TravelingForMiles.com may receive commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on TravelingForMiles.com are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. TravelingForMiles.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers.
Starwood has put out a press release confirming that the Le Méridien band will be making a return to Italy by the end of 2016. Owned and managed by the Toti Group, Le Méridien Visconti Rome is scheduled to debut by the end of this year following an extensive renovation and conversion from the independent Visconti Palace Hotel.
A quick look at ta map of Rome shows that the Le Méridien Visconti Rome (in Red) is very well situated for some of the major attractions the city has to offer (black stars) including:
- The Vatican
- The Pantheon
- The Colosseum
- The Trevi Fountain
- The Roman Forum
According to Starwood’s press release the Le Méridien Visconti Rome will house 240 guest rooms and suites which will offer “stunning mid-century modern design with spacious work spaces and subtle technology“.
Bringing the romance of Rome to life, the hotel’s curated culinary offerings will include a stunning rooftop terrace, all-day dining restaurant, breakfast room and bar. The fitness centre will provide guests the opportunity to experience an invigorating workout.
Rendering courtesy of Starwood
With a few exceptions the existing hotel (Visconti Palace Hotel) gets pretty favorable TripAdvisor reviews so, as the management appears to be staying the same, this bodes well for the new Le Méridien.
However, if you take a look at the photos on TripAdvisor (and I’m referring to the “expert” photos here) it’s clear that the current hotel is in need of a serious update which is why, presumably, it will be undergoing an “extensive renovation and conversion”.
Starwood already has four hotels in Rome….
- The St. Regis Rome – SPG Category 6
- The Westin Excelsior Rome – SPG Category 6
- Sheraton Roma Hotel & Conference Center – SPG Category 2
- Sheraton Golf Parco de’Medici – SPG Category 3
….but it is lacking a solid middle-of-the-road option – there’s nothing between Category 3 and 6 as things stand.
Hopefully Starwood will recognise this and set the Le Méridien Visconti Rome at a Category 5 level of hotel (Category 4 is probably too much to hope for). As I pointed out in the recent Starwood Category Changes, there’s a big leap up in price (from a Starpoints perspective) from Category 5 to Category 6 (from 12,000 to 20,000 Starpoints per night) so another Category 6 hotel is of little use to anyone wanting more options for the Starpoints in Italy.
Bottom Line
It’s interesting and good to see Starwood ploughing ahead with new hotel deals while the Marriott take over is so close. Marriott’s Rome portfolio isn’t exactly stunning with only 2 full-service hotels in the city center and both of those are in Marriott’s top Category rating (Category 9). That makes it all the more important that Starwood resist any temptation to categorise the Le Méridien Visconti Rome above Category 5.
The addition of Starwood’s 5 hotels will give the combined Marriott/Starwood entity a good number of hotels to offer potential guests but that’s not much good to Marriott Rewards or Starwood SPG members if all the properties require an unreasonable amount of points for an award night. Let’s wait and see what happens.
