I recently attended an event celebrating the renaming of Orient-Express Hotels Ltd., to its new identity, Belmond, introducing a new era for the company specializing in luxury hotels and travel adventures.

Belmond is derived from the Latin words for beautiful and world, and since 1976, the brand has been offering travelers a range of hotels, trains, safaris and river cruises that allow them to embrace and see the beauty of the world. The first hotel for the brand was the iconic Belmond Hotel Cipriani in Venice, followed by the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express train. Today, Belmond’s collection includes 45 hotel, rail and cruise experiences, safaris and New York City restaurant 21.

Here are a few other facts and figures you may not know, but should, about the brand-new Belmond brand:

• 22,000 bottles of Champagne are served each year on board Belmond British Pullman and Belmond Northern Belle — that’s 130,000 glasses
• Nearly every U.S. President since Franklin D. Roosevelt has dined at the legendary ‘21’ in New York, including current President Barack Obama
• Belmond Hotel das Cataratas is the only hotel within Igúazu National Park
• The Venice Simplon-Orient-Express is a quarter of a mile long, plus an extra 20 meters for the engine — equivalent in length to 38 double-decker buses
• The English writer, D.H. Lawrence, lived at Belmond Grand Hotel Timeo for four years, during which he wrote the world-famous Lady Chatterley’s Lover
• During a visit to Belmond Mount Nelson Hotel in 1999, it is said the Dalai Lama requested his two all-time favorite treats at meal times — crispy fried chicken and ice cream
• On board the Eastern and Oriental Express, nearly 2,000 Michelin-standard meals are freshly prepared during a three-day Classic Journey from Singapore to Bangkok

— Kim Krol, managing editor