The mediocrity of this hotel's design - especially after it has been delayed for years - feeds my fire about how Marriott is butchering the legacy SPG brands and prioritizing their own legacy portfolio; the recent spate of St. Regis properties have been lackluster - the depressing Bermuda resort, the Quasimodo/partially-renovated hotel in Kuwait, the old-fashioned takeover in Goa, this uninspired one in Jakarta - while Marriott has been throwing the kitchen sink at every Ritz-Carlton, EDITION, JW Marriott and even Delta, Courtyard and Moxy opening. You won't even see anymore press releases about a Le Méridien opening or signing, even though the brand just got reintroduced to South Korea with a lovely new property.

Marriott seems to have no issue affixing the St. Regis name to meh hotels, possibly as a concerted effort to position the brand a notch below their self-proclaimed Ritz-Carlton flagship. I've always considered St. Regis a much more storied and illustrious brand to the overhyped Ritz-Carlton [particularly after have many bad experiences at RCs], so it's sad to see this negative stratification.

khabah