The following three hotels were all once bustling centres for the rich and famous, but all had to close their doors for a number of reasons. When at the top of their game these hotels seemed untouchable, they were all state of the art for the time, but they now lie derelict.
The first is the Haludovo Palace Hotel once the jewel of the Balkans, the hotel sat on the island of Krk just off Croatia. The hotel was at the receiving end of investments of forty-five million from American tycoons, offering a lavish experience in the Mediterranean sun. This all came to a halt by the beginning of the 1990s as the tragic Yugoslav war halted tourism to the area. The building still stands today, as overgrown grass now replaces its former beauty.
The second in this list is that of the Baker Hotel in Mineral Wells, Texas. An icon of mid twentieth American culture this hotel played host to Lyndon Johnson, Judy Garland and the Three Stooges. When it first opened in 1929 it was Americas first skyscraper hotel outside of a metropolitan area. Hosting luxuries of the time such as air conditioning and an Olympic sized swimming pool. Though these were seen as five-star amenities of the time, the hotel simply failed to modernise, closing its doors in 1972. The building still stands today as a symbol of a bygone era of early American ambition.
The final hotel is a modern tragedy of mismanagement being the iconic Riviera Hotel of Las Vegas, Nevada. This hotel was truly an American icon, hosting the likes of Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley after it first opened in 1955, a symbol of the excess of Las Vegas, the great riviera was an iconic piece of the Las Vegas strip, offering about 1,000 slot machines and 25 table games on the casino floor alone. The hotel was the centrepiece of films like The Hangover and Oceans 11, pushing its world-wide stardom. This excess was simply not built to last and after two separate bankruptcies the hotel was demolished in 2016. A true loss to a symbol of Vegas.
All three went bankrupt for separate reasons a shear lack of luck, a lack of modernisation and simple financial mismanagement.