HAHN, PARTY LIVING LARGE.

Byline: Mariel Garza Staff Writer

TOKYO, Japan - During a 10-day journey through the key cities of Asia to promote Los Angeles to foreign tourists and businesses, Mayor James Hahn and his entourage of more than 20 city officials and staff have been traveling in style.

The Los Angeles delegation has been staying at some of the finest hotels in Asia, eating the most sumptuous local delicacies in venues closed to most people, and being chauffeured to meetings with local leaders in black sedans with tinted windows and a police escort.

Delegation members said such lavish treatment is signature Asian hospitality.

``Asian hotels have a very high level of customer service, and also when you travel as a group, special courtesies are extended to you,'' said Mary Carley, a delegation member from the Los Angeles convention bureau who has helped coordinate the trip.

While in Beijing earlier in this week, Hahn and his entourage - including three City Council members, three deputy mayors and representatives of the harbor, airport, zoo and water and power departments - stayed at the posh St. Regis Hotel. There, butlers tended to their every need at the touch of button.

The group was feted by local dignitaries in China, where the mayor and his group joined the Beijing mayor and his group at the tony penthouse hall atop the plush Beijing Hotel to chat over an eight-course meal starting with its famed shark fin soup.

On to Tokyo, the group checked in at the Imperial Hotel. The city's Grande Dame favored by heads of state and the world's royalty. Its one of the Luxury Alliance's leading hotels in the world, where even the cheapest room is about $300 a night and the most luxurious suite goes for about $6,600.

The Imperial is not the newest hotel in Tokyo, but it is the one where dignitaries and celebrities traditionally stay, much like the Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles.

Among the recent guests touted by the hotel were Kofi Annan, secretary general of the United Nations; Mexican President Vicente Fox; Hollywood directors Tim Burton and Luc Besson; John Chambers, president of Cisco Systems; and leaders, royalty and foreign ministers of numerous countries.

At the start of the trip, the Los Angeles delegation checked into the Shilla Hotel in Seoul, Korea, also distinguished by the Luxury Alliances 2003 guide. When the delegation members head back to China today, they will stay at the super swanky Grand Hyatt in Shanghai, an 87-story hotel that resembles a bamboo plant, and then transfer to the Grand Hyatt Hong Kong on Monday.

``The hotels are pretty nice,'' said Alan Skobin, vice president of Galpin Ford. ``But I think it's appropriate for this trip.''

One businessman on the trip, James Dunn, president of the Airtel Plaza Hotel in Van Nuys - which does not have butlers - said that the style of the delegations accommodations is expected.

``That's business,'' he said. ``And the city probably got a good rate.''

Which it did, according to one of the mayor's staff members along on the trip, who said they were able to leverage much lower rates because of the size of the package. The trip is expected to cost $440,000 for the city contingent, which is being split three ways between the three money-making departments of the city: the harbor, the airport and water and power departments.

The 18 or so business people who are on the trip, either for all or parts of it, are paying for their own flights and hotel rooms. But they are getting wined and dined, as well as finding uncommon access to the key decision makers in the city - the mayor, the council and department heads.