Any publicity is good publicity? Not for Brisbane’s swanky Calile Hotel
If you’re a high-flying chief executive considering a discreet little tryst with a senior employee, Brisbane’s Calile Hotel doesn’t want your business. Certainly not if you’re going to get caught, at any rate.
And definitely not if you’re going to get the hotel’s name dragged into a court case over the affair, as Super Retail Group’s Anthony Heraghty has managed to do.
Faced with the unfortunate fact that the premises played an incidental role in the fall of an ASX-listed corporate boss – Heraghty was allegedly sprung by employees at a late-night meeting with Super Retail HR boss Jane Kelly under “suspicious and suggestive” circumstances – most reputable establishments would just shrug it off and conclude that any publicity is probably good publicity.
Not Brisbane’s Pastel Palace, which has earned a reputation among the city’s media for being a trifle over protective of its brand name and fame.
It’s the only Australian hotel that has twice made the top 50-global hotels list, don’t you know? It was selected by an “expert panel of journalists, travellers and educators” at The World’s 50 Best Hotels Academy, by the way.
It’s a ranking system we learnt of for the first time on Wednesday, although that probably says more about Margin Call’s lack of class than any dearth of renown surrounding The Calile.
It is also, to be fair, the hotel of choice for many of the international celebrity set forced to spend a night in Brisbane; think U2, Julia Roberts, George and Amal Clooney, Kourtney Kardashian and Travis Barker, Nigella Lawson, one of the lesser Hemsworths and Henry Winkler.
But, so negative are the connotations of any association with Heraghty and his fall from grace that The Calile would rather not get a mention.
And it definitely doesn’t want its picture used in association with stories about the (alleged) affair, according to an email sent out to “offending” media organisations by its brand manager on Wednesday.
“Given the negative associations with the Super Retail coverage, we would like to formally request that the image of The Calile be removed,” she said.
Let’s be clear, the hotel is fair game. Its incidental role in this sordid little chapter of Australian corporate history is a matter of public record, and court filings.
And it’s not like anyone is suggesting the Calile is the kind of joint that rents out rooms by the hour. (It isn’t, we checked).
In fact, we’re prepared to bet a luxury weekend in the establishment that Heraghty’s (alleged) hook-up is far from the only extramarital entanglement the Calile has hosted in its distinguished history – see above for a partial list of celebrity guests.
The Calile was also used for an International Olympic Committee event in May, so we reckon our money is pretty safe. As would be the case at any high-end hotel in the country.
Suck it up, folks, like it or not you’re part of the story now.
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