HotelChatter

First Impressions
The two hoteliers took the stage like ol' pals -- and hey, fun fact: both Schrager and Tisch were alumni of the 92nd Street Y nursery school. Who knew?

The discussion was formatted as a Q&A, with Tisch lobbing the questions to Schrager. While we knew this was going to be a primarily Schrager-focused talk, we'd have loved to hear a bit more from Tisch, frankly -- he seemed like he had a great speaking presence and an awesome sense of humor. We dug him.

Nonetheless, Schrager was about as suave, cool and collected as we'd expected him to be -- and as for the tan? Despite the photo above (which we had to snap all stealthy-like because photography was strictly forbidden), his tan was natural-looking -- which alleviated our concern about a potential Orange-Lohan-itis when time we saw him on TV recently.

Schrager Trivia Hour
The first 30 minutes of the talk were pretty much fun background facts about the night club pioneer-turned "father of the boutique hotel": he originally came from Brooklyn (East Flatbush, to be exact) and has mad love for the borough -- though we couldn't help but wonder why he hasn't ventured into the BK to add to the growing population of cool, hip hotels there.

From the BK, he hit up Syracuse University -- of which he speaks very fondly -- where he met Steve Rubell, who later became his partner in a little nightclub venture called Studio 54 (perhaps you've heard of it?)

The discussion eventually led to how Schrager's career made a progression from the nightclub biz to hotels because "nightclubs had no discernable product; it was about creating some sort of mystique, some sort of magic," as he describes it -- and he wanted to do something different in an industry full of big-box chains "dominated by the efficiencies of execution."

Interestingly, when asked about why he chose the boutique route instead of rolling out a chain of Mondrians or Delanos, his answer was simple: "I knew we were doing something distinctive. If i wanted to do a chain, there would be 100 of them by now. But I like to do something and then move on."

And as the "father of the boutique hotel," he does not hesitate to point out that chains -- he called out W Hotels a couple of times -- have copied a lot of the elements that have made his hotels so successful. "I'm not flattered at all," he says, "but at least I was first."

On His Partnership with Marriott
So this whole partnership with Marriott to launch Edition Hotels seemed like a bit of a contradiction considering he wasn't so interested in chains and because a lot of chains are copying the good stuff he does, right? Nah. Schrager explained it well, noting that he simply never had the skills or the resources to run a chain the way a corporation like Marriott could. With the partnership, he explains, "they want me to do what I do, and I want them to do what they do." The goal for Edition Hotels is to become the first large-scale individualized hotel chain.

Edition is expected to launch in 2010, and he glossed over many of the details and distinctive features planned for the brand. He did mention to the crowd (which seemed to be half hotel-geek, 25% 92nd St. Y crowd and 25% young professionals looking to hit up the men for jobs) that they would be headed to Chicago, LA, Bangkok, Costa Rica and London and that Edition was designed for "the kind of people who buy Apple products; people will respond to it because it's an alternative to what's currently available."

Other Stuff
When asked whether the customers he's going after today were any different than the movers and shakers who went to Studio 54 in the 70's and the travelers who checked into his first Morgans Hotel back in 1984, he said no: they're just a "little more mature, a little wealthier."

When asked about how the traveler today is different from those first Morgans Hotel guests, he simply said "the most important thing today, far and away, is service." He did not elaborate.

And finally, when asked by an audience member about whether he is sensitive to the environment, Schrager was real about it: "You're not gonna get a world-class architect to build without being green. I'm sensitive to the environment for real reasons, not for marketing...If you're not gonna be sensitive, not gonna be doing green things, you're not gonna stay wealthy." So there you go.

Overall Impressions
Ah, Schrager-nator. It's always fun to hear him talk because you just exudes coolness and style. Unfortunately, he was asked repeatedly about what it was that differentiate his brand and his concepts from competitors that made him into a trendsetter and one of the most successful, innovative hoteliers in the world -- and his answer, repeatedly, was "creating magic."

We had to wonder: who else could ever get away with the answer "it's magic" when asked a question about his success? Sigh. He is magic.

Although we would have loved to hear a bit more about the topic the discussion was supposed to have been focused on, if the title of the talk was changed from "The Future of Lifestyle and Business" to "Tales From the Career of Ian Schrager," we would have been just as happy.

Tags: Ian Schrager / Jonathan Tisch / Morgans Hotel Group / Hotel Events / Hot Hotelier News

by Jenna