Executive summary

Not too many interviews start loudly and proudly with a disclaimer, but this one does. I have stayed at The One Hotel. (I paid full price and it was well before this interview was even conceived.) The person who recommended it to me is a well travelled and extremely discerning senior manager at Synovate, who - in turn - first saw the hotel mentioned in the Conde Nast hot list. At the time, neither of us expected to invite its owner to feature in In:fact.

Why is this important? Because this sums up four factors in the hotel's success... public relations; word-of-mouth; getting to know the owner; and guests being so impressed that they write about the hotel by all-means-online. The laptop with always-on and free internet access in my room saw me update my Facebook status while I was there with an instant rave review, and Dishman tells me that many guests blog about the hotel.

The beauty of The One Hotel is simply that... it is a one-room hotel. A notion that Dishman arrived at quite by accident (a lucky fluke he says) but was so unusual that it immediately captured the imagination of travel writers and guests alike. There is something wildly appealing about being the only guests and having the full attention of Dishman's team (but only when you want it).