We hope everyone is off to a very happy long weekend. Here is our recap of this week’s best news, notes and trends in the hotel world.
Hotel Trends: Starwood Temporarily Relocates Headquarters to Dubai
As part of Starwood Hotels & Resort’s globalization and cultural training efforts, the hotel group plans to relocate its senior leadership team for a month-long management event in 2012. The team will move from their current Stamford, Connecticut, headquarters to Dubai. We’re curious to see if anything notable comes out of this move, other than the frustration of top execs who end up away from their families for a month.
Hotel News: Paramount Lends Name to Hotel Brand
Bloomberg reports that Paramount Pictures is lending its name to a new brand of luxury hotels that will be themed after Hollywood and California. “We will offer something unique,” Paramount Hotels & Resorts chief executive officer Thomas Van Vliet said in an interview in the hotel-management company’s Dubai headquarters. “In addition to luxury and services, our hotels will add Paramount entertainment and technology as well as elements of the California lifestyle.” The hotels are tentatively slated for Brazil, the U.K., the Caribbean, Russia, Qatar, Oman, South Africa and Indonesia and may be part of tourist attractions or theme parks. Hotels will also have private screening areas so that guests can watch (shock) Paramount films. We’ll keep you up to date on this as hotels and official plans are announced.
Coming Soon: Four Seasons Toronto and Shanghai
Four Seasons is continuing global expansion with a planned June opening for its new Pudong, Shanghai property (you’ll recall Ritz-Carlton has two properties in the area already, beating them to Shanghai, although Four Seasons has had hotels in China since 2002) and an early October opening of its new Toronto property in the city where Four Seasons calls their corporate headquarters. The original Yorkville Road location closed in March, and we reported last week that many of its contents are now up for auction.
Discounts Galore for Servicemen and Women
If you’re in the service, this is the weekend to pull out that military ID. We’ve had dozens of hotels write in with their special offerings – so many that the suggestion we’re going to give you is “call and ask” instead of listing them all. One cool package we’d like to draw your attention to, however, is that at The Jefferson in Washington, D.C., available this weekend, July Fourth and Labor Day. They’re offering a special tribute to service men and women. Book an overnight ($295) at the Relais Chateaux property and you’ll get a flag that flew over the U.S. Capitol to take home. That’s a parting gift to remember.
Social Media
Shoutout to Omni hotels: their #campomni family travel Twitter chat became a national trending topic yesterday afternoon.
[Flickr via Dannymac15_1999]