When I searched for an image the other week, I came across these Le Meridien matches (I have no idea where I got this image from) from the 1980s (remember when hotels were giving them out?).
Le Meridien is a hotel chain that Air France founded in 1972. The brand’s first property, Le Méridien Étoile, is still open, but is it the only one?
You can access Marriott’s page for the Le Meridien brand here.
Air France founded the hotel chain to increase hotel capacity in Paris and at key destinations they flew to, as Pan Am did with its InterContinental chain a few decades earlier.
The chain had few owners between when Air France sold it in 1994 and when Starwood acquired it in 2005. It eventually got absorbed by Marriott 11 years later, in 2016.
But back to the original question? Which of these Le Meridien hotels operate today, beyond the original one in Paris?
I know for sure that the one in Rio de Janeiro is not, as it is the Hilton Copacabana today, and where I was staying a couple of weeks back when I came across this image.
Conclusion
I like hotel brands with meaningful histories, such as Le Meridien and IHG’s InterContinental, both of which were founded by an airline (and not made-up copycat brands that don’t serve any purpose other than polluting the market).
It never ceases to amaze me where Le Meridien and InterContinental used to have a presence and where their open properties are today.
Hotels are sold, reflagged, sometimes demolished, rebuilt, or converted, and it can be challenging to keep up with all these developments over decades.
I don’t think that the Le Meridien has much French heritage left, although it tries to convey some level of chic.
