Product Description

The hotel business is a licence to print money - not only for the managers, owners and shareholders, but for the people who work there. From chambermaids' tips, to doormen making #2,000 a week, to the concierge taking back handers, to the vegetable supplier's book keeping double entry - everyone in the hotel trade is on the make. The hotel business is a licence for the guests to steal - anything from bathrobes, loo seats (wooden and Victorian from the Savoy), pictures, fridges, ashtrays, teaspoons - even re-filling the vodka bottle in the mini bar with water. The hotel business is a licence for guests to behave badly - from rent boys and girls by the hour, to #800 on telephone porn bills, #24,000 room parties, office sex, drugs, dead sheep, splashing out on #5,000 bottles of wine, guests falling through windows, naked guests, drunken guests and guests who have to be sectioned. The hotel business is also a licence for celebrity to reign supreme - from Michael Jackson's Evian bath to Madonna's odd curtain fetish, Kate Moss and Johnny Depp's parties, Princess Diana's taste for champagne, Pamela Anderson's sexual gymnastics, The Queen Mother's chips and Prince Phillip's Silver Bullet cocktail. HOTEL BABYLON is a trawl through the highs and lows, the extremes, the tragedies, the miseries, the decadence and the debauchery of the ultimate service industry - where money not only talks, but gets you the best room, the best service, and also entitles you to behave in any way you please ...

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #238662 in Books
• Published on: 2004-07-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 329 pages

Metro
Reading Hotel Babylon is like mainlining Popbitch . . . compulsive reading.

From the Back Cover
Something strange occurs to people as soon as they check in to a luxury hotel. Otherwise well mannered, decent folk cast their scruples aside as they spin through the revolving doors. Normal rules of behaviour no longer seem to apply.

Everything you read in Hotel Babylon is true. Only the names have been changed to protect the guilty. All the anecdotes, the characters, the highs, the lows, the drugs, the scams, the misery and the debauchery are exactly as experienced by Anonymous – someone who has spent his entire career working in some of the most luxurious hotels in London. However, for legal reasons, the stories now take place in the fictional Hotel Babylon. More than a decade is compressed into twenty-four hours. Everything else is as it should be. The rich spend obscene amounts of money, the hotel makes obscene amounts of money and the chambermaids still fight the bellboys over a two-pound coin…

About the Author
The author is currently the manager of a luxurious central London hotel.

Customer Reviews

A must read
Hotel Babylon is a must read. It is a fascinating insight in to the hotel industry as the stories are based on real events in a 5 star hotel. This book is hillariously funny and i could not put it down. It is as every bit good as the tv series if not better

What you didn't know about London's luxury hotels
What a great book! Hotel Bablyon tells the story of a fictional hotel over a 24 hour period. The catch being that the book is dominated by true stories from an insider at some of London's top hotels. A string of brilliant anecdotes ranging from big name celebrities and the Royal Family to seedy businessmen will keep you turning page after making this a hugely entertaining read. The picture that emerges is that the hotel industry is a bizarre microcosm of the real world. It is ruled by cash and fuelled by greed. It embraces sex, death and pretty much everything else. The more decadent and luxurious the hotel, the more extreme the experience.

A great book for anybody in the hotel industry or indeed anyone interested in celebrities.

A must read for this summer's holiday. Go out and buy this book now!

5 stars for a 5 Star hotel story
Having just finished working in an hotel, at front of house, after nearly 3 years, I was idly curious about this book.
Not idle for long, it kept me going till 3.30 the second night. I was almost in real time with the main character as his fascinating but torturous day rolled by hour after hour into the small hours.
I had thought life in the smart country house hotel I worked at was pretty hectic and "eccentric' at times, with many unexpected moments. But this book made my time look like a spell in Beatrix Potter land. And I never got any of the pinkies mentioned!
I was surprised, shocked and very very amused by this book.
I am sure even people who have never lifted an exhausted or surprised finger in hotel work will find this a true eye opener.
I dont think I will ever pay £5.00 for a pot of tea again after this, or take for granted all that goes on behind the scenes again. And I thought I had had an idea. Wrong!
Hotel Babylon is real fast good read. I have passed it on to the staff who remain in my past hotel. I think they will love it too.