Return of luxury
By Shi Yingying (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-07-31 11:41
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Top, To capture the glamour of Shanghai in the 1920s and 1930s, the Peninsula Hotel has brought in a fleet of high-end vehicles. Above, The Roof Top Bar of the hotel offers guests a panoramic view of the Bund. Provided to China Daily |
Designed with luxury in mind, The Peninsula Shanghai proudly shares the limelight with other magnificent buildings along the Bund waterfront. Shi Yingying reports
Although the Peninsula Hotel is making its first appearance in Shanghai, the hotels management team, Hongkong and Shanghai Hotels, have had experience in Shanghai dating back more than a century with properties like the Astor House Hotel and Majestic Hotel. These hotels served the richest and the most powerful people in Shanghai at that time.
"It's like a homecoming for me and the company," says Sir Michael Kadoorie, chairman of Hongkong and Shanghai Hotels. "We have waited patiently for some 60 years before returning to Shanghai and the Bund."
Just inside the hotel, the bright and airy space immediately welcomes guests with its tall ceilings and large columns.
To echo the experience of Shanghai's golden age during the 1930s, the hotel's lobby restaurant brings back the afternoon tea tradition to the accompaniment of live chamber music.
Two wall murals dominate each side of the lobby restaurant as they capture the Shanghai of the past.
"We had to come up with something that compliments the feeling and the history of the Bund," says general manager Paul Tchen. "That's part of the reason why we decided to use the 1920s and 1930s Art Deco style for the hotel."
Shanghai in the 1920s and 1930s was a place basking in glamour. To capture even more color of that glamour, the hotel has brought in a fleet of high-end vehicles, including bespoke Rolls-Royce Phantom Extended Wheelbase, BMW 7 Series Long Wheelbase and a classic 1934 Rolls-Royce Phantom.
"Peninsula is a luxury brand," Tchen says. "We sell you luxury and we give you luxury."
The Peninsula Shanghai is also equipped with a helicopter pad on the rooftop, above the Rosemonde Aviation Lounge. The most visible and prominent feature of this lounge on the 14th floor is a full-size replica of a 1930's seaplane, a Loening C-2C Air Yacht. Here guests can experience the feeling of what it was like to embark on the adventure of a lifetime, sit in the luxurious cabin or, by invitation, sit in the pilot's seat and take the controls.
Twenty-four high-end retailers, including Chanel, Valentino, Giorgio Armani, Prada and Ralph Lauren, have stores in the 7,000-square-meter Peninsula Arcade. "Luxury doesn't survive alone, luxury needs other luxury around to survive," Tchen says.
Film crews of the upcoming movie Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, a story set in 19th century China, filmed scenes in and around the hotel.
"They filmed footage in the front of the hotel, the lobby, in the Chinese restaurant, Salon de Ning, some of the suites and on the Bund - lots of different locations in and around The Peninsula," Tchen says. "When the movie is out, it will be impossible to miss the hotel."