I'm currently in Las Vegas, giving a security speech at Computer Associates World. When I booked the trip, I decided to stay at the Aladdin Hotel. It's one of the new mega-properties that have gone up in the last few years, so it;s built arcology style, i.e. it's a self-contained hotel/mall/entertainment complex. These things cost about $5B to build, and I've been making it a habit to staying in as many as I can before the bubble breaks.
I noticed something odd on the way in... the cabbie took me to the Planet Hollywood arco, not the Aladdin arco. The PH arco seemed odd. Clearly finished, the entire outside of the complex was an shambles of recladding and brickface... this isn't right...
"I'm sorry", I said, "I wanted to go to the Aladdin"
"This is it!"
"Really? I hadn't realized they changed the name. When I booked it said Aladdin"
"Oh, they changed it and ... re-educating? it."
So I asked at the front desk...
"Why did you change the name?"
"Well, we didn't think it was very good business to be catering to .... that crowd... with the war and all"
that crowd? Yes, I am sure all middle eastern terrorists heading to Las-Fucking-Vegas, would stay at the Aladdin hotel, to remind them of the comforts of home... Clearly all things middle eastern are now verboden. They are attempting to remove every single scrap of middle eastern myth from the hotel (which, btw, is owned by the multinational Hilton corportation). It looks like a cheap rip-off of Mandaley Bay now, with a crapier mall.
utter foolishness.
One wonders what the hotel's fortune would have been if everything in Iraq had worked out.
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That's so funny. I stayed in the same hotel recently, and wondered if their re-branding was driven by the desire to not have an Arab-themed resort, but I figured the change to Planet Hollywood was simply driven by our culture of celebrity worship.
I can't believe they told you this was the actual reason. Even if this was the real driver, I would have expected some inane corporate party-line answer about the fabulous synergies with the Planet Hollywood experience, etc.
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