It's business as usual at several of Europe's iconic hotels. G.Y. Dryansky talks to the Continent's top hoteliers to find out where the big spenders are staying

Among the grand hotels of Europe, faith still prevails in F. Scott's maxim that the rich are very different from you and me. And a quick check among the purveyors of hotel grand luxury suggests that not everyone with a fortune has lost his designer shirt to Bernie Madoff: Wealthy travelers on vacation, Americans in particular, are still hooked on the lure of luxury in Europe. While hoteliers at luxury properties—where room rates often start at $1,000 a night—report a slight drop-off in business, they say that the cancellations have come mostly from business travel.

François Delahaye, chief of operations for the Dorchester Collection (which includes Paris's Plaza Athénée and Le Meurice, as well as The Dorchester in London and Milan's Principe de Savoie), reported only a 2 percent decline in occupancy at London's Dorchester. In Milan, a business town, the Principe de Savoie suffered a 15 to 20 percent decline, while the Plaza Athénée and Le Meurice fell about 10 percent—and not at all among American guests. With the hotel group's occupancy at around 72 percent, the Dorchester Collection is neither raising nor lowering its rates.

In Vienna, at the Hotel Imperial, which drips with the splendor of the Austrian empire and where the least expensive room runs about $475 per night, rich clients have not tired of entering into the pampering legend. The hotel reported an 8 to 10 percent drop in occupancy—down to a still profitable 60 percent—and general manager Oscar del Campo says he's keeping rates steady. "You can't lower rates for long without lowering costs, which means lowering quality."

At Paris's legendary Ritz, which has seen crises come and go since 1893, Frank Klein, the company's president, is sanguine these days, with occupancy running 83 percent and no plans to decrease nightly rates. Corporate clientele has declined, Klein said, but business overall has held steady. "We're equal to where we were in 2008," he said, "which was an exceptionally good year. We take nothing for granted, but we are not dropping our rates or cutting service." The city's Four Seasons George V, where occupancy is down just 4.5 percent over 2008, is also sticking to last year's rates, but to compete with the other grandes dames is offering extra nights and spa treatments for free to guests who book a four-night stay. Jean-Claude Messant, general manager of Hôtel de Crillon, saw a 30 percent drop in occupancy in April, but in the following three months, reservations showed "a big return to normal." Americans were not among the defectors, Messant said. "They were business clients from England, France, Italy, and Spain."

Serge Trigano's Mama Shelter hotel, designed by Philippe Starck, aims at the prestige of edge over that of luxe (doubles start at $120). Trigano says that his hotel is for those who "no longer want to pay exorbitant rates nor go to a soulless chain hotel." He hasn't, however, seen a rush away from the exorbitant and toward his property and is considering a few deals for fall.