“We Made Luxury Touchable”: How Hotel Nikko Goes Above and Beyond for Dogs and Their Humans - Anna Marie Presutti, Hotel Nikko San Francisco

Anna Marie: Everybody wants to know about the dogs. We became dog-friendly, but we took that to a different level. Because as I was traveling so much, I would see that everyone would say, oh, we're pet friendly. And that basically meant you could bring your pet to the hotel. And I said, well if we're going to do this, let's really do it. Let's do it right. So, if you're going to bring your pet to the hotel, we will provide you with a dog bed and dog bowls and you get a treat, a dog bag, little baggy, I guess it is a doggy bag, a little, it's a doggy bag, with dog treats and whatnot in it and dog toys for your, and then we built a dog run which is some of the best views of the city, by the way, on the fifth floor, where you can actually, if you're traveling, let's say, from the suburbs or somewhere, and your dog's not comfortable going out onto the streets because they're backyard dogs, well, we have a dog run for you. So you don't have to take your dogs down on the streets, and you go to this dog run, and there's a beautiful cable car dog house that you can have pictures taken with. So I said, if we're gonna do this, let's really lean into it. So that was the stuff part of the dogs. Then we decided, well, we should have a plush in the room of the dog. Buster was the original dog and is still the original dog. And $2 of that plush sale goes to Muttville, which is a dog rescue for older dogs. And then we started to get involved in community engagement with the dogs. So Buster spent a lot of time at the hospital visiting some of the patients and did a little bit of work with Buster Posey. So Buster Posey the dog and Buster Posey the player from the Giants. We did a huge dog book called 49 Dogs and One Cat. The cat's name was Nico. and at his auction, he does a big philanthropic event every year and at this auction, they auctioned off these 49 dog books because there's a massive spread of the dogs at the ballpark in the dugout and on the field and whatnot and Buster Posey the player autographed the books and Buster Posey the dog pawtographed the books and they would auction those off so it raised a lot of money and then we got a call and said the plushes could we take some of the plushes to the pediatric cancer units so we donated the dogs for Buster Posey the player to take into the hospitals when he went, and you know we were really starting to hit our stride with that and then, of course, covert hit. So, now we've had to move into Muttville, which is the senior dog rescue, and then Buster and Bo still do meet and greets in the city, but they're also here. If you're here and you're on a business trip and you want to sit and play fetch with the dogs, we'll meet you on the dog run and you can do that. And oftentimes, you know, if people are here to go to UCSF or whatever the case is, sometimes they just want a lap dog. And so we've got a dog for that, you know, Buster will curl up and just sit in your lap. So it really, I think what the dogs did for us as a hotel is it took luxury and made it touchable. and it made it comfortable for people. Like all of it, they didn't feel, it didn't feel stuffy. And so the dogs for the hotel part of it, we were able to sort of introduce luxury to a whole different group of people that wanted to travel with their dogs and they felt comfortable. That was the first thing. The second thing is the philanthropic piece, which we talked about. And I think that there's probably even more to come. Now, when we have a group in-house, and they have their breaks, and you know, where everybody comes out, and they kind of give them a networking break, we do the dog breaks. So we'll bring all the dogs down and people can sit and just sort of decompress with the dogs. There is something to be said about that. People really do love that. So, we've sort of just incorporated it all over, and from a community perspective, it really caught on.

Josiah: Well, I love that story because it seems coming, there are elements of your early experience at Disney where it's, if you're going to do something, do it well, do it with some theatrics, do it with, in a way that engages people, gives them something to talk about. Yeah. So, it's really cool to kind of see it come full circle in a way.