In a surprising move, Bill Marriott and Ian Schrager have decided to call their partnership of luxury hotels, Edition Hotels.
Initially reports from the NYPost said the hotel chain would be called Schrager Hotels but when the duo make an announcement at the ALIS conference in Los Angeles today, they are going with Edition Hotels. Way to shock and awe us guys!
Marriott said in an interview that the name took several months to work out and ultimately emerged from Schrager's team, which is not surprising given that the 75-year-old chief executive has said his Bethesda-based company didn't have the creative chops to enter the boutique space on its own.
"I like the name," Marriott said. "You can use it as the new Edition or the 14th Street Edition or the Wall Street Edition. Anything you want to put in front of it ties in with the name."
Actually we would refrain from using it as the New Edition especially since Bobby Brown is not so hot these days.
Nevermind, Schrager and Marriott are also expected to announce nine locations for these Editions Hotels. The first Edition will open in Paris in 2010 followed shortly by South Beach. Also expect Editions (ah...we are getting the hang of this now) to open in Hollywood, downtown Los Angeles, Costa Rica, Chicago, Miami, Washington and Scottsdale.
Surprisingly, there's no New York edition on the board yet, despite Bill mentioning Wall Street. Perhaps Ian doesn't want competition for his baby, Gramercy Park Hotel?
So it looks like we weren't that far off in our guessing game for Ian Schrager's new hotels from Marriott. The NY Post is reporting that Schrager will forgo any weird one-word names and simply use Schrager Hotels. We think Bill Marriott probably convinced him to do this.
The official announcement is to come later this month but the Post says the first Schrager Hotel will probably open in SoBe.
We've also learned that the first project could be an approximately $23 million redo of the existing Marriott South Beach, an Art Deco beachfront hotel. Our spy added: "They are close to something in New York."
Meanwhile, Andrew Calvo over at Passions of a Zealot has done some digging on SchragerHotels.com and found that it just leads back to Schrager's own company Ian Schrager.com Although the domain name still belongs to Morgans Hotel Group. But that's another story for another time.
Listen up kiddies. It's time for another edition of one of our Guessing Games. However, this time we aren't asking you to guess the hotel--we're asking you to name the hotel.
Specifically, we want you to submit your name suggestions for the new hotel brand that Ian Schrager will unveil for Marriott sometime in 2008 or 2009. We have been tagging our news about this hotel as Schrager Hotels by Marriott, but we learned from this article that Schrager won't put his name on it. He told the NY Observer back in April that:
It won't have my name on it, but people will know I've done it.
Ooooh how mysterious.
So what do you think Ian will name his brand? Studio 54 Hotels? Probably not. Game-Changing? Possibly. Need help with your suggestions. Here is what the hotel as a brand will be about.
The concept, the brainchild of the new partners, addresses new cultural and social imperatives that Mr. Schrager says have emerged. This brand will reflect these changing lifestyles and cater to a vast underserved market of guests expecting and in turn demanding a unique experience not merely a place to sleep.
Our guess? Some funky anagram like NYLO or an Urdo word like Andaz that conveys something about art and style. Yeah, yeah we know. Ian will not be consulting us with hotel names anytime soon. But maybe he will like your ideas so drop 'em here.
Ultra-tan hotelier Ian Schrager showed up in another for-all-you-executives interview, this time with Portfolio rather than Fortune. What's newly on the mind of the Schrager?
· He's not worried about working with 75-year-old teetotaler Bill Marriott: "I mean, we're complementary, our DNA is alike. We're both competitive and in pursuit of excellence," Ian says.
· He doesn't give too much thought to the brawls at the Gramercy Park Hotel: "The kind of brouhaha that happened--which is really much ado about nothing--I don't think it hurts...I would rather it didn't appear [in Page Six]."
· Even he thinks Miami Hotels are overpriced: "We're working on a hotel in Miami Beach right now, which would be a cheap chic version of what we've done down there before. Because, I think, while everyone is banging their heads against high rates down there at Miami Beach, we've sort of forgotten the market that it got started with."
Ian Schrager was on Street Signs on CNBC yesterday and it looks like he's their new favorite guest speaker. He was on to address the state of the high-end hotel business and whether that's been affected by the recent economy shake-up.
We've got our recap on his appearance after the jump. Also we think Ian got hit on by the CNBC anchor.
The NYT Sunday Business section has an in-depth article about Ian Schrager and his new unlikely partnership with Bill Marriott (along with scary photo of Ian in the lobby of Gramercy Park Hotel. Why is everything about this hotel so scary?)
Anyways, Ian recalls the first time he heard Bill Marriott wanted to meet him. Apparently Bill was skulking around the GPH lobby. Ian's first thoughts?
I said, 'Hmmm...Bill Marriott?'"...."I mean, it's Marriott! They are like Wal-Mart. Not matter what you think of the brand you have to respect it. For me, it was like getting the Good Housekeeping seal of approval."
Huh?? Sounds like Ian was backtracking a bit there from his Wal-Mart comment. Nevertheless, he seems to be excited about his venture with Wal-Mart...er we mean Marriott, which includes 100 Schrager-designed hotels across the world. Not to mention he seems pretty excited about his own potential for simply put, hotel world domination.
Bill Marriott gushed anew over Ian Schrager in this blog post yesterday. The two announced in June that they'd formed a joint venture to develop boutique hotels around the world. Suffice it to say, the odd pairing has gotten as much attention as the actual possibility that if this marriage flies, it could produce some interesting offspring.
Two items of interest in the post. One, Bill Marriott, or whoever is responsible for his blog, should know that Gramercy contains one "m," not two. The post is about Bill's reaction to the Gramercy Park Hotel's rooftop venues. We feel a little school marmish pointing that out, but if the devil isn't in the details in the hospitality industry, where is it?
Two, the depth of Bill's confession that he could not envision what Ian Schrager was planning for the rooftop. When Schrager showed Marriott the not-yet completed rooftop, Bill writes, "I had no idea. I could not envision in my own mind any concept of what he was planning and thinking about." Bill certainly is one left-side-of-the-brain hotelier.
What Bill blogged about the Gramercy Park's finished rooftop after the jump.
We were amused by yesterday's Washington Post Magazine profile of Bill Marriott, on the occasion of the hotel chain's 50th anniversary, especially several tidbits from his wife Donna about his sleeping habits.
The piece, by business reporter Michael Rosenwald, focuses on the tensions over selecting an heir apparent, either one of the Marriott offspring or an outsider. There was no clear prediction on that score.
For our part, we couldn't help notice that the piece was written before the announcement that Marriott was teaming up with Ian Schrager to develop boutique hotels. We couldn't resist slipping an anonymous question on the topic to Rosenwald during an online chat he was hosting this afternoon. To our delight, he took our question. Here's how it went.
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by juliana
