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One of the giants of the hotel business is retiring this summer after more than 40 years running the celebrated Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Bangkok.

Kurt Wachtveitl, who’s 72, took over the Oriental in 1967 after completing hotel school in Switzerland and working at several European hotels.

He became General Manager of an establishment with a proud history. Founded in 1876 by two Danish sea captains, the Oriental’s A-list crowd in the early days included the cream of the literati, including Joseph Conrad, Somerset Maugham and Rudyard Kipling.

Wachtveitl was given a free hand by the owners and transformed the hotel into one of the best in the world, his formula for success being a rigorous focus on his guests and staff. The hotel maintains a database of some 40,000 guests — listing their tiniest preferences, pet peeves and, occasionally, how their stays didn’t go quite right.

One senior executive was recently amazed when on arrival he was greeted with an apology for a water problem in his room a decade ago, and upgraded to a suite. “You win a person like this forever, I guarantee you,” says Wachtveitl.

The veteran hotelier has a fund of stories – he’s had to tread diplomatically with temperamental celebrities such as Elizabeth Taylor and Michael Jackson, and once had to host Cambodia’s murderous Khmer Rouge leaders. More amenable guests have included Princess Diana, Sir Sean Connery, George W Bush and Elton John.

But Wachtveitl saves his greatest praise for his staff and is proud that the average length of service at the Oriental is more than 16 years. “I am lucky that Thais have great potential for the hospitality industry because of their warmth and caring attitude,” he said.

The Oriental is consistently featured in the lists of the world’s top luxury hotels and you can book it at the best rates through Luxique.

by Andy Moreton

I promise you there’s no sense of Schadenfreude in this story, more a feeling of ‘there but for the grace of God …’

The Leading Hotels of The World company (LHW) had a wizard idea to celebrate their 80th birthday.

At 12 noon on October 1st, they planned to release a number of the world’s most coveted hotel rooms at the knock-down rate of $19.98 (£11) a night – but for 80 minutes only. Like Luxique, LHW have some great luxury hotels on their books, including Hotel Raphael in Paris, Banyan Tree Bangkok and Hotel Adlon Kempinski in Berlin.

Unfortunately, the unprecedented offer was followed by an unprecedented stampede and the booking system went into meltdown. (Shades of the Hoover free flight fiasco in the UK in 1992).

The company issued a press release announcing the failure of the promotion – the system was simply unable to cope with the demand. Everyone who pre-registered was e-mailed so that they might be able to compete for the offer at a later date.

LHW’s President and CEO, Ted Teng, was refreshingly apologetic: “Today we suffered a catastrophic technical failure, which is uncharacteristic for our highly respected brand. We should have been better prepared and we weren’t. We disappointed many people and I apologise for that. We intend on making every effort to restore our customers’ confidence.”

by Andy Moreton