Le Méridien

• 1. Introduction

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  Le Meridien was born from an unusual ambition: an airline decided to run hotels. In 1972, Air France opened its first property, a thousand-room hotel in the heart of Paris, offering accommodation to its own flight crews in major hub cities. What began as a logistical convenience for a national carrier would eventually grow into a global chain with more than a hundred properties across six continents. Along the way, Le Meridien passed through the hands of British conglomerates, Japanese investment banks, and American hospitality giants. Each transfer raised the same question: what becomes of a brand when its original owner no longer exists to define it? The story stretches from the corridors of the Elysee to the rubble of the Gulf War, from a hostile takeover battle in London to the flood-ravaged streets of New Orleans.

• 2. An Airline's Gamble

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  Air France built its first Meridien Hotels property as a thousand-room anchor in Paris, a city already overflowing with grand hotels. The chain expanded rapidly. Within two years, it had ten hotels across Europe and Africa. Within six years, twenty-one properties were operating around the globe. The airline did not merely invest in bricks; it actively promoted the chain and handled reservations, treating the hotels as an extension of the Air France travel experience. That tight integration between carrier and lodging made strategic sense in an era when international air travel was still relatively new and travelers often booked the two together. By the time the chain reached fifty-eight properties, however, the airline's finances told a different story. In 1994, Air France sold its controlling interest of 57.3% to the UK-based Forte Group for $207 million as part of a cost-cutting measure. The French government had reportedly favored a bid from Accor, the French hospitality company, wishing to keep the chain under French ownership. The European Commission, however, is reported to have backed Forte over Accor, and to have pressured Air France to choose Forte in exchange for a vital 20 billion Franc bailout for the airline itself. Money, in the end, overruled sentiment. Forte simultaneously announced plans to buy the remaining minority stakes held by Credit Foncier de France, Credit Lyonnais, and other shareholders.

• 3. Hostile Bids and Corporate Turbulence

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  Granada, a UK conglomerate, launched a hostile takeover of Forte in January 1996, persuading majority shareholders to sell rather than back Rocco Forte, son of the company's founder. Rocco Forte had warned that Granada would strip the company of its assets. Granada assumed full control for $5.9 billion. Almost immediately, the new owners signaled a split strategy: they would sell off the eighteen luxury hotels in the Forte Hotels chain but retain the eighty-five properties operating under the Meridien brand. That distinction mattered; Meridien was the larger, more geographically diverse portfolio, and Granada evidently saw value in its international footprint. The corporate story did not settle there. The merger in 2000 between Forte and the catering company Compass Group, followed by a demerger within a year, transferred the Forte Hotels division's three remaining brands, Le Meridien, Heritage Hotels, and Posthouse Forte, to Compass. In May 2001, Nomura Group acquired Le Meridien Hotels and Resorts from Compass for 1.9 billion pounds, merging it with Principal Hotels, which Nomura had acquired in February 2001. Then, in December 2003, Lehman Brothers Holdings acquired the senior debt of Le Meridien, drawing a Wall Street firm into a chain built by a European airline.

• 4. The Starwood and Marriott Era

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  US-based Starwood acquired Le Meridien on the 24th of November 2005. A joint venture between Lehman Brothers and Starwood Capital Group handled the leased and owned real estate assets in a separate transaction. Over the five years that followed, forty-five of the chain's one hundred and thirty properties were sold, while twenty new ones joined. The portfolio shrank and then rebuilt itself under new logic. In September 2016, Marriott International gained the Le Meridien brand as part of its broader acquisition of Starwood, folding the chain into one of the world's largest hotel groups. As of June 2021, Le Meridien counted a portfolio of one hundred and nine open hotels with 29,439 rooms, alongside a pipeline of thirty-seven hotels with 9,585 upcoming rooms. The Asia and Pacific region held the largest share of properties, with forty-seven hotels and over twelve thousand rooms recorded in the 2021 figures. The Caribbean and Latin America, by contrast, remained the smallest footprint, with just two properties and 271 rooms across multiple years of data.

• 5. Landmarks and Peculiar Histories

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  The Palestine Hotel in Baghdad was built as the Palestine Meridien Hotel in 1982, overlooking Firdos Square and the Tigris River. Following UN sanctions imposed on Iraq in the aftermath of the Gulf War, Le Meridien severed its affiliation with the hotel in 1991, a rare case of geopolitics forcing a brand out of a property. In Moscow, the Hotel National had been opened to the public in 1903. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the Russian government transferred ownership to local authorities, which brought in Forte Hotels to operate it. The property became a Le Meridien in 1996 and remained so until 2009. The Langham Hotel Boston, previously the building of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, was converted into a Le Meridien hotel in 1981 before leaving the chain in 2003. In New Orleans, the property that would become Le Meridien New Orleans originally opened as a Holiday Inn Crowne Plaza in 1984, timed to the 1984 Louisiana World Exposition. It was badly damaged by Hurricane Katrina, losing half its windows. Following extensive renovations, it was rebranded as a Le Meridien in 2014. Melbourne added a distinctly theatrical chapter in March 2023, when the Palace Theatre on Bourke Street in the Melbourne central business district was converted into a Le Meridien hotel at a cost of $100 million, marking the brand's return to Australia.

• 6. Buildings That Outlasted the Brand

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  Several Le Meridien properties have histories that long predate the chain and have continued under different names after leaving it. The Dom-Hotel in Cologne was formerly operated by Le Meridien prior to 2013; it is counted among the oldest luxury hotels in Europe, with history stretching back to the mid-1850s. The Hotel Bristol in Warsaw was managed by Le Meridien from 1998 to 2013, when it moved to The Luxury Collection. The Kimpton Clocktower Hotel in Manchester, a Grade II* listed building, was once an office owned by the Refuge Assurance Company before being converted into a hotel in 1996; Le Meridien operated it between 2001 and 2004. The Art Deco-style Hotel Phoenicia in Floriana, Malta, was built in 1947, reflagged as a Le Meridien in 1997, and left the chain in 2007. The McGraw-Hill Building in Chicago, built by artist Gwen Lux, was demolished in 1998, but its facade and location were used for Le Meridien Chicago, which opened in 2000. That hotel later became a Conrad in 2005 and then The Luxury Collection in 2015, with its name rechristened The Gwen in honor of Lux. The Indianapolis property traces its origins to 1928, when it opened as the Lockerbie Hotel, joining Le Meridien only in 2014. The chain's longevity, it turns out, is partly measured by the age of its buildings.