The much awaited 46 storey, 400 room Trump SOHO is due to open somewhere around the end of the year. There is no “official date” though they are accepting bookings from Feb 2010 with prices starting at USD389. They’ve also launched their countdown marketing campaign being led by Ivanka Trump and her twitter account (@IvankaTrump)- with Ivanka giving regular updates on what’s happening in the leadup to the hotel opening to build excitement. This has been linked to a countdown website which shows architects impressions of what the hotel will look like when finished and contains live twitter feeds both from & to Ivanka.
The marketing campaign is actually fairly interesting in and of itself. Any hotel has to build pre-bookings and to do that you need to create expectation, excitement and a level of confidence that it will be all it promises. Thats made a little easier by the brand image of Trump hotels but its still not easy when you have an undeclared & shifting opening date. In the case of the Trump Soho, capitalising on Ivanka Trump’s celebrity status was a pretty smart idea. But celebrities are becoming a dime a dozen on twitter and she first had to build a following, then get the mix right of personal and sales tweets. If you look at it, this is where they’ve done brilliantly. @IvankaTrump really came to twitter’s attention when she tweeted her engagement to to @JCKUSHNER before the media got hold of it. That not only created twitter buzz but also got reported in the media along with her twitter handle – which of course built more followers.
Her tweets have been a good blend of personal and business – enough to satisfy both the celebrity voyeurs and some elements of the business community who cannot help but be impressed by how hard this woman actually works and how much she achieves. Her accounts were then linked (via cross following) to the various Trump Hotels as well of course as the members of the Trump family (and a couple of Trump imposters to boot – which created some humorous reading in and of itself). She’s tweeted about Trump properties, they’ve tweeted back and suggested people follow her for information, particularly about the Trump Soho – something which hotel groups rarely if ever do. Thats resulted in some 180,000 people following her account and reaching considerably more through retweets.
In terms of the hotel itself, its a condo hotel, which is not really a terribly common concept in Australia. The way it works basically is that the building is run by a hotel group usually. Investors buy the apartments but sign a contract with the operator that they can rent that apartment as part of the hotel in return for a percentage of the room rate. The Investor is typically allowed under these contracts to use the apartment themselves for a maximum number of days a year, although with some condo hotels they do have permanent residents as well and its the owners choice whether to participate in the hotel rental.
In terms of the Trump Soho, that really just influences how its been funded because for all intents and purposes when you stay there its like a normal 5 star hotel with all the normal amenities and more. The hotel has some 400 rooms spread over 46 floors. You enter through a dramatic two-story conservatory into a typically spacious lobby featuring artwork commissioned by local artists. Above the lobby is a library which overlooks the lobby. The street level is a landscaped plaza and the 7th floor is the pool, complete with pool deck and cabanas.
The rooms & suites are loft-inspired and are furnished by Fendi Casa. They have floor to ceiling windows which one would expect with a view the kind you’re likely to get from this building – across the NY skyline, the Hudson River, Statue of Liberty & Empire State Building. There are 131 one bedroom suites, 245 studio suites (many of which can be combined to create double bedroom suites) and 11 penthouses on the top 3 floors.
The penthouses sound like they should be something to behold, one being the largest on the East Coast at 10.045 ft2. It boasts 3 master suites, one guest bedroom, 5 1/2 baths, terraces, a double height living room, study, conference room, a recording studio & mixing booth, gym, playroom, catering kitchen and a wine tunnel – wow!
The hotel of course features the top class restaurants you’d expect as well as a spa, conference facilities, meeting rooms, banquet rooms and a stunning area on the 46th floor for weddings & receptions. The hotel also features the Trump Attache – kind of a Trump branded version of the Concierge but the Concierges as they used to be, not as they’ve commonly become today. This is the old concierge (no offense intended) that will organise anything for you, print business cards, find that particular brand of stockings you have to have for tonight, cancel appointments you don’t want to have to do – basically anything.
