Inside the aloft Experience

April 24, 2006 at 3:36 PM | by juliana | Comment (1)

The lucky guests at Travel & Leisure's Innovative Trailblazers panel, a part of their 35th anniversary celebration, were treated to an inside look of aloft hotels courtesy of Ross Klein, president of W Hotels Worldwide.

The dapper Klein walked up to the podium to a groovy soundtrack suspiciously similar to music found in all the W's lobbies (to be fair, he did work in fashion for Ralph Lauren, where runways and house music probably accompanied every speaking engagement.)

After taking the audience on a brief marketing lesson for W Hotels ("flirty", "insider" and "escape" are key branding words) he then launched into his mega-plan for aloft.

Under parent company, Starwood Hotels, 500 aloft hotels will be found worldwide by 2012 with the first one opening in Lenox, Mass in 2007.

But aloft is not going to follow the W to urban cities. Instead, it is intended to be the reinvention of the American motel where business travelers, traveling youth and other people who hit the road can relax, recharge and even wash their cars within a hip setting. Or as Klein says in fashion-speak with just a touch of "Derelicte" enthusiam, a sassy refreshing oasis.

More on aloft services after the jump.

The audience was then treated to a decidedly unfashionable video about aloft's services that was part trailer for a new season of Road Rules and part Noxema commercial with funky music, a young female narrator and glamour shots of kids riding in convertibles through the desert before hopping out with suitcases in front of aloft.

Since aloft is "a vision of W hotels"--not necessarily a spin-off, not necessarily a unique property--the pretentious W lexicon is used but with some changes.

The lobby will be called Relax. The pool is called Splash. Housekeeping is Refresh, fitness center is Recharge, car wash is rinse and front desk is called Aloha. The Whatever/Whenever service will also be implemented, however under the name Anything/Anytime. The hotel bars will be known as WXYZ and cafes will be known as Re:Fuel.

There will be wireless internet access in the rooms, but there was no mention of the word "free" or complimentary so we are guessing they will charge you for it, and heavily.

Rooms will also have high ceilings, oversized windows, flat panel TVs, Bliss amenities, comfy beds and aerobeds instead of roll-away cots.

Giving a shout-out to the younger generations (or perhaps, getting them hooked on the brand at a very very young and impressionable age) kids are welcomed with the Camp Aloft program.

Lastly, the hotels will be partnered up with some huge companies such as Apple, Target, Zipcar, Sirius, ESPN and Jetblue, although the details of the arrangements were not entirely specified.

After the audience got the play-by-play on aloft, Klein popped in another unbelievably cheesy video about the W Hotels where the theme song was "Seasons of Love" (from the Broadway musical, Rent) and clips of W staffers from around the world were shown.

We'd like to write more about that, but we still haven't recovered from the shock of it all. And we aren't even sure if that was a real Rent cast singing or just American Idol hopefuls.

Later on, the aloft a go-go airstream trailer made an appearance outside the W Hotel Westwood, complete with a big jar of Hershey's bars, several promo materials, and a glimpse into what the hotel room decor will look like.

It's definitely not your parent's HoJo or Motel 6. So if you have an excuse to go to Lenox or other random suburbs and lesser cities, aloft might be your new roadside stop at $150 a room.

Image via Meetings Industry Soapbox

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