Originally Posted by scented

I have long come to accept (and love) the fact that some of the best Amans are indeed not Amans these days. We will likely not see Aman BKK in the near or distant future, though I think we can all agree that The Siam is the most wonderful city Aman anyone could think of. Service is beyond expectations, as is room count and the certain familiarity and love that flows through the property. Same in HK, where in my opinion The Upper House is where most here on this forum feel at home and undoubtedly better cared for than, for example, at Aman Tokyo. Aman Tokyo is wildly successful and almost always close to capacity due to social media, press/social media coverage and company/contracted rates, but I cannot get over the fact that there is a certain arrogance surrounding the hotel, which is very unfortunate. The machine-written welcome cards are just the first indication, but closely followed by interactions with team and management. They don't care and if you don't like it there is already another guest waiting patiently in the lobby beyond check-in time to experience that 'amazing' hard product in the sky. It would be entirely uncharacteristic for Nick at The Siam or Marcel at TUH to let anyone leave without having made an impression through the team or extending a certain level of care and consideration. Because it is personal to them, sadly it's not personal to anyone at Aman Tokyo. GMs come and go, occupancy is still great (so are the returns) and locals drive F&B revenue. It can be very subtle but this element of caring about the guest is totally missing with these city Amans. I cannot imagine it will be any better in New York, London or Singapore, if anything it will be worse. So I think my decision to follow the people who have Aman DNA and bring that to their respective properties is not too bad, it is about people after all. And we still have many of the golden days around, though less and less by the day it seems. Some don't know that VD is also one of the original '88 Amanjunkies and knows the resorts inside out, though I wonder how this translates into these future and current offerings. Many improvements for the better surely, though some of the pitfalls back then were more generously dealt with as it was about the guest after all, these days select guests are treated to Aman-"style" service levels in Tokyo, though the answer is a dedicated manager dealing with VIPs, moguls, "Instagrammers", celebrities and most importantly fashion designers... much like the big chains trying to deal with non-existent service levels in difficult markets with low yields.

Interestingly, I fondly remember when many years ago an Aman had failed me and I carefully mentioned this post check out. Within a few hours (!), the Grays, Olivia and Monty had all emailed me regarding my future reservations with them, asking me what happened and offered to make up for the disappointment in such a generous manner, I was at a loss of words. Various extravagant amenities were waiting in each of the respective resorts after that and we were speaking for ages about our "Aman Adventures". I couldn't imagine this happening today, I am almost certain it would be impossible in this climate. For those having their first Aman stays these days, I don't think it is imaginable how different it was.

Originally Posted by bhrubin

Originally Posted by mike_la_jolla

HK has the highest concentration of 5* hotels in the world. Vlad's version of big city Aman has no chance of competing for my business. None. The best hotel in, say, Singapore doesn't make the top 10 (50?) in HK. Aman HK would just be another decent, yet expensive hotel in HK. He's going to have this problem in NYC. He won't knock out the Mark and the other 15 good hotels. Aman Tokyo, if transplanted to HK, might make the top 15. Maybe not ... on second thought ... for discussion. ASP, the other big city Aman, embarrassingly anchors the Aman chain in a bad way. Not as bad as FS Sydney for Four Seasons, but in the running.

UH is hard to beat. I just wish the food improved.

Agree.

Originally Posted by callmedtop

Don't disagree with anything you're saying, but why do you think its a zero chance of success in HK?

Originally Posted by mike_la_jolla

Regarding Vlad:

Yeah -- He more or less says exactly that in the quote in the final paragraph. The wish list is all big cities. Have we reached a consensus here as to whether (big city) Aman Tokyo is an 'Aman' and successful? I'm still skeptical and leaning towards 'no'. And ASP is a disaster -- that is the only other big city Aman in the present inventory. I wish Vlad good luck in HK. His chances of being successful with the Aman concept in that city are zero.

Originally Posted by Aventine

I'm with you. He's definitely not succeeded in transplanting horizontal Aman DNA to vertical city properties. I think the patient was DOA in Tokyo. NYC and HK will be even tougher cookies for Aman culture and service. I don't know where he puts it in Hong Kong.

Originally Posted by vuittonsofstyle

I see that Amanpuri is launching Aman's medi-spa concept, including hormone injections, on-site doctor, botox etc - not what one expects of the normally holistic Aman.