Orient-Express boss's lifetime achievement
23 March 2005
James Sherwood, the founder and chairman of luxury hotel group Orient-Express Hotels, was awarded the International Hotel Investment Forum's lifetime achievement award in Berlin last week.
Sherwood said that winning the award was a great honour, particularly as he wasn't a professional hotelier.
"I have never been to hotel school and have been taught everything I need to know about hotels from my general managers," he said.
Sherwood, whose original business was
shipping, started in hotels in 1976 when he purchased his first hotel, the Cipriani in Venice, for $31m (£16.3m).
Since then he has grown the group to 49 hotels
in 29 countries. "We always look for special and unique hotels as this gives us market advantage," Sherwood said.
