A five star hotel in the northern French city of Amiens has turned down a booking request from Prince William, Kate Middleton and Prince Harry as the property is completely booked. The royals had requested for suites at Le Hotel Marotte from 30 June to 1 July, to attend centenary celebrations of the Battle of Somme.
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge will be representing Britain at the Battle of the Somme centenary in Amiens, about 120km north of Paris. However, the royals' accommodation at the hotel could not be confirmed for lack of rooms, French newspaper Courrier Picard reported.
The hotel's management told the paper that they received an inquiry from the French Foreign Ministry in January about the suites for the royal family members. "The Foreign Ministry has contacted us in January to see if we were able to accommodate the Royal Family on the occasion of the Somme commemorations," the hotel's manager Oliver Walti said. "We had to decline the offer, it is impossible, we are already booked solid.
"We could not tell people who have booked with us for months and who have already paid for their stay, sorry, but the Royal Family is coming, we will have to cancel. It's just unthinkable ethically," he added.
Walti stated that to accommodate the royals, bookings of other customers will have to be cancelled, which he said would not happen as the hotel would not let other guests down.
"It's not because we didn't want the Royals here - it's just that we weren't going to let other customers down," Walti's wife and the hotel's co-manager, Estelle Walti told the Daily Mail. "We've been booked up for this period for a month, so unfortunately we couldn't help them."
William, Kate and Harry will represent Britain and the royal family at the two-day commemoration event of the First World War battle fought by the British and French armies against the German empire. It was fought in 1916 on both sides of the River Somme in France.