The Happier the Hotelier, The Happier the Guest
After beautifully decorating Hotels as The Tuilerieen in Brugge, Recourt in Poperinge and The Orangerie in Brugge, all in Belgium , Pieter Porters opens in February, 2006 his own Three Suites Hotel in Antwerp in his interior design shop, under the name of House of Porters.
As Pieter is not very interested in Internet the website is not ready yet, but between 2nd december en 18nd December, 2005 clients and relations of Pieter can have a preview.
Happy Hotelier is impressed.
A Pressrelease of November 24, 2005 announced that the acquisition of the label Le Meridien was completed for approximately $ 225 mio by Starwood Hotels & Resorts.
Contrary to my guessing Le Meridien will continue to operate as Starwoods 8th label in addition to the seven already existing labels:
The 130 properties of Le Meridien were for the major part contributed to a joint venture of Starwood en Lehman, by the name of Starwood Capital Group LLC, which also paricipates in, for instance, Taittinger champagne.
Recently Starwood Hotels & Resorts itself divested 38 properties for approximately $ 4,1 billion by selling them to Host Marriott.
Host Marriot is the property investment vehicle (with R.E.I.T. status) that resulted from splitting up the Marriott group of companies in a property vehicle and a managment vehicle after Marriott senior died. Probably the heirs needed some cash to satisfy the taxcollector. In addition some heirs were not interested in continuing Marriott and others are, as is usual in family owned business.
For the small business mind of Happy Hotelier it is always mindboggling to see the enourmous amounts involved with the property transactions and also seeing Starwood with a loyalty program of more than 24 mio preferred guests acquire in a nutshell the management of 130 hotels with more than 25.000 employees, who, for the record, will be employed by the owners of the properties and some of who probably will have to find other employment.
The Le Meridien Group that was originally set up by aircarrier Air France (like the GoldenTulip label was set up by KLM) is not French anymore… although its headquarters was already in Londen….
More about this acquisition at the Starwood site.
March 18 and 19 maart, 2006, will bring the first edition of a European B&B Fair in Brussels in the Brussels Expo, Hall 2 (Heizel).
More info at bbexpo.be
St. Regis hotels and resorts is a brand for luxury hotels and part of Starwood hotels. The name originates from the famous St Regis Hotel in New York City, built in 1904 by Colonel John Jacob Astor IV, and located on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 55th Street ( would he have started 100 years later, I presume he would have named it “555”). Unfortunately The Colonel perished with the Titanic.
His daughter was married to a Russian prince, Serge Obelensky, who brought fame to the hotel .
The site of the original St. Regis, at Fifth Avenue and 55th Street, was a residential neighborhood when Astor broke ground for it in 1902. He wanted to create a hotel where gentlemen and their families could feel as comfortable as they would as guests in a private home; in fact, he frequently used The St. Regis as a place for his personal guests and visiting relatives to stay at his invitation.
For their comfort, Astor introduced such “modern” conveniences as telephones in every room, a fire alarm system, central heating and an air-cooling system that efficiently predated modern air conditioning and allowed each guest to control the temperature of his room. Mail chutes were installed on each floor, a newsworthy innovation at that time. One of the hotel’s other novel features was a special design “for the disposition of dust and refuse” – one of the first central vacuum systems. All maids had to do was plug their vacuum cleaner’s hose into sockets situated throughout the hotel.Throughout its history of nearly a century, St. Regis Hotels have invariably attracted the most glamorous, creative and intriguing personalities of each era. In New York alone, Colonel Serge Obelensky, the Russian Prince who had been a page at the Czar’s court before he escaped the revolution and grew up to marry Alice Astor, was associated with the St. Regis for many years; Marlene Dietrich, William Paley and his wife Barbara (“Babe”) lived at The St. Regis as did Salvador Dali and his wife Gala; and actress Gertrude Lawrence instructed her agent to arrange all her press appointments at The St. Regis.
Reading this, I thought: “Maybe “Des Indes” in The Hague will be renamed “St Regis Des Indes”…”
Source: St Regis History
The “How To Spend It” magazine of the Financial Times covered Haagsche Suites in The Hague (see pictures), Park Tower Suite in Haarlem en Brugsche Suites and Maison le Dragon, both in Brugge, Belgium.
The New York Times addressed designers Analik of Miauw Suites in Antwerp and Marcel Wanders of Lute Suites near Amsterdam.