Hotels the world over are spending money for things such as better beds, splashier showers, trendier bars and flat-screen TVs.

Keeping with this trend, The Ritz-Carlton and its owners have invested more than a billion dollars in capital improvements to upgrade properties from St Thomas to Palm Beach, and Shanghai to Maui.

A three-year capital improvement plan for all hotels will include in-room enhancements from flat screen televisions, higher thread count bedding, to gourmet coffee makers and wireless capability.

“Small touches such as hotel amenities are very important, they make guests feel at home, says Ritz-Carlton Sharq Village and Spa general manager Abdul Aziz Al Emadi.

Qatar’s Sharq Village and Spa has paid special attention to introduce modern amenities in all the guest rooms to meet the requirements of international leisure and business travellers, he says.

A recent survey by the American Hotel and Lodging Association suggests that transformation is well under way in an industry that this year is spending $5 billion on upgrades. 

Of 9,300 US hotels in the survey, 69 per cent had upgraded their bedding in the last year, 72 per cent were offering voice mail, 82 per cent were offering wireless Internet and virtually all were wired to offer cable or satellite television.

For today’s affluent traveller, staying at a hotel is an experience, but for him the days of synthetic bedspreads and sanitiser bands are indeed over, Emadi points out.

“However the human element will never be eliminated. At Sharq Village and Spa we are proud to offer our signature 24-hour butler service for all of the resort’s beits. Our dedicated teams of butlers are available to facilitate requests, working as a liaison with all other service areas within the resort to ensure an enjoyable stay,” he maintains. 

“We recognise that guests are looking for a ‘home away from home’ experience when travelling. The guest rooms are designed to complement the local theme of the resort and rooms are lavishly decorated to provide a restful and private Qatari-style sanctuary. Local patterns and traditional colours such as amber, bronze, deep red and purple with touches of gold have been used in the linens, the bathrooms are spacious and each room offers the most modern luxury amenities,” he says.

Beyond food and beverage, the main hotel brands have attempted to hold on to the most valued travellers by offering them a bevy of gifts and services “on the house”.

These include in-room bottled water, gift certificates, room upgrades, frequent point bonuses, and even pints of ice cream.

Additional perks include free use of all hotel facilitates (spa, golf, etc…), complimentary long-distance calls, and no charge for high-speed Internet access. In these circumstances, hotel owners not only bear the cost of these complimentary amenities, but they also lose the opportunity to earn revenue for services that they have previously been able to charge for.

Emadi says decorative, yet functional amenities in the Sharq guest rooms include fruit bowls in hammered gilded metal, hand-made chests filled with organic soaps, hand-made inlaid wood date boxes, in-room espresso machines, spacious marble bathrooms with deep soaking tubs and separate walk-in rainforest showers, state-of-art technology including wall-mounted 32-inch flat-screen LCD televisions that offer split screens to surf the web or answer e-mails while still watching a favourite television programme or movie and both hi-speed wireless and cabled data connections.

Emadi points out: “These days we do not have bottle openers behind the bathroom doors, however we offer luxury bathrobes and slippers.”

On toiletries, Emadi says Penhaligons toiletries were selected for Sharq Village and Spa as they communicate the right level of exclusive luxury to the guests.

“Our guests recognise<