Star struck hotels

Hotels.com is highlighting some of the hotels around the world that have been made famous by movie stars from Hollywood and beyond.

The list spans many countries and starts with Taj Lake Palace Hotel in Udaipur India which figured prominently in the 1983 film Octopussy with Roger Moore as James Bond. The hotel, a former palace, was built in 1746 and is made largely of marble.  Also, making the cut is the Grand Hotel Pupp, Karlovy Vary in the Czech Republic and the site for a more recent Bond film starring Daniel Craig in Casino Royale. Others include the Park Hyatt Tokyo which featured Scarlet Johansson in "Lost in Translation", The Bellagio Resort, Las Vegas which was the scene of "Oceans Eleve" and its rich cast of Matt Damon, George Clooney and Brad Pitt. Somewhat predictably, given Hollywood's location, there are a number of other US hotels including the famous Plaza, two in Beverly HIlls, CA – the Beverly Hills Hilton hotel and Regent Beverly Wilshire besides the lesser known Timberline Lodge in Oregon made famous by a Jack Nicholson film, The Shining from 1980.

Hotels that cater to movie stars who stay for reasons other than location shooting don't seem to have made the list, perhaps due to privacy concerns. In New York, the Elysee hotel used to be a favorite for the Hollywood elite till a renovation in the 90s saw it move away from its distinctive non-numeral style of identitfying rooms.

Published by

Vijay Dandapani

Co-founder and president of a New York based hotel company for 24 years. Grew the firm to five hotels in Manhattan and also developed a greenfield project at MacArthur airport, New York. Speaker at numerous prestigious forums including Economy Hotels World Asia, Lodging Conference, NYU, Columbia University Real Estate Roundtable, Baruch College's Zicklin School and ALIS. President and ceo of New York City Hotel Association since January 2017.