PARIS Renowned actor Richard Gere will serve as a brand ambassador for the Paris-based hotel sales and marketing consortium Relais & Châteaux.
Gere is himself a hotelier, owner of the 8-bedroom Bedford Post in Bedford, New York, which is now a member of Relais & Châteaux.
In his introduction published in Relais & Châteaux’s 2011 guidebook, Gere writes: “In my long career, I’ve played many challenging and demanding characters, but believe me, none moreso than my real life role as innkeeper… We share a kindred spirit with the other Relais & Chateaux innkeepers: a genuine commitment to serve, a rather insane attention to detail, a passion for beauty in all its forms and a personal aspiration to make our world a little better for us having been here.”
Gere succeeds previous brand ambassadors, author Douglas Kennedy and actress Carole Bouquet.
“It is an absolute honor to welcome Mr. Gere as the new 2011 Relais & Châteaux ambassador,” says Jaume Tapiès, international president of the consortium. “Not only is he one of Hollywood’s most admired actors, he is the quintessential innkeeper whose personal journey to revive and maintain a historic property is an exceptional example of the passion that binds Relais & Châteaux together.”