Building the destination

Legendary hoteliers helped turn the Maldives into a global craze. One of them is now creating new levels of luxury

Very rarely does a really crack team come together to open a new hotel. It happened in 1978 when the Taj group opened its first Delhi hotel on Man Singh Road, packing it with the best Taj employees from all over the country. It happened two decades later when the Oberois opened Raj Vilas, the first Vilas property in Jaipur when Vikram Oberoi led a team of the group's finest and transformed the paradigm for resort hotels in India forever.

And, it happened in Mumbai in 2007, when the Four Seasons opened. If you have been to the hotel, you will know that it is no architectural marvel, and nor is it situated in a particularly scenic spot. But, when it opened, and for some years after that, it was the best-run hotel in Mumbai, and, perhaps, in any Indian city.

This was almost entirely down to the people who slaved to make the hotel a success. The team was led by Armando Kraenzlin with Uday Rao as the Hotel Manager. It included brilliant chefs, a great F&B Manager and was marked by an attention to detail that has never been bettered in Mumbai.

Most of the people who opened the hotel came from the Four Seasons in the Maldives. Called Kuda Huraa, it was one of the first truly luxurious hotels to open in that country. The island belonged to BS Ong, the Singapore Chinese billionaire who had been an early advocate of tourism in the Maldives.

When the Four Seasons took it over, Armando Kraenzlin became General Manager and created what was, at that time, the best hotel in the Maldives.

Armando was then plucked from the Maldives by the Four Seasons management and dispatched to Mumbai to open the first Four Seasons in India. He brought his people with him. In his heart though, I think he always missed the Maldives and he was particularly sorry to miss the opening of the second Four Seasons in the Maldives, called Landaa Giraavaru (or LG for short), a hotel he had spent a long time conceiving of.