Musings & Miscellany
HOTELS Associate Editor Adam Kirby highlights the hotel industry's most interesting people and ideas.
For Monarch Beach Resort, Altruism Is Grand
It’s been a hellish 18 months for The St. Regis Monarch Beach. Still known in some circles—quite unfairly—as “the AIG resort,” the 5-star California resort is turning the page by offering one of the most generous charitable promotions in the hotel industry, giving away meeting space for nonprofit organizations at no charge throughout 2010. There is no catchȁ ...... Read More
Comments (2)Hotel Finds 'Phame' From Viral Video, Song
Late last year, Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino played host to the world’s first “flash mob” in a casino. Hundreds of people descended on the property en masse and began a choreographed dance routine to the catchy tune, “PHamous,” recorded specifically for the event. More than 1.3 million YouTube views later, the video of the 3-minute dance party has become ...... Read More
Comments (0)Fairmont Launches ‘Original' Interactive Site
Taking cues from the soaring popularity of social media, Fairmont Hotels & Resorts is launching a new interactive Web site that melds all sorts of user-generated content with materials created and contributed from staff across the Fairmont portfolio.Currently in a soft-launch phase, EverybodysAnOriginal.com invites consumers to upload photos, videos and commentary about Fairmont hotels and the ...... Read More
Comments (1)Holiday Inn Promo Generates Body Heat, Buzz
As I write this, the most popular article on Reuters.com—both in terms of views and e-mails—is about the rather unusual promotion going on at three Holiday Inns in the UK. So-called “human bed-warmers” are on offer at two Holiday Inns in London and one in Manchester, and if nothing else, the simple oddity of having hotel staff prepare your bed for sleep by first climbin ...... Read More
Comments (0)Hotel Revenue Management Tool Benefits From Tiger Woods' Infidelity
The RateTiger hotel revenue management system from Dublin-based eRevMax International is one of the industry’s better known RM platforms. It’s a safe bet that, though, that few people outside the hotel industry had ever heard of it. Ever since the revelations of Tiger Woods’ infidelity, though, RateTiger has apparently gained exposure with golf fans, voyeurs and the types of p ...... Read More
Comments (1)Audio Room Keys Can't Be Stolen
Skeptics of what I call “ringtone room keys,” which I blogged about last month, worry that thieves and scammers might try to record the audio access codes of other guests to enter their rooms. I followed up with Pascal Metivier, CEO of OpenWays, the company that is launching the mobile phone locking system in several hotels later this year, to respond to the sound-stealing concerns. ...... Read More
Comments (0)Sleep With Virtual Women At Hard Rock Vegas
A lot of eyebrow-raising stuff has been known to go down at Hard Rock Hotel and Casino Las Vegas. But would you believe guests at this Sin City party haven can now sleep with virtual women and play billiards on a table of flames? It’s true, sort of, thanks to the wonders of modern technology. The hotel’s newly opened HRH Towers has some specialty penthouses that put some high-resolut ...... Read More
Comments (6)MGM Grand Billboard Takes Twitter To Masses
In a dual bid to bolster its social media awareness with consumers while also increasing locals business, MGM Grand Hotel & Casino has leased space on two digital billboards in Las Vegas to display select locals-targeted tweets from its @mgmgrand Twitter feed. Billboard owner Lamar Outdoor in December approached the hotel with new technology that allows for interfacing with Twitter, enabling ...... Read More
Comments (0)Restaurants Find Cost Savings With Technology
As bad as 2009 was for so many in the hospitality industry, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that a recent article I wrote for our sister publication, Restaurants & Institutions, about money-saving technology for restaurants and bars would rank on the magazine’s most popular list. The article, which focuses on beverage control and inventory monitoring technologies, can be read he ...... Read More
Comments (0)Free Hotel Internet Becoming A Political Issue
Time to once again harp on my favorite subject–free hotel Internet access–only this time the stakes are higher than mere customer contentedness and brand appeal. It could be official star ratings that are at stake. A member of Scotland’s Parliament is calling for UK tourism agencies to make free-to-guest Internet access a factor in awarding stars to hotels. John Park wro ...... Read More
Comments (12)The Greatest Twitter Hotel Service Story Yet
When a guest tweets a complaint about his or her stay at your hotel, do you ever see it? Do you try getting in touch with the person to apologize? That’s all well and good, but Four Seasons Hotels & Resorts has set the bar for social media customer service quite a bit higher than that. When a guest at Four Seasons Resort The Biltmore went on Twitter last month to make a lighthearted com ...... Read More
Comments (6)That Sound You Hear Is My Room Key
The hotel tech community has been waiting eagerly for several years now for the inevitable day when electronic key cards become obsolete and mobile devices take over as the room access key of choice. A technology known as Near-Field Communication, or NFC, was thought to hold the key to unlocking the future of mobile locking systems—and it still might. Oversimplified, NFC would enable guest ...... Read More
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