How do luxury hotels differentiate at the top?

With some 29 new hotels planned, adding over 10,700 rooms, in Singapore over the next couple of years, what’s a hotel to do to stand out, especially in the already crowded luxury end of the market where the Marina Bay Sands is adding this year 2,500 rooms?
The St Regis has decided to go even more up market. It already has opulent rooms (see photo of presidential suite) with butler service and is now increasingly organizing small ‘experience’ events for its guests. In March, it held a festival of Spanish food and art inviting famed Spanish chef Santi Santamaria of the three-Michelin-star restaurant Can Fabes in Barcelona. There were also dialogue sessions with Spanish sculptor Rosa Serra (who has several pieces displayed in the hotel) and her husband, painter Xavier Carbonell, as well as performances by popular Spanish guitarist Diego Cortes, accompanied by flamenco dancers. Now it’s the turn of Russian Arts, with another gastronomic-cum-art experience planned at the end of the month. Expect traditional Russian cuisine from St Petersburg complete with Spring caviar, along with The Gipsy Court, who will perform Russian folk songs with rousing dancing.