Hotel Girl

                                                                     It seems not everyone is mourning the loss of the King of Pop Michael Jackson, who died of a heart attack/pain killer overdose last Thursday.

Whilst most people have mixed feelings about the tragic news, it seems hoteliers around Jackson's Neverland Valley Ranch in Santa Barbara County, California are reaping the rewards.

Hotels close the estate in Los Olivos are now fully booked, despite the fact that Jackson's family has denied reports that a memorial service will be held there on Saturday.

The Fess Parker Wine Country Inn in Los Olivos, which is located less than a mile from Neverland Ranch, told reporters that once news hit that Jackson's body might be coming to Neverland they sold out in just 20 minutes.

Police had said the Jackson family were planning a public viewing on Saturday, leading thousands of fans to set up camp outside the isolated property 240km north of Los Angeles.

Every cloud...

Castel Monastero, a  76-room rural retreat in Tuscany, opened its doors yesterday. Since visiting the Four Seasons in Florence, I'm loving luxury hotels with lots of history and this one has it in spades.

The hotel dates back to the 11th century and was once home to the noble Chigi Saracini family of Siena. The designers have kept the room design simple, with a "rustic chic" motif coming from wall frescoes of the Italian countryide, antique furniture and timber panelling.

Located in the medieval village of Monastero d'Ombrone in Chianti, the hotel is only 14 miles east of Sienna and about an hour from Florence. But, with an 11-room Urban Retreat Spa and a Gordon Ramsey fine dining restaurant on site - why would you ever leave?

The Royal Lancaster Hotel in London is buzzing with the news that it is set to receive half a million guests.

Dressed in black and yellow striped garb the army of buzzy bodies will descend upon the Hyde Park hotel this week.

So many? Well yes, you may have guessed it, the guests are not human, but nature's favourite- bees

The hotel is installing beehives on its roof due to the sharp decline in honey bees, which is having a serious effect on food production around the world. 

The hotel is situated next to Hyde Park which is an ideal stomping ground for the bees to flourish.

The hotel will employ a "Bee Team" to care for the bees and collect the 40kg of honey produced every year- which will then be snaffled up by guests straight from the honeycomb in the hotel's restaurant, Island. 

Pots of honey will also be offered to VIPs and 'honey'mooners (groan), while the wax from the hives will be used to create candles for gifts. 

Honey Bee Facts   
* The average honey bee will produce only one twelfth of a teaspoon of honey in its life time.

* The male honey bees are called drones, and they do no work at all and have no stinger.  All they do is mate. (Nice work if you can get it)

* Worker honey bees live for about four weeks in the spring or summer, but up to six weeks during the winter.  They are all female and do all the work...

* The honey bee is the only insect that produces food eaten by man.

It looks like iconic liner the QE2 is the latest victim of the recession. The ship was meant to renovated and turned into a luxury hotel on Dubai's man-made Palm Jumeirah island.

But the ship's new owner Nakheel has confirmed reports that other ports are willing to take on the ship and it looks like Cape Town will be a front runner.

According to reports, plans to cut the ship in half and add an extension in the middle have been scrapped. Now the ship is likely to be turned into a "modest hotel".

Seems like a bit of a sorry end for such an iconic ship. Maybe we should bring her back to the UK..?

 The Hotel Arts has sent me some pictures of its brand new champagne bar set to open in October.

The hotel said it decided to convert its coffee lounge into a swish new bar to fill a gap in the market. I don't know if there are many champagne bars in Barcelona, but I'd be happy to go over there and find out.

The Hotel Arts is one of the best hotels in Barcelona  but prices are steep. Now there's no excuse not to pop in and try one of its forty different types of champers. Just make sure you have some euros left for your cab home.

The Ritz Carlton and Marriott hotels in Jakarta have been hit by two bomb blasts overnight.

At least nine people, including foreigners, have been killed and 48 injured in the explosions at the luxury hotels in the Indonesian capital.

The first two blasts, in Jakarta's central business district, occurred at about 0730 (0030 GMT). It's thought the Ritz CArtlon bomb was in the hotel's restaurant, while the Marriott's blast came from the basement.

Reuters quoted police as saying another, unexploded, bomb had also been found at the JW Marriott.

"I heard two sounds like 'boom, boom' coming from the Marriott and the Ritz-Carlton. Then I saw people running out," security guard Eko Susanto told AFP.

The Manchester United football team had apparently been due to arrive in Indonesia on Saturday and was booked to stay at the Ritz-Carlton

Marriott and was being taken to hospital.

The Marriott Hotel was the target of a bomb attack in August 2003 in which 13 people were killed. For pictures of the blasts 

Living proof you don't have to be a diva to have celebrity-style demands, another cracking list has been compiled of nutty requests from demanding guests and not a s'leb in sight.

Bizarre demands include a arrranging a candlelit dinner in a cave, a craving for a New York cheescake - from New York - while in Portugal, building a replica coffee shop for a proposal and to top it all off a golf course designed on a glacier.

It does make you wonder...

Legendary photographer Annie Leibovitz, famed for taking the last-ever photograph of John Lennon, has put together a series of black and white photographs chronicling key moments behind the scenes of The Peninsula Hotels chain in "Portraits of Peninsula".

In the photos, Leibovitz moves away from her usual intimate celebrity portraiture, to focus on the pageboys, housekeepers and bellmen behind the Peninsula Hotel brand.

Leibovitz was given free rein of the hotels, both their public spaces and back-of-house areas, shooting whichever scenes or staff members that she believed best represented the hotels.

Of the shoots Leibovitz said: "After shooting at four Peninsula hotels for this campaign, I truly understand the significance of what we are shooting - the real stars of The Peninsula Hotels - the wonderful caring staff.

"It was really moving photographing them, and by the time I had finished, I felt that I had a real insight into the people who work for the Pen and the pride they take in their work. I have been looking for stories like that for years"

And Hotel Girl thinks the results are quite lovely.

People looking to save a bit of cash when picking a hotel should maybe think twice before choosing budget hotel chain Travelodge- you could be accused of having an affair.

It's probably more likely to be The End of the Affair.