Best Business hotels 2011

Le Royal Monceau - Raffles, Paris
Address: 37 Avenue Hoche, 8ème
Tel: 33.1 42 99 88 00 (France)
Website: www.leroyalmonceau.com
Opening date: Re-opened October 2010
Rates: From €780
Business amenities: Three light-filled modular reception rooms and a business centre with state-of-the-art equipment.
Rooms: Designed to be a home away from home, the 85 rooms, 61 suites and three apartments all come with personal touches such as a Royal Monceau acoustic guitar, paintings and art books. Amenities include media panels with iPod connections, and mirrors with integrated televisions.
Leisure: The hotel boasts Paris' first private hotel cinema, seating 100 and serving raspberry-flavoured popcorn created by Parisian patissier Pierre Hermé, who is in charge of the hotel's dessert menu. The Monceau's bookshop stocks over 700 contemporary art and architecture books and comes with an art concierge who can inform guests of exclusive art vernissages, fashion or cultural events. The Clarins spa has the largest private pool in Paris, and includes a hammam, a laconium room and a sauna. Guitar lessons and a mobile sound studio are available on request.
Restaurants: Guests can feast on French fare at the large communal tables of La Cuisine or sample hearty Sicilian dishes in the glasshouse of Il Carpaccio. Both open onto the lush garden designed by Louis Benech. There are three different bars: the Bar Long, Le Grand Salon and La Fumée Rouge, a cigar bar with a plush red décor.

Relaunched in October 2010, this Parisian grande dame has been completely transformed by designer Philippe Starck into a welcoming haven for busy globetrotters. 'I wanted it to feel like going to the home of a dear friend, a private, intimate place to which you've been given the keys,' says Starck of his redesign.