Jessica Alba becomes a Rosewood Hotels ambassador
Jessica Alba, an American actress known for her roles in blockbusters such as Sin City and Fantastic Four, as well as the founder of baby skincare brand The Honest Company, has joined Rosewood Hotels & Resorts as a brand curator.
The hotel group's curators are ‘a carefully selected group of luminaries and leaders who share travel tips and insider secrets for Rosewood destinations around the world.' Alba offers advices on the Riviera Maya in Mexico, one of her favourite places to holiday with her family, and the location of Rosewood Mayakoba, a luxury Mayan-inspired resort with private plunge pools, floating villas and eco credentials, located north of Playa del Carmen.
• Celebrities' favourite hotels of 2016
Alba says: “Whether it’s exploring the Mayan ruins, swimming in the magical cenotes, or cooking an authentic meal together, we [her family] enjoy exploring the rich cultural history of this destination and all it has to offer.”
Other Rosewood ambassadors include nonagenarian fashionista Iris Apfel for The Carlyle in New York, prima ballerina Tan Yuan Yan for Rosewood Beijing, and Simon de Pury, an art auctioneer and collector, for Rosewood London.
• The bonkers world of celebrities who have lived in hotels
Recruiting celebrities as global spokespeople for hotels is a well-known promotional and brand-building tool. David Beckham was involved in the campaign for Singapore’s Marina Bay Sands, while Helena Christensen was an ambassador for The Luxury Collection, and travelled around South America documenting her trip through photographs, which were then exhibitied in New York.
The Mandarin Oriental group has a whole roster of ‘Celebrity Fans’, including Lucy Liu, Christian Louboutin, Kevin Spacey and Dame Helen Mirren who all feature in video shorts set in their favourite Mandarin Oriental properties. All of the fans have also been immortalised in Sir Peter Blake’s artwork, which adorns the facade of the Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park in London, while it undergoes renovations.
Hotels with the biggest celebrity endorsements, however, are perhaps the ones that are actually owned by big-name stars. Robert De Niro owns The Greenwich Hotel, a highly lauded boutique property in Tribeca New York, and has plans to open The Wellington Hotel in London’s Covent Garden, while Perthshire in Scotland is home to Andy Murray’s Cromlix.
But perhaps the most highly anticipated celeb-owned hotel openings of recent times is Leonardo DiCaprio’s Blackcadore Caye in Belize, an eco-resort with floating villas set to open in 2018.
