Is Google going to take on the big boys of Online Travel Agents? You know, Expedia, Orbitz, and Travelocity. It’s starting to look that way. Google is purportedly in negotiations to purchase ITA Software, a company responsible for the software scribbling used by Kayak and Bing Travel. Google has also added hotel links to its Maps application. With the help of ITA software scribes, they could easily incorporate fares into not just their maps, and Google Earth, but also into their search results. Currently, you can punch in dates and cities on Google, but only get links to other booking sites. According to USA Today, Steve Kaufer, CEO of Tripadvisor said of the potential acquisition, “It would be a game changer and a clear signal of Google’s interest in travel.”
Hotels
Haggling works. Really well. At least 80 percent of the time, according to a survey of 27,000 readers of Consumer Reports. With occupancy rates dipped to new lows, hoteliers will do anything to fill rooms. So don’t just do a Kayak search for the lowest rates. Pick up the phone. Or just show up! The walk-up rate is about $20 cheaper than advance bookings, according to CR.
Consumer Protection, Hotels
Versace, the Italian fashion house, is building a hotel, the Palazzo Versace, in Dubai. To ease the discomfort of walking on hot sand, they are installing a network of pipes under the beach through which coolant will be pumped, absorbing the heat from the sand — the world’s first refrigerated beach! This will go hand in hand with the swimming pool, which will also be refrigerated. There are also proposals to install giant blowers to send a gentle breeze over the beach. Have we finally crossed the threshold between reality and virtual reality? Can a hotel in this era of global warming be that insensitive to environmental concerns? Isn’t there a worldwide recession? Didn’t the Dubai bubble burst? Oh, that’s right. They were bailed out by Khalif. Carry on, Versace. Right into bankruptcy.
Dubai, Hotels
Versace Dubai
• Hotel heiress Paris Hilton showed up at the Rehab pool party at the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas last week looking like a poster girl for Bulimia.
• Jessica Alba almost started a fire in her room at the Smyth Hotel in New York, on of Thompson Hotel’s uber chic boutique properties in Tribeca. She was trying to heat up some fish sticks, but didn’t know how to work the oven, thus setting off the fire alarm.
• Evi Quaid, the wife of actor Randy Quaid was put on probation for three years after she admitted defrauding the San Ysidro Inn in Montecito. The couple ran up a $3,000 tab, then paid with an invalid credit card. She will also serve 240 hours of community service. Evidently there was strong circumstantial evidence against Randy, but not enough to convict him of anything.
• What hotel has banned gossip blogger Perez Hilton? The Chateau Marmont in Hollywood.
• Kobe Bryant helicoptered in to the Roosevelt Hotel for a photo shoot. A helicopter? To Hollywood? What’s the carbon footprint on that, Kobe?
• Tiger Woods’ mistress Joslyn James alleges that she was the victim of discrimination and maltreatment after being turned away from the Ritz-Carlton Charlotte. The hotel apparently canceled her reservation to avoid a run-in with Tiger, who was also staying at the hotel. Tiger was in town for the Quail Hollow Golf Championship, while Ms. James was in the area to perform at a local strip club. Evidently, Ms. James has been booking stripping gigs near tournaments where Woods is playing.
Hotel News Blast, Hotels
Chateau Mamont, Hard Rock Hotel, Jessica Alba, Kobe Bryant, Paris Hilton, Roosevelt Hotel, Tiger Woods
According to the WSJ, football star Emmitt Smith is seeking to build a hotel in Harlem, a 200-room hotel — possibly a Hyatt — on the SW corner of 125th St. and Lenox Ave. The developers requested tax-exempt financing to develop this empty, garbage-strewn lot. Hotels have been proposed before for Harlem, which doesn’t have a single commercial hotel, just a bunch of hostels, a YMCA and B & Bs. Could a Hyatt be a foothold for the gentrification of Harlem? Well, a Whole Foods store is planned for the ground floor. Bottomline: if it creates jobs, a new hotel will serve the community well.
Hotels, New York City
Harlem, Hyatt
Gritti Palace in Venice
Hilton and Starwoods are going head to head this summer in their bid to swell the ranks of their loyalty programs.
Starwood just announced the resumption of their SPG (Starwood Preferred Guest) Free Weekends. It’s pretty simple. For every three nights you stay at SPG hotels between May 1 and July 31, you’ll earn a free weekend night with no blackouts, at more than 920 Starwood properties, including W-brand and St. Regis hotels. This means you can stay three nights at an Aloft hotel, in say Rogers-Bentonville, Arkanasa ($89 per night), then get a free night at the Hotel Danieli or Gritti Palace in Venice, where rooms cost $688 on the weekend. Deal us in.
Hilton meanwhile, announced that on May 10 guests will receive up to a 30 percent discount for stays between May 28 and September 6 at most of its 3,500 hotels around the world — from Hilton Garden Inns to the Waldorf Astoria, plus you get a free breakfast to boot. The goal? To attract new guests to its HIlton HHonors program. What worries us? That would be the “up” to a 30 percent discount that is available at “most” of it’s 3,500 hotels.
Hotel News Blast, Hotels
Aloft, Danieli, Gritti Palace, HIlton, Hilton Garden Inns, SPG, Starwood, Waldorf Astoria
The newest member of Secrets Resorts, the Secrets St. James Montego Bay, has opened in Jamaica, a 350-suite adults-only resort: eight dining rooms, nine bars, giant spa and freeform pool — you know, the type of overblow all-inclusive resort that is ruining island economies throughout the Caribbean. Well, they put up a Facebook page, as all hotels are wont to do these days, but probably didn’t expect the kind of negative reviews any soft opening suffers through. To whit: elevator numbers do not match floor numbers, same food served every day, bathtub clogged with shaven body hair from past guests, room service never arrives, no managers on duty, and on and on and on. Welcome, Secrets, to the world of social networks. Lesson learned? Never be the first to stay at any hotel that has just opened. You’re not a guest, you’re a guinea pig.
Hotels, Jamaica
Pan Pacific Seattle Hotel
We’ve seen this idea come and go. That it keeps coming back gives us hope. How many times have we checked in to a hotel at midnight, only to be rousted out of our room by 11 am? Never struck us as quite fair. So, Pan-Pacific’s hotel in Seattle is testing the waters, allowing guests who check in at 6 pm to stay until 6 pm the following day. Hallelujah. No storing your bags and trying to kill a few hours before going to the airport. No more long lines at the registration desk at check-out time. (Or check-in time, for that matter.) No more half-day rates tagged onto your bill because you missed check-out deadline by an hour. Pan Pacific will be testing the 24-hour policy until June 30. Based on its feasibility, the policy will continue indefinitely. We can only hope.
Hotel News Blast, Hotels, Washington
24-hour hotel stay, Pan Pacific Seattle Hotel
Okay, I get it. We’re overworked. We stay online until the wee hours of the night trying to take care of business. And yes, I suppose it affects the quality of our sleep. Since hotels are in the sleep business — they all package the sleep experience as an amenity — they are looking for any angle they can, whether it’s aromatherapy kits or white noise machines, to insure we get a sound sleep. As part of Crowne Plaza’s new Sleep Advantage program, the latest great idea is to interrupt your work at 7 pm every night, telling you it’s time to switch off your electronics, whether it’s your Blackberry or your laptop. A disconnect call? At 7 pm? How irritating will that be? And what’s next? A motherly knock on the door, telling you it’s time for bed. Crowne Plaza will be rolling out the program at 92 Crowne Plaza hotels in Europe, the Middle East and Africa by the end of 2010.
Hotel News Blast, Hotels
Crowne Plaza, Sleep Advantage
courtesy of Camelback Inn
The Camelback Inn near Phoenix has just lost a convention for immigration lawyers, who are boycotting the state due to Arizona’s draconian immigration law. San Francisco has banned city workers from most business travel to Arizona as well. On the other hand, the American Hotel & Lodging Association pledged to hold its June summer summit meeting in Arizona as scheduled. Since tourists spend $18.5 billion in Arizona in 2008, and the hotel industry employs a large number of immigrant labor, the Arizona immigration law will impact the state’s hotels and resorts. Everyone seems to have an opinion. (Ours? This immigration law sucks, and seems to be unconstitutional, but let’s leave that for another day.) One of the worst things about it is the unrestrained prejudice and anger it has unleashed on both sides of the border. (Mexico has just issued a travel advisory for Arizona.) As if to illustrate our point, the Arizona Hotel and Lodging Association has set up its own Facebook page to counter calls for a boycott of the state, provoking a firestorm of comments both for and against. Ugly stuff. We’ll follow how this immigration law shakes out in the tourism industry, especially as it affects hotels.
Arizona, Hotels
American Hotel & Lodging Association, Arizona Hotel and Lodging Association, Camelback Inn
