In The Hospitality Industry Worldwide, Trump's Brand Is Now Completely Toxic-- Less Than Worthless

This past summer we were in Azerbaijan, primarily in Baku, the capital city. Really nice place to visit! We noticed that there was a huge hulking Trump Tower in the middle of the glittering skyline. But it was empty. In fact, it was closed down, having only opened for a week before firing the entire staff and shutting down the operation. Presumably they'll remove the toxic logo that the local bandits who own the building paid Trump to use, and re-open it under less toxic name-- like Motel 6 Baku. But Baku isn't the only city where the Trump name is keeping hotel rooms empty... even at heavily discounted prices.

The prestigious new hotel in DC that he's always trying to drum up business for is the cheapest 5-star in Washington-- and the most empty. And the Trump Towers in Istanbul, where the president of the country demanded the name be changed, is desperate to sell over a dozen luxury apartments that no one will buy at very deep discounts.

Property Turkey is privileged to offer to its clients 15 luxury apartments available for sale below market value within Istanbul's prestigious Trump Towers. This is a one-off offer for a limited period only and on a limited number of apartments.

  Trump Towers located in between Sisli and Mecidiyekoy is one of Istanbul's landmark mix-use complexes, where residences and commercial units always command a premium. The complex is one of Istanbul's most prestigious.

CNN reported that travel agents and events planners are avoiding the Trump brand entirely. In DC, "room rates also indicate the hotel may be lagging behind its competition. A Tuesday night stay at the Trump hotel was priced at $505 on Hotels.com, more than $200 cheaper than five-star alternatives like the Four Seasons and the Jefferson. Comparable hotels like the downtown Ritz-Carlton and Hay-Adams, meanwhile, had no open rooms." The new hotel "has been the target of protests and vandalism since it opened last month. And its namesake's presidential campaign has made the Trump name awkward at best and toxic at worst for those who specialize in the hotel industry. 'There certainly are people who are concerned about the message they send by spending money in Trump-branded hotels,' said David Loeb, a senior hotel analyst at the Robert W. Baird private equity firm. Brand research studies suggest those concerns are taking hold. A Foursquare analysis showed foot traffic at Trump's hotels, casinos and golf clubs is down 16% this year. And a Young & Rubicam report released Tuesday shows consumers think Trump himself is less fun, trendy and stylish than he was three months ago. That's bad news for Trump, who claims his name is worth more than $3 billion in real estate licensing and branding deals. Industry analysts say that number is exaggerated."

Travel + Leisure doesn't, as a rule, slag off potential advertisers, but the news is all over the hospitality industry: Trump Hotels Ditching Name For New Hotels. I don't know if Trump plans on having Barron run the business, but his new hotel ventures will be called "Scion."

Amidst reports that occupancy rates at Trump Hotels have slipped this election season, the company has announced that new brand hotels will no longer bear the Trump name.

The newest line of luxury hotels, geared towards millennials, will be called Scion, the company said.

“We wanted a name that would be a nod to the Trump family and to the tremendous success it has had with its businesses, including Trump Hotels, while allowing for a clear distinction between our luxury and lifestyle brands,” Trump Hotels CEO Eric Danziger said in a statement.

Although Trump Hotels has said the new name has nothing to do with the eponymous businessman’s presidential campaign, empty rooms at the hotels have caused officials “to reduce rates during the peak season," according to New York Magazine.

Nightly rates at the newly-opened Trump International Hotel in D.C. plummeted below $500 while practically every other five-star property was sold out for the International Monetary Fund conference two weeks ago. And after his remarks about Mexican immigrants, two celebrity chefs backed out of their contracts to open a restaurant in the hotel.

According to Hipmunk, bookings at Trump Hotels plummeted 59 percent during the first half of 2016 and data from Foursquare shows a 17 percent drop in foot traffic at Trump properties since June 2015, when the reality TV star announced his presidential bid.

Back to Trump Tower Baku. His crooked partners, the notorious Mammadov family, tried burning the building down for the insurance money. And further south, in the United Arab Emirates, Trump’s name and image were removed from a $6 billion golf and housing complex in Dubai.

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Beneath The Glitz And Dazzle, Air Emirates Can Be Pretty Grubby

Perhaps you saw a resuscitated 2010 interview with the guy who soon became Egypt's first democratically elected president, Mohamed Morsi. During the interview he was against a two-state solution and called negotiations with Israel "a waste of time and opportunities" as Arabs and Muslims get nothing out of engagement with "the descendants of apes and pigs." Gee, and he's upset because tv satirist Bassem Youssef-- Egypt's Jon Stewart-- said something mildly snarky about him!

When I booked our flights to India on Emirates Air several months ago, Roland said he didn't like the idea of giving some "dirty terrorists" and crooked oil barons our money. I understood where he was coming from but the overriding consideration for me was that Emirates has an excellent reputation-- although completely overhyped one, as it turns out-- as an extraordinary airline. They're actually pretty ordinary, almost on a level with Singapore Air or British, but better than Delta or Air India. More to the point, though, Emirates was offering the only flight from Cochin to L.A. that didn't entail an overnight layover. The Emirate flight from Cochin flies at 4:35AM, connects 4 hours later in Dubai (7:05 Dubai time), entails, instead, a painless one hour and 15 minutes wait for the flight that goes direct to L.A. at 8:20AM. At least, that's the theory.

I was flying business class, Roland economy. The flight took off 30 minutes late from Cochin. No big deal, right? Wrong. The airline agents in Cochin told us there would be "no problem" making our connection and that the reason the flight was late was because of a problem in Dubai. Although we got to Dubai over an hour before the plane to L.A. actually took off, they refused to let us board. They had already sold our-- "our" meaning my seat and the seats of the 2 other business class travelers from Cochin going on to L.A.-- seats to some other people. Someone met us at the gate and told us they had rebooked us for the next day. "What about another flight?" we all asked at once. "Impossible" was the reply. Everything was impossible, in fact, except being bundled into a car and driven to a shoddy airport business traveler hotel, a Millennium... with a Cactus Jack's restaurant.

Roland, meanwhile, disappeared and I had to work two hours against a hideously uncooperative Emirates staff to find someone willing to help me figure out where he was. Somehow, for someone traveling in economy it wasn't impossible to rebook onto another flight. Roland was flying off to L.A. while I was pissed off in Dubai.

On The Other Hand...

When dealt lemons... The rule about the Travelers Century Club is that in the quest for 100 countries to have visited, a stop over in an airport counts. I don't care; in my mind it doesn't count. So my 3 hour or so stay in the Emirates Lounge a few weeks ago on the way to Delhi didn't, in my mind, mean I could tick Dubai off my list. But here I was with a day to "kill."

Usually study up on places I'm going way in advance and plan trips so that I don't miss the bets features. I was unaware of any features in Dubai except that it's garish and a shopoholic's paradise. So I asked the concierge what was the best thing to see in the country. "Dubai Mall," he answered without hesitation. I hate malls... more than hate, I'm horrified by them, spiritually dejected by their celebration of cheap gawdy, soul-destroying materialism. But the Santa Monica Mall, I recently discovered has one of my favorite restaurants in L.A., Matthew Kenney's M.A.K.E. And, lo and behold!, Dubai Mall has a pretty astounding healthy organic food store and cafe as well. But that isn't why anyone goes there. Where do I start?

It's the biggest mall in the world-- and across the street from the world's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa (2,722 feet; Empire State Building is 1,250 feet tall and the Eiffel Tower is 986 feet tall). There are over 2,000 shops and it's a carnival of brands, not just every brand name in America, but every brand name in France, England, Japan, Germany, Italy... It's actually the world's most visited shopping and leisure destination-- more people than the entire city of New York!-- and boasts a mammoth aquarium (with over 30,000 marine animals to gawk out while you shop and eat) and an incongruous ice-skating rink. And, of course 4 floors of shopping and eating, from Bloomingdales and Marks & Spencer to Galeries Lafayette to a Virgin Megastore. I would have preferred to have flown home on schedule but I had a fun time sightseeing in Dubai for a day... so not a total waste. Nice subway too-- clean and sparkly.

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