Okay, this is pretty damn funny. About two dozen Russian models were in Dubai for a photoshoot, and were staying at the Waldorf Astoria Dubai Palm Jumeirah. Not surprisingly, they took a ton of pictures of themselves for Instagram around the pool, in bathtubs, etc. (assuming they actually live in Russia, I imagine Dubai is a nice temperature change for them in January).
Well, it appears that the hotel wasn’t all too happy with the racy pictures they were posting, and asked them to untag the hotel on Instagram. Per The Mirror:
The hotel, where a suite can cost more than £1,000 a night, wants the models to stop sharing the name of the hotel and their precise location in geotags on the images.
It says it prides itself on its family-friendly image and has suggested that some of the images would be more befitting of an erotic lingerie catalogue.
The hotel’s bosses said their chief concern was the comfort of their guests.
A hotel spokesman said: “You have to understand that this is an Arab country. We have had a lot of complaints from families with your children.
“We do not want to see our geolocation on photos of girls in semi-naked and erotic poses. Let the photograph simply state the location as Dubai.”
It’s sort of funny that they’re suggesting they not tag themselves at the Waldorf Astoria because the UAE is an Arab country, but instead suggest they tag themselves as being in Dubai. It appears as if not all of the models complied with the hotel’s request, because the top tagged Instagram pics at the hotel are still of said Russian models.
The reason I’m amused by this story is because I swear every time I’m in the UAE and looked at who else is geotagged at my hotel, the top few results are always Russian models. So this “problem” is hardly specific to this hotel.
From a marketing perspective you’d think this is a good thing — presumably the hotel is getting a lot of free publicity out of the tens of thousands of likes these girls are getting. While some pictures cross the line (you can see most of them in The Mirror article), for the most part you’d think a hotel would love this kind of publicity.
Interesting stuff…
(Tip of the hat to @istrakhov)
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