HONG KONG'S HIGH TECH HOTEL 

When any business executive leaves on yet another trip, he knows he can't always count on modern facilities that allow him to operate so well in his home office. Today that is changing.

I have just returned from the Near West (formerly the Far East). This time spent in a hotel with a difference, the Kowloon Hotel in Tsimshatsui, Hong Kong. It is the world's first really high-tech hotel. Every room equipped with the latest in communications technology.

My room came not only with a two-way external view (due to the inverted-V angled windows) of the busy Hong Kong harbor (where 2,300 ships enter each week) but also provided a range of television (including U.S. satellite-delivered news programs), and information on anything about this hotel or its world-class sister hotel The Peninsula just across the street, one of Hong Kong's long-time favorite's. Continual updating of incoming messages, computerized business or leisure information, even your as-of-that-moment hotel bill can all be called up instantly on the built-in TeleCentre command switcher.

There's more. All 740 rooms and suites in this18-storey building can provide city location maps, weather reports, financial data and shopping guides. About one-quarter of the rooms are equipped with a computer keyboard.

This enables guests to write letters, prepare documents, etc., which can be sent electronically downstairs to the hotel Business Centre which will print them out on personalized stationery (if you remembered to bring some with you) or put them on hotel letterhead. These they will copy, mail, fax or deliver locally, or worldwide via courier, cable or satellite depending on your instructions. The Business Centre can also handle audio, slide and video playback. A free reference library is available, as are translation, secretarial or printing (English or Asiatic languages) services.

Other electronic gadgetry includes an electronic headboard control panel where room temperature, lighting, radio, stereo, radio and television can be controlled at the touch of a button.

Even a bedside private safe, which you program personally with your own security code, is provided. The Kowloon's sister establishment, The Peninsula, even has remote-controlled drapes!

When you go out a fleet of air-conditioned chauffeur-driven 250D Mercedes is waiting. The fare to Kai Tak airport is about US$7.

Welcome to life in the new business world. The prices are even reasonable (generally lower than summer rates in Vancouver). More information: Amy Chan, Public Relations Manager, The Kowloon Hotel, 19-21 Nathan Road, Tsimshatsui, Kowloon, Hong Kong. Phone: 3-698698. Fax 3-698698.

Or Lilian Chang, Public Relations Director, The Peninsula Group, 12/F Kai Seng Commercial Centre, 4-6 Hankow Road, Kowloon, Hong Kong. Phone: 3-7321200. Fax 3-7242715.

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