Yesterday we were innocently perusing one of our favorite sites, Jezebel, when we came across this question in an item, summing up GQ's recent interview with supermodel Gisele Bündchen:
"Did you know Gisele owns some sort of extended-stay hotel in Santa Monica?"
Um, nooooooooo, we thought as we hung our heads in shame. And we call ourselves hotel mavens! We did some research on the Internets and, adding insult to injury, came up with zero.
The GQ interview is available online, but we're guessing it's the abridged version since there is no mention of said hotel ownership.
However, we did learn via The Insider that she is owner of the Palladium Executive in the south of Brazil, another seemingly phantom hotel that only exists in Gisele's bio, since we can't even find a web site for it.
What is up here? We're too lazy to schlep to the magazine stand on the corner to pick up GQ, so we're asking you to do some heavy lifting for us.
Hey, it's the day before a holiday weekend. We might still be in the room, but we've already checked out.
Anyone got the details on Gisele Bündchen, superhotelier? Let us know.
Ed. Note: Yes, we know that W Hotels concierge service is called Whatever/Whenever, but we are trying to lighten up a Monday.
Today's USATODAY wrote about Starwood Hotels & Resort's new CEO, Frits Van Paasschen who likes to "break the ice" with journalists & developers by going on a brisk 5 mile run.
He did it a few weeks ago at the NYU Hospitality Conference, and earlier this year at another conference but was asked to slow down a bit because the hotel industry types apparently can't keep up with him.
When he was first hired last September, Frits was one of 60 candidates for the job, but according to Starwood's Chairman of the Board, Frits
stood out because of his intellectual firepower, success shaping global strategies for consumer products at Disney, Nike and Coors, his likable personality and the aggressive way he promised to tackle the job.
Ask and you shall receive. In a story the other week about the possible cold war thaw between feuding hoteliers Gregory Peck and Matt Moss (actually, that was just wishful thinking. The frenemy war rages on still), we asked for a copy of the Page Six magazine featuring some of NYC's hottest hoteliers.
And a kind soul sent us a copy!
In it, you see Jason Pomeranc (with ever-present arm candy/fashion publicist/girlfriend Ali Wise), Matt Moss and Greg Peck (totally did not pose together), scary Sean MacPherson and partner Eric Goode, the ever-dapper Andre Balazs, grunge hotelier Alex Calderwood of the Ace Hotel brand and chefs/restauaranteurs Todd English and Ken Friedman.
While it's unclear whether San Francisco will be getting an Alcatraz Hotel or not, the city by the Bay will have a new hotel in Union Square from hotelier Gregory Peck.
As we mentioned last summer Peck was looking to spin off his Crescent Beverly Hills hotel and while we were hedging our bets that Palm Springs would be the place to do so, it turns out Peck is headed to San Fran.
Bill Marriott's baby boy, David Marriott, 34, was just named Regional Vice President of hotel operations in New York City, Baltimore and Philadelphia -- three of Marriott's key markets.
Is he being groomed to take over the family company? Maybe, says the Washington Post:
Although Bill Marriott, who recently turned 76, says he has no plans to retire soon, that hasn't stopped rampant speculation about his successor, especially because in the company's 81 years there have been only two chief executives, both with the last name Marriott. The topic is so sensitive that most people in the hotel industry will not talk publicly about it.
In his new position, David will be the go-to guy for hotel ops in those three cities, and he'll get to experiences all facets of the day-to-day operations of the properties.
Is he being groomed to be THE Marriott in charge when Bill Marriott eventually retires to become a full-time blogger? Time will tell.
Ok. If you are a devoted reader of HotelChatter and you catch our semi-regular recaps on Bill Marriott's "Marriott on the Move" blog, then you will know that we have always doubted that Bill, at the tender age of 76, is a real blogger.
In fact, in our last recap of a Marriott post we surmised how Bill "writes" his blog posts.
The protocol we believe goes from Bill Marriott to his secretary's steno pad, then to her typewriter then to the communications department via interoffice memo...
While we still don't know the exact protocol of the blog writing, Bill did confess to not writing every blog post. Derek Gale at Hotels Magazine reports:
Mr. Marriott also admitted this morning that when it comes to his blog, he write some of the posts, and his PR department writes and fleshes out some of the posts for him. But he says most of the ideas are his, and notes that he is "still waiting for my commission" on the US$4 million in business that has been booked from his blog!
Sigh. It's like this, we knew the truth would be ugly. But we aren't prepared to deal with this heartbreak so early in the AM.
Gone are the fantasies of us and Bill blogging and laughing side-by-side in Starbucks, tagging one another on Facebook pictures, lugging our laptops through the airports together, helping each other search under hotel room desks for outlets, griping about internet fees on our check-out bill--oh the pain is too much! The future looked so bright for us.
Alas, he was not the blogger we hoped him to be. But the folks at Marriott's communication dept. deserve a big raise.
The NYT has an article today on the boutique hotel business in which they interviewed several hotel execs and got them to sound off on why boutique hotels are so successful these days.
Yes, it's 2008. No, you are not reading a post from 2004 that we mistakenly put up.
There's not much of interest in the article except the paper managed to interview a few big hoteliers like Ian Schrager (who is ok with selling out to Marriott), Jason Pomeranc and Michael Achenbaum of the Gansevoort Hotel Group, along with Thomas F. O'Toole, chief marketing officer for Hyatt Hotels.
However we did like Achenbaum's description of what his hotels aim to do:
“I want guests to think, ‘I got five-star service, but it was a fun version of five-star service,’ ” Mr. Achenbaum said. That means providing ample meeting space, free Internet access and staff that is responsive whether a guest needs dinner reservations or a computer cable, he said. It also means offering signature touches like a rooftop pool and wow factors like the 50-foot shark tank in the lobby in Miami.
Shark tanks! We're so easy to please over here.
As we write, all the big hotels and hoteliers are wrapping up the final day of the Tisch Center Hospitality Conference taking place at a non-boutique hotel, the Waldorf-Astoria.
NY Mag reports that the hotelier is going to debut his own private wine label in his hotels--The Andre Balazs Reserve Sunset Beach Rose. Damn, that's a lot of accents.
The grapes are grown near Balazs Sunset Beach Hotel on Shelter Island and processed by Wolffer Estate of Sagaponack. It's a blend of merlot, cabernet, sauvignon, cabernet franc and cahrdonally and Balazs argues that it can challenge any california vino.
Apparently South Fork is the new Napa Valley for Balazs. The bottle will cost somewhere between $40 to $50 and a wine expert sought out by NY Mag said it has whiffs of strawberries and cherries and will be a nice "afternoon summer sipper kind of thing."
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by jennm
Perhaps 
