Keys to the City

Long lines, sold-out attractions, and impossible-to-get reservations are just a few of the summer travel headaches a trusty hotel concierge can cure. 

- Jennifer Bradley Franklin

ON A RECENT TRIP to Florence, I made a rookie mistake: as I was putting together the last-minute getaway, I neglected to reserve timed tickets to the Uffizi Gallery and the Galleria dell'Accademia. These iconic attractions are known to sell out days if not weeks in advance, so I was more than a little sheepish when I asked the concierge at Hotel Savoy, a Rocco Forte Hotel (rocco fortehotels.com; doubles from $661) if they could do anything to help. Twenty minutes later I had reservations at my preferred times for both-no waiting in ticket lines required. (Turns out, the Savoy's head concierge, Ruggero Vannini, always keeps a few tickets on hold.)

The old-school, real-live-human concierge, it seems, is back. Les Clefs d'Or, probably the best-known association of hotel concierges, saw membership dip early in the pandemic, as some hotels trimmed staff. But that decline has now reversed, at least in the U.S., where the organization saw a 53 percent increase in member applications from 2021 to 2022-a trend that has continued this year.