Just who is your concierge?

A brief history of concierge services explains why staff behind the desk may not always be what they seem

DEREK PICOT

Many might be surprised that some doormen and hall porters in London and Paris paid hotels for their jobs. Their living was made exclusively from tips and commissions. Taxi drivers paid doormen for introductions to fares, and hall porters who booked restaurants for clients were passed envelopes of cash from grateful proprietors. All went profitably for hotel owners who saved the wage bill, while their uniformed staffbenefited from the largesse of others. Then came the recession of the Twenties when the first waves of austerity obliged more socially progressive employers to start paying a wage to their frondine staff This coincided with the arrival of the term ‘concierge’ – a new concept. The word had a more common usage as that of a caretaker and is a contraction from the French…

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Business Traveller Asia-Pacific Edition (Digital) - 1 Issue, October - December 2022

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