Syria protest at Beirut's Bristol

Beirut: Many major political decisions and meetings in Lebanon take place at the Le Bristol in Beirut. On Tuesday, May 17, it became caught in the crossfire, with the result that it felt obliged to put out a statement regretting hosting a conference that showed solidarity with the Syrian government, as it had endangered the well-being of the hotel's employees and customers. It says: "The management learned from media reports that potential protests might take place outside the hotel at the time of the conference, which might pave the way for clashes between protesters loyal to the Syrian regime and others who oppose it."
MTV reported that members of the Baath party and SSNP had visited the hotel and asked to hold a pro-Syrian regime conference at the same time as a conference in solidarity with Syrian protesters. After Le Bristol cancelled the event, the organiser of the conference in support of the Syrian protestors failed to find another venue. Co-ordinator Saleh Machnouk told the Financial Times that 25 Beirut hotels had refused to host the event.

Coming and going

GOODBYE SHEFFIELD The 111-room Hotel Bristol in Sheffield, which was given its name by the Bristol businessmen who founded it, has just been bought by the fast-expanding Swedish Rezidor Group, and from November 7 it will be renamed the Park Inn.

HELLO RABAT Meanwhile a new Bristol is to be built in Rabat, Morocco, the first overseas enterprise by the Brazilian Bristol hotel chain, which operates 21 hotel and apartment blocks with the Bristol name in the Brazilian states of Minas Gerais, Espitito Santo and Goiás. The north African venture will have 3–4-stars with 96 one- and two- bedroom apartments, and will take around 18 months to build.

GOING UP IN KARACHI Pakistan's first six-star hotel is being built in Islamabad . The Avari Islamabad will be an all-suite hotel, and the first 200 are to be ready by early next year. Making the annoncemen, the Avari hotel group chairman Byram D Avari, said that the Avari family had been known in the hospitality industry since 1944 when his father purchased the Bristol hotel in Karachi.

LEAVING LEBANON "Many clients have left,” says Chantale Zammar, sales manager of the famous Le Bristol hotel in Beirut. “And now we have foreign journalists who always come in times of trouble, like last year during the war between Israel and Hezbollah.”

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