Editors’ Note

Rudy Tauscher has held his current post since April 2002, which was 19 months before Mandarin Oriental, New York’s opening in December 2003. Prior to that, he was General Manager of Trump International Hotel & Tower in New York, a position he assumed after serving as Resident Manager of The Peninsula, New York. Tauscher has also held managerial positions at the Palace of the Lost City (Sun City, South Africa), Dallas’s Mansion on Turtle Creek and Hotel Crescent Court, and Windsor Court Hotel in New Orleans. Tauscher has a master’s degree in business administration from Johannesburg’s Newport University and has studied at the Cornell University Hotel School, New York University, and North Texas University.

Property Brief

Located on Manhattan’s Columbus Circle in the Time Warner Center, Mandarin Oriental, New York (www.mandarinoriental.com/newyork) features views of Central Park and the Hudson River and is minutes from some of New York’s finest restaurants, performance centers, and shops. Opened in 2003, Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group’s North American flagship comprises 248 elegantly appointed guest rooms and suites; 64 luxury condominiums; ample meeting and banquet space, including a 6,000-square-foot ballroom; three food and beverage venues, including its signature restaurant, Asiate; and the 14,500-square-foot Mandarin Oriental Spa.

What are the projections for the Mandarin Oriental, New York for 2008 following a strong 2007?

There is a general sentiment that there are some challenges ahead in 2008. People believe things must eventually slow down, and I think that very often our psychology creates reality. Personally, I’m an optimist, and I believe that many of the signs are still very positive. I also believe that we have good fundamentals in place that should sustain the same basic picture we’re looking at right now. Interest rates have been lowered. We have low unemployment. The dollar is inexpensive, which makes it attractive for foreigners to come to New York. These are some of the signs that I believe are positive and therefore, I tend to say that things will continue the way they have been.

Do you think the strength in the travel market will mainly come from the international side due to the weakness of the dollar, or will it also come from the domestic traveler?

The domestic market is still extremely strong. We haven’t necessarily seen a shift in our market segmentation. It’s still 70 percent from the U.S. and 30 percent coming from outside. I have noticed a strong influx of British travelers that might be attributable to the dollar situation. But otherwise, all things considered, the market has pretty much remained the same throughout 2006 and 2007.

Is it possible in a market like New York to be successful as a hotel restaurant? When you look at your product, you have beautiful views, but you’re on the 35th floor – you have to bring people here. Is that part of the business challenging?

Yes, it is. The hotel industry has undergone a shift to where luxury operations today would rather outsource some of their outlets. A majority of great hotels now have professional chefs from all over the place. At Mandarin Oriental, we’ve prided ourselves on our belief that food and beverage is one of our core competencies. We have fun with it, and we have not deviated from that model, which has been very successful. We are very happy with the position of our restaurant, Asiate. Zagat rated it among the top 50 restaurants in New York, which in a 10,000-restaurant market shows that we are very competitive.

Your hotel has a swimming pool. It’s an offering not many New York hotels have. Do you find that to be a differentiator and a competitive advantage?

Yes, it absolutely is. We have the swimming pool on the 36th floor. We offer swim classes for kids. We have professional trainers as well. It’s a wonderful atmosphere.

This seems to be an industry where there’s so much technology in the rooms available to guests, sometimes it’s not easy to understand how it works. How do you offer the technology, but make it simple enough that it’s actually an asset?

Our guests have become extremely sophisticated, and I think that sometimes the hotel operators and hoteliers haven’t been able to keep up with the speed of what our guests want. Technology changes rapidly and you have to exchange IT infrastructures every three to four years. If you don’t have that built into your business model, you will struggle and move too slowly. Today, we have six people working in our IT office, helping us keep up with the changes and helping guests with their technology needs, even if that means fixing their iPods.

Today, you also have new building technologies, such as green technologies, to deal with. You have LEEDS certification and all of these modern approaches to responding to the environment issues in buildings like Time Warner Center. As a company, we are focused on developing green hotels. We have an entire department that does nothing else.

You were involved from development to the opening of the hoteland have been running it since it opened. Do you really enjoy both aspects of it? Is it a part of your personality to deal with all of these areas?

I think that, today, you have to have more flexibility. I always see my objective as to run the most successful business. That means you pay attention to the top line, the bottom line, and everything in between. As a hotelier, I assist in development negotiations and loan agreements, and that gives me the opportunity to see what I need to do in order to position the hotel so I can make it a viable business. It just happened to be a hotel. I see myself primarily as a business manager.

You also have to rely on people who, within their areas of expertise, are stronger than you. There is no point in you being stronger in finance than the financial comptroller or more fluent in food and beverage than the executive chefs. You have to understand such things, but you need to acknowledge experts within their fields.