It is the year 2020. The past twelve years have been a flurry of development in the areas of design, nanotechnology, robotics, medicine, the internet, security and law. Contrary to popular opinion, the hotel industry has not been slow on the uptake. It’s been the decade of hospitality renaissance. A coming of age, an evolution of service as it should be…and a tribute to true personalization.



Here’s a look at the hotel guest experience in the year 2020 and how guests have helped the industry become truly magnificent:

Ever wondered where all the great new hotel brand and room design ideas come from? An MSNBC article that takes a peek at hotel room development and concept testing:

All of the big chains operate labs to develop fresh ideas, which are important in an ever-more-competitive lodging landscape. Starwood, best known for its cutting-edge Westin and W Hotels, maintains test rooms in a warehouse near its headquarters in a New York suburb. London-based InterContinental has model rooms in San Diego for its new Hotel Indigo chain. The new look of Hyatt's Summerfield Suites brand is being hammered out in a basement of the chain's Chicago headquarters. And market-leading Marriott, legendary for its research- and focus-group-driven brands, maintains its hotel laboratory deep in a sprawling subbasement of its worldwide headquarters in Bethesda, Md.

Starwood Preferred Guest(R) Takes Its "No Blackouts" to New Heights: First-of-its-kind SPG FLIGHTS Program Allows Members To Book Air Travel on HUNDREDS of Airlines With NO BLACKOUTS Using SPG Starpoints(R)



In a hotel industry first, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc. (NYSE:HOT) and its award winning hotel loyalty program Starwood Preferred Guest(R), are taking its groundbreaking NO BLACKOUTS policy to new heights with the introduction of SPG Flights. Launching today, SPG Flights lets members book flights on hundreds of domestic and international airlines with NO BLACKOUT dates. Members can simply go to WWW.SPG.COM/FLIGHTS, search for and select their preferred flight and class of service, and redeem their Starpoints for the entire cost of the flight. Members may even earn airline miles when booking airfare through SPG Flights.

The Travel Industry Association reports that Americans are expected to take more than 327 million leisure trips this summer. But as travelers hit the road, many are feeling the pinch of gas prices averaging above $4 per gallon. Many Hotel chains have hopped onto the Gas promotion bandwagon and are offering Gas credits, Gas vouchers and rebates for travellers over Summer, in an effort to lure guests to their hotels. Even Hotels.com has taken this route...check out their funny commerical:





tags: hotels, resorts, hospitality, gas, fuel, discounts, specials, promotions, ideas

Four Points by Sheraton Chief Beer Officer Taps New York Cheesemonger and Home Brewer, Dan Suarez for Coveted Summer Internship: June 17, 2008 - Forget the filing and faxing, the Four Points by Sheraton's First Ever Best Brews intern is going to spend his summer tasting and toasting! Four Points by Sheraton Hotels today announced Dan Suarez as the lucky lager who snagged "the" summer dream job - learning about beer and helping Four Points hotels cultivate their Best Brews offerings.

A new site that caught our eye :) A place where hoteliers get the chance to review guests...in particular the annoying, unpleasable breed, classified as "hotel guests from hell". The official blurb on the site reads:

A site created to share stories about those guests that can only be labelled “Guests from hell”. This is a site for hoteliers, restaurateurs and those in the service and hospitality industry. It’s about time we had some place WE could review guests, sound off…and just take solace in the fact that we all have bad days where we have to deal with these characters. So log on…read up, chip in or sign up to submit your own stories. Visit: www.hotelguestfromhell.com

From Africa to Asia Ale Aficionados are Voting Around the World for their Favorite Candidate: Primaries and Super delegates are taking a back seat for sud sippers around the globe as the end of voting for the Four Points by Sheraton Best Brews Intern draws to a close. Who will snag "the" summer dream job? Will it be the Ivy League student from Cornell, an Aussie Lad who has sampled more than 1,000 beers, the "black sheep" of a sommelier family or the foodie from the Big Apple. Right now it's anybody's position, with almost 4,000 votes a day, 3 lager lovers are logging are voting every minute to make their voice heard.

Starwood's Newest Hotel Brand Launches This Summer Making It Chic and Easy To Be Eco-Friendly Rock stars notoriously trash their hotel rooms, but you don't have to be Sid Vicious to leave your room in disarray. In fact, it's your everyday traveler's etiquette that one would find most surprising -- and more specifically, their lack of "eco-etiquette," according to Randal Savage, responsible for housekeeping at ELEMENT Hotels as Corporate Director, Rooms at Starwood Hotels & Resorts (NYSE:HOT).



The average hotel guest might not invite 30 of his closet friends over for a 4 AM fiesta, but from leaving lights on all day to air-conditioning the outdoors, hotel guests often leave their "eco-etiquette" at home.

This could be the world's first ever 100 per cent ecologically-friendly hotel - and its 'green' credentials will set the benchmark for hoteliers around the world. The solar powered 'Innovation Hotel' - which is the brainchild of the InterContinental Hotels Group - outlines the latest technology in energy and water conservation and recycling.

YoungHotelier.com has released a series of insider videos focusing on the art and science of Molecular Gastronomy. The videos are taken at Tang Restaurant in Dubai, which happens to be the only one of its kind in the Middle East. Here is a sample video involving the use of liquid nitrogen in cooking at Tang:

YoungHotelier.com continues its tradition of reaching out to hoteliers, young at heart, to learn, communicate, help and have fun with its latest addition - an exclusive discussion forum / board targeted at bringing hoteliers together. The forum is called the "TEA Lounge" (TEA standing for Talk, Engage and Ask) and is available free to all to join. Visitors or new members can also watch a short video explaining the features, how to join and a dose of humor - visit www.younghotelier.com/lounge

According to the Crowne Plaza Hotels & Resorts' research, checking emails before you go to bed has the equivalent effect on the body of drinking a double espresso.

And, in an increasingly demanding working world, Brits are losing one night's sleep a week to this sleep-deprivation epidemic.

Fuelled by spiralling use of PDAs, mobiles, laptops and Blackberries, business travellers are potentially robbing themselves of a good night's sleep by failing to switch off gadgets early enough before going to bed.

For those of you who have iPods and/or use iTunes, you may be familiar with the concept of “Podcasts” You can now download free podcasts (12 videos at present) related to the Le Meridien LM100 initiative and the creative people we have onboard already. Use the link below to load the podcast directly in iTunes and then watch on your computer or iPod!

LM100: Le Méridien’s experiences are defined and enriched by a group of cultural innovators and artists called Le Méridien100. The group comprises a global array of visionaries, from painters to photographers, musicians to designers, chefs to architects. LINK: http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=270156795 (you must have iTunes installed)

tags: le-meridien, lm100, culture, innovators, artists, hotels, resorts, hospitality, podcast, video, lm100-podcasts

Unique Online Technology Enables Visitors from Shanghai to San Francisco to Pick up a Pillow and Join the First Ever Virtual Pillow Fight at Sheratonplay.com and Multiple Other Sites Technology Enables Visitors to Book Reservations While They Play

The feathers are flying as Sheraton Hotels & Resorts starts a worldwide pillow fight through the use of unique online technology showcased at a new interactive website, Sheratonplay.com. The site invites visitors from across the globe to pick up a pillow and join a live virtual pillow fight, while simultaneously enabling them to book reservations or search travel options. Sheratonplay.com, developed to support the brand's goals to bring people together and allow them to interact while traveling, uses online technology in an unprecedented way by enabling multiple web users to interact "live" simultaneously on the same or multiple web pages.

Today Le Meridien introduced LM100(TM), a group of international creators of mixed generations and interdisciplinary artistic fields, chosen from the fields of art, architecture, cuisine, design and fashion by Jerome Sans, Le Meridien's Cultural Curator. LM100 members will offer their creativity and develop original and interactive programs for Le Meridien hotels worldwide that will transform the guest experience. LM100 members will curate Le Meridien's interactive initiatives and propose other established or emerging talents that reflect the brand's core values of CHIC, CULTURED, DISCOVERY. Over the next few years, Le Meridien plans is to expand the programme to include 100 members.