Hotel Oriental
The Hotel Oriental , actually The Oriental , is a luxury category (5 star) hotel in Bangkok , Thailand . The hotel is the "flagship" of the Mandarin Oriental hotel group .
history
The hotel's history began in 1876 when two Danish captains opened a simple inn for sailors on the Mae Nam Chao Phraya ( Chao Phraya River ) in Bangkok. The building was destroyed in a fire and was rebuilt by another Danish captain in 1884. This building still stands today and is called the Author's Wing , because several well-known writers used to stay there. The first was Josef Korzeniowski - later better known as Joseph Conrad - in 1888. The hotel soon gained prestige and became one of the “top addresses” in Bangkok. In 1891, for example, the future Tsar Nicholas II stayed here. Other writers who made the guest list include Graham Greene , James Michener , John le Carré and Somerset Maugham .
The hotel was damaged during World War II when it was occupied by the Japanese army . After the war it was then an Allied quarter for some time . In 1945 six investors took over the hotel and renovated it. In 1958 it was expanded to include the Garden Wing . Until the 1960s, however, it was unable to build on its earlier heyday. In 1967 the German Kurt Wachtveitl, who was born in Wangen im Allgäu and managed the hotel for 41 years as managing director, took it over and made it a top-class luxury hotel again. On May 31, 2009, at the age of 72, he resigned. He had met a Thai woman at the hotel management school in Lausanne , whom he followed to her homeland and who became his wife. His first hotel was a small house in Pattaya , after which he took over the Oriental . Wachtveitl has long been considered the longest-serving hotel manager in the same hotel worldwide.
In 1974 the hotel group Mandarin was founded, which a little later acquired a 49 percent stake in the hotel. In 1976 another wing was added, the River Wing . In 1991 the US magazine Institutional Investor named the Oriental the best hotel in the world and renewed its judgment over the next ten years. It also has an excellent reputation in the tourism industry. In 2001 around 30 million dollars were invested in the renovation of the house.
The hotel has 358 rooms and 35 suites, nine restaurants and its own spa.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from April 6, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
Web links
- Website The Oriental (Engl.)
- To the story
- Scott Murray: The Oriental
- Article: Luxury island in the hustle and bustle of the city (Neue Zürcher Zeitung)
Coordinates: 13 ° 43 ′ 25 ″ N , 100 ° 30 ′ 52 ″ E