After getting a preview last month, the second Versace for H&M collaboration for Cruise 2012 is out. Unlike the first collection, this set, which  will be launched next January 19th , will only be available to online through www.hm.com in Sweden, the UK, Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway. Unfortunately it won’t be available in Spain! So Berliners, save the date and get ready to buy the last Versace bargains!!!

Juan, you chose to position your hotels as HETEROFRIENDLY, a variation on the term ‘straight-friendly’ frequently used, what made you decide to choose this brand adjective as opposed to GAYFRIENDLY or simply GAY?

“The Axel hotel chain started with our Barcelona hotel which used to be a gay-only
hotel.  Typically our guests come from the US and Spain for the major part, followed
by the UK and France, and with the remainder coming from the rest of Europe.
Depending on the time of the year, the hotel has got a varying percentage of gay
people.  In the summer – July, August and September – 90% of our customers are
gay.  However, if you come during the winter months, the period when Barcelona
hosts various international fairs, the clientele tends to be a lot more mixed.” [...]

We want everybody to be welcome but we still want all
our potential customers to know that it is a hotel focusing on the gay community,
and if they are comfortable with it, that is excellent.  If they are not comfortable
being amongst gay people then they are not welcome here and should go to other
hotels. On average, throughout the year, the hotel is around 70% gay and lesbian
and 30% heterosexual.  We chose not to use the label ‘gay-friendly’ as we feel the
term has been overused. [...]

“We also chose not to position ourselves as a gay hotel because sometimes gay-only hotels
can be a little ‘too gay’ and some of our customers prefer when we are mixed.  We
are not and do not want to be a gay ghetto, we want everybody to feel welcome but we still want all our potential customers to know that it is a hotel focusing on the gay community.  We are a hetero-friendly hotel.” [...]

You initially used to be a gay hotel but then you decided to transition to heterofriendly, what did that entail?

“I believe that to position yourself as heterofriendly you have to open as a gay hotel
first and you have to be known and well-recognised in the gay community as a gay
brand or a gay product focusing on a gay clientele and then and only then you can
transition to heterofriendly product or brand.” [...]

“The danger comes when you start
welcoming girls and straight friends of gay men to a place, be it a bar or a club, the
place then starts becoming popular with these girls and their girl-friends, the ratio
has become a shrinking 70% gays, the remaining being 30% of straight girls.  Then
all of the sudden heterosexual men chasing after the girls start transforming the
place and really unbalancing the ratio. After a few months, you are not a gay bar or
a gay disco anymore, gay men have stopped coming and you cannot even pretend
to be gay friendly anymore.” [...]

Do you think that a HETEROFRIENDLY positioning will also appeal more to younger
gay people?

“The fact is that the older generations of gay men, those above 40, are typically more
used to the gay community and are not as open as the younger gays are now.  The
younger gay people like to mix when they go out, they like to be surrounded by
girls, boys, straights, gays, everyone together because they don’t care.  I guess the
fight for equal rights by the older gay generation has borne some fruits.  In the
same way as the young generation who seek such more mixed surroundings, we did
not want a hotel that would be catering for a ghettoised gay grown-up clientele, we
wanted to welcome everybody.  We realised that when our more grown-up guests
came to the hotel they liked to see younger people and that the younger people
wanted to see a mix of people.  The Sky Bar, the roof terrace bar of the Axel Barcelona is generally very mixed, except for the two specifically themed parties that we offer each week,  1 gay and 1 lesbian.  It is generally filled with 60% gay men and the 40% remaining is composed of straight men and women as well as lesbians.”

Was it difficult to get your family to support and invest in the hotel?

“The hardest part was not my family, it was the banks.  My background was not from
the hotel industry and nor was my family’s.  I have a marketing background and
studied economics and did an MBA.  However, I had been interested in the hotel
business ever since I was a child.  I eventually gained some experience working for
an international Spanish company, but always knew that I wanted to do something
for myself.  I was working on a Relais & Châteaux project for which I secured the
financing.  I realised then that there was a gap in the market with a niche for gay
hotels.  I researched and studied the opportunity and realised that the only gay
hotels in the world where usually in holiday destinations in the US or Europe, in
places like Fort Lauderdale, Key West, Provincetown, Sitges, Mykonos, etc.” [...]

“I realised that the niche opportunity was
to focus on the gay community and offer them very nice establishments in the
centres of large cosmopolitan cities that are favoured destinations of gay tourists.
Of course, I had to buy the building and I put all my money into it, and while my
family also took part in the investment, I still had to find a bank that would become
the biggest stakeholder.  I had to visit several banks and convince at least one of
them of the validity of my project.  You can imagine how some of the meetings
would go – you would have at least 10 men, all dressed in black or navy suits,
looking sternly at you while you tell them that you are gay, that you have a project
of opening a hotel that will focus on the gay community and that it will cost around
€12million.”

Did your bank manager provide the necessary financial support due solely to him
seeing a good business opportunity or was the bank itself actively engaging in
attracting gay businesses?

“I did not knock on the door of a particular bank because of a specific program to
support the gay community.  I just went to several of the major banks, and selected
this particular one because I got the best feeling.  The project financing was entirely
driven by this specific bank manager who could see that the project was good.  He
had an important position in the bank, I am not sure if he was gay or not, it should
and does not really matter, the key was that he was smart and that after a few
conversations he could see the great potential that my project offered, he liked my
business plan and looked at the pros and cons.  I was buying the building in 2000,
before real estate prices climbed to the 2007 peak level and before the 2008 crash
and therefore, this looked like a good opportunity for them.” [...]

“I do not think that today any bank in Spain – and I would venture even in Europe -
knows or has got any active successful program to capture the pink euro.  In 2000,
there definitely were none.  I know some Spanish banks have tried to do small
campaigns for supporting gay businesses but never with any real consistent
marketing strategy.  Generally, these are sporadic campaigns, very localised and
never part of a real strategy.  In some cases companies have tried to position
themselves as GAY- FRIENDLY, but frankly, in our day and age, in liberal societies
and in the environment in which I move, who is not gay-friendly?  You only need one
gay customer to be gay-friendly and you do not even have to treat them particularly
well – and the gay community has caught on to this.” [...]

What is your view on some of these large international hotel and resort groups’
strategy to open gay hotels?

“Some of these companies have indeed stated that they are looking to open gay
hotels and if you, for example, look at Thomson holidays they too are looking to
brand some of their hotels as gay or gay-friendly. Are they looking to offer a special
package-holiday for people going on a gay holiday? How many gays will there be at
the destination? Is it even a gay destination? Who decides whether their hotel is gay
or not?  As you can imagine, I know a lot of the hotels of Barcelona, the Axel hotel is
in the official tourist guide together with some other hotels that are supposed to be
gay-friendly.  Let me tell you, their owners and their management are not gay, and
some of them are as unfriendly to gays as if they were the bishop of Rome!!!  I do
not know how they can have the audacity to claim to be gay-friendly.  In truth most
gay-friendly hotels are really simply trying to widen their revenue sources and as
such will target the gay market.  They will of course treat gay customers in the same
way as they do all their other customers, however they will not make any efforts to
attract gay guests nor attempt to engage or support the local gay community, their
only aim is get a share of the pink wallet.” [...]

For the entire Interview click here

Interested in the last edition of the 5th Avenue Fashion Show? Have a glance at our Flickr’s photo gallery.

5TH AVENUE – HOST DESTYNEE
PRODUCED BY JBZ PRODUCTIONS

More Info  (+49) 30 2100 28 93 | Axel Hotel Berli berlin@axelhotels.com

Architecture-Travel-Hotels-Buildings-Monuments-Aircrafts-Museums-

If you love architecture, Berlin – a reference point in Germany, Europe and the world – is the place to be. Berlin occupies centre stage in areas such as technology, trade and politics. It’s a city to explore and to indulge in its endless charm. Berlin has become a very self-confident city and changed the way it presents itself to the rest of the world. One of the most remarkable traits of the city is its tolerance. A pioneer in many respects, it embraces the changing trends, is unapproachable and seductive at the same time with a young and creative feel. Berlin is a city of fascinating contrasts.

Below we list but a few works of first-class architects that are absolute must-see attractions when in Berlin.

Rem Koolhass OMA – Dutch Embassy, 2003

FOSTER & partners

 

Berlin’s Jewish Museum.
Daniel Liebeskind

 

Peter EISEMANN -

Each November for more than 40 years now, JazzFest Berlin has transformed the German capital into a grandiose meeting place for international jazz musicians and jazz lovers. The 2011 edition takes place fromNovember 2nd – 6th, once again under the artistic direction of Nils Landgren.

The sedulous and sought after trombonist from Sweden, whom his friend Joe Sample once aptly described as “the hardest working man in show business since James Brown” is bidding the festival adieu. His farewell parade is lined by a cohort of musical “friends and relatives” first and foremost led by theNDR Big Band, with two different programmes; a Saturday afternoon family fun concert, featuring the tale of Volker Kriegel’s hooting coati ‘Erwin’, and in the evening, as an upbeat to the national radio live broadcast, ‘Children of the Sun’ – a project with Joe Sample, who achieved worldwide celebrity with theJazz Crusaders.

This year’s musical attention focusses on Poland as a jazz nation. Initiated by the exhibition ‘Side by Side. Poland – Germany. A 1000 Years of Art and History’ at Martin-Gropius-Bau we take the opportunity to shift our well-practiced West-to-East perspective in order to discover this lively jazz scene. Predating the festival, on October 15th and 21st, the Polish ensembles IRCHA Mikołaj Trzaska Clarinet Quartet and the Atom String Quartet will tune us in to the theme at the exhibition site.

Polish artists Leszek Możdżer, Adam Pierończyk, the Oleś Brothers, and not to forget iconic Tomasz Stańko pay tribute to the legacy of the pianist and (film) composer Krzysztof Komeda, ‘house composer’ for Roman Polanski until his early death in 1969, and until this day a source of inspiration to the Polish jazz scene.

Another homage will be dedicated to Nino Rota, contrived and performed on the occasion of the prolific film composer’s 100th anniversary by Richard Galliano.

Maria Farantouri with Charles Lloyd, Lizz Wright, Cæcilie Norby, Ida Sand and Gregory Porter: all will strike the right chord at JazzFest Berlin!

Carla Bley with the Swallow Quintet and Colin Towns and his Blue Touch Paper sextet, two dear almost regular guests and welcome friends of the festival, round out the “mainstream” in the big hall at Haus der Berliner Festspiele – which however also has a side stage. Enjoy the intimate atmosphere and discover musical gems like PELbO or Josef och Erika after hours – you won’t regret it!

Close-to-the-action jazz is served up “In the Heat of the Night”, at A-Trane and Quasimodo. On the menue: performances of (ao) the Stanton Moore Trioand, from Chicago, the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble – 8 brothers, all sons of Sun Ra musician Phil Cohran. Big Sam’s Funky Nation from New Orleans will draw the funky (partyparty!) line under the era of “Mr. Redhorn”.

Visit the best-known Berliner in the world!

Discover the magic of the beautiful queen Nefertiti in her new home. The world-famous bust of Nefertiti is now on show in the reopened Neues Museum, part of the Museum Island UNESCO World Heritage site. The Neues Museum has been so spectacularly restored by star architect David Chipperfield that even the rooms without exhibits would be well worth a visit!

But the exhibits are all there – including Nefertiti, the star of the Neues Museum and the darling of the museum visitors. Your Museum Pass gives you fast-track entry to the Neues Museum’s spectacular archaeological collection. Get a fascinating insight into humankind’s development in an exhibition showcasing treasures from thousands of years of human history.

Berlin also has lots to offer outside the museum as well! The Berlin WelcomeCard gives you 48 hours of unlimited travel on Berlin’s excellent public transport system plus discounts on 200 top highlights in the city, from shows and operas, to restaurants and sights, and much, much more! Nefertiti awaits you – and so does the exciting city of Berlin!

The festival is organized by Zander & Partner Event-Marketing GmbH, with Director Birgit Zander as the driving force behind it. In cooperation with the “City Stiftung Berlin” and lighting designer Andreas Boehlke, she was already laying the foundation for this successful public event back in 2005.

Numerous celebrities, businesses, institutions and artists are committed to the continual development of the festival. It is only through the involvement of all these people that enables us to transform the entire city into a huge exhibition space with international appeal.

More info: http://festival-of-lights.de/en/the-festival/

Don’t miss the opportunity to share a night full of intrigue and excitement at Spy Club, where each event is presented by some figure from the fashion world or the showbusiness, as the designer Michael Michalsky, the model Nadja Auermann or actor Daniel Brühl.

Guests at the Axel Hotel Berlin could be on the guest list for the next edition, on September 17th, and could share the dance floor with a select group of night owls. House, electronic music, drinks and a very special atmosphere await you, so … Dress Up and enjoy the Spy Club!
Confirm your attendance by contacting oliver.boehme@axelhotels.com

More Info              (+49) 30 2100 28 93       | Axel Hotel Berli berlin@axelhotels.com

The time has come … Axel Hotel Berlin rises the curtain and makes you a proposal that you can’t refuse. Stay with us and attend one of the shows most admired around the world: Blue Man Group. Come and enjoy our package AXEL BERLIN SHOW TIME when you walk by one of the most attractive and cosmopolitan cities in Europe, we put everything at your disposal. Music, lights and staging full of creativity and excitement are waiting for you … and at the end of the day you can relax in our Spa. Surprise someone special with an unforgettable trip to Berlin. You’ll vibrate with a show which has been already enjoyed by more than 17 million people from Las Vegas to Tokyo. We’ll be waiting for you with a cocktail!

Package includes:

Blue Man Group show Ticket
Stay in room design with possibility to upgrade based on availability
Breakfast
Welcome cocktail
Free access to SPA