Radisson Moriah is demanded that competing hotels and hotel chains refrain from using the name "Plaza", which, it alleges, is its registered trademark in Israel. Radisson Moriah sent letters to hotel owners warning them not to use the name "Plaza".
Radisson Moriah claims that it is the holder of a registered mark on the name "Moriah Plaza Hotel", and "Moriah Plaza Hotels", in both the Hebrew and the English languages. According to Radisson Moriah, only with the Africa Israel group, holder of a Holiday Inn hotels concession in Israel, has an agreement been signed permitted Holiday Inn to use the mark "Crown Plaza", a world-wide Holiday Inn brand-name.
The Radisson Moriah demand followed a published report according to which a number of hotel chains seek to include the term "Plaza" in their hotel names, allegedly without its permission. One of those hotels is the Howard Johnson chain, which added the name "Plaza" to the Galei Kinneret Hotel in Tiberias, and to the Rimonim hotel in Safed.
Also, the new Ganei Shulamit Hotel in Eilat, which is called "Grand Plaza", and the "Royal Plaza" hotel chain consisting, at present, of one hotel in Tiberias and one in Jerusalem. The chain’s owners were until recently the concessionaires of the Days Inn chain.
Radisson Moriah’s general manager Amnon Madar commented that if these hotels and chains persist in the use of the name "Plaza", Radisson Moriah will take legal action.
Adv. Yehuda Raveh, one of the owners of the Royal Plaza hotels, said Radisson Moriah’s position was not legally tenable. "A trademark cannot be registered in a name like ‘Plaza’", he said, "when it is only part of the hotel’s name".
Published by Israel's Business Arena February 8, 1998