Courtesy of Ryan Lettier
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Ryan Lettier, a 43-year-old concierge at The Peninsula New York, a five-star hotel in New York City. The following has been edited for length and clarity.
I moved to New York in 2018 from Portland, Oregon, to work as a concierge at the Four Seasons New York and have been a member of Les Clefs d'Or, the national association of professional hotel concierges, since 2014.
I started working at The Peninsula New York in November 2021 because Four Seasons Midtown hadn't reopened yet. I hadn't moved here to sit on my sofa. I wanted to work, but I was going to be really picky with where I ended up. With Four Seasons, I was at the top of the sector, and I wanted something comparable.
Peninsula was perfect in terms of its prestige. I was hired as seasonal help to get through the holidays, but then January came around and restrictions had let up, so the amount of people traveling was more than they expected and there was a need to keep me. They said they would reevaluate my role in March, and that's when they hired me full-time.
Most days, there are two of us at the concierge desk and our "chef," or lead, concierge, Frederick Bigler, in the office. But now we have the US Open and the UN General Assembly and Fashion Week, and from there you roll into the holidays. The fourth quarter is prime time, and we can't take vacation — we'll have four of us working the desk.
July and August are typically slower in New York because everyone is in the Hamptons or just away from the city. But right now we're at 100% occupancy. The slower months in the first quarter are usually when we like to take our vacation. Coming off the busy season, it's nice to head somewhere warm and rejuvenate.
All these luxury apartment buildings are calling their doormen concierge now. It drives me crazy. They're maybe just handling packages. In order to have your clefs d'or "key," or membership, you need to be working a concierge desk at a luxury hotel.
My job is different every day. One day I might be helping plan a milestone birthday, pulling off an impossible dinner reservation or getting the best seat in a restaurant. The next day, I might be lending an ear to a guest who's dying or just dealt with something very painful. From arranging balloons or hot-air balloons to puppies and bunnies in somebody's room as a surprise to a Gulfstream jet to Geneva, nothing is too big, too small, or too odd.
You're constantly learning as a concierge. It keeps you alert and on your toes. New York City is always changing and evolving. In my opinion, there's no better place to be a concierge.
The luxury traveler is back. International travel is huge. Brazilians, people from the Middle East — everyone is flocking to New York City. Many of our guests tell us it's their first trip to New York since the pandemic.
What's different now from before the pandemic is that our concierge staff has been cut from seven to five, while the hotel has been at full occupancy. Our desk hours are 7 a.m. to 9 p.m., whereas before we would work from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. So with full occupancy and less staff, we have to somehow fit all our guests' requests, emails, and phone calls into a shorter amount of hours. In a way, it's actually more time-consuming.
For example, take restaurants: Before the pandemic, maybe 90% of maitre d's would answer the phone. Now, with staffing shortages, half the restaurants we call to make reservations for our guests don't answer the phone, so we have to email and wait to hear back or try to book online for the guest.
We prefer phone calls to establish our relationships with restaurants. It's quicker for us to call rather than go on the website and try to find answers to all of our questions. Some guests only want to sit outside, or have special requests or dietary restrictions. Resy doesn't bend the rules for us.
We're getting guests coming back complaining that service was too slow at restaurants, or they asked for something and it never came. Merchandise in stores isn't there, either. We have guests tell us they tried to go shopping but there was nothing to buy.
One guest I spoke with who came from Europe wanted to go to Hermès. She wanted a certain dining set that she couldn't find in Italy and was disappointed that the store in New York had even fewer items than in Italy.
It's first-world problems. Your Hermès spoons aren't available.
With staffing shortages at the airports, we're often dealing with lost luggage, and it's harder to schedule a last-minute car or driver service. All the shortages make us have to work smarter and harder with less hours and a smaller team.
Another thing that's changed is we often get requests for PCR and rapid antigen tests. They have mobile units out on the street, but those guys move around, so we're constantly trying to locate where guests can go to get rapid COVID-19 testing. We'll also work with a nurse who comes in and can go right to the guest's room, so they have that luxury, which costs a couple hundred dollars. Mostly now the tests are for peace of mind since restrictions have mostly dropped.
We do deal with a lot of celebrities who come through, and before they go on TV or go to a concert or a signing, they require a PCR or rapid antigen test.
Everybody's been locked up at home for so long, they're willing and freely wanting to spend money. There's an expectation, though. Nothing can go wrong. You have to carefully execute their stay, and we want to make their first visit back to New York great. There's a reward that's come back to us nine times out of 10, and I'd say guests are tipping more. Celebrities aren't necessarily leaving gratuities since you're dealing with their assistant, but it's everyday people who are recognizing and appreciating great service.
When we get gratuities from guests — it could be $1 or $100 — it's all pooled and split evenly. We have a much smaller team at the Peninsula than at the Four Seasons, and oftentimes we're all helping a guest. Even a person you might not have worked with — whatever's in here, we're splitting five ways.
The other day, a couple traveling from India with their grandkids left a gratuity and also a handwritten note. When everything goes just according to plan for the guest, we look good and it might be mentioned in a review or on social channels. Sometimes we're even mentioned by name.
Our entire team is really good at reading guests, and we're sympathetic when something goes wrong. Even if sometimes they're upset because the trip wasn't the best, they might leave you a gratuity because you exhausted all options and whatever happened was out of your control.
We leave cohesive notes for each other so the next day one of us can take over where the other left off. At previous hotels, I was taking things home and following up on tasks like confirming reservations or organizing guest requests on my days off. We hold each other up and finish things for each other. You actually can leave things at the desk and enjoy your time away from work.
There's a huge group staying with us right now from Asia that's taken over more than 100 rooms in the hotel and having meetings every day in the hotel. It's so nice to see that again. Hotels are back to life. When you see the hotel bustling like it is and you're busy with requests, it reminds me this is why I love living and working here. That energy that you crave when you think of New York is back.
