Well, folks, it has finally happened. The world of extreme sports and hospitality has merged into a funky amalgamation that this former hotel marketer and extreme sports fan can appreciate.
Here are the details:
About the Extreme Hotel
Extreme Hotels is a new hotel brand and management team that is shaking up the hospitality industry. Now, as someone who has worked on and off in the hospitality industry since the 1980s, I can attest to the fact that themed hotels are not new. In fact, they have been around for decades.
What is new is the extreme sports theme. That’s where the excitement comes in. Imagine a hotel that is dedicated to serving the needs of extreme snowboarders, skateboarders, speed skiers, ice climbers and the like. How cool would that be? Well, we won’t have to wait very long to find out.
The Extreme Hotels brand is owned by the Extreme Sports Company and one of its first endeavors is slated to be an extreme hotel in Sochi, Russia. Al Gosling, the man at the helm of this extreme sports dynasty, hopes to have the Sochi property open by 2015. The Sochi location was selected due to it being the site of the 2014 Winter Olympics.
Gosling is hoping to piggyback on the global attention that the area will receive during that time. It will be the first time that the Russian Federation has hosted the Winter Olympics, and it already has sports fans talking. The Sochi people have plans to host Olympic events both on the coast and within the Krasnaya Polyana Mountains.
The hotel will be located near the 2014 Winter Olympic venues and is expected to consist of 209 guest rooms, along with such extreme amenities as a freestyle snowboarding park, a skatepark, BMX course, zip lines and rock climbing. Sounds like my kind of place. Of course, it is also expected to include more mundane amenities such as a sports bar and restaurant, game room and concierge services. There are other extreme hotels planned for the Cape Verde Islands, Switzerland, Albania and United Kingdom.
Other 2014 Winter Olympic News
In other 2014 Winter Olympic news this week, the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association has released the names of those athletes who will be competing at the games in half-pipe as well as slopestyle snowboarding and skiing. Some of those expected to compete include X-Games medalists Gretchen Bleiler, Kelly Clark, Hannah Teter and Scotty Lago.
My family enjoys winter sports and I have a history of working in the hospitality field.
More from this contributor:
Interview with All Star Adventures’ Marcus Taylor
Aramis Pincovai, Black Pearl Skatepark Operations Manager Talks Shop
World Snowboarding Day Set for December 18th, 2011
Winter Sports Athletes Nominated for National Geographic’s Adventurer of the Year Award