Edward Mady, GM and various corporate functions for Dorchester Collection, whom I value as a fine GM and leader, has recently deactivated various of his social media accounts. I wonder if this is related to this.

It is a tragedy that in this and age, basic human rights can so blatantly ignored, and lives are destroyed.

I remember a few years ago when Ellen Degeneres and Lilli Bosse advocated this boycott for the same reason and media attention formed around the hotels, many thought that eventually only the teams in respective properties would suffer, which is sadly correct. Morals certainly come at a cost, but the price of ignoring the same is disastrous — in the end we should do what’s right.

I wish the ownership situation would be different and the wonderful hotels and teams around the world could finally be relieved of the burden of this awful regime.

However I would not recommend indulging in finding out who are owning entities of various luxury hotels around the world, as the usual suspects pop up: Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Syria. The profits of many favorites here invariably end up in various countries, where similar problems could be seen. And lastly, ‘Golden Rule’ company Four Seasons’ Damascus property is not only one of the region’s notoriously most profitable, it was also recently sold to a business man linked to Al Assad.