Thanks for joining us on the last working days of 2007 for the 2007 HotelChatter Year-End Awards. And thanks to all those Hotel Mavens out there who have contributed to our site with their reviews, photos, tips and gossip this year. Keep it up in 2008!
As always, there are at least four ways to contribute:
Las Vegas is an easy choice for Best Hotel Scene because where else can you find thousands of hotel rooms, hundreds of restaurants and lots of nightclubs on a single 4-mile stretch of road?
But Las Vegas wowed us when we read that the average occupancy rate for hotels is something like 90%. That means these hotels are close to sold-out almost every night.
And there's no end in sight for the number of hotels in Las Vegas. We are anxiously awaiting the just-delayed Palazzo Hotel as well as the Palms Place which should open next month. Caesars is building yet another tower. Steve Wynn is opening up The Victory Hotel next to The Wynn and let us not forget the upcoming mega MGM Project CityCenter complex which will open in 2009 and feature two new hotels and condo buildings.
Aside from new buildings, the olds are thankfully starting to upgrade themselves. The Venetian redid its guest rooms, as did The Mandalay Bay. The old Aladdin was transformed into the Planet Hollywood which we actually liked a lot. At The Luxor while most of its interior and guestrooms are still ghastly-looking, they opened up two new clubs (LAX and CatHouse) as well added a hip restaurant, Company.
Speaking of restaurants, Las Vegas is now a top culinary destination with restaurants from celebrity chefs like Wolfgang Puck, Bradley Ogden, Guy Savoy, Bobby Flay, Joel Robuchon, Alain Ducasse, Mario Batali, Thomas Keller, Michael Mina and several more.
The nightclub scene is just as popping. Have you seen how many celebs are getting paid to host parties at nightclubs there over New Years? If you're not into drinking and dancing your face off, there's always concerts, magic shows, Cirque Du Soleil shows, comedy shows, Broadways shows and strip shows for you to check-out. Don't forget shopping too.
And of course, there's always gambling. But after eating, dancing, drinking and shopping, will you have any money left over for gambling? Or vice-versa?
Chip Conley of Joie De Vivre Hospitality wins this award for 2007 not only because was he the first hotelier to kick-off our new feature, Pitch Your Hotel (although that helped) but also because in 2007 Chip pushed on in expanding JDV to new locations (nothing outside of California though) while at the same time, remaining very true to the philosophy of JDV--the joy of life.
When we asked Chip why there were no JDV hotels outside of California he told us this:
I think that's because we are conscious of what JDV is all about. We describe our hotels as hand-crafted and soulful and we want to make sure they are still close to home.
This past year, Chip opened Hotel Tomo in San Francisco's Japantown (even holding a "Name that Hotel" contest before it opened), weathered two complaints of racial profiling at his hotel by publicly apologizing in a newspaper column for the treatment of a guest by his hotel staff and continued to scope out new locations for JDV Hotels. Coming up next? Sacramento and Santa Cruz.
Not only do we love him but so do his employees. The Wall Street Journal recently wrote about how Chip's management techniques have kept his staffers happy by offering sponsoring parties and awards, arranging paid annual retreats for employees, and offering free classes from computer courses to English as a Second Language.
Another example of how Chip tries to keep things fun? For JDV's 20th anniversary party, nearly 10,000 California residents named Joy were invited to the party.
2007 did not see as many hotel openings as we would have thought, especially in New York City, where most of the expected '07 hotels have been put on hold 'til next year. But one hotel did open on time and seamlessly so, The NYLO Hotel in Plano, Texas.
This hotel is the first of many planned NYLO hotels which will open in similar secondary and tertiary markets like Plano throughout the country. Started by a bunch of former Starwood Hotels execs, NYLO (short for New York Lofts) aims to provide both business and leisure travelers with "high design" at affordable prices.
We spoke with the General Manager of NYLO Plano, Patrick O'Neil who also does double-duty as the Senior VP of operations for the NYLO chain on the eve of the hotel opening and asked him what made NYLO different from the rest. He said:
In the markets that we are competing in, we are going to be able to offer our guests something totally different. Some examples...we run on 50 percent windpower, the only hotel in the area to do so. We also offer 32-inch HDTVs in every room, no other hotel around here does that. And we don't charge for the little things. We have free wireless, the bottled water in the rooms is free and parking is free.
Meanwhile, Starwood's similar competing brands aloft and element hotels have yet to open despite a barrage of press releases announcing expected locations around the world.
Despite being nothing more than a set for a faux-reality TV show that never hosted any actual real guests, Chateau La Rue was the most popular hotel of 2007.
Tori Spelling and her trophy husband Dean McDermott got into the B&B business at the start of the year after much hype that Tori Spelling was using her tiny inheritance to set up shop. The two seasons of Tori and Dean: Inn Love that aired were pretty painful to watch. We actually blame our ever-growing alcohol problem on having to watch this show.
Aside from the pain of watching Tori and Dean pretend to run a B&B, potential guests were totally frustrated when they couldn't ever book a room at the inn nor in some cases, even get a reply from the reservations hotline.
Things got worse in the spring, when we discovered (not so surprisingly) that Tori and Dean didn't actually own their B&B, despite an entire episode centered around placing a bid for the inn.
Then this fall was capped off with a threat of a raging wildfire before Tori and Dean finally decided to throw in the towel and open a gourmet french fry business instead. The inn is now set to go back to its old name under the original owner, Patricia King, who wrote to us last month:
You are correct, Tori and Dean will not be running Chateau La Rue any longer, but I, the true proprietor of Oak Creek Manor am accepting reservations for Friday December 14th, on.
The Inn will maintain most of Tori and Dean's new room colors, but will return a couple of rooms to their original splendor which matches the architecture: Colonial.
Rates range from $150 to $295 should you want to book a room in 2008. The runner-up for the People's Choice Awards? A real hotel, The Bowery Hotel in Manhattan which opened in March.
In 2007, we decided to map out some of Japan's most interesting love hotels with our Japanese Love Hotels Map.
Some of these love hotels have sexy themes like Hotel Chapel Sweet and some have random names and decor like Gang Snowman's, which actually closed. RIP tommy gun-toting snowmen. From a hotel with an S&M Hello Kitty room to the Alcatraz-inspired Rock Hotel, there should be a love hotel for everyone's fetish.
This year the iPod docking station became totally ubiquitous at hotels. What was once a perk of hip boutique or tech-forward hotels, the iPod docking stations can now be found at Sheratons, Westins, and Hyatts alike. They are practically as common as hairdryers and minibars.
However, we give props to the hotels that give guests pre-loaded iPods to listen to during their stay as the Tides Zihuatanejo does. Also Gramercy Park has 10 custom playlists they created on the in-room nanos for guests but should you want a 10-finger discount, the hotel will charge you $750. At the Angler's Boutique Resort, they have bumped up their iPod docking station with hardwired surround sound.
And on the subject of iPods, a totally bogus service we discovered this year at the Sheraton Delfina is the use of a Nano for two hours for free but then for $15 each hour after that.
Each year we release our Best and Worst Hotel WiFi Lists and in 2007 we decided to add an international component. Using our far-flung contributors and our own experiences, we kicked off a list of hotels with good and bad WiFi policies from Australia to the Argentina.
For those looking to surf the web at this hotel, you should be more than satisfied. The entire property has a strong internet connection, 802.11 present throughout, and a healthy bandwidth well into the megs. Topping that, you can work poolside even using VOIP while you sip an açaí smoothie. If only all international hotels would offer the same service.
Thanks for joining us on the last working days of 2007 for the 2007 HotelChatter Year-End Awards. And thanks to all those Hotel Mavens out there who have contributed to our site with their reviews, photos, tips and gossip this year. Keep it up in 2008!
