“Our owner understands luxury,” says Derbas. “From the grandeur of the lobby and the selection of signature restaurants, to the choice of hotel furniture, fixtures and equipment, our owner’s great taste of luxury was a source of inspiration and helped us to implement ideas above luxury brand standards.”
Product aside, Derbas’ initial task when he was the first person on site at St. Regis Doha 20 months ago was to recruit his team, a painstaking process.
After all, sponsorship laws prohibited him from recruiting anyone from within Doha, so he was searching for people able to embrace the market and understand the St. Regis legacy, which dates back to the 1890s high society rituals of Astor family matriarch Caroline Astor and the 1904 opening of St. Regis New York by her youngest son, Colonel John Jacob Astor IV.
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Derbas said he was looking to identify strong believers in a people culture, able to interact with guests and one another, with an eye for detail, and a luxurious background — and he recalls how his task became easier after Qatar’s winning bid to host the 2022 World Cup was announced in December 2011.
“I interviewed 25-30 candidates for each management position. After the World Cup 2022 announcement, the CVs tripled,” says Derbas.
“Recruitment was an important task of pre-opening activities and I had to get it right the first time. I have hand-picked passionate hoteliers who have a strong belief in people culture,” he adds.
Around 30 of the team come from within the St. Regis stable — including number two Hal Philp, deputy GM, but as a newcomer to the brand himself, Derbas’ next task was to position the hotel and establish how the market would perceive it.
“I checked each and every brand standard against the competition and am confident we offer a premium above all the other hotels,” again quite a statement considering Derbas has also previously held a long career with one of St. Regis’ competitors, Four Seasons.
One of these premiums is the St. Regis signature butler service, a first for the city of Doha. Interestingly, the butler element of the Doha property goes a step further than many other St. Regis hotels.
Rather than being dependent on room type, it is available to every guest for the duration of the stay. Complimentary features include unpacking and packing services; garment pressing of up to two pieces per room per stay; and in-room beverage service upon arrival and every morning.
The highlight, according to Derbas is the E-butler service. Upon check-in, every guest is given a business card with the E-butler email address, the idea being that any request can be emailed to the address and handled within an hour.
The information is received by a central butler service desk and communicated to the relevant departments, before the completed request is communicated to the guest by their personal butler, who was assigned to them upon check-in.
The butler is the only person that connects with the guest, and each butler is assigned nine rooms, although an individual VIP can request a dedicated butler. Senior butler Priscilla Ochoa says the E-butler has several benefits for both guest and the hotel.
“Most of our guests use technology…so it saves them time to just send a request through the E-butler. It is a good advantage for the guest to have everything written down as well so we don’t make any mistakes and we can co-ordinate [their request],” she says.
Ochoa is one of a team of 50 butlers, recruited from all over the world and with a variety of backgrounds, with a nurse and opera singer among the team. Ochoa herself was previously head butler at St. Regis Mexico City and says that butlers need to manage a careful balance between being sociable and being discrete.
“It needs to be somebody that is really outgoing with the guests, they need to be confident and have some charisma to approach the guest and to assist them.
They should be discrete, looking forward to meeting their guests and learning their preferences, so we can focus on providing this personalised service,” Ochoa explains — a perfect description of my butler, Louella Francia Anyaya, or ‘Fran’, who ensured everything about my stay was comfortable and then went over and above as an assistant on our photoshoot, working far later than her usual shift to ensure I had absolutely everything I needed.
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