Hotel’s ‘Kid Concierges’ Help Youngest Guests Cope With Life in Nation’s Capital

When children arrive at the Omni Shoreham Hotel, they’re required to check in, like their parents. But their front desk is loaded with crayons and candy, and the hotel staff that serves them is just their size.

This summer, the hotel hired “kid concierges,” a batch of local 12-year-olds who know Washington inside and out. Their job is to serve the special needs of the hotel’s youngest clientele.

“I’ve been stuck sometimes when my parents want to take me to someplace boring,” said kid concierge Karla Montenegro. “I want to do something special but they want to do something else.”

So Karla knew what to say when 10-year-old Haywood Titchener came to her for advice.

Haywood had just arrived from Dunn, N.C., and after the long car trip, she was sick of her 8-year-old sister Margaret and her 5-year-old brother Walt. She was barely even speaking to her parents.

After all, they wanted to drag her to museum after museum, and she just wanted to swim in the hotel pool.

“We went sightseeing yesterday,” she whined to her mother, Sara Titchener. “We’ve already seen that Abraham thing and that big, tall, pointy building.”

Karla sympathized immediately.

“Some of the museums are really boring. Only adults like to go to them,” she said. “I don’t like art very much so I get bored. But how about the zoo?”

Fellow concierge Hannah Nielsen-Jones said the National Air and Space Museum wasn’t like some of the others.

“It’s a great place,” Hannah said. “There’s a thing about the sound barrier, and the first satellite. And they have moon rock there.”

She even explained to Haywood what moon rock was.

“Have you ever been to Georgie Bush’s house?” asked Haywood’s little sister, Margaret.

In addition to the free advice, all of the hotel’s younger guests get a VIP hotel tour. A member of the housekeeping staff takes them to the hotel laundry and shows them the big machines that fold the sheets. They meet the hotel’s florists and security guards, and they even get a peek at a hotel suite that costs $1,200 a night.

When the Titcheners visited the suite, Walt immediately jumped up and down on the bed. Margaret ran to the kitchen to see if there was ice cream in the fridge. Haywood just said, “Wow!”

But the best part was probably getting away from mom and dad, admitted Sara Titchener.

“Haywood wasn’t too thrilled about going on a trip with her family. I think she’s at the age where she’s too cool for that,” Titchener said. “This is the first time I’ve seen her smiling for a while.”

Kid concierges don’t get paid, but most say it’s worth it.

“We get to swim in the hotel pool for free. And we get discounts all over the place,” said kid concierge Kenneth Owens. “And they took us on a cool limousine ride all over town when we got trained.”

Omni Shoreham spokesman Arnold Fine said he hopes the new program will pay off for the hotel one day.

“These kids, when they grow up, maybe they’ll register themselves here,” he said.