet options including gmassageh and goscillate,h and a gpower deodorizerh).
The most powerful design innovation in this regard is not high-tech at all, nor necessarily related to the hotelfs stratospheric rates, which start at 60,000 yen a night (about $550). It is the gvalet box,h a locked enclosure a bit bigger than a minibar fridge, wedged into the wall of the dressing room and connecting to the hallway. Here guests can deliver and receive items ranging in size from newspapers to pressed suits.
The box, which originated in a smaller version at the Hong Kong location as a way for guests to receive their shined shoes (and eliminate what Mr. Hickox called the gtackyh sight of a shoe-lined hallway), represents a kind of third space in hotels, a neutral transom across which things magically appear and disappear without fumbling interaction. Not only does it make guests feel safer, it also solves what Mr. Thompson described as a common hotel challenge.
gA staff person goes to deliver something to a room and they see the D.N.D.h— do not disturb —glight is on. Very often the guest has simply forgotten to turn it off.h Does the staff member disturb the guest or delay delivery?
After a week at the Peninsula Tokyo, I found myself in a reversal of my normal hotel state. Instead of hidden flaws, I kept discovering additional delights as time went by, like the fact that the bathroom television screen, built flush with the mirror, is fog-free.
Instead of resenting the roomfs fixtures for being unfamiliar or inferior to those in my home, it was my home I began to resent. Why could I not adjust the thermostat there from a bedside panel (which illuminates at a touch)? Why did my own lights not glow gently when I got a late-night call? Why did my own phone not switch from land-line to mobile when I left the house?
The best hotel rooms have always been about a bit of theater, with showy touches that transcend the comforts of home. But here, all the drama was working to show me just how comfortable home could be.
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Remote controls for light and music in the bathroom.
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Remote controls near the beds adjust lighting, temperature and humidity.
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A room in the Peninsula.
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The Peninsula hotel, a 24-story building opposite Hibiya Park in the Marunouchi district of Tokyo.
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A hotel room phone that goes cellular outside.
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A valet box.
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A hidden minibar and television.
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