With the festive season behind us, the director of Monaco’s tourism board, Guy Antognelli, has shared a very positive assessment of the hotel industry and how it fared during the holidays.
Announcing higher than average hotel occupancy rates for the entire month of December, Antognelli has reported that around 50% of the Principality’s hotel rooms were taken during the week of Christmas. Even better were the remarkable figures for New Year’s Eve, which saw hotel occupancy rates rise to an impressive 90% and “surpass all expectations”.
The primary visitors to Monaco’s hotels and restaurants during this period were the French and Italians, who comprised nearly half of the total clientele, a significant increase on the numbers recorded for 2019 and 2022.
There was also a surge in American tourists, following on from a trend observed since the start of 2023.
Antognelli lay the success of the season at the feet of the atmosphere in the Principality during the festive period, saying, “Monaco comes alive during the holidays and offers an exceptional experience [to visitors]”. He also noted that “extremely positive feedback” had been shared with the Direction du Tourisme et des Congrès de Monaco regarding the decorations in the Place du Casino and elsewhere in the Principality, as well as on attractions such as the Christmas Village.
Predictions for 2024
Looking ahead to 2024, Antognelli said that expectations within the tourism sector are optimistic. He anticipates a strong return of Italian tourists, a resurgence of British visitors “despite economic challenges and Brexit”, and a steady presence of American travellers. Additionally, a significant recovery in business tourism is expected, which Antognelli said he hoped would exceed “pre-pandemic levels”.
However, Antognelli also stated that the focus is not on increasing the number of visitors, but on continuing to provide a quality over quantity experience for tourists in Monaco.
Join the Monaco Life community – the largest English media in the Principality.
To the cheers of local fans, the first home game of the year came to a successful close for Monaco’s Roca Team, who secured a decisive win against Baskonia Vitoria-Gasteiz in a crucial play-off positioning match.
Tuesday 9th January saw AS Monaco Basket return to their home court in the Salle Gaston Médecin for a EuroLeague pitting against Spanish side Baskonia Vitoria-Gasteiz.
After a sorry start to their European ambitions in 2024, which saw the Monegasque side lose 75-73 to Olympiacos Piraeus in Greece last week, the team rebounded with strength once back on familiar ground in the Principality.
Mike James was instrumental for AS Monaco, contributing a robust 26 points and seven assists. His performance was complemented by Donatas Motiejunas, who added 13 points. Monaco’s defence played a pivotal role, committing a mere six turnovers while forcing Baskonia into 19.
The game commenced with both teams closely matched and the first quarter ended with Monaco trailing slightly at 21-22. Howard’s successive three-pointers initially gave Baskonia a lead, but AS Monaco responded vigorously, especially in the second quarter, by forcing turnovers and embarking on a 12-0 run.
The third quarter saw AS Monaco further consolidate their lead with an 11-1 run, ending the quarter with a 71-59 advantage. The final quarter remained tense, with Baskonia narrowing the gap to a mere three points at one point, but the Roca Team managed to maintain their lead and close out the game victoriously.
The next EuroLeague pitting will be an away game against Panathinaikos BC Aktor on Thursday 11th January. The next home game, which sees AS Monaco come up against Real Madrid, will take place on Friday 19th January.
Join the Monaco Life community – the largest English media in the Principality.
Rayo Withanage is an “influential financier” and advisor to some of the wealthiest royal families in the world. He is also owner of Picasso’s final home in Mougins, Mas Notre Dame de Vie, and he has bold plans to turn this famous sprawling estate into a global creative powerhouse: a private estate that will re-energise the French Riviera as a source of inspiration and impact once again.
Despite a successful career in finance, Rayo Withanage disappeared from the media spotlight after the filing of his divorce in 2018. Only a select few know what happened to him since, until now.
Withanage rose to prominence as an entrepreneur and financier from New Zealand, when he founded the BMB Group and turned it into an ultra-high-net-worth fund, with backing from the investment arms of family offices in Asia and the Middle East.
Withanage is also a director of Scepter, a single-family office that has over $14 billion to back large transactions, with offices in New York, London and Brunei.
You might not guess it from his humble demeanour, but Withanage has been described by Euromoney as “one of the most influential financiers in the Middle East and Asia”.
“But that’s my past,” Rayo tells me as we meet for lunch at the new Café de Paris one sunny winter’s day. “Let’s talk about the future.”
Château de Vie today
Buying the most successful art production house in history
In 2017, Rayo Withanage purchased Pablo Picasso’s final estate in Mougins. The sale made headlines, not least because he bought it for well under the €170 million price tag being flouted by its art dealer-owner, although that did include precious works of art. In the end, Withanage still got a bargain, sans art, paying just over €20 million as the sole bidder for an estate that was valued at €75 million a year later.
More than €4 billion worth of art had been created in Picasso’s château at Notre Dame de Vie, making it one of the most successful art production houses in the world.
Although completely renovated, the home retained traces of Pablo Picasso not only in legacy, but in splashes of paint, original furniture and a palpable energy that resonates from every corner of this 800sqm home.
The final home of Pablo Picasso has long been a drawcard for the rich and famous
The chateau’s rich Riviera history
In 1961, Pablo Picasso left his home in Cannes and purchased Mas Notre Dame de Vie from the Anglo-Irish Guinness brewing family as a wedding gift for his new wife Jacqueline Roque. It is where Winston Churchill spent time painting in the gardens, and where Picasso himself had enjoyed vacationing. At the age of 80, this vast estate became Picasso’s final home, and he lived there until his death at the age of 91.
It is but one, albeit very important, aspect of an estate that, throughout the 20th century and the time of Benjamin and Bridget Guinness, welcomed illustrious celebrities and some of the most important creative figures in history including Henri Matisse, Man Ray, Salvador Dali, Joan Miro, Winston Churchill, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Charlie Chaplin and the Rolling Stones.
Pablo Picasso at Mas Notre Dame de Vie
During his time at the estate, Pablo Picasso was incredibly productive, drawing inspiration from the large villa, expansive Mediterranean gardens and magnificent view of the Bay of Cannes and the Estérel mountain range. He produced some of his most important works from his “later period” here, not only paintings but also sculpture, ceramics and photography, with Jacqueline as his main muse. In fact, Picasso created more portraits of his second wife than any other woman in his life at the Mougins estate.
After the Cubist master’s death in 1973, Jacqueline lived in the villa until 1986, when she committed suicide there. Her daughter Catherine Hutin-Blay, from a previous marriage, inherited the estate and it stayed abandoned for more than two decades before it was sold to a Belgian entrepreneur in 2007. The art lover spent over €17 million to completely restore the chateau and renamed it ‘Cavern of the Minotaur’, in honour of Picasso’s obsession with the mythical beast.
The sprawling gardens of the three-hectare property over look the Bay of Cannes and the Estérel.
A new era for ‘Château de Vie’
As we meet again at the sprawling property on another sunny yet crisp day, it is exciting to see the immense vision that Withanage has for this incredible three-hectare estate, which has been renamed Château de Vie.
He tells me he is deploying over €100 million for the development of new business lines at the estate to be announced in the first quarter of 2024.
“There are two types of cultural preservation: you can create a museum or you can honour something by continuing to use it,” Withanage tells me. “The plans that we have are about honouring Picasso’s presence and legacy here, so the estate will remain profoundly creative and innovative.”
The entire property has been completely renovated, ready for its new chapter
No plans to turn it into a hotel
Withanage is keen to stress that Picasso’s house will remain private. “We’ve received many suggestions to build a members’ club or a hotel in the main house, but we refused. I think it would be an abomination to turn Picasso’s living room into a hotel lobby,” he says. “Today, we are working with a world leader in branding and the arts to come up with the best plans for the future of Château de Vie. Whatever we do, it will be done to make real impact.”
While he promises to reveal more details soon, one thing is clear: Withanage is excited to be writing a new chapter in the legendary story of Château de Vie. “We see ourselves as having a unique role, of someone who honours the past while enabling the future.”
Join the Monaco Life community – the largest English media in the Principality.
A new energy bill put forward by France’s Ministry of Energy Transition has been criticised for favouring investment in the nation’s nuclear industry while omitting similar targets for renewable sources.
France currently derives about 70% of its electricity from nuclear energy. The country houses 56 reactors and one new station is currently under construction. These nuclear power stations generate enough energy to make France the largest net exporter of electricity in the world, which brings in more than €3 billion each year.
This substantial income is certainly nothing to scoff at, but neither is France’s promise to be carbon neutral by the year 2050, something many argue will only be achieved through the better integration of renewable energy sources into the national energy network.
WHAT DOES THE BILL PROPOSE?
The proposed text highlights “the sustainable choice of using nuclear energy as a competitive and carbon-free” source of electricity. It also affirms the intention to build at least six, but as many as 14, new reactors in the coming years in order to pull off the transition away from fossil fuels and meet climate change goals despite the findings of numerous studies that state France will need to give more weight to renewable sources of energy production if it is to achieve its carbon neutrality ambitions.
Another contentious aspect of the bill is that no such targets for improving France’s renewable energy capacities are included, whereas previous energy laws did. Instead, the bill makes talk of “efforts” rather than specific objectives.
Opposers to the new energy bill say the government is backtracking on its green energy pledges made in recent years in favour of ensuring the “energy sovereignty” of the nation through nuclear means.
The ministry has denied the criticisms, saying, “It is false to say that there is no renewable objective.” However, no additional explanation on what that objective is, in the context of France’s energy plans going forward, has been provided.
Join the Monaco Life community – the largest English media in the Principality.
The ABBA-inspired hit musical Mamma Mia! is coming to the Principality of Monaco later this year for six performances in the original English version and the ticket office has already opened.
When Swedish pop group ABBA came together in 1972, there was no way of knowing that, over 50 years later, their music would be continuing to inspire and entertain generations of fans.
Nine studio albums, two live albums, seven compilation albums, four box sets, five video albums, 50 singles and 43 music videos later, their catalogue of hits has stood the test of time and provided the base for the wildly successful Mamma Mia! musical, which premiered London’s theatre district in 1999 and is now the third longest running musical in West End history.
It has since become a cult staple on Broadway in New York too, as well as on the international touring circuit, delighting more than 65 million people in 16 different languages over the years. Now it is coming to Monaco.
On stage at the Grimaldi Forum
The sweet, comic tale of a free-spirited mother living on Greek island with her daughter, whose world gets turned upside-down when her three possible fathers reunite for her wedding, will hit the stage of the Salle des Princes at the Grimaldi Forum for a series of six performances in English with French subtitles between 9th and 13th October. Among these will be two matinee performances at 3pm on 12th and 13th October.
Tickets for the show are already on sale and will likely be snapped up quickly. Prices range from €45 to €95 in the Carré Or seating zone.
A full week after Monaco launched its winter sales, France has followed suit, making now the perfect time to get some great deals on clothing, accessories, housewares and other items on the other side of the border.
France’s Soldes d’Hiver formally began on Wednesday 10th January, giving shoppers a post-Christmas chance to pick up much needed and wanted items at excellent prices. Whatsmore, markdowns and price drops will likely continue throughout the sales period, which will come to an end on Tuesday 6th February.
Like in Monaco, the French sales are set by law. Unlike in Monaco, however, French merchants online and in-store have just four weeks to sell their current stock to make way for spring collections. In the Principality, shops have been given just over six weeks.
ORIGINS
The concept of putting products on sale dates back to the early 1800s and is credited to a man by the name of Simon Mannoury. He owned a fabric and clothing shop in Paris, but wasn’t getting the footfall he hoped for. His ingenious idea was to advertise price reductions to the public to shift stock faster. His idea had the desired effect and soon Mannoury’s technique was being employed by shops everywhere.
As time went on, the French government decided to implement a series of measures that would keep competition in check. Updates continued until the most recent changes in 2020, when the sales period was shortened from six weeks to four.
