September 15, 2007
The Grander Hotel
As luxury has become a commodity for everything from handbags to haircuts, élite hotel chains like the Four Seasons and the Ritz-Carlton have begun to seem ho-hum to the growing ranks of superrich travelers says Time.
Yet despite pent-up demand, less than 1% of the 19 million hotel rooms on earth are deemed "ultraluxury." That's an emerging category defined not only by price but also by the distinctive décor in every room, attentive, personalized service and exclusivity--why would you want to hang out with people who aren't as rich as you are? These are the places at which you can call a hotel butler in the morning, say, "I need a helicopter at 3 o'clock," and actually get one.
Dubai's Burj Al Arab may have put down the first marker in the ultra-luxe game. Perched on its own man-made island and featuring a helipad and underwater restaurant, this opulent glass palace, which opened in 1999, has 1,800-sq.-ft. (170 sq m) rooms that start at $1,000 a night. Now it's time for one-upmanship, as hoteliers and entrepreneurs race to build ever more exotic getaways that transcend mere luxury stock.
Investors have greenlighted more than 30 other super-high-end projects in the past three years, according to lodging consultant Bjorn Hanson of PriceWaterhouse Coopers. The challenge? "It's about creating a luxury that is truly designed around the individual's needs," says Horst Schulze, former president of the Ritz-Carlton. "To accomplish that is an art." Schulze launched the more exclusive Capella hotel line in Austria and Ireland this summer and is planning outposts in Jakarta, Düsseldorf and Cabo San Lucas.
Demand has never been greater, given the growing supply of Russian oligarchs, hedge-fund honchos, Chinese capitalists and overpaid ceos. "The amount of money in private hands is unprecedented," says Andrew Harper, editor in chief of Andrew Harper's Hideaway Report, a Baedeker for the wealthy. In this new Gilded Age, he says, the business is in class, not mass. "There have always been people who could afford the presidential suite, but now it's a legitimate market."
Global tourism is thriving, and the luxury segment, the top 15% of the market by price, is driving it. With rates as high as $25,000 a night, these are the most profitable rooms in a hotel, and they consistently have the highest occupancy rates. Revenues from luxury rooms grew more than 10% from 2005 to 2006, outpacing overall room revenue, which gained 8%, according to Smith Travel Research.
For the globetrotters who define this niche, a chain hotel, no matter how ritzy, just won't do. "The resort sector was a little tired and cookie cutter," says America Online founder and former chairman Steve Case. His own frustration as a traveler led him in August to invest in Cacique, an $800 million, eco-friendly resort planned for Costa Rica's northwest coast. To stand out in the crowded luxury field, a boast about sheets with a thread count of 1,200 isn't enough. So Case and other hotel developers are trying to create a new model for luxury.
Unlike the typical, walled-off resort, Cacique's hotel rooms and vacation homes will surround an authentic village where locals will both live and work. Tanzania's Singita Grumeti Sasakwa Hill Lodge reimagines African safaris by housing guests in a $3,000-a-night colonial-style English manor after their long days on the Serengeti Plain spying lions and cheetahs.
More Space Being Added To Trade-Show Inventory
When it comes to exhibit space in convention centers, it seems like enough is never enough says an article in a recent issue of Tradeshow Week.
News in the past year has involved some of the largest convention centers in the United States. Either they're expanding (like the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia), changing their plans for expanding (the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center of New York moving the completion date of its project from 2010 to 2014) or opening (Chicago's McCormick Place West).
It's not just the biggest players who are dominating the news either.
According to the just-released 2007 Tradeshow Week Major Exhibit Hall Directory, the number of grand openings of smaller centers in smaller cities across the country in the next 12 months will be about the same compared with the last 12 months.
A few, like the Kansas City (Mo.) Convention & Entertainment Facilities, which opened April 28, hope revitalized convention centers translate to more happy clients returning to town.
Others, like the Branson (Mo.) Convention Center, which opened Sept. 7, and the Bayfront Convention Center in Erie, Pa., which opened Aug. 1, hope to attract new events to cities that did not have convention centers before.
Airlines Applying Lessons Of “Bummer Summer”
Faced with a frustrating reality that air-travel delay is here to stay, airlines are planning changes in how they operate and refining systems that book customers.
After lessons learned this summer, reports The Wall Street Journal, some say they will now hold back empty seats at peak travel periods, starting at Thanksgiving, to be able to more quickly re-accommodate travelers who miss connections and get stranded. Several carriers are stretching out schedules, adding minutes to scheduled time between flights. More spare aircraft will be available next summer, airlines say. New technology at a few airlines will help rebook customers more quickly and less
painfully.
The changes will drive costs higher for airlines. But they reflect a new reality: Late flights, stranded travelers, misconnected luggage and angry customers all have a price, too. And congestion in the skies is likely only to get worse.
US Airways decided in July to extend its operating day by 30 minutes, spreading flights out more and making four more aircraft available as spares. The airline added one additional plane to its East Coast shuttle operation, flying the same number of flights with more jets so delays don't affect the schedule as much. US Airways also added workers at its Philadelphia and Charlotte hubs to better handle passenger re-accommodation. The goal is to have agents meet late flights and hand customers new boarding passes, Mr. Parker said.
Air travel deteriorated this summer from a combination of severe weather, especially in June, an aging, overtaxed air-traffic-control system and record-high load factors on flights. When storms broke out, the air-traffic-control system couldn't keep up, and passengers of canceled flights had trouble finding seats since so many tickets had been sold.
"If we hadn't had high load factors, we could have re-accommodated people quickly. If we had high load factors and the operation was OK, we would have been fine," said Daniel Garton, executive vice president of marketing at AMR Corp.'s American Airlines. "Two out of the three factors we could have withstood. But all three together caused the problems we had."
American has decided to sell fewer seats on key flights in key markets during busy travel periods so more empty seats are available to rebook customers who miss connections because of late or canceled flights. That will start with Thanksgiving, Mr. Garton said.
UAL Corp.'s United Airlines has deployed an automatic rebooking system for customers whose travel gets disrupted. And it has installed kiosks inside secure areas of airport terminals so that customers can get new boarding passes without waiting in line.
Eco-Awareness Now Hottest In Travel Trends
What's the single hottest travel trend today? Eco-awareness,say some experts.
"A couple of years ago, you didn't hear about this as much, but now upscale travelers want to do whatever they can to be eco-conscious," Alexandre Chemla, president and owner of Altour International, told Forbes.
Forty three million US travelers say they are concerned about ecological consciousness in the hospitality industry, according to research from Green Hotel Association. The trend is everywhere reports TravelMole.
Car rental companies Hertz, Budget and Avis are adding more fuel-efficient cars to their fleet, and many limo companies use hybrid vehicles. Hotel chains including Fairmont and Aloft also have new green programs.
Another trend in upscale travel: private jet charters. There are around 500 private jet operators worldwide, up from around 100 just five years ago. Prices to charter a plane have also declined to as little as $2,200 an hour for three to five people, down from $3,800 five years ago.
Canadian Tourism Tax Revenues Rise In 2006
Tourism in Canada generated about $19.4 billion in government revenue in 2006, up from just over $15 billion in 2000 reports Yahoo.
Statistics Canada reports that taxes on products accounted for 51% of the federal government's revenue from tourism in 2006, while taxes accounted for 61% of the provincial and territorial governments' tourism revenue.
Taxes on products generated $10.3 billion for the three levels of government combined, over half the revenue attributable to tourism in 2006. Income taxes, such as those on employment income and business profits, were governments' second-most important source of revenue from tourism, generating another $4.5 billion, or close to a quarter of tourism revenue.
The increase in revenue that tourism generated for governments between 2000 and 2006 outpaced the gain in spending on tourism by both Canadian and international travelers.
Government tourism revenue rose at an annual average rate of 4.5% during this period, while spending by tourists increased at an average rate of 3.8%.
Cuba Launches Hotel Chain For Cultural-Historical Tourism
Cuba has launched a hotel chain that will eventually include 50 establishments in different tourist areas of the country and represent an alternative to lodging options catering to beach-bound tourists.
The Hotel Encanto Palacio Azul, a converted 1920s mansion that Tourism Minister Manuel Marrero inaugurated Tuesday in the central city of Cienfuegos, is the first of the Hoteles E establishments to open its doors. According to ehotelier the project is an initiative to restore vintage buildings in Cuba's main historical squares and convert them into hotels.
Marrero said the Hoteles E plan "sprung out of an unsatisfied demand for tours (of the island) and cultural-historical tourism," the official Juventud Rebelde newspaper reported Wednesday. The opening of these types of hotels "marks the beginning of a new trend in Cuban tourism that moves away from the sun and the beach to make way for what is most authentic about our cultural identity," he said.
The minister said the new approach would also "foster greater exchange between visitors and our people," which, if true, would mark a departure from the Communist government's long-standing policy of keeping locals away from tourist hotels.
Time-Share Sales Soar As Home Sales Sag
For-sale signs are nearly as common as mailboxes in many neighborhoods, but there is one type of real estate that buyers are snatching up at a record pace: time shares.
Industry experts say time shares might look like real estate, but most people don’t think of them that way. “Time shares are about vacations, and the real-estate market is about homes,” said David Siegel, chief executive officer of Central Florida Investments, which owns the Westgate Resorts time-share group. “People always want vacations, and we’re booming.” Siegel said Westgate’s sales have increased 25% this year over last, reflecting the performance of other companies in the sector.
“What other industry can you name that is having that kind of year?” Siegel asked. “We have 28 resorts and not one slow one. People know that for 10% down, they can live the dream.”
The time-share industry, largely based in Central Florida, is growing wealthy selling real estate in the fourth dimension says the Naples Daily News. A newly released PricewaterhouseCoopers study reports that sales of new time shares in Florida rose from $1.6 billion in 2002 to $2.6 billion in 2005. There are now 378 time-share resorts in Florida with 47,400 units.
“Customers coming through our doors today are more educated about the product and the industry than they used to be,” said Ed Kinney, spokesman for Orlando-based Marriott Vacation Club. “Years ago, they would come to us for promotions, like inexpensive vacations. Now they have friends recommend that they call.”
Macau’s Great Gamble
Across the Far East casinos are coming in from the cold as gaming becomes a truly global mainstream leisure activity. Singapore has lifted its decades-old ban, South Korea’s casino industry is expanding rapidly and both Taiwan and Japan are considering legalization.
Macau is the glittering jewel in Asia’s gaming crown says a recent report by Deloitte’s HotelBenchmark™. The Chinese owned peninsula has now overtaken the Las Vegas Strip to become the world’s largest gaming market with revenues of US$7 billion, and is expected to be worth up to US$13 billion by 2010.
Macau’s meteoric growth has so far been driven by high-rolling VIP gamblers. However the thrust of future investment will be the construction of a ‘mass market’ for gaming, in which the casino experience will be a central attraction within integrated resorts at a major global tourist destination.
Operators aim to draw the majority of these new customers from the emerging middle class in Mainland China,2 for whom Macau is the only Chinese territory where gambling is legal. An easing of travel restrictions has opened the door to Macau for millions of Mainland Chinese.
However, at the heart of this mass market strategy lies a great gamble. Operators are building the new facilities, but will the Chinese arrive in sufficient numbers and spend enough money to justify investment on such a scale?
UK High Court Backs Air Travel Tax
The UK High Court has backed the British government’s plan for a “green” tax on air travel. According to Airline Travel News a judge rejected a legal challenge brought by the Federation of Tour Operators (FTO) and two of member companies - Tui UK and Kuoni.
The air passenger duty, which raises two billion pound sterling a year, as angered tour operators, yet the high court judge said the tax was lawful and was " a proportional measure" aimed at reducing damage to the environment.
The FTO questioned whether the Air Passenger Duty (APD) was for the benefit of the environment and described it as “greenwash” and a “stealth tax of the skies.”
GPS Helping To Find The Seine Without Going Insane
One of the lowest points of Brian Warner's marriage was when he and his wife, Kathy, got lost while driving in Paris years ago. They argued as they endlessly circled the Arc de Triomphe, running low on gas, searching for their hotel.
Now, though, says The Wall Street Journal, their frequent driving trips in Europe go swimmingly because of GPS. "I refer to it as our MPS," says Mr. Warner, a retiree from Blaine, Wash. "Marriage preserver service."
Tourists abroad who want to avoid the guided tour have an emerging option: the GPS unit in their rental car. The precision of Global Positioning System devices is empowering travelers to visit out-of-the-way locales on their own, without fumbling around with maps, getting lost and getting into arguments with spouses.
The age-old family squabbling over driving directions is in jeopardy. See a rundown on portable GPS devices.Satellite navigation devices have been around for years – one in six adults in the U.S. now owns or uses a GPS unit or service, according to a recent study by Harris Interactive Inc., a market-research firm – but their improved performance and increased availability are making them a better option for travelers going abroad.
Hertz Europe, a unit of Hertz Corp., plans to extend the availability of its enhanced version of NeverLost, its in-car GPS system, in 2008. The new system was introduced in June and can be used both in the car and carried on foot (it has a five-hour battery charge). It's available at several major European airport locations including London Heathrow Airport and Paris Charles de Gaulle International Airport. Enterprise Rent-A-Car Co. says it is expanding its offering of GPS systems in Europe: It plans to have units available for rent at airports in the United Kingdom by early next year.
Ipod? Vending Machines Diversify
Airport vending machines aren't just for candy and sodas anymore says USA Today.
Travelers can now shop for goods and services running into the hundreds of dollars: iPods at Las Vegas McCarran, laptop rentals at Austin Bergstrom and diapers, meals, condoms and blood pressure cuffs at Dallas/Fort Worth.
Companies such as Shop24, PowerPort and Zoom Systems find airports ideal places to offer the deluxe version of their vending machines. They provide large crowds and long idle times. And travelers have demonstrated a predilection for impulse purchases.
"People at airports are on the go, and they're conditioned to be more self-sufficient," says Mike Kasavana, information technology professor at Michigan State University, who has studied the industry. The number of items sold in vending machines has grown 15% to 20% a year in the last three years, he says.
Vending machines that sell a wide variety of items have been around in Europe and Asia for years. But in the USA, with so many convenience stores, they have not been as popular. In 2001, McDonald's MCD) invested in a similar concept called Shop 2000, a large machine that sold household items, food and drinks. But the company withdrew from the business a couple of years later.
Vendors may have better odds this time around, says Tim Sanford, editor of trade magazine Vending Times. The ability to pay with a credit card has drawn more customers, he says. Better software to manage inventory, guard credit card information and distribute payments to suppliers has made life easier for operators.
Iraq Tourism Chief: Country Is Still Worth A Visit
Its ancient sites may have been damaged and looted, its hotels bombed and its people attacked or forced to flee, but Iraq is still worth a visit, the head of its tourism commission says, reports Australia’s Brisbane Times.
Violence in much of the country has frightened off visitors, but tourism chief Mahmoud al-Yakouki said more than 570,000 people visited Shi'ite Muslim shrines in relatively stable southern Iraq last year, a number he hoped would grow. ``Our most important work at the moment is religious tourism, especially to Kerbala and Najaf where the holy shrines are, as these areas are safe,'' he said.
``Every day 1500 pilgrims visit these sites, mostly Iranians but also Muslims from Bahrain and other countries ... We are going to increase this to 2500 a day, hopefully, after Ramadan. Before the war, Iraq received 8000 pilgrims a day.''
The state body established in 1956 meets the tour groups at the border and takes them to their hotels, offering catered week-long breaks near the holy shrines. Individuals also organize private visits to the shrines.
Shi'ite religious festivals in Iraq have repeatedly come under attack since the US-led invasion in 2003. Authorities had to evacuate pilgrims from Kerbala on Tuesday after 52 people were killed in clashes.
The Commission is still hoping to attract investors at an Iraqi business conference in Dubai, to help it build or restore hotels in the southern cities of Najaf and Basra and on the Shatt al-Arab waterway that forms a border with neighboring Iran, a Shi'ite country and a source of pilgrims.
Hoteliers Fret About Macau Rise
Hong Kong will have to upgrade its exhibition facilities and performing venues to ensure its tourism industry will not lose out to rivals like Macau, The Standard quotes a hotel executive as saying.
Michael Li Hon-shing, executive director of the Federation of Hong Kong Hotel Owners, told Metro Radio that last week's opening of the Venetian Macao Resort Hotel has triggered some introspection in Hong Kong's tourism sector. He said the total number of hotel rooms in Macau is set to soar to about 60,000, while its exhibition facilities will surpass Hong Kong's.
According to Li, the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre in Wan Chai can only hold some 2,000 exhibitors at present and he urged the government to upgrade the territory's exhibition and performing hardwares.
"The yearly Hong Kong Gifts and Premium Fair attracts more than 5,000 exhibitors, yet, around 2,000 exhibitors are rejected due to the limited size of the venue," Li said.
New Locking Technologies To Also Build Guest Satisfaction
Security is of the utmost concern for hoteliers in this day and age. One of the most basic lines of defense for guests is the room door locking system. That’s one of the reasons hotel owners are looking for new, innovative locking technologies. Yet, that’s not the half of it, says Lodging magazine.
The quest for new locking systems isn’t just about who is and who is not able to enter a guestroom. It’s also about when and how guests can enter their room. It’s also about changing the nature of check-in and check-out service, cutting operational expenses, providing convenience to the frequent traveler and setting one’s property apart from the field.
London Hotels Booming In Olympics Runup
The UK hotel sector is experiencing its strongest performance in a decade, as the industry benefits from an Olympic boost and high visitor numbers, according to tourism experts.
BusinessWeek reports that London, which will host the 2012 Olympics, is benefiting the most from the resurgence and is set for a period of sustained growth in new hotel development, with 50,000 new rooms needed by 2026.
"London is booming," said James Bidwell, the chief executive of Visit London. "We are the No 1 city destination for international travel, with 2006 a record year for overseas visitors to the capital. Retail sales in central London were up 11.6% on the previous year and London hotels are now experiencing their strongest performance levels since the late 1990s."
Mr Bidwell said that demand was being driven by economic growth and a strong visitor economy. "Since winning the bid for London 2012, the capital is a natural choice for major world-class events, and then there are the transport developments such as St Pancras International opening in November and Heathrow Terminal 5 next year," he said. "All of these developments improve the tourism fabric and infrastructure of the capital, including hotel development."
Alexi Hakim, the chief operating officer for the UK and Ireland at Intercontinental, which currently has 40 new hotels in development in the UK (10 of which are in central London), said that the company was seeing an increasing number of visitors to London from places other than the US, such as Eastern Europe and China, which recently relaxed its visa regulations for trips to the UK.
Air Taxi Firms Launching Service On 'Very Light Jets'
Two "air taxi" companies launching jet service this month between smaller U.S. airports should have an easy time getting customers amid persistent travel delays records.
The major carriers and some experts argue, however, that their success may worsen congestion in the air and on the tarmac the companies promise to alleviate.
Associated Press reports that Linear Air and DayJet Corp. are targeting business travelers willing to pay a premium for booking customized flights at small airports with expedited security and processing times, and runway capacity for the "very light jets" built by Eclipse Aviation Corp.
Boca Raton, Fla.-based DayJet's users can book individual seats on flights between five cities in the state, while Linear customers can rent planes by the hour for flying to area airports outside of Boston, New York and Washington with service expanding to San Francisco and Los Angeles next year.
An August 24 report from the Government Accountability Office – the investigative arm of Congress – concluded air safety should not be a problem even though business aviation forecasters predict thousands of the jets will take to the skies the next 20 years.
Best Western Plans To Be Biggest In Asia
Best Western International, already the fastest-growing hotel chain in Asia, has its sights on becoming the largest hotel chain on the continent within three years.
Over the next six months, Best Western will sign 17 new hotel contracts in China, Japan, Indonesia and Thailand, among other countries, and is on pace to have more than 200 properties by 2010. The chain's Asia presence has expanded from just six hotels in 2001 to 106 today.
'As the world's largest hotel chain, we bring scale, reach and a billion-dollar reservations system to our international partners,' said David Kong, Best Western president and CEO. The brand's global sales and marketing initiatives, quality assurance programs, and Gold Crown Club International loyalty program make it popular with Asian developers and hoteliers, he said.
Hotel Travel News says while most of the chain's North American hotels are considered to be in the mid-market segment, Best Western is positioning itself as a four-star chain in Asia. This is consistent with an overall growth strategy of increasing brand awareness in new markets by building high-caliber, highly-visible hotels - a strategy that is being implemented successfully in China and India.
Visa Issues High On The Agenda At La Cumbre
Overseas travel to the United States has plunged 20% since Sept. 11, 2001, but a new U.S. law could help stem the slide, especially for South American visitors vital to South Florida, participants said at the LaCumbre travel industry conference in Hollywood, Florida.
Travelers requiring visas are forgoing the United States, partly because Washington now requires personal interviews to apply for visas but lacks staff to handle them. In Brazil, for example, wait times for visa interviews now top 60 days. Foreign visitors also rate U.S. border entry as the world's most unfriendly, worse than the Middle East, surveys show.
But legislation approved in Congress this summer seeks to help says the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. It would expand the list of nations whose citizens don't need a visa to enter the United States, with Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay among likely beneficiaries when the countries meet certain requirements. That could help South Florida, the area most dependent on international air travel in the United States, officials said.
The law also calls for adding 200 border officers in 20 U.S. cities, including some in South Florida – a move that should cut wait times for U.S. entry at airports and could make entry friendlier, said Bud Nocera, president of Visit Florida, the state's tourism marketing agency.
Visa issues are high on the agenda this week at the selective La Cumbre travel conference, which brings together more than 400 tour operators, travel wholesalers and tourism leaders for three days for business updates and to seal deals.
The annual meeting long focused on Latin American and Caribbean travel to the United States, but with U.S. arrivals down, has branched out to Latin American and U.S. travel to other countries too.
Air France Sets CDG Modernization In Motion
Air France KLM Group intends to make Paris Charles de Gaulle the premier hub in Europe in order to give the company a competitive edge in customer service. "There will be a rebirth [of] Air France through this hub," AF KLM Chairman and CEO Jean-Cyril Spinetta said last week in the French capital. "We want CDG to become a world leader in transportation."
Spinetta outlined plans, reports Air Transport World, including the role of the S3 Terminal that opened in June, that include a complete reengineering of passenger processing through new technology that will make CDG a "digital airport." A new baggage handling system is being added that will incorporate RFID, online and kiosk check-in systems will be expanded and a pilot program will be implemented by year end testing the use of biometrics to issue boarding passes.
In November, AF will start phasing in a new IFE system featuring 85 films in nine languages on long-haul flights. It also plans to begin a pilot program to permit the use of mobile phones during flights.
S3 connects to Terminal 2E with an automated people-mover and eventually will accommodate AF's 12 A380s that are scheduled to begin arriving in 2009. Bi-level boarding bridges have been installed and there will be six parking stands for the behemoth aircraft. Spinetta said the A380s will be used on routes to Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo and "most likely Beijing."
New Hampshire Expected To See Boost In Tourism
New Hampshire officials are expecting to find the summer has brought a boost in tourism, although it might be slight says the Boston Globe.
The Institute for New Hampshire Studies at Plymouth State University says New Hampshire would see more than 13 million visitors this summer and they would spend a record high, more than $1.6 billion. The institute's head, Mark Okrant, says it will take another two months before the final numbers are certain. But early numbers show a 1% increase for May, June and July.State tourism officials had projected a 2% increase overall in the number of summer visitors.
New Hampshire Department of Revenue Administration Commissioner G. Philip Blatsos says preliminary rooms and meals tax revenue also looks like it's going up. He says room and meals taxes brought in more than $22 million in August and is overall about $1.5 million ahead of last summer.
Nepalese Airline Sacrifices Goats To Please Gods, Help Repair Airplane
Nepal's state run airline sacrificed two goats earlier this week, hoping it would please the gods and resolve technical problems with a troubled jet, the Associated Press has reported.
One of the airline's two Boeing 757 aircraft has been grounded for maintenance since last month. The other jet has suffered technical problems that forced the airline to cancel several flights, stranding passengers.
Hoping to end those problems, the airline sacrificed the goats earlier this week, according to an airline official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters.
It is common in predominantly Hindu Nepal to sacrifice animals hoping for good luck and blessings.
An Inspector Calls, And Hotels Listen
The school year hadn’t even started, but it was report card time. Michael Monarca paid close attention to Maria Rabbat as she went over his hotel’s final grade, her pen pecking at scores and comments on the pages in her hand. “I’m happy to tell you that you’ve kept your five diamonds,” said Ms. Rabbat, who is among a national staff of inspectors who rate hotels for AAA’s regional TourBook guides and online listings.
Mr. Monarca, the ranking executive on duty at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel at the foot of Central Park in Manhattan, looked as happy as a child with all A’s. You could almost hear the “whew!” going through his mind.
Like a five-star rating in the rival Mobil Travel Guide, writes The New York Times, the AAA’s five-diamond designation is hard to get and important to hold onto. For the 2007 AAA guides, only 93 of the 32,000 properties inspected annually received five-diamond ratings. Only 1,102 got four diamonds. So when an inspector like Ms. Rabbat shows up (always unannounced) with her checklist and that all-important grade, hotel executives hustle out from the back office to greet her.
“Hotel general managers take the system very seriously because, in a lot of cases, they could lose their jobs if they lose a diamond,” said Michael Petrone, the director of tourism information development at AAA, which has 50 million members and publishes 168 million copies of its TourBooks and maps a year.
Hotel ratings are often a maze of confusion, aggravated in recent years by online travel booking sites that often use customers’ comments to rate accommodations. The guide divisions at AAA and Mobil employ trained inspectors who evaluate properties incognito. The ratings thus awarded are based on independent, honest evaluations, both say.
AAA has been formally rating hotels since 1963, and Mobil has been doing so since 1958, though AAA began publishing detailed hotel descriptions gathered by field inspectors starting in 1937.
“We have 65 full-time inspectors out there hitting properties day in and day out,” Mr. Petrone said. Each inspector visits about 650 hotels a year. Four- and five-diamond properties, as well as three-diamonds deemed to have potential to rise in class, also receive anonymous and exhaustive overnight-stay inspections.
New Hotel Aims To Appeal To Traveling Techies
A Florida businessman new to the hospitality sector has picked a site in Morrisville, North Carolina for one of the first eSuites hotels - a brand aimed at technology-savvy guests.
The $35 million Morrisville eSuites Hotel, and three others planned in Tampa, Fla., Jacksonville, Fla., and Phoenix, Ariz., would offer desktop computers at workstations in every room, high-tech conference rooms, T1 bandwith options for Internet access, and a 3,500-square-foot, glass-fronted fitness center.
According to the Triangle Business Journal the eight-story hotel is designed for 224 guest suites of 400 square feet each that would cost between $140 and $160 a night. The average daily room rate in Wake County in 2006 was $75.35, according to Smith Travel Research.
Each hotel would have a full-service restaurant and would employ about 60 full-time and 20 part-time. Annual revenue is projected between $10 million and 12 million for each hotel.
Jerry Ellenburg, founder and chairman of eSuites Hotels in Tampa, has been working on the concept since before 2001, gathering ideas from hotels across the country and searching for a financing partner.
In May, Ellenburg got his wish with the completion of a $127 million financing round to build the first four hotels on properties he had purchased in Morrisville, Arizona and Florida. Ellenburg says he scrapped plans to build hotels in Albuquerque, N.M., and in Santa Rosa, Calif., to focus on his four chosen markets.
Will Beaches In Florida Go For Silica Implants?
Sun, sea, sangria and . . . crushed glass? Officials in Florida have come up with the sharp idea of using recycled glass to replenish denuded beaches. According to The Times of London the glass grains would be mixed with sand and sprinkled on the shore. But you won’t get splinters in your flip-flops: sand and glass are both made from silica.
“Basically, what we’re doing is taking the material and returning it back to its natural state,” says Phil Bresee, the recycling manager for Broward County. It means less stuff going into landfill, and the production of a commodity – sand – that is genuinely needed.
Broward County is estimated to make $1 billion a year from its 24 miles of beaches. But it is getting more expensive to replace the sand that is washed away. New sand is dredged from the ocean floor and piped to shore. Regulations to protect offshore reefs, however, have pushed dredging sites farther out to sea.
Between 1991 and 2005, dredging costs more than doubled to about $20 million (£9.9 million) per million tonnes of sand. Recycling would produce only a fraction of the sand needed – about 16,000 tonnes a year – but it is regarded as a useful stopgap for the worst erosion sites.
The idea has provenance. Two ocean dump sites for glass – one off California and one off Hawaii – resulted in the glass being assimilated into the sand.
Beaches in New Zealand and the Caribbean have also used recycled glass.
How About A Simple ‘Leave Me Alone’?
Embassy Suites Hotels announced a nationwide search for the next best "Do Not Disturb" door hanger designs to be used in all of its nearly 190 all-suite hotels says TravelMole.
For the next two months (September and October) a panel of Embassy Suites judges will choose the cleverest design/copy submitted and pick five winners who will receive stays at select Embassy Suites Hotels. Their winning signs will also hang on door knobs at all Embassy Suites throughout the US, Canada and Latin America.
The hotel chain says it is already well-known for its own variation on the Do Not Disturb sign – "There's a Good Reason for you NOT to Knock Right Now."
Eau de Hotel
The next time you walk into a hotel, close your eyes, listen and inhale. There may even be a water fountain you can run your fingers through or a treat you can taste.That is because the latest trend in hotel design is to appeal to all five of a guest’s senses, offering what may be described as a “sensory stay.”
From infusing the lobby with a light fragrance to playing a customized soundtrack that changes throughout the day, the goal is to create a memorable experience that guests can smell, hear and feel — not just bombard them with visual stimulation reports The New York Times.
“The future of hotel branding is when there are no logos, no advertisements blasting, but I can just feel I’m there,” said Martin Lindstrom, author of “Brand Sense,” which explores the notion of sensory branding.
Retailers were among the first to use music and scent to influence customer behavior — diffusing a chocolate smell, for instance, to entice customers to buy candy — but the hospitality industry is pursuing a more subtle agenda. “They want to create a point of difference,” Mr. Lindstrom said, explaining that a well-chosen playlist or fragrance not only creates a pleasant experience at the hotel, but can also evoke positive memories through CDs or scented shampoos guests take away.
“If you had that shampoo at home,” he said, “it would release the whole emotional feeling you had during your journey.” (As for whether a work trip involves happy emotions, Mr. Lindstrom says a pampering hotel stay is often considered one of the benefits of business travel and sometimes inspires a return visit on vacation.)
Some of the hotel chains that have created signature scents are Westin Hotels and Resorts, whose white tea aroma spawned a line of retail products and appeared in fragrance strips as part of an advertising campaign; Omni Hotels, which infuses its lobbies with a lemongrass and green tea scent; and the Morgans Hotel Group, owner of boutique hotels, like the Royalton in New York City, each with a unique fragrance.
Survey: How Companies Are Marketing Online
A McKinsey global survey of marketers shows that companies are using digital tools – from Web sites to wikis – most extensively for customer service, least in pricing.
- Two-thirds are using digital tools for product development, almost as many as are advertising online.
- Respondents consider online ads to be as useful for brand building as for direct response. Spending is expected to increase on all types of online advertising vehicles over the next three years.
- In 2010 just over half of all respondents expect their companies to be getting 10% or more of their sales from online channels – twice as many companies as have hit that mark today. And 11% expect to be spending a majority of their advertising budgets online by then.
- Most companies today don’t integrate their online and offline marketing efforts; companies that use online tools across the full spectrum of marketing activities are much more likely to do so.
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