Battle of the hotel reality shows

9 Apr, 2012 By: Stephanie Ricca

About two years ago, I received a phone call from a production assistant at a television network that I forget (was it Fox? Was it Travel Channel? I wish I had a better memory.), interested in bouncing some ideas around for a show he described that would be "like Kitchen Nightmares, but with hotels." The point of the call--to see if I could suggest any strong, ahem ... personalities who could possibly jibe with the whole Gordon-Ramsay-yelling-at-management-for-entertainment types. Could I? Could I? Of course I could, and I did.

Now fast-forward a few years later and whoever those producers were, they didn't take my advice (and no, I'll never reveal the names I suggested). Instead, what we have now are two new hotel reality shows: Fox's "Hotel Hell," with Gordon Ramsay, set to debut in June (and which incidentally is casting!), and TONIGHT'S "Hotel Impossible" on Travel Channel, hosted by Anthony Melchiorri, NYC hotel development veteran and current head of Argeo Hospitality.

They're both pitched as fix-it reality shows, in which the expert descends upon a poorly performing hotel, inn or bed-and-breakfast, applies his personal brand of fixer-upper (I think we all know that Ramsay's involves a lot of yelling), and we see how he and his team can turn a hotel around from operations to design practically overnight.

Of course the properties already under the knife are independents, because really--what brand would allow scrutiny like this?

Tonight's premiere episode of "Hotel Impossible" brings Melchiorri to Long Island's Gurney's Inn, in Montauk. Set your DVRs and let's talk about it tomorrow on Facebook. Hey, better a reality show like this than, say, "Real Housewives of the Hotel Industry," right? Now there's an idea ...

Topic : Reality shows
External Source : Hotel Management

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