The concierge
One person, and every detail.
A concierge is not a booking service. The difference lies in who holds the whole: the order of things, the people involved, and the moment at which each of them must be told. That is the work described here.
The role
Why one person, rather than a department.
A stay of any complexity is a chain of small dependencies. The chauffeur must know the flight, the hotel must know the chauffeur, the captain must know that lunch has moved to three. When those links are held by different people, each may be handled correctly and the whole still fail. When one person holds them, it is the whole that is managed.
Each request is therefore given to one concierge, who stays with it from the first message to the last. You will not be passed between departments or asked to repeat yourself, and you will always know whom you are dealing with. Should a colleague need to stand in, you are told beforehand, and the request passes to them complete, with its history, rather than retold from memory.
Before you arrive
The part of the work you see least.
- The brief
- What you tell us, and what we then ask. A few sentences in your own words are worth more to us than a completed form. The rest — the ages of children, the flight, the name that should appear on a booking — is asked for only when it is needed.
- The proposal
- A written document setting out each part of the stay and the licensed company that will provide it. It is specific: the hotel and the category of room, the car, the time the chauffeur meets you, the table and the hour.
- The suppliers
- The charter company that sails the yacht, the helicopter operator that flies the aircraft, the permitted desert camp, the hotel: each is licensed, and each is named to you before anything is confirmed. We do not own aircraft, yachts or cars; we choose among those who do.
- Visas and entry
- Where anyone in the party needs a UAE visa, the application is handled for you, and the dates by which anything must be done are set out in writing.
- Every arrival, prepared
- Before you land, the people who will receive you are told what they need to know: the hotel your arrival time and how the rooms should be arranged, the chauffeur your flight and the name to look for. Where the airport permits it, you are met at the aircraft rather than in the arrivals hall.
While you are here
One point of contact, from arrival to departure.
- Reaching us
- By writing to the concierge who holds your request, quoting its reference. A request made at any hour is answered, and a change asked for during a stay takes precedence over anything that can wait.
- The car waits
- The chauffeur waits rather than being called: at the airport, outside dinner, at the end of a long day. Where you wish it, the same car and the same chauffeur remain with you for the length of the stay.
- Changes
- A change is agreed with you before it is made. Once made, it is confirmed in writing and the programme is updated, so the document in your hands is always the current one.
- When plans go awry
- Wind closes the water, haze closes the air, and flights are late. When something does not go as planned, you are told promptly, with what has already been done about it and what remains for you to decide.
After you leave
Closing the file properly.
When a stay ends, anything left open is closed — a deposit to be returned, a receipt to be sent, a supplier to be settled — and you are told when that has been done.
What you would like remembered for next time, such as a preferred room, a dislike of early departures or a chauffeur who suited the party, is kept with your agreement. What you would rather we did not keep is not kept. How long anything is held, and how to ask for it to be removed, is set out on the page on discretion and in the privacy policy.
Dining and private access
Tables, rooms and doors that are not simply booked.
Much of what a stay is remembered for cannot be reserved online: a table on an evening the restaurant is full, a private room for a family dinner, a museum at its quietest, with a guide who can read what is in it.
Where these can be arranged properly — with the restaurant, through the institution or its accredited guides — we arrange them, and tell you in advance exactly what has been agreed. Where they cannot, we say so. We do not promise access we are unable to confirm.
What we will not do
Four things, kept without exception.
- Book without approval
- Nothing is booked or charged until you have accepted a proposal in writing, and nothing confirmed is changed without your agreement.
- Promise what cannot be delivered
- If we cannot confirm a table, a berth or a room, we do not suggest that we can.
- Share more than is needed
- A supplier receives only the details it needs to provide its part of the stay, and nothing else.
- Speak about you
- We do not name clients, show them, or describe their stays, to anyone.
Write to the concierge.
Tell us as much or as little as you wish. Every request is read by a person, and the reply comes from a person, not a system.