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AS WORKERS ERECT what will be New York City's tallest hotel onWest 54th Street, Karl Hofer is mapping plans to make the Royal Concordia one of the highest-rated - even including a grand piano or antique billiard table in each of the six royal suites.
But many other New York hotels also are heaping on extras - free shoeshines, extra phone lines, lavish decor and terry cloth robes. So Hofer, the Royal Concordia's general manager, also will concentrate on making sure the staff provides service to justify rates of more than $250 a night for each of the 510 suites.
"We could put golden doorknobs on everything, but if the service is not up to par, forget it," said Hofer, who a decade ago opened and managed the posh Helmsley Palace.
The 54-story Royal Concordia is one of dozens of new, planned or existing hotels in Manhattan that are trying to fine-tune their identities in an increasingly competitive and demanding hotel market that has become by far the most expensive in the nation and also one of the strongest. In recent years, that market has been boosted by the city's strong attraction for tourists and business travelers, arts offerings and weekend packages, favorable currency rates that appeal to foreigners, a resurgent Times Square area and a prom ising convention market aided by the Javits Center.
"New York went from a bad city in the 1970s to a good city to go to," said Stephen W. Brener, a hotel industry consultant. "Now people are flocking here."
At the same time, developers face huge costs for land, construction and labor in the city.
The strategies that hotels are adopting are wide-ranging:
Donald Trump, who vows to restore luster and a top rating to The Plaza, tried unsuccessfully to lure classy cafe entertainer Bobby Short from the Carlyle and may reopen the Persian Room. Sheraton and Equitable Life have just closed the once-premier St. Regis, on East 55th Street off Fifth Avenue, to renovate or possibly sell it. The Waldorf Towers is splitting up some of its biggest multi-bedroom suites to create more guest rooms. New hotels like Maxim's de Paris are competing for charity balls and parties, for celebrities that polish a hotel's image and for...