STRANGE BEDFELLOWS

To lose one hotel may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose two looks like carelessness. Yet that is what happened to Ian Schrager, the man who created the ‘boutique’ or ‘style’ hotel. In 2010, he opened The Waikiki Edition, the first of what he hoped would become a chain of hip hotels, developed and operated in partnership with the world’s biggest hotel company, Marriott International. But just weeks after the first guests checked in, the landlord turned up in the middle of the night, changed the locks on the front doors and told staff they worked for him now, not Edition. He was angry at what he claimed was poor financial performance. The same thing happened to the second Edition, which opened in Istanbul in 2011.

The twin setbacks could have been the first and last anyone heard of a brand dreamt up by Schrager and the then CEO