It is Grand Prix week in Monaco. This tiny 480 acre principality -famous for its casino, its motor race and Princess Grace - is smaller than some British farms.
Although you can walk across it comfortably in an hour, Maseratis and Ferraris are as common here as Ford Mondeos are in Glasgow.
It is the world's most famous tax haven, memorably described by Graham Greene as a sunny place for shady people. While the Formula One circus sets up its grandstands and pit lanes, yachts the size of frigates, floating gin palaces, are busy jamming the famous harbour with its views to Cap Ferrat and the Italian coastline.
Wedged between the France and Italy, the corniche and the Mediterranean, the miniature country is also Europe's fastest growing state, having increased its size by 20% in the last few years by building into the sea. It is on this reclaimed land, Monaco's equivalent of Chelsea, that a Scotsman is creating an international hotel revolution.
The area, near the busy heliport which serves as Monaco's international airport, is where Ken McCulloch, Scotland's star hotelier, has been test-driving his latest re-engineered hotel concept. His vision is to offer distinctive, stylish five star luxury at affordable prices using staff who are passionate about great service.
Already his 180-bedroom Columbus Hotel, opened four years ago, has achieved pole position, having been voted best independent hotel in Europe.
The motor-racing analogy is apt since McCulloch's partner in the venture, now about to be rolled out selectively across Europe, is his neighbour and fellow Scot, David Coulthard, the renowned Formula One racing driver.
That Formula One theme will be maintained when McCulloch and Coulthard top out their second Columbus Hotel at Brooklands, the birthplace of British motorsport and site of the world's first purpose-built Grand Prix track, where it will complement the stunning new Mercedes Benz Heritage and Technology Centre.
McCulloch plans to open a maximum of half a dozen Columbus Hotels in the UK as well as up to 50 Dakota Hotels, his other new concept, which offer an excellent, highspecification hotel experience at mass-market prices, taking on the Travelodges and Premier Inns.
Named after the pioneering Dakota DC3 aeroplane that changed the face of mass air travel, the Dakotas are priced at £79 but come with features such as plasma screens, broadband connections and airconditioning as standard in every room.
"We did the hardest one first in Sherwood Forest, " says McCulloch of the original hotel which is branded as "a little piece of heaven at junction 27". Both the Columbus and the Dakota brands will be rolled out across Europe and North America. Already sites have been acquired for Columbus in cities including Lisbon, Madrid and Barcelona.
However, none of this was planned when McCulloch moved to Monaco in 1998 with his wife Amanda Rosa, an interior designer whose chic, calm, timeless style has won her the coveted Hotel Designer of the Year award.
Ken McCulloch has always been known for his last project. When he launched the Spaghetti Factory restaurants 20 years ago he was still known as the guy who did Charlie Parkers. When he created the groundbreaking One Devonshire Gardens he became the Spaghetti Factory bloke and when he set up the innovative boutique hotel chain Malmaison he was inevitably known as the One Devonshire guy.
Now the Malmaison guy, as tradition dictates he must be called even though it is now seven years since he sold the chain to Patriot American of the US, has embarked on his most ambitious venture yet.
"Amanda thought we were just going to live in Monaco, " explains McCulloch. "But I had the feeling I hadn't really done anything yet.
To do just a couple of hotels wasn't enough. I wanted to do a proper group. People always thought Malmaison was bigger than it actually was."
McCulloch attracted 53 separate offers for the Malmaison chain when he sold it just 14 months after flotation for four times its IPO value, netting himself an estimated £35m in the process. Most people would have felt at that stage that they had nothing left to prove and been happy just to soak up the Mediterranean sunshine. But McCulloch, who started off as a management trainee with British Transport Hotels, was still hungry.
He quickly started looking for locations for his first Columbus hotel, the name of which derives from Christopher Columbus and reflects his view that travel is about adventure and discovery. Although the original Columbus came from Genoa, just a few miles down the Ligurian coast from Monaco, McCulloch had originally wanted to launch in Paris.
"I had been looking at a site in Paris but at the 11th hour and the 59th minute I walked away from it. It wasn't quite right and it was a great feeling to just leave it."
Then an opportunity came up with a hotel in Monte Carlo, very near his own apartment, which had been running at just 6% occupancy.
It was too good a chance to miss and gave McCulloch the opportunity to show that there is more to hotel success than Conrad Hilton's famous maxim about "location, location, location".
The dark woods, plush fabrics and tasteful artefacts as one important aspect of the Columbus' success. It quickly becomes clear that McCulloch's maxim is "passion, passion, passion." Given that his Malmaisons had unlikely positions - a converted church in Glasgow, a former warehouse in Newcastle and an ex-Seamen's Mission in Leith, and passion becomes essential.
"Most hotel trade is a grudge purchase.
People are not enthusiastic about hotels, " he reflects. "I stayed in a five star hotel last week that shall remain nameless and we asked ourselves why we hated that hotel.
"It was soulless, there was no passion, no sex appeal, " says the man whose slogan for the Columbus chain is Live Life, Love Life.
Significantly he talks about the hotel's fanbase rather than its database.
"I don't see labels like boutique or designer.
I just see good hotels. Good design should be a given and we are heavily into design. But it is where you start out from, it's not a destination. You remember friendly service rather than design."
"The big boys don't do as much as we do.
Their attitude is that if people are only paying X pounds then what do they expect?
My view is that if I pay £5 for rubbish then I resent it but I'm happy to pay £500 for something brilliant. So much is down to the first five minutes. There is no forgiveness after that. But get that right and you can be forgiven anything."
In fact McCulloch favours staff who show something of the passion he did when he became a general manager with Stakis at the age of 23: "It was a case of show me a wall and I'll run through it."
It is these traits of commitment and determination that he shares with his business partner David Coulthard, his neighbour in Monaco and a part-owner in both Columbus and Dakota.
While McCulloch is from a showbusiness family himself and has a history of celebrity business partners - Simply Red lead singer Mick Hucknall was his partner in Malmaison - it quickly becomes apparent that Coulthard's role is much more than star appeal. Indeed it was Coulthard's connections with Mercedes that made the whole Brooklands deal possible.
"I've always been a big fan of David's even when he was racing Formula 3, " says McCulloch. "I first met him when he came to One Devonshire with (television sports presenter) Hazel Irvine.
"I had a Supercup team with Malmaison and I did a two car team myself after Malmaison was sold. The Supercup team raced in Monaco a couple of times (Supercup follows Formula Three) so I was meeting David for beers.
"He is a real partner in the business and properly involved. He has an eye for detail that makes him invaluable. His role is as the punter, to point out things that are wrong" Coulthard, who uses the gymnasium at Columbus to keep in shape, has similarly strong views on the standard of accommodation in European hotels: "I got so disappointed with European hotels that I stay in a motor home when I'm on the Grand Prix circuit.
"It costs more to operate a motor home with a driver than to stay in hotels, " says Coulthard, relaxing over drinks in the Columbus bar. "But when you are a paying guest, too many hotels ignore you if the phone is ringing at reception or because they are too busy looking at their computer screen. You reach the stage where you go to hotels expecting to be disappointed.
I travel without high expectations. It just needs to be clean rooms and friendly service. Its not rocket science."
Given that his own family runs a successful haulage company in south-west Scotland, Coulthard has a strong background in business. "I got involved because you know when something is good and when the time is right. I have an opinion and if I'm asked, or even when I'm not asked, I'll express it."
However the last word goes to McCulloch, the ultimate perfectionist: "You're blessed with mediocrity. You're cursed with high standards. I never want to get good at hindsight. I've never done anything just in order to sell it because you can't do anything with passion if that's your goal. Having said that, I've sold everything I've done."
KEN MCCULLOCH: TWO DECADES OF HOSPITALITY
1986: Opens One Devonshire Gardens in Glasgow, one of the first boutique town house hotels in the UK.
1994: Creates Malmaison, the first new UK hotel brand in 30 years
1998: Malmaison sold to Patriot American Hospitality of the USA.
2001: Opens Columbus Hotel in Monaco 2002: McCulloch receives Outstanding Achievement Award at the European Hotel Design Awards.
2005: Columbus Brooklands opens
