Forbes Travel Guide 2011 just dropped the Naples beachfront Ritz-Carlton from a 5 star to a 4 star.
The beachfront Naples Ritz-Carlton has been a 5 star hotel for 23 of the 26 years in Naples, so they are disappointed and so is Naples. The other Ritz hotel in Naples, The Naples Ritz-Carlton Golf Resort, maintained its four star Forbes rating.
It should come as little surprise why a possible loss in Forbes favor comes at this time to the Naples beachfront Ritz-Carlton.
My guess is the Naples Ritz is suffering from self-inflicted bad publicity and is now paying the price for its actions and poor neighborly conduct. From arrests in the hotel with famous rock stars like RUSH, to racist concerns when a black waiter was told not to serve a white British table, to Florida beach skirmishes with the local population.
The Naples beachfront Ritz-Carlton, located in the luxury beachfront community of Pelican Bay, a WCI product started in the 1980’s, has in the past used heavy handed tactics in dealing with the public that routinely spill from the Vanderbilt public beach park just a few hundred feet away, to the front of the Ritz Carlton Hotel.
Several children have had confrontations with Naples beachfront Ritz-Carlton staff members for legally skim boarding in the shallows in front of the hotel. My family was personally confronted by several of the Naples beachfront Ritz-Carlton personal, more like henchmen, and told to get off ‘their beach’. They went so far as to use the local police force to heavy handedly remove people from the public beach in front of the hotel.
Laws favoring the public and the use of public beaches do not stop a business from manipulating a situation in their favor, even though temporary. Unfortunately for the Naples beachfront Ritz-Carlton, the court of public opinion weighs heavily on offenders and I think that the loss in favor shouts out the discontent loud and clear.
- Ritz Carlton hires Collier County Sheriff as Beach Police
- Beach-goers on Vanderbilt Beach feel as though the Ritz-Carlton is pushing them out of a beach they consider public
