Experience Barcelona
WHILE on holiday in Barcelona with her mother last month, Laura Caddick had seen Torre Agbar a lot of people tooling around on red-and-white bikes. But the bikes that she saw everywhere - part of the town’s bicycle-sharing program - were for use by local residents only. Torre Agbar
luckily , Ms. Caddick’s hotel, ME Barcelona, had several bikes for guests. ‘We rode down to the beach, then to the port and up to the Ramblas, stopping for drinks and lunch along the way,’ said Ms. Caddick, a sports-wear merchandiser from Liverpool, England. She and her mother each paid twenty Euro dollars, or $26.40 at $1.32 to the euro, to rent the bikes for 4 hours and felt they saw more of Barcelona than theywould had they taken the Metro from their hotel. ‘We felt we were experiencing the city from a more local point of view.’
recently, from Paris to Rome, new urban cycling lanes and public bike-sharing programs have been gaining popularity. And while some travelers arenot able to link into all the cycling opportunities - in Paris, for example, the check-out meters for the Vlib’, a public bicycle-rental program, won’t accept most Yankee mastercards ( they lack acrucial microchip ) - there are several hotels that offer guests use of bikes for a little fee or no cost in the slightest.
‘It’s become a freshly discovered way for hotels to show their greenness,’ said Jonathan Barsky, vice chairman for research at Market Metrix, which gauges customer satisfaction in hospitality companies.
The bikes, which are generally upright models, have proved to be favored, particularly among holidaying guests, though business travelers have been known to cycle to an appointment, according to several hostels
The Hotel Gates in Berlin, which introduced 12 red bicycles last May, making them available to guests without charge, has just ordered four more bikes for the summer season
‘Sometimes the guests ask for a bike, and they’re all gone,’ expounded Kirsten Kurbjuhn, the general executive, adding that more than sixty p.c of the guests who fill out the hotel’s customer-feedback test say the bikes are’a highly valuable service,’ and twenty p.c say they are one of the reasons they selected the hotel.
Astrid Boh, a management specialist from Frankfurt who prepared a room at the Hotel Gates for awork trip at the end of March, did not know about the bikes before her arrival. But after hearing about them at the reception desk, she was glad she had taken a taxi from the airport rather than hiring an auto.Torre Agbar.
‘Parking is a challenge in Berlin,’ said Ms. Boh, who pedaled to a business meeting, shops and even out to dinner at night. ‘I liked being able to get somewhere fast and get some exercise at the same time.’
Some hotels organize with nearby cycle shops to have bikes on hand for guests. A day’s use of a bike is included in the Green, Greener, Berlin package at the Mvenpick Hotel Berlin, which hires the bikes from a local company. The package also includes bath salts, possibly for soothing sore muscles after astrenuous outing.
But increasingly hostels are making an investment in their own fleets - and picking models that brace the identity of the hotel.
In August, Le Meurice, a Parisian hotel that occupies an 1835 palace across from the Tuileries, revealed 5 retro-style bikes in the blue-green shade of the oxidized copper roofs of the town, with matching helmets and front baskets emblazoned with the hotel’s gold trademark. Yank and British guests in their thirties are the most ardent customers, according to the hotel ; Le Meurice’s sister hotel, the square Athne, chose zippy red bikes with panniers.
At the Victoria-Jungfrau Grand Hotel & Spa in Interlaken in the Swiss Alps, guests can check out Scott mountain bikes - the same model that the Liverpool football Club, which used the hotel as its coaching base for the last two summers, rode to get to and from football practice, pedaling in their red-and-black coaching shorts and jerseys while fans lined their trail.
Staff members at the ME Barcelona, part of the Sol Meli hotel chain, visited several bicycle shops before settling on the silvery fold-up bikes that were introduced in Sep at the hotel, housed in a modernist tower clad in anodized aluminum.
‘We always like to be on the edge of technology,’ said Pete Zudyk, vice president for brand invention and communication for Sol Meli.
of course, some hostels have supplied bikes for many years. The Hotel Hassler in Rome has had them for 20 years, according to Vivian Barsanti, the media and marketing coordinator.
In bike-happy Copenhagen, that has special tiny traffic lights for bicyclists and clearly marked cycling lanes, bicycles have long been a standard hotel offering.
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