Editors’ Note

The recipient of a bachelor’s degree in hotel administration from Cornell University, Steven Pipes began his career with Le Meridien Hotels in July 1983, when he joined the Meridien Hotel in San Francisco as Front Office Manager. He was promoted to Rooms Division Manager before being transferred to Le Meridien Vancouver as Resident Manager for two years. After a short stint back in San Francisco, Pipes was appointed General Manager of the Meridien in Athens, Greece. Two years later, he was promoted to General Manager of Le Parker Meridien and is now Managing Director of that property, a post he has held since 1991. He also serves as the Managing Director and Vice President of The Jack Parker Corporation, the parent company of Le Parker Meridien, since January 1994.

Company Brief

Founded in 1955, The Jack Parker Corporation (www.thejackparkercorporation.com) is a family-owned company that has, to date, designed, built, and managed more than 15,000 residences with high-rise luxury rentals, condominiums, and single-family homes located throughout the northeast and Florida. The company’s hotel division comprises Manhattan’s Le Parker Meridien Hotel, the Parker Palm Springs in California, and the Holiday Inn in Ronkonkoma, New York.

Located on West 57th Street, the modern and luxurious Le Parker Meridien boasts 731 rooms and suites, decorated in cherry and cedar woods and featuring expansive desks, high-speed Internet access, two phone lines, in-room safes, 32-inch televisions, and CD/DVD players. The hotel also offers three restaurants, a 9,000-square-foot banquet space, and the fully equipped gravity spa and fitness center.

Are you pleased with Le Parker Meridien’s business in 2007, and do you anticipate a strong year ahead for the property?

Yes, 2007 was a spectacular year, and 2008 looks to be a very strong year. There is no significant hotel development planned for the coming year in Manhattan, so there will be little effect on the supply side. Demand continues to be strong.

Guests of Le Parker Meridien enjoy a luxury experience at a competitive price. How do you define your target market?

We have tried to keep our fingers in a lot of pies, in that regard. We’re fortunate to have a lot of clients in both the entertainment business and the financial markets, but we also work with smaller companies and law firms. We try to stay broad based, so we don’t have too many eggs in one basket. On weekends, we are much more family oriented. We have many European guests, and our Japanese market has grown significantly over the years. The Tri-State area also brings huge business into the city. So we try to stay diversified and capitalize on markets that other properties may not be looking at.

In New York, there are great restaurants on nearly every block. How do the hotel’s restaurants compete in such a market?

We have taken an extremely different course than any other property in the city. I would venture to say that we have the most successful food and beverage operations of any hotel that does not rely on a star chef. We’ve tried to give the public what it wants. We opened Norma’s 10 years ago this June, and our volume still grows every year. The burger joint doesn’t have an on-street entrance. In fact, we intentionally made it difficult to find. Yet, we serve 900 people a day. If you provide people with good service, good food, and good value, they’ll come in. There’s no magic to it. It’s a tough business, because the margins are slim, and our labor costs are higher than those in freestanding restaurants. But our restaurants are great marketing tools for the hotel. After all, New Yorkers don’t stay in our rooms, but they come to banquets here or eat in our restaurants or use our gravity gym.

Are you happy with the way the public and your guests have received the gravity spa and fitness center?

Approximately 1,400 outside members use our gym. So it has been a big attribute to the hotel, as has our pool. There are very few hotels in New York that have a pool, and it is enjoyed by two types of guests: the business traveler trying to stay fit on the road and the weekend guests who want to give their kids something fun to do. So that works very well for us. While we don’t have a large spa by any means, the spa services we offer are important to our guests. Our focus has been on quality rather than on quantity. We offer high-end facials, and our massage therapists are very qualified. So the spa is small, but it takes care of our guests’ needs.

What sorts of meetings and social events can the hotel host?

We do not have a huge amount of space, so we focus on two areas: very high-end board meetings and retreats, and corporate events for pharmaceutical companies, financial firms, and luxury brands. We do a lot of events in the evenings and on the weekends.

Do you offer your guests many technological amenities and services?

I personally love technology, but it’s something that we need to keep simple. Oftentimes, hotel operators forget that guests spend only two or three nights at a property. So if you make the in-room technology too complicated to learn quickly, it’s useless. You need to provide simple ways for people to connect to the Internet instead of giving them a remote control with 6,000 buttons on it. What people want is to be able to get their boarding passes. In our lobby, we provide an Internet kiosk for people to print boarding passes – no one likes to wait in line at the airport. But we don’t have kiosks for checking in at the hotel because, for many people, there is still some romance in checking in at a hotel. There’s an excitement to it. For about 95 percent of our guests, an automated check-in process would be a disaster.

Technology must likewise have a significant impact on your professional life. With cell phones and PDAs, can you ever get away from your job?

Yes and no, but I don’t have a problem with that. I love what I do. I’m constantly thinking about the business, and I don’t view it as a burden. If someone does view it as a burden, he is in the wrong industry. If you’re passionate about your work, you don’t turn it off.