Fortune magazine just put out a nice rundown on "The Best New Business Hotels." We would normally be skeptical, but they teamed up with Wallpaper to get some true hipness cred in the mix. The result is a lot of hotels that have good desk lighting, talented concierges, and "better than average room service," but a bit of style as well.
Bad news is, you have to pick up the print copy to get a rundown of their list and short descriptions. Good news is, we've got plenty of chatter about a lot of them right here. For more than a few, HotelChatter has been providing a blow-by-blow account of opening delays and pushed-back promises for a year or more. Following are a few of the hotels that made the list, both in the U.S. and internationally.
Note that this list is aimed at readers with fat expense accounts who are willing to shell out for wireless Internet access. After all, the InterContinental Boston touted in their article made our Worst Wifi Hotels of 2007 list. Plus Fortune is not going to tell you about the Anti-view from the Proximity Hotel in Greensboro.
Bucking the usual bad magazine practice of listing hotels on a "best of" list before the construction is even finished, all these seem to actually be open though.
The offerings of food and wine packages in the hospitality industry often follows a strict caste system.
Luxury hotels offer their high-paying guests a chef's table dining option or culinary lessons from the hotel's executive chef. Boutique hotels offer wine tastings or sommelier classes. Chain hotels typically offer packages with dining credits at the hotel's mid-level restaurants thrown in as a bonus. And those budget and extended stay/select service hotels offer you an all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet of cereal, bagels, fruit and coffee.
But Hyatt's Summerfield Suites is doing something different. The extended-stay brand has just announced its 2nd annual Summer Grilling Social program.
This week our roaming correspondent, Monica Guy, is giving us the low-down on the Chilean Hotel Scene. Here she encounters una vista mal. Enjoy.
Lucky Lorie and Paul Bennett, who found a killer view staring at them out of the window of the businessy Park Plaza Hotel in Santiago, Chile.
We on the other hand spent the night in the Radisson Plaza Santiago Hotel, a similar 160-room 5-star mega-hotel in Santiago's business district.
In their information about the local area, they forgot to mention they're backed right onto a mega-building site which actually seems to create 100 times more dust and noise and pollution than buildings.
If you're lucky, you'll be on the other side of the building, which faces a blank tower block.
How miserable. You're in one of the hottest capitals in one of the most beautiful countries in the world, you have to work (presumably you're here on business, or you wouldn't be staying at the Radisson) and to top it all off, the view out of your hotel window is enough to make you want to top yourself off.
The hotel is fine - standard business-hotel affair, with a piano player tinkling away in the small bar, a small swimming pool and a well-equipped gym on the top floor (at least you can see over the top of the building site) and all the usual knobs and whistles of a Radisson.
Service is sloooooow, and we couldn't get WiFi to work, but apart from that you'll get pretty much what you expect.
Rates are standard business hotel rates, with a bit taken off for Latin America. If you can't pass the bill on to your boss without looking at it, don't bother staying here.
While the hotel is close to the Florida Convention Center and thus gets a lot of spillover business, it's also parked on the intracoastal, giving guests great water views. And the hotel has a 33-slip marina meaning you can just boat your way down to Ft. Lauderdale instead of driving on 95 or chancing it on JetBlue. (Although we doubt your boat is as big as the ones in the pic above.)
The hotel offers five categories of rooms, two types of suites and the presidential suite. The starting room, called The Fort Lauderdale Room, is about 312-sg.ft. with floor-to-ceiling windows and a full balcony. All rooms have mosaic-tiled baths, flat screen TVs and spacious work desks. That last bit alerts us to the fact that a lot of biz travelers probably will stay here.
But the hotel is not all business. When you kick it by the pool, the hotel has a Poolside Ambassador on hand to "provide you with an invigorating Eucalyptus towel or fresh Evian spray." There's also a poolside lounge and restaurant and the hotel will try to set up any leisure activities like water sports or golf.
Introductory rates start at $199 and our source says that will continue until the China Grill Restaurant opens. Yes, that China Grill brand. Also, the Fort Lauderdale Grande is part of Hilton Hotels so you might be able to use your HHonors points here.
If you stay at the Fort Lauderdale Grande, let us know how the renovations look.
Attention Hog Lovers. The upcoming Iron Horse Hotel will be one of the first ever "modern luxury" boutique hotel geared towards motorcycle enthusiasts.
Originally, an industrial warehouse the Iron Horse has been transformed into a 102-room hotel with a location in downtown Milwaukee right near the new Harley-Davidson Museum.
The rooms will have the ever-increasing standard hotel amenities such as complimentary WiFi, iPod docking stations, flat screen TVs and 24-hour room service.
But since the hotel is devoted to motorcycles, hog enthusiasts will appreciate the extra care for their babies such as:
Secured covered motorcycle parking, rag bins, an on-site bike wash, packed saddle bag lunches, road trip, maps and in-room storage areas for boots, helmets and heavy riding leathers.
The hotel also wants to attract other road warriors, business travelers, with upscale tastes as it notes its proximity to the Midwest Airlines Convention Center and with its list of business amenities such as wireless internet, meeting space, business center and fitness facilities (so you can stay in shape on the road we guess) which includes The Boiler Room, of hot tubs and chilling pools. Not a den of aggressive sales men.
The hotel is scheduled to open early summer 2008 and we're guessing room rates will be around $300, judging from the "modern luxury boutique" description. If you can't wait until then, check out the Iron Horse Motorcycle Lodge in North Carolina. The place even has WiFi.
This just in: Women have left the home and entered the workplace. Even more, they're traveling to meetings and conferences alongside their male colleagues.
According to a recent study conducted by the Preston Robert Tisch Center for Hospitality, Tourism and Sports Management at New York University, women account for nearly half of all business travelers in the U.S. and that number is on the rise. The study also reports 65 percent of female business travelers like to incorporate relaxation and leisure time into their business trips.
In response to the seemingly obvious findings, Conrad Hotels & Resorts is re-branding its luxury treatments to cater to the female business traveler. At Conrad Chicago, lady execs can treat themselves to room-service mani/pedis. Treatments include $55 manicures, $70 pedicures, and $130 facials.
Expecting working moms saving up vacation time into late-term can take advantage of the "Indulging Mothers-to-be" service at Conrad Indianapolis.
The turndown service includes a prenatal listening system to monitor the baby's heartbeat and movement, along with internet access so mom can e-mail the sounds home.
The service also includes extra pillows for elevating legs and releasing pressure from the lower back and unlimited bottled water. There's no mention of late-night pickle and ice cream service, but they'd probably accommodate.
Today The NYT put out a special section on business travel, aimed at helping the frequent flyer cope with ever-increasing airport delays. Lucky for us, the section includes some articles on the latest hotel trends for business travelers. Some of these we already knew about (pat, pat) but others we did not. So here are the juicy links ready to be clicked on and a few other note-worthy stories from the travel world.
If there's a group of people that knows airports inside and out, it's the posters on the FlyerTalk.com forums. This thread-- On airport grounds hotels--is looking for, "hotels where you can walk to the gate from your room, no shuttle, so I can get the most amount of sleep."
Turns out there are quite a few abroad and in the U.S., including this Marriott at Houston Intercontinental Airport. Others that get the nod are in Marriott Hotels in Tampa and Philadelphia, a Sheraton in Paris, a Hilton in London, a Fairmont in Vancouver, plus two Hyatts in Dallas and one in Orlando. And who knew that the Huntsville, Alabama airport had a Sheraton in it?
Here's a bonus if you have a short stop in Boston's airport: "The Hilton is nice and frequently available on Priceline."
We're not so sure about some other airport hotels though, like the Yotel and the Ramada at JFK. And let's just hope most of these hotels have invested in superb soundproofing, otherwise, guests won't get the "most amount of sleep" at all.
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by Tim L.
