CHICAGO— Guests staying at the Fairmont Chicago can ride around the Windy City in style now that the hotel has purchased a 2006 Bentley Continental Flying Spur. The hotel acquired the forest green Bentley in August for $180,000, according to Andre Zotoff, general manager of the 692-room hotel. “It’s very elegant and it has all the features you can imagine,” Zotoff said, adding that many of those features are not high tech. “Bentley is a traditional company so you have knobs” for things like air vents. “But it’s very well done. The car has the feeling of being handmade,” he said, adding that the car has a rich brown leather interior. As far as performance, “it’s amazing, you can feel the power. It goes from zero to 60 in four seconds,” Zotoff said, noting that Bentley was initially a manufacturer of race cars. When the Fairmont Chicago purchased the vehicle, the decision was made to not put a hotel logo on the car. “We had a long discussion about that but it’s a very special car and it should be a very special experience for our guests. It should not be like an advertising tool,” Zotoff said. The Bentley has ample seating for five adults and is available seven days a week to take guests to meetings within Chicago’s Loop, the theater district and stores along Michigan Avenue. It operates from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. every day except Sunday, when it is available until 8 p.m. “It is parked in our driveway and when a guest says they need a taxi, we ask if they would like the Bentley to take them,” Zotoff said. On weekdays, the primary users are business guests going to meetings, while in the evenings and on weekends, guests ask to be taken to restaurants, museums or the shops along Michigan Avenue by the car. “On busy days, it goes non-stop,” Zotoff said, adding that the car is intended for city destinations. “The airport would take it out of commission for three hours. We want it to have the most impact” so service is for the most part limited to downtown. Not many luxury hotels in Chicago offer anything similar to the Bentley service, according to Zotoff. “It sets us apart from our competitors,” he said.
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