EVENTS


Costa Goncalves and Nathalie Rozencwajg,


founders of Rare offered examples of their work including Bethnal Green Town Hall Hotel; and Stephen Albert of WATG explained his concept of Tomorrow’s Hotel, won the previous evening.


TOP: Keynote speaker Olga Polizzi CBE spoke of a life steeped in hotels ABOVE: Naushad Jivrav, CEO of Queensway Group, unveiled plans for Tune Hotels in London


Kicking off the project panel sessions, ‘Reinstating and Reinventing an Icon: The Savoy, London’ drew a sizeable crowd to hear architect Conrad Smith of ReardonSmith, interior designer Pierre-Yves Rochon, and The Savoy’s General Manager Kiaran Macdonald give the inside story of the renovation of this London icon. Next up, keynote speaker and winner of the Outstanding Contribution Award, Olga Polizzi told her story of a life steeped in hotels, from the early days of working as a housekeeper for her hotelier father, the late Lord Forte. As Director of Design for Rocco Forte Collection, a family of 13 highly individual hotels and resorts, Polizzi’s most recent works are The Augustine in Prague, an “incredibly complicated building”, and Verdura Golf & Spa Resort in Sicily, which she says “took seven years to get going” due to the acquisition of land from no less than 93 different proprietors. She added that Hotel de Russie in Rome is her favourite hotel in the group, and design-wise, “Hotel de Rome in Berlin is one of our best”. In addition, Polizzi has achieved recognition for a number of personal projects. She opened Hotel Tresanton in St Mawes, Cornwall in 1998 as she was out of a job and “happened to live next door to a dilapidated hotel”. Known as the first design hotel in Cornwall, Polizzi describes it as “Nothing out of the ordinary, but sometimes it captures the imagination.” The second hotel Polizzi took on, this time with daughter Alex who is better known as The Hotel Inspector was Hotel Endsleigh: “It was a real labour of love and I often wondered if it would have been easier to live there rather than turning it into a hotel with 16 bedrooms and bathrooms,” she says, although five years on, the Devon hotel continues to be a success. Currently designing hotels in Abu Dhabi,


Jeddah, and Marrakech for the group, Polizzi is also working on a refurbishment of The Balmoral in Edinburgh. She concludes: “Hotel Perfect is still waiting to be created – perhaps that’s what keeps me going in the industry.”


140 JANUARY / FEBRUARY 2011 WWW.SLEEPERMAGAZINE.COM


Projects examined in the afternoon sessions included Vidago Palace, Portugal, and Costa Navarino, Greece. The former panel looked at Portuguese drinks company Unicer’s reinvention of this grand, historic spa hotel in partnership with Grace Leo’s GLA International, and interior designers Bastidor. The latter session, entitled ‘Sustainable Luxury Redefined’ provided a blow-by-blow account of the development of five integrated resorts to form a new destination known as Navarino Dunes, from those at the helm. Developer Achilles Constantakopoulos, Managing Director of Temes, set the scene with the history of the project his father has been masterplanning for the past 25 years in order to give something back to his homeland. Interior designer Maria Vafiadis, Director of MKV, has also been part of the project since its early days and revealed the importance of creating a sense of place through design and how she took cues from the environment. As talk turned to the key topic of sustainability, Constantakopoulos disclosed some of the, often costly, practices employed including a geothermic installation under the golf course, the building of a reservoir to meet water needs, and the use of solar panels to provide energy. “We have a long-term vision which my father started,” commented Constantakopoulos, “the return on investment wasn’t on his mind.” Day Two of the conference began with an insightful presentation by theatre and opera designer Gary McCann showing the similarities between stage and hotel design. This was followed by a one-to-one with Naushad Jivrav, CEO of Queensway Group, a developer responsible for bringing the superbudget Tune Hotels brand to London. The concept, from budget airline Air Asia, provides little more than a bed and shower within the basic room rate. Anything extra, from housekeeping to towels, is charged at an additional rate. Jivrav revealed that the hotel had run at 100% occupancy since opening in Westminster in 2010 and indicated that the sector is largely price-driven with the cheaper, windowless rooms selling first. When questioned about design, Jivrav pointed out: “Design matters when it is a 9m2


room.”


He also made clear that they have spent the money “where it matters” with beds by


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