The latest "seven star" hotel is in Beijing, joining a handful
of others making that claim. But wait a minute: there's no such
thing as a seven star hotel; the best is five stars, reminds The
Economist.
"It's a safe bet that the builders of this new $1.3 billion
facility 30km from Beijing are indulging in a bit of time-honored
puffery," says Gulliver, the business travel column.
The Burj Al Arab in Dubai was among the first claiming seven
stars, though a spokesman said it has never used that term in its
own advertising. Its origins appear to be traceable to a journalist
who attended the hotel's opening in 1999.
The Emirates Palace hotel in Abu Dhabi, another of the hotels mentioned in a newspaper account, also denies any official claim to the seventh star. A spokesman told the Economist:
"We are rated officially by Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority as a
five-star."
The new Pangu hotel in Beijing also claims openly to be a
seven-star hotel but it says in this case, the reference is to the
Big Dipper star shape.
In the end, what all this accomplishes is simply "even more puffery in the future," concludes the Economist.
