There’s no such thing as bad publicity the saying goes and it’s amazing how things endure.
On Thursday (15 November) Gerald Lawless, executive chairman of the Jumeirah Group, was interviewed as part of human resources consultancy and recruiter Chess Executive’s H Talk series.
After an engaging interview questions were opened up to the floor and someone asked Gerald about the Burj al Arab hotel in Dubai and its infamous claim to be seven-star, such is its über-luxury.
With a twinkle in his eye, the executive chairman revealed his canny side by explaining he believed in the value of external communications and good PR but that “we never called ourselves seven-star, it was the media. Although to be fair, we never went our of our way to correct them either.” Fair enough.
And so a legend was born with the seven-star tag still fresh in people’s minds eight years after construction was completed.