Anthony Melchiorri is a hospitality expert and television personality who is the creator, co-executive producer, and host of the Travel Channel's hotel turnaround show Hotel Impossiblei>.
Early life and education
Melchiorri was born in Brooklyn, New York, and raised in the New York City's borough's Sheepshead Bay neighborhood. He served in the U.S. Air Force.
Career
Melchiorri's first job in the hospitality industry was at the Embassy Suites in Times Square, New York City. Ten months later, he became a night manager at the city's Plaza Hotel. Over the next four years, he worked his way up to the position of Director of Front Office Operations. After an 11-year-old girl came into the Plaza and asked him, "Mister, where's Eloise?," he and Randee Glick created the hotel's Eloise tour.
He was then appointed general manager of the Lucerne Hotel on the Upper West Side of New York City. Under his direction, the Lucerne was selected as the New York Times Travel Guide's Best Service Hotel.
In 2005 he left the Lucerne to assume the position of general manager of New York's historic Algonquin Hotel. After convincing the owners to close the Algonquin for 29 days, he oversaw a $15 million roof-to-basement renovation of the building and its image, restoring it to the glory days of the famous Algonquin Round Table. He updated the rooms, repositioned the restaurants, and earned the hotel a high rating as a Michelin Guide Hotel. He orchestrated publicity campaigns such as the Algonquin's "$10,000 Martini", won a Hospitality Sales & Marketing Association International "Best of Show Award", and generally promoted the renovated hotel. Melchiorri also helped manage the Nickelodeon Hotel and Resort. He then became first vice president of Tishman Hotels, and later senior vice president of New York Hotel Management Company. In that capacity, Melchiorri helped to develop a 310 all-suite hotel in Times Square.
Melchiorri then founded his own hotel management and consultancy, Argeo Hospitality.
Hotel Impossible
After serving as an executive producer of the 2008 Lifetime cable-movie Wisegal, starring Alyssa Milano, Melchiorri and fellow executive producer Leo Rossi, whom he knew from the hospitality industry, developed Melchiorri's idea for a hotel-improvement show, resulting in the Travel Channel series Hotel Impossible. Each episode features a hotel with issues that Melchiorri and his team must deal with in less than a week.
The pilot debuted in April 2012. On March 2, 2016, the show was renewed for its seventh season.
References
External links
- Anthony Melchiorri on IMDb
- "Travel Channel Renews Four Series". Newsday. Retrieved July 9, 2013.Â
- Schaal, Dennis (July 31, 2013). "Travel Channel's Hotel Expert Takes on Fools, Thieves, and Bad Owners". Skift. Archived from the original on September 14, 2015. Retrieved July 31, 2013.Â
