Bill Gates Buys Tokyo Hotels

[Mulboyne]

[floatr][/floatr](and some others)

Telegraph: Bill Gates and Prince Alwaleed bin Talal in Four Seasons deal
Bill Gates is going into the hotel business. The Microsoft chairman has joined with Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal to back a management buy out of the luxury hotel group Four Seasons for $3.8bn. The hotel business has been enjoying a boom as global travel increases while the availability of hotel rooms fails to keep pace. Four Seasons operates 75 up-market hotels in 31 countries...more...

[Jack]

Well, Four Seasons does not own the Tokyo hotels, both at Chinsanso and Marunouchi. Four Seasons only manages them on behalf of the Japanese owners. And FYI, Four Seasons is a Canadian company based in Toronto. Actually, Four Seasons only owns one hotel in Vancouver, the rest are all owned by third parties.

[amdg]

So Jack, what's this I hear about a new hotel being built in Osaka? Supposedly one of the most expensive in the world - cheapest rooms going at 160,000 a night?

[Jack]

So Jack, what's this I hear about a new hotel being built in Osaka? Supposedly one of the most expensive in the world - cheapest rooms going at 160,000 a night?

Don't know. Never heard about that one. What can you tell me about it?

[amdg]

Don't know much, I was walking by a site on midosuji and happened to get talking with a contractor there, and he started telling me about what he was doing. He couldn't remember the name of the hotel though

[Jack]

Four Seasons used to own its hotels but they sold them off in the early 90's to concentrate on the management side of the business. Bill Gates does own a few Four Seasons personally like one in Maui (Michael Dell owns two Four Seasons in Hawaii) and the new one that is being built in Seattle I believe. The Saudi Prince also owns several Four Seasons personally like the one in London and George V in Paris.

I've stayed at both Four Seasons in Tokyo and don't like them because of the location. One is a 10 minute cab ride from Mejiro station.

[Mulboyne]

The Four Seasons in Meijiro is popular with visiting celebrities partly because it is out of the way. Real Madrid, The Rolling Stones and Mariah Carey have all used it recently. It has a great garden and some decent restaurants but the location is bad if you have a lot of meetings around town. In heavy traffic, it once took me an hour and a half just to get to Akasaka by car.

A friend of mine always uses the Four Seasons next to Tokyo Station. He is usually only in town for two or three days at at time and likes the location and the relative privacy. The only problem seems to be that not many taxi drivers know it yet. One bloke ignored his "Tokyo eki no chikaku" and roared off towards Meijiro instead.