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The Royal Monceau Hotel:: A Hot Potato Passed Around Luxury Hotels
11/07/2007 at 11:05 AM
Tags: Raffles Hotels, Four Seasons Hotels, Mandarin Oriental Hotels, Ritz-Carlton Hotels, Philippe Starck, Royal Monceau
Thanks to a tipster who wants to remain anonymous, thus we are calling him E.T., there is some drama going down at the Royal Monceau Hotel in Paris that involves a game of hot potato with a bunch of luxury chains. Last we heard of the hotel, they were booting out guests. Here in E.T.'s very own words is a description of what else is going down.
Seems the Royal Monceau saga is not finished yet - I had heard the rumor before, but now it is official: from 2008 onwards, it will be Raffles Royal Monceau. A press release is on the Raffles website. It also talks at length about the 'rebirth' of the Royal Monceau and how it is scheduled for renovation in 2008. Wait, didn't it renovate already at the time that Mandarin Oriental was planning on integrating this property in their portfolio?
MORE drama after the jump.
That renovation happened in 2005 and the designer of choice was Jacques Garcia. And now Raffles is doing a 2008 overhaul under the guidance of Philippe Starck? And as for re-opening; the Royal Monceau website is very much up and running it seems, without mention of the Raffles take-over or upcoming renovations, but it does have the press release about the re-opening in 2007, after renovations. Confused much?
TripAdvisor has been silent since a post from one of the booted guests.
And furthermore, since Raffles lost the Vier Jahreszeiten and Le Montreux Palace to Fairmont Hotels & Resorts in what must have been one of the most creative rebranding exercises in hotel history, why come back now with a European property?
Why not make it Fairmont Royal Monceau and call it a day? That would fit nicely with the (almost French) Fairmont Monte Carlo property; which by the way, falls into that category of hotels that has completely outdated photos on the website. Still the ancient pre-reno 80s room pics, which certainly doesn't increase the hotel's appeal (I've seen the renovations, it has much much improved, even though the hideous concrete exterior can't really be changed, as it is actually built off of the cliff and over the water).
Whew, that was a whole lot to take in. But if anybody can help E.T. phone home on this drama, let us know.
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· Zut Alors! Paris Hotel Boots Guests [HotelChatter]
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