The Excelsior goes out with a party and a bang as iconic hotel bows to commercial pressure and makes way for an office tower
- The hotel’s closure was announced last year after a 2017 sale failed to meet the minium required price
- The most loyal guest – with 2,200 nights over 63 visits – will be invited to fire the Noonday Gun on Sunday to let the hotel go out with a bang
Seven hundred guests bid farewell to The Excelsior on Saturday night, as the iconic waterfront hotel closes its doors on 46 years of Hong Kong history on Sunday to make way for an office tower.
The lobby of the 869-room, four-star hotel was filled with music from Revenge of the Pink Panther, the 1978 Peter Sellers comedy that was filmed in the same venue, and re-enacted with original props during a cocktail reception. In one corner, partygoers queued up to pose in a sedan chair next to an actor in old Chinese dress, and another in a British top hat.
Guests flew in from as far away as London and Australia for a HK$4,844 Fond Farewell Package – inclusive of a stay in the hotel’s final night of operation – and sampled special courses at the hotel’s restaurants, cafe and pub.
They described the party as “full to the rafters”, with a buzzing atmosphere full of emotion, yet happiness, and a strong sense of taking part in a momentous occasion in history.
Staff, meanwhile, told them the waterworks were likely to kick in on Sunday.
On Sunday, the most loyal guest – with 2,200 nights over 63 visits, equivalent to six years of stay at the hotel – will be invited to fire the Noonday Gun, a naval artillery piece held over from Hong Kong’s history as a British colony. As he is driven away in a limousine after checkout, the hotel’s doors will close for the last time.