Chez Britain

Some 1,200 employees of the Plaza Athenee, George V and La Tremoille luxury hotels marched last week past venerable haute couture and perfume houses along Paris' Avenue Montaigne. "We demand our heritage of great hotels," read one banner. A few hotel guests joined the protest of their chambermaids, valets, busboys and chefs. "Our hotels are among the most prestigious in the world," explained Monsieur Bougenaux, head concierge of Plaza Athenee. Now, he fears, all this is going to change.

The threat that the hotel employees see to the three Paris landmarks comes from the sale by their present owner, Madame Francois Dupre, to a British chain: Airport Catering Service, a joint venture of British European Airways and Hostelry Magnate Charles Forte. Winning out over Pan American's Intercontinental hotel chain and the Grand Metropolitan hotel group of Britain with a bid of about $25 million, A.C.S. carried off three jewels worthy of crowning anyone's hotel empire.

The Firing Squad's Guest. All three hotels go back to the days when princes and the very rich turned their large suites into homes away from home. Mata Hari, who received her suitors, and betrayed them, at the Athenee, may have been its only guest to face the firing squad. Edsel Ford, John D. Rockefeller II, and Charles Evans Hughes were among its loyal clientele; even today, the Fords and Rockefellers wouldn't dream of staying anywhere else. Greek shipping magnates and the new movie rich wander across its baroque lobbies and take in the view of the Seine and the Eiffel Tower or mingle with the chic luncheon crowd in the garden restaurant, nibbling lobster souffle or "Tournedos Plaza Athenee" smothered in foie gras. The hotel's 50 suites and 200 rooms, priced from $15 to $100 a night, are looked after by 450 employees, its dining room served by 45 cooks.

Two blocks away, the George V, though subtly different, is no less desirable. There, hushed calm is replaced by a livelier atmosphere. Its 370 rooms, served by 510 employees, include 52 small apartments with kitchenettes for long-term guests. The busy George V crowd is made up mostly of top executives and the film set--nearly half of them Americans--willing to pay up to $100 a night for a suite.

La Tremoille is the lesser-known, quiet, cozy sister of the other two. Originally a private house that was converted into a 115-room hotel just before World War I, its deeply faithful clientele includes discreet European aristocrats, U.S. fashion buyers and greats of the international music world.

Top Class. B.E.A.'s first-class passengers on the lucrative London-Paris run will be the chief beneficiaries of the change in the hotel's ownership. According to Forte's estimates, Airport Catering Service will be picking up nearly a third of the top-class beds in Paris (840 out of 3,000). "We believe the days when you could offer air transport only are over. Now you have to offer a complete travel service," says Ron Spencer, B.E.A.'s representative on A.C.S.'s board. For B.E.A., the Paris hotels are a natural. The LondonParis route is about the most important for the airline, and first-class travel is growing faster than overall business.

Though scorned in Paris as "a proprietor of milk bars," Charles Forte has a stake in 23 hotels in Britain, and others in Malta, Mauritius, Ireland and Bermuda. Forte's Holdings Ltd. earned $3,280,000 last year. At the lower end of his empire are pubs, trailer centers, bowling alleys, a circus and even zoos, but his Hotel Majestic in Harrowgate and the Hotel Phoenicia in Malta rank as deluxe by international standards. In addition, Forte is now a caterer for eight international airlines and runs air port restaurants.

"Quite honestly, there isn't much we can teach the French from the hotel angle," says Forte, 59, who personally clinched the deal in Paris after two months of discussions with Madame Dupre. And he pledges that the hotels' demanding clientele won't even notice the change in management.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.