Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Hotel Competition: Sand in Your Face

Hotel competition obviously knows no bounds when you consider the Starwood-Hilton litigation and Starwood's allegations that former employees made off with proprietary information, which Hilton used to develop its now-in-limbo Denizen brand.

But, now comes word from Travel Weekly's Caribbean editor, Gay Nagle Myers, about another court case that, if the allegations are true, shows that the level of hotel competition has descended into the pits.

In this caper, winding its way through the Jamaican courts, a resort developer in Coral Spring, Jamaica, alleges that a mining operator stole "500 truckloads of prime white sand," valued at $70 million, and that this payload of granular booty ended up on the beaches of three local resorts.

The sand whodunit conjures visions of tourists lounging on the beaches of the three resorts, Red Stripe beers in hand, only to have their vacations interrupted as teams of investigators break out their forensic kits to scoop up samples of the "prime white sand" to ascertain its origins.

It all makes me feel that the "sand-heist trial" in Jamaica could make the Starwood-Hilton battle look like a day at the beach.

2 comments:

Jeff said...

How do you make off with 500 truckloads of *anything* without getting caught? That's hilarious :)

Dennis Schaal said...

Wasn't it the Baltimore Colts (or am I thinking of another team) which snuck out of town to relocate, with all of their buses, in the dead of night.

I'm not sure how the 500 truckloads made their getaway:)