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Cognac Conundrum: These Days A Luxury Hotel Can Catch Flack Even When Its Intentions Are Charitable |
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The Phoenix Ritz-Carlton is a 20-year-old institution favored by business travelers to the Arizona capital. Like every other hotel these days, managers were seeking every possible efficiency. To that end, they sent a staff member knowledgeable about spirits into the liquor cabinet to clean it up, eliminate "dead" stock, come up with promotions, etc.
To everyone's surprise, the staffer uncovered a valuable bottle of a rare Courvoisier L'Esprit cognac that is just one of 2,000 such bottles in the world. It might well have been there since the hotel opened.
Management decided to make the discovery known by sending out a press release and offering a 1-ounce serving for $500, thinking collectors and connoisseurs might be attracted. The important element, as told to us by Jennifer Blackmon, the hotel's longtime director of sales and marketing: 50% of any proceeds would go to a local soup kitchen which is one of the hotel's regular charities.
The hotel never had any intention, according to Blackmon, of bringing
back the $500 a drink ethos of three or four years ago - merely wanted
to have a little fun, maybe get a plug in a publication like Cigar
Aficionado and do a good deed.
So what happens? The Phoenix edition of American City Business
Journals picks up the story, as follows:" Despite the recession, the
Ritz-Carlton hotel in Phoenix is saying ‘let them drink cognac' --
offering a 1-ounce serving from a rare bottle for an eye-popping $500"
- failing to mention the charity factor.
Oh well.
Otherwise, Blackmon told us the hotel is holding its own in a very
difficult economic climate in Phoenix, building its marketing, not
around vintage cognac, but around the idea that, "These days you have a
great opportunity to try a Ritz-Carlton."
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