The hallmarks of hospitality are great service, comfortable lodgings, delectable cuisine, fancy spas and a sense of place. But look a little deeper and you’ll see that what distinguishes the very best hotels in the world is the irreplaceable role that they’ve played in stewarding the community and often in facilitating key moments in history.
For this, there’s perhaps no better example in North America than The Mayflower Hotel, a 585-key property located in the heart of Washington, D.C. that joined Marriott’s Autograph Collection in 2015 and has been labeled both the ‘Hotel of Presidents’ and the ‘Grande Dame of Washington’. To understand the multitude and caliber of dignitaries, politicians, celebrities and other VIPs that have graced this hotel’s halls – as well as the profusion of grand events that have taken place in one of its ballrooms – you need only glance at The Mayflower’s Wikipedia page which is longer than the brand standards compendium for most other properties!
Celebrating its centennial this year offers the ideal time to reflect on how The Mayflower has contributed to key events over the past hundred years as well as ponder a question: what’s the future hold for a historic property that needs to balance both its heritage and the constant push for innovation?
It’s a timeless quandary for nearly all luxury hotels as well as those striving for stewardship; we all aim to keep one foot firmly in the past while keeping an ever-vigilant eye on the future. Since The Mayflower opened its doors on February 18, 1925 – and, fun fact, as one of the first buildings in the world with air conditioning – it has strived to vigilantly balance the dichotomy of staying true to one’s heritage with the need for evolution and adapting to the hospitality trends of a given era.
Helping answer this dilemma and guide the vision for The Mayflower upon its centennial is its General Manager, Shelly DiMeglio, who has been at the helm of this esteemed property for over three years and with Marriott Hotels for over 34 years. Her words of wisdom offer strong lessons in luxury service.
A Strong Culture as the Core to Serving Guests
In sitting down with DiMeglio, the answer is clear and straightforward: as one of the largest luxury hotels in the District of Columbia, the team at The Mayflower has come together to act as one giant family, each of them fully understanding the significance of their roles within the grander content of things and how impeccable service delivery is a necessity for those matters to occur as they should.
DiMeglio underlined the importance of taking care of the hotel’s 400 associates, with 55 of them having worked at The Mayflower for over 30 years and a handful having worked for over 40 years. While it may not reveal itself on paper, this degree of ‘bench strength’ is an undeniable point of distinction for the operations, and one that all hotels should aspire to achieve. On the culinary side, the hotel has become a venerable place for cooks and chefs due to the people they serve, acting as an informal academy for haute cuisine. Similar to other operations, many of the cooks have been at the property for over 30 years, each having their own specialties and also developing one-to-one relationships with guests for whom they go out to the front of house to ask about the guests’ meals.
The timeless lesson here is that when a property is devoted to its teams, a reciprocal relationship is born with the net benefit to the hotel being longstanding employees who have the utmost pride in taking care of guests and being intuitively proactive in anticipating needs and ground-up innovation.
Another element that stood out was how the onboarding process for every associate includes a detailed review of The Mayflower’s history. Right from the start, associates are endeared to the hotel and the century of passionate hoteliers who bring it to life each day.
From the guest’s perspective, not only does the hotel conduct history tours with on-property historians – as offered in 20-minute and 1.5-hour versions – but every team member is also prepared for any question from curious visitors going about their day. From the very start of the arrival experience when heading upstairs with the bellman, a guest may want to hear about the grand ballroom hosting lavish galas of years past or famous people who have stayed in specific rooms. Other guests may want to remind hotel staff about past honeymoons or restaurants they used to enjoy some three decades ago, with the staff able to keep up and recall the onsite happenings of bygone eras. It’s sense of place; it’s storytelling; it’s the makings of an exquisite hotel, and it’s entirely reliant of the frontline staff to make it a reality.
The meaning behind name of the hotel – Mayflower being the pilgrim ship that landed at Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1620 for those who want to brush on their US history – helps convey this ‘foundational’ significance, as does the property’s tagline, “Exactly like nothing else.” The result is that every associate has a sense of ownership and appreciation for this unfolding procession of events, ultimately translating to a more cohesive team and a feeling of being part of something greater for every guest.
Evolving Guest Needs
While a GM’s plate can often get filled with meetings and reports, DiMeglio still makes time to be present in the beautifully chandeliered lobby and personally greet guests because as she puts it, “There’s still no better way to identify exactly what a customer needs and deliver beyond expectations.”
“What brings you to The Mayflower?” continued DiMeglio. “This is the only question I need to ask to determiner how to make it their best stay in the city. Every guest is different, and we’ve seen a lot of rapidly evolving needs over the past five years. It’s critical that all executives maintain this one-to-one connection to understand how to effectively adapt operations and the facilities in anticipation of future changes.”
Indeed, hospitality times are a-changin’ – and fast. Given this property’s clientele, the staff has always had to be highly tuned in to what each guest needs. For business travelers taking meetings on The Hill or around town, their length of stay may only be one or two nights with every minute accounted for to a tee.
Besides consistent and speedy services, guests in this segment need a quiet place to work, for which the hotel has set the lobby up for work with the mezzanine level specially configured for videoconferencing. This second floor promenade is also where the hotel has built a showcase to highlight the history with artwork, antiques, porcelain china and even archival key fobs.
Concurrently, the meeting spaces are planned in such a way to be readily accessible for swiftly getting VIPs into private places for confidential discussions. Not just area planning, but the tenure of staff is critical for sensing these moments, providing attentive service without ever being obtrusive. The same can be said for the F&B presentation; at Edgar Bar & Kitchen one can easily find themselves hobnobbing with VIPs, while the staff takes equal pride in their exception in-room dining menu for private meetings taking place.
Looking to the social gathering and MICE side of the segment mix, DiMeglio has observed a sharp uptick in group size over the past three years as people naturally enjoy meeting in person and the networking elements of a great event. While this can be said as a general statement worldwide, it’s especially true for Washington, D.C. Some groups have been coming to The Mayflower for over 50 years, with DiMeglio’s challenge being how to incorporate the history and beauty of the property while still modernizing.
Due to the responsibility the hotel has in facilitating important gatherings, there’s no margin for error in execution. As one example, The Mayflower recently hosted a wedding where the bride’s mother and grandmother were both married at the hotel, with the hotel honoring this tradition by crafting a menu and design notes that paid homage to past generations.
Looking to the Next Centennial
DiMeglio’s favorite story about the hotel is its first: the inaugural ball for Calvin Coolidge in the winter of 1925. To this day and for decades to come, The Mayflower’s DNA is one of grateful for being a part of history and the hotel of the presidents.
In celebrating the centennial, the hotel is getting creative in fusing the 1920s with the 2020s. Ahead of new seasonal menus for the wider public, a recent reception for party planners featured dishes from every decade over the past century along with archival menus to show how food trends have changed. There was chateaubriand, lots of seafood and crabcakes, and Caesar salad tossed tableside. Desserts from the 1920s were presented but with a modern twist. Adding another touch are the prohibition era cocktails, with a ‘bathtub gin’ drink and an old fashioned made with a custom-branded bourbon in partnership with WhistlePig.
The team has also transformed the presidential suite, where innumerable dignitaries have stayed, into a legacy suite package where guests can get an exclusive peak at historical photos and archival documents from events taking place in this single guestroom. This is yet one more way where the hotel is preserving the past while inviting guests to help craft its future.
As for what the next five to ten years will bring, DiMeglio closed out by emphasizing the timeless lessons from before, “Listen to your guests firsthand by speaking directly to them and empower your team to embrace the significance of the work they are doing. Whatever the future brings, at a place like The Mayflower where history is being made every day, immersing all associates into this heritage is a reward upon itself and absolutely critical to our operational success.”
