Chris Nassetta and colleagues
Simply Sunday. The fact that Chris Nassetta, CEO of Hilton, wore a bathrobe to the New York Stock Exchange just reiterates how stupid bathrobes make even good-looking guys, and gals, look. Chris Nassetta can be excused on this one occasion. He had just seen Hilton’s much-vaunted over-subscribed IPO, on December 11th, 2014, raise a total of $2.34 billion, thus valuing the group at a staggering $19.7 billion. OK, that is small fry when you think of Alibaba’s stated value being well over $100 billion but in hotel terms, Hilton’s value puts even Marriott into the shade.
The point the gal is making, however, is two-fold. Hotels have got to do something about bathrobes. Even the most expensive and glossy would make George Clooney look like coffee grounds. Full-length robes that do not reveal wobbly-white calves are the answer, to go with decent slippers that do not shove the wearer forward. The second point is that style-conscious travellers simply should not go out of their bedrooms, whichever luxury hotel they are in, in bathrobes. I remember at a Grand Hyatt Hong Kong club breakfast seeing a couple of Americans coming in in bathrobes. Yucks. And this week I saw two guys, I think Germans, walking through the lobby of a Monte Carlo hotel. Yucks again – and yes, guys, YOU look even worse than gals in hotel bathrobes.
