What the concierge saw: 30 years of Hong Kong history, and a few tall tales, from a man with hospitality in his blood
- The chief concierge at the InterContinental hotel in Tsim Sha Tsui, Louis Baleros has seen it all over the past three decades
- From the Saudi royal who wanted to play video games at midnight on Chinese New Year’s Eve to facing down Sars, he relates the ups and downs of five-star life
“We had a member of the Saudi Arabian royal family staying with us once. He had a strange habit because he only liked to go out after midnight,” Baleros recalls. “Then I was told he wanted to go to a video games arcade. This was Chinese New Year’s Eve, so I had to find a place that would agree to stay open till the next morning.
“The next day he wanted to go to Macau, but wouldn’t say when. So I was just told to put the helicopter on standby. Think of the expense! And in the end he never actually went to Macau.
“That was a tough call, but in a case like this, you really have to have the best contacts network available.”
Having notched up a quarter of a century in the post, Baleros, now a youthful 62, can offer an incisive view of the city’s up and downs over three decades.
Take the hotel itself, which started life as The Regent in October 1980. As the years went by, the property was sold back and forth, taking on its present incarnation in 2001. Another roll of the dice in 2018 saw the InterContinental Hotels group take over Regent Hotels & Resorts, and agreement for the hotel to revert to its original name.