The Columbus Hotel, Monaco (Source: monacograndprixtravel.com)

I found a list of the top ten celebrity owned hotels in the Mirror and was amazed at the number of high profile personalities that have invested their millions into the hospitality industry.

Here are the top 10:

1. The Greenwich Hotel, New York, owned by Robert De Niro

2. The Big Sleep, Cheltenham, co-owned by John Malkovich

3. Sundance Resort, Utah, owned by Robert Redford

4. Cadogan Gardens, London, co-owned by Liz Hurley

5. Costa d’Este, Florida, owned by Gloria and Emilio Estefan

6. The Clarence Hotel, Dublin, owned by Bono and The Edge

7. Rival Hotel, Stockholm, owned by Benni Andersson

8. The Columbus Hotel, Monaco, owned by David Coulthard

9. Mission Ranch, California, owned by Clint Eastwood

10.  Hotel Villa Angela, Sicily, owned by Jim Kerr

I can only imagine the high calibre of clientele at these hotels; it must cost a pretty penny to spend the night.

It does beg the question, what steps are these celebrity owners taking with regards to health and safety? They wouldn’t want one of the guests suing them if they got food poisoning during their stay – it could end up costing Mr De Niro and friends their fortunes!

We’ve all taken a bottle of shampoo from a hotel room, maybe even the odd tea bag and coffee sachet, but how far would you take it?

The Telegraph newspaper has surveyed several hotels from around the world to find out what unusual items have been taken from them. I will be honest; some of the items raise the question “huh?”

• A grand piano
• Television
• A stuffed boar
• Adult toys??? – the mind boggles!
• Curtains
• Room numbers
• Crockery
• Busts
• Flowers
• Weaponry
• A hotel owner’s pet dog
• Bibles
• Artwork
• Fireplace
• The entire contents of a room – bed, furniture, the lot.

Surely guests don’t think these items are included within the standard complimentary package?

We’d be interested to hear the most unusual thing that you’ve taken from a hotel – anonymous responses accepted.

So, we’ve got the ice hotel in Sweden, the world’s only seven star establishment in Dubai and now, welcome, a zero star nuclear bunker hotel near Austria called the Null Stern.

The height of glamour it is not, but according to Doug McKinley, a journalist from the Observer who recently stayed at the hotel, it does offer a certain charm. Twin brothers have purchased the 1980’s nuclear fallout shelter and transformed it – I use that word loosely as the it only consists of two bedrooms which sleeps up to 14 people, a shared bathroom and a lounge – into the world’s first zero star hotel.

Forget the usual perks that you get in hotels, such as complimentary toiletries; if you spend the night here the only freebie that you’ll receive is a pair of ear protectors to muffle the sound of the ventilation system. The Null Stern takes the guest back to basics and makes them appreciate the idyllic setting and fresh air.

However, I’m not sure that I would want to spend a night there. I’m a fan of my creature comforts and I don’t know if I’d like the claustrophobic feeling of not having any windows. That said, at £14 a night it is a bargain, and seems to be popular as it has bookings up to 2012.

Would you like to spend a night at the Null Stern hotel?

Source: www.sevelen.ch

As mentioned before, we like to trawl the web to see what is being discussed with regards to health and safety, travel and hygiene. So, in a spare five minutes this morning, we found a rather interesting article on The Belfast Telegraph linking global warming to food poisoning.

The piece suggested that global warming could create hundreds of extra cases of food poisoning, because bacteria will prosper during the hotter summer months. This could potentially create 10,000 extra cases in the UK a year.

To be honest, this article shocked us a little. We work with hotels all over the world, in much hotter climes than the UK, who are faced with the challenge of high temperatures on a daily basis. And, while there are some that could be doing better, there are many that are very successful in protecting their guests from contracting food poisoning.

It would be naive to say that rising temperatures won’t have an impact on food poisoning cases, but as long as the general public, hoteliers and restauranteurs continue to correctly store and thoroughly cook food it needn’t be built up to be the “most significant health issue the world has ever faced…”, as this article suggests.