Trump Hotels: History, City Hotels and Golf Resorts

I was recently at ILTM, which brings together many of the finest hotel groups from around the globe. On this occasion, I was able to discover Trump Hotels.

What is the history behind the brand?

Our first hotel in our portfolio was Trump Central Park in New York. It's been open for 21 years now; I actually joined the pre-opening team 22 years ago. We've just completed a full renovation of Trump Central Park, with all of the guest rooms and hallways redone. We have the fantastic Jean-Georges, who runs all of our food and beverage at Central Park. It's our only restaurant there, and he also handles room service, breakfast, lunch and dinner, so it really sets us apart. We're very fortunate to have that. The hotel occupies the 3rd floor to the 17th floor, with private residences above.

Abroad, we have Aberdeen, Turnberry and Doonbeg, but other than that, the rest of our properties are in the U.S.

We have different signature programs, like Trumpettes and Trump Kids.

Our next property is in Chicago. It's a beautiful, iconic building, again with hotels on the lower part and residences on top. When you take up an entire city block, you never look out of a window and see a brick wall, which in a city is quite difficult to say. We're very fortunate with our locations, overlooking Central Park, overlooking a river.

We've actually just re-conceptualized our restaurant in Chicago into Terrace 16. Before, we had a 2-Michelin-star restaurant, but we realized that isn't really what our guests are looking for these days. They don't want formal dining; they want something more casual that they can visit on multiple nights rather than making one special occasion out of it. We changed that in July, so it's been great to introduce this new concept. We have a terrace that opens up from the restaurant, so in summertime you have the best of both worlds, indoor or outdoor seating. On Wednesday evenings, there are fireworks going off from boats, so it's a great spot to get the best seats in the house.

Then there's our Las Vegas property. It's non-gaming and non-smoking, which in Las Vegas is quite unique. It's 1,200 rooms, which, again for Las Vegas, is a fairly boutique size compared to most other hotels there, which are very large. One thing I love about this property is that when I go to events in Las Vegas, I don't want to walk for 20 minutes to get to my room past all the 'ding-ding-ding' of the slot machines. This one feels boutique: there are 20 rooms per floor, so you're not walking down these endless corridors. The pool area is very private and doesn't turn into a nightclub. It's great for families visiting Las Vegas as well as for the rest of our leisure and business guests.

D.C. is our newest property. Very iconic. Unlike our other buildings, which tend to be modern skyscrapers, this is a beautiful historic building, formerly the old post office. It was actually going to be torn down after being derelict for many years. There is a townhouse, formerly the Postmaster's office, now available as a 2-bedroom suite with its own private entrance. Lots of signature suites. We have a BLT restaurant now. It's the closest hotel to the White House, right on Pennsylvania Avenue. The lobby has an all-glass ceiling, so it's very grand. All of the guest rooms are arranged around the atrium, with beautiful views, some overlooking the monument. You still have access up to the clock tower, so you can look straight down at the monument. In the renovation, since it's a historic building, we kept a lot of the original elements: you can still see the original postbox and the original post office windows. It's a truly stunning property, very different from everything else we have.

Then we move on to Vancouver, another skyscraper building with amazing views overlooking the river. It has a Mott 32 restaurant, the first outside of China, so it's fantastic to have Mott 32 there. It's smaller, with 147 rooms. Across all of our properties, it's about making our guests feel like personalization, like they're the only guest walking through that door, not just another name. Those are our city hotels.

Then we have more of our resort hotels. We have Trump Waikiki, right in the middle of Waikiki, literally across the street from the beach. It just had its 9-year anniversary, which is very exciting, and it sits in the middle of shops and restaurants. It has 1-bedroom and 2-bedroom suites, so it's fantastic for families. Many of our hotels have full kitchens, including New York, Chicago, Waikiki and Las Vegas. A lot of families like having that available. Even I, as a traveler who spends so much time on the road, like being able to make myself tea, coffee or juice in the morning. It's really great to have our kitchens. We also have attaché guest services, who can stock your fridge for you before arrival. You just send them a grocery list, and we take care of the rest.

We have 9 hotels, but we also have 2 properties in our Estate Collection. This is our Trump Winery, much smaller, with only 10 rooms. This used to be the Albemarle Estate, a family-run estate, before we bought it and turned it into Trump Winery. We produce a sparkling, a red and a white wine, all really delicious. I love going there in the fall to see all the foliage; it looks like it belongs in the English countryside.

Then there are our golf resorts. We're definitely known for our beautiful golf resorts. We took over Trump Doral about 5 years ago and did a complete renovation of all the guest rooms and all the golf courses. It's quite large, with 643 rooms, structured as villas containing the guest rooms. The villas are named after great golf icons; we have the Tiger Woods Villa, and so on. We have a BLT restaurant there too.

Then we have our Doonbeg property in Ireland, another absolutely stunning golf course. Then there's Aberdeen, part of our Estate Collection because it's a lot smaller, at 16 rooms, with another stunning golf course, and activities like horseback riding available. Then there's Trump Turnberry, which we took over a couple of years ago, again with a full renovation of all the golf courses and guest rooms. What I love about Turnberry is that there used to be a lighthouse there, and we thought, how amazing would it be to turn that into a guestroom? So that's now a 2-bedroom suite, with views right there on the peninsula overlooking the ocean. It's a very, very stunning property.

We also have a number of other golf courses, but they're purely golf courses without rooms attached, running from Los Angeles to New York, independently operated.

You must see the beautiful view from Trump Central Park. Central Park is literally our front garden. Because it's Central Park, nobody can ever build in front of us, which in New York, nobody else can say.

Other hotels do have views, but we're the only one that takes up the entire block, so nobody blocks our views. Many other hotels actually look out at us, so they only get a partial park view, while we have a full park view with nothing else blocking us.

Do you welcome a lot of French guests in your market?

We do, but not as much, I have to say. In the summer months especially, we see more European business coming in. Recently, we've actually seen more from Italy than from France, and we've seen quite a bit of growth from Germany as well, though a lot of it has to do with the exchange rate, which really drives that influx of business. We're predominantly a domestic market, but we also receive a lot of visitors from the U.K. In New York in particular, and across our city hotels, the main markets are domestic, U.K., Asia, Australia, then Canada.

We're opening up new resorts in Indonesia, in Bali and Lido. That will be residences, golf courses and hotels together, opening in 2020. I know, it's practically tomorrow, it's a little scary. We're already discussing delivery dates for FF&E.

The wonderful thing about Trump Hotels is that every property is very unique to its city. You don't just walk into one hotel and say, 'Oh yeah, I've seen that brand before.' We really try to keep the essence of what's happening locally and bring that into the hotel.

All of our city hotels are 4- or 5-star, so we're very proud of that, including our Waikiki hotel.

Do you think it's important for guests to know a hotel is 4- or 5-star?

I do. I think a lot of guests, probably more in the US, understand the 4- or 5-star rating well. In Europe, it's still being introduced, so it's not as well-known yet, but it's developing across cities. It's been rolled out in London, and in Paris. As it develops further, I think people will appreciate it more. But I do feel that, as a 5-star hotel, guests know the guaranteed service they're going to get, and I think that helps us with our ADR as well.

Are ratings like Diamond just as important for you?

Diamond and AAA are slightly different, less complex than Forbes. A Forbes inspection is very thorough; they do a 2-day stay on a regular basis, whereas AAA comes once a year, and it's simply pass or fail. One year they'll do a stay, and the next they'll just walk the rooms without actually staying.

What are your programs for children?

We have our signature program, Trump Kids. We try to personalize it: if you're in Hawaii, we want your cuddly toy to be a dolphin, versus something different when you're in New York. It's really about personalizing it, and personalizing it to each age as well. We want to make sure we're not giving a 12-year-old something more suited to a 5-year-old.

We also have Trump Pets, because we know that sometimes pets matter even more than children when people are traveling, and we want to make sure we cater to them too. We know wellness is very important to everybody: guests want to keep their normal routine going even while traveling, and we try to support that as much as possible. Our attaché really focuses on all of our guests' preferences, making sure they carry through into every one of our properties, so if you tell us something at one hotel, it follows you to the next.

Then, of course, we have our loyalty program, because we want you to enjoy all of our hotels, be rewarded, get upgrades, and enjoy complimentary night stays. Again, we want to personalize it: for instance, if you've stayed with us 10 times, and we know you like hockey, we want to offer you something we know you'll enjoy, rather than a single generic amenity for everyone after 10 stays.

Do you have any sustainability programs?

We don't go out with one big, bold program, but every hotel is very conscious of sustainability. We look at LED lightbulbs, linen programs, energy programs, and try to find as many efficiencies as we can. It's a bit tricky to make a bold public statement, because then people start questioning whether it's really 'green' enough. So in the areas where we know we do well, we do very well. It's very difficult in the luxury market: that's the biggest challenge. At home we might recycle, but when guests pay $800 for a room, they want their sheets changed daily and fresh towels every day. We may practice sustainability at home, but I don't think the luxury traveler necessarily focuses on that when traveling, and it's certainly not a deciding factor when booking a hotel.

There are certain hotels and great brands that have made sustainability central to their identity, and some consumers are very focused on that, but at the luxury level, I don't feel that's what's driving where guests choose to book.