A Beauty Place

WHILE on holiday in Barcelona with her mother last month, Laura Caddick had seen Torre Agbar lots of people tooling around on red-and-white bicycles. But the bikes that she saw everywhere - part of the city’s bicycle-sharing program - were to be used by local residents only. Torre Agbar

fortunately , Ms. Caddick’s hotel, ME Barcelona, had many bicycles for guests. ‘We rode down to the beach, then to the port and up to the Ramblas, stopping for drinks and lunch along the way,’ expounded Ms. Caddick, a sportswear merchandiser from Liverpool, England. She and her mother each paid 20 Euro dollars, or $26.40 at $1.32 to the euro, to rent the bikes for four hours and felt they saw more of Barcelona than they’d had they taken the Metro from their hotel. ‘We felt we were experiencing the town from a more local point of view.’

recently, from Paris to Rome, new urban cycling lanes and public bike-sharing programs have been gaining in popularity. And while some travelers aren’t able to hook into all of the cycling opportunities - in Paris, for instance, the check-out meters for the Vlib’, a public bicycle-rental program, will not accept most American cards ( they lack acrucial microchip ) - there are several hotels that offer guests use of bikes for asmall fee or no charge in the slightest.

‘It’s become a new way for hotels to show their greenness,’ said Jonathan Barsky, vice chairman for research at Market Metrix, which gauges customer satisfaction in hospitality corporations.

The bikes, which are sometimes upright models, have proved to be preferred, especially among vacationing guests, though business travelers have been seen to cycle to an appointment, according to many hostels

The Hotel Gates in Berlin, which introduced 12 red cycles last May, making them available to guests without charge, has just ordered 4 more bikes for the summer season

‘Sometimes the guests ask for a bike, and theyare all gone,’ expounded Kirsten Kurbjuhn, the general manager, adding that more than sixty p.c of the guests who fill out the hotel’s customer-feedback test say the bikes are’a highly valuable service,’ and twenty percent say they are one of the reasons they chose the hotel.

Astrid Boh, a management consultant from Frankfurt who prepared a room at the Hotel Gates for a business journey at the end of March, did not know about the bikes before her arrival. But after hearing about them at the reception desk, she was glad she had taken a taxi from the airfield rather than renting an auto.Torre Agbar.

‘Parking is a challenge in Berlin,’ asserted Ms. Boh, who pedaled to a business meeting, shops and even out to dinner at night. ‘I liked being able to get somewhere fast and get some exercise at the same time.’

Some hotels organize with nearby bicycle shops to have bikes available for guests. A day’s use of a bike is included in the Green, Greener, Berlin package at the Mvenpick Hotel Berlin, which hires the bikes from a local company. The package also includes bath salts, possibly for calming sore muscles after astrenuous outing.

But increasingly hostels are making an investment in their own fleets - and picking models that reinforce the identity of the hotel.

In Aug, Le Meurice, a Parisian hotel that occupies an 1835 palace across from the Tuileries, unveiled five retro-style bikes in the blue-green shade of the oxidized copper rooftops of the city, with matching helmets and front baskets emblazoned with the hotel’s gold trademark. American and UK guests in their 30’s tend to be the most enthusiastic customers, according to the hotel ; Le Meurice’s sister hotel, the piazza Athne, chose zippy red bikes with panniers.

At the Victoria-Jungfrau Grand Hotel & Spa in Interlaken in the Swiss Alps, guests can check out Scott off-road bikes - the same model that the Liverpool soccer Club, which made use of the hotel as its coaching base for the last two summers, rode to get to and from soccer practice, pedaling in their red-and-black coaching shorts and jerseys while fans lined their trail.

Staff members at the ME Barcelona, part of the Sol Meli hotel chain, visited many cycle shops before settling on the silvery fold-up bikes that were introduced in Sep at the hotel, housed in a modernist tower clad in anodized aluminum.

‘We always love to be on the fringe of technology,’ said Pete Zudyk, VP for brand innovation and communication for Sol Meli.

of course, some hostels have given bikes for many years. The Hotel Hassler in Rome has had them for two decades, according to Vivian Barsanti, the media and marketing coordinator.

In bike-happy Copenhagen, which has special miniature traffic lights for bicyclists and clearly marked cycling lanes, bicycles have long been the standard hotel offering.

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