Mickael Damelincourt, managing director of Trump International Hotel, Washington D.C., spends at least five hours of every working day based in his “office” – one of the tables in the hotel’s unique lobby.
“I am on hand to greet and talk to both hotel guests and colleagues. I schedule meetings here – most passers-by realize when I am in serious conversation and do not interrupt. There really are no disadvantages,” the French-born hotelier says.
The table has a Reserved sign on it from about 7 o’clock every morning, ready for Damelincourt’s arrival at 7:50 a.m. He is on hand to talk to guests, both in-house and locals coming for breakfast meetings, either in the lobby or its integral BLT Prime by David Burke restaurant. He himself invariably breakfasts on a croissant from a stylish glass-topped pastries cart rolling by, with a cup of coffee to drink. Depending on his own schedule, and on how busy the hotel is, sometime after noon Damelincourt retreats to his more formal back-of-house base, and the lobby table reverts to a profit center for guests buying food and drink.
As well as being providing such excellent customer service, Damelincourt feels that sitting at his lobby desk has another big advantage: He admits he is motivated by the ambience. The square lobby soars up to the glass roof of the nine-floor open atrium, formed by covering over the open courtyard of the city’s Old Post Office Building, completed in 1899, and converted into a 263-room hotel that opened in September 2016.