Giuseppe Vincelli may be from Turin but for the last seven years this GM has declared THIS is my home = this being the superb CARLTON CANNES, A REGENT HOTEL (the 332-room hotel was ceremoniously opened yesterday, see the image above). It’s always fascinating to look at why hoteliers got into this never-boring lifestyle, by the way. Vincelli, at the age of 11, saw a notice in church about cruising. That’s rather unusual for a start. Do churches normally market travel and tourism? Anyway this one obviously did. He wrote to the company, who basically said come back later. He tried again, at 15, but that time Costa Cruises told him to go home and learn English. After several more tries he and hospitality finally got together.
Anyway, after nursing what has been a closed ‘Carlton’ for three years, the hotel is now open, in time for MIPIM and the movie festival and other events and then last mega of the year, ILTM. Cleverly, the hotel has had its highly popular Beach Club open, to keep the flag flying, so to speak.
As Girlahead found on a hard-hat tour hotel back last December, designer Tristan Auer has made the hotel as sumptuous as it must have been, relatively speaking, back at its 1912 opening. It is the epitome of a white palace, copied later by such other icons as COPACABANA PALACE, BELMOND, in Rio de Janeiro. Now it has been extended, with arms at the rear to give it a C-shaped footprint, encompassing a lush garden. It is the interior where Auer makes his mark. The lobby has been opened up to give space that seems to go on forever, with endless marble and pastel colours and stunning statement chandeliers (for many, favourites will be the lobby’s pale pink Murano chandeliers, looking like upside-down flamingos). Bedrooms are Mediterranean-themed, with sand-coloured carpets marked with tan trellis lines.
There’s so much else to share but that must wait until Girlahead can share first-hand. Watch this space.
