The writing was certainly on the wall. After being overlooked by the French tourism authority when it announced Paris’s official “palace” hotels earlier this year, the Ritz has finally planned an expansive renovation that will close the hotel for 27 months, starting next summer. The traditional style of the hotel is slated to be preserved, while the latest technology will be introduced. Paris has seen a clutch of glamorous new hotels open in recent years which may have put pressure on the Ritz — a celebrity favorite since Charlie Chaplin’s days — to undergo what staff is calling an “unprecedented renovation.”