The palace is a myth, around the world, through the ages, and even on the silver screen with Death in Venice and The Grand Budapest Hotel. Today, there are 25 properties in France that bear this title as a result of hard work and a long certification process. Worldwide there are no exact figures, as this "protected" appellation is a French specificity. But one thing is certain: the palace represents the most precious thing in the hotel business, marking the codes of luxury with very specific tacit standards to meet an increasingly sophisticated clientele with protean needs. But the proliferation of these properties begs the question as to whether or not the Paris market may be heading towards saturation in the coming years.
A short story about these places that are infused with history
Since time immemorial, the term palace has been established as the ultimate accommodation for high society. Its name would come from Rome, or more precisely from Mount Palatine, the "palatium", where the rich residences of the most illustrious Romans were located. In the 19th century, the term palace began to be used for temporary residences for the first European tourists, those rich bourgeois who liked to enjoy the benefits of the Côte d'Azur climate in Winter, or even the entertaining Parisian life. Pierre Gouirand, former Director of Hôtel Westminster and former President of the Syndicat des Hôteliers de Nice-Côte d'Azur, explains: "It was necessary to build luxury hotels on the Côte d'Azur and in Paris to accommodate this rich clientele used to a sumptuous life. The word was then anglicized from the French "palais" to "palace" because of "Anglomania". This is how the Promenade des Anglais was born in Nice, together with with the emblematic Hotel Negresco (1912), named after its founder of Romanian origin.These are the among the only remains of that glorious period.
Meanwhile, in Paris, Le Meurice, which has the privilege of being the oldest of the capital's palaces, was inaugurated in 1835 at its current address. Louis-Augustin Meurice, its founder and formerly postmaster in Calais, opened a first property at 223 rue Saint-Honoré (before moving it to 228 rue de Rivoli) for mainly English customers, thus creating the concept of a concierge service with bilingual staff. Observing an opportunity in this market, César Ritz, a wealthy Swiss entrepreneur, followed suit and opened the eponymous hotel in 1898, after having acquired expertise as a director at the Grand Hotel de Monte-Carlo since 1881. He would join forces with the famous chef Auguste Escoffier, and this...
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