It's hard to lose a pig in Central. Especially if it's a well-cooked one, a metre long. But that's what happened, just minutes before the ribbon-cutting ceremony to mark the opening of the Landmark Mandarin Oriental. Only two of the three suckling porkers ordered had arrived.
'How can you lose a man carrying a pig in the Landmark shopping centre?' asked the hotel's general manager, Susanne Hatje. She laughs now, but she wasn't smiling then. With the spectre of Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group chief executive Edouard Ettedgui looming at any second, she must have been quaking. There he would have been, scissors in hand but down one pig at the vital staff ribbon-cutting ceremony.
Such are the trials that haunt even the world's top hoteliers when they open a new property. After none for years, Hong Kong has seen four recent newcomers: the boutique Landmark on August 24, the Hong Kong Disney pair in mid-September and then The Four Seasons in Central.
This has raised the five-star stakes, and now the flagship Mandarin Oriental has announced that its renovation, which starts on December 28, will be speeded up to take half the original scheduled 19 months.
It's a daunting prospect, turning a hole in the ground, or in the case of the Four Seasons, a piece of the harbour, into a 50-storey tower block epitomising global excellence in rooms and restaurants. Instead of attempting instant perfection and opening all 399 rooms at once, Four Seasons started with 50 rooms, adding more each week until now it has 360 operational with 90 per cent occupancy. It is general manager William Mackay's fourth hotel launch since joining the group in 1982.
'Openings can be quite thorny and problematic,' he said. 'But at least everyone's enthusiastic.'
