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Seville's EME Hotel Gives You A History Lesson With Your Stay
Don’t ya just love learning something new every day? Especially when it takes zero effort? The EME Hotel in Seville hears you. And to save you precious holiday time swotting up in an encyclopedia, it’s selecting random facts for you.
In just one visit the week before last, we came away with the following facts: the date of the philosopher Hegel’s death, the scoop on a Formula 1 rivalry, something Robert Pattinsony (which we forgot, what with gawping at the picture used to illustrate it), and the date the Whigs and Tories split in England in 1680. Not bad, huh?
The fount of all our knowledge? The elevator, which flashed various factoids at us as we cruised to the Santo Terraza bar on the fourth floor. We couldn’t take our eyes off it, and are much the wiser for that.
Tags: Hotel Key Cards / Amsterdam Hotels / Hotel Technology / Noisy Hotels / → All Tags
High-Tech Room Keys at The Hotel Patou But Shame About The Noise
Following on from our Do Not Disturb gallery yesterday, today we present to you the funky room keys at the Hotel Patou, Amsterdam, where we stayed this summer.
The Patou is a trendy little hotel on designer haven Hooftstraat, and as befits such a stylish gaffe, it eschews actual keys (too retro) and cards (too common) for these ingenious electronic key fobs.
Ingenious? Well yes. Because they are exceptionally light, hence easy to hoof around, have a nice leash to make losing them tricky (let’s face it, you’re in Amsterdam, and losing your key will be a pretty sure thing), and they don’t deactivate if you stick them next to your phone, as cards can do.
Tags: iPhone Hotel Apps / Hilton Hotels / Hotel Technology / Hotel News / → All Tags
Will Hilton's iPhone App Really Be as Functional as They Promise?
Hilton Hotels announced today that they would be unveiling not just one or two but seven iPhone apps in the next week or so for hotel guests to use. The apps will be brand-specific, i.e. Doubletree will have its own app, Conrad Hotels will have its own app and so will Embassy Suites. It's an app-travaganza! (Word is that an app for the Waldorf-Astoria collection is in the works as well.)
Now, you already know how we feel about iPhone apps. A few weeks ago, we rounded up all of the hotel iPhone apps that were currently available in the iTunes store. Most of these have little to add to the already popular app of sitting at your computer and booking a room online. But Hilton told USA Today that their apps will be different and will have more functions than just booking a room.
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Elysian Chicago Gives a Sneak Peek of Its Rooms and TV Mirrors
The Elysian Chicago's grand-opening date got pushed back to mid-November, but the hotel's giving us a taste of what to expect in its 188 guest rooms and suites, which include high-tech amenities like television mirrors.
Averaging at 890 square feet, rooms are decked out in grays and other muted shades. And they all have marble bathrooms with soaking tubs, furnished balconies fireplaces and kitchens. But the perks we like most are the free wireless and the dual vanities with inset SÉURA LCD televisions in the bathrooms. When you turn it on, the LCD picture floats on one of the two mirrors. When you turn it off, the LCD vanishes, leaving behind a normal-looking mirror. What fun it'll be getting ready at the vanity for a night on the town; the downside is that it'll add another hour to our prep time for sure.
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Spinning Croatian Hotel Will Have Best Views For Everybody
You know how they charge a bit more for the rooms with a good view? There's one way to solve this dilemma and get no complaints about it, although it's a pretty hi-tech solution: build a rotating hotel. That's exactly what they're planning in Croatia where some spinning accommodation will be built on Šolta Island, near the city of Split.
But don't worry, it's not turning at a rate likely to make you dizzy. The design has it rotating 1.3 times per day, barely fast enough to notice at all, and at the right pace so that if you stay a few days, you'll get a different view at all times of day. It will be just a three-storey hotel and there will be a central hub including the reception, stairs and elevator that won't rotate, so you won't have to look for the front door in a different place each time.
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Hong Kong's Upper House Hotel Does Technology Right
Technology is meant to be all about making our lives easier, right? The newly-opened Upper House Hotel in Hong Kong seems to have got this figured out just right.
The hi-tech experience starts from the airport transfer in a (good-for-the-environment) hybrid Lexus car, because this car has got WiFi on board, and it's free for you to use for the whole ride to the hotel, and back. This would sure give us a great first impression, and it sounds like it continues, because the Upper House provides free internet connection (WiFi and wired) throughout all the guest rooms and public areas of the hotel.
Tags: Hotel Technology / Sheraton Hotels / Hotel News / Microsoft / Windows 7 / Link at Sheraton / → All Tags
Sheraton Guests Will Get To Play with Windows 7 Before the Rest of Us
We've told you all about Sheraton Hotels Link@Sheraton offerings in their hotel lobbies, where guests can surf the web, check their email, engage in webchats and Facebook/Twitter their latest inane thoughts, all for free. These things don't sound super innovative, especially since so many of us can do that from our iPhones, Blackberries and Sidekicks but there is a special perk coming soon for Sheraton guests at Link@Sheraton.
It was announced today that Windows 7, Microsoft's new operating system, will be showcased on HP's next-generation, touch-enabled PCs at select Sheraton properties before Windows 7's official launch.
Sheraton has deployed Windows 7 in its “Link@SheratonSM experienced with Microsoft®,” a unique lobby lounge that enables guests to stay connected using Windows-based computers that feature Microsoft Office, Bing, Microsoft’s new decision engine, Bing Maps, Internet access and Microsoft LifeCam webcams for emailing video postcards. Windows 7 will be available at more than 50 hotels in North America before its official public launch, including Sheraton New York, Sheraton Seattle, Sheraton Boston, Sheraton Chicago Hotel & Towers, Sheraton Toronto, Sheraton Vancouver and the Sheraton Phoenix.
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Feeling Perky at a City Inn? There's a Special Something in the Air Con
We already knew that City Inn – the budget UK hotel chain that hates to be called a budget hotel chain – was the perfect choice for geeks with its in-room iMacs. But we didn’t realize quite how committed it is to creating your working environment.
According to the brand, they use an enhanced fresh air conditioning system, which pumps a high amount of oxygen into the room and freshening up your little grey cells. Yup, just like they do in the casinos in Vegas. Apparently, they say, this “keeps people more alert during meetings” and “ensures they wake up feeling refreshed”.
Could there be any basis in this? When we looked round the Westminster branch earlier this year, we felt pretty perky – but we assumed that was the excitement at trying out the iMac. Here’s hoping that if such a thing as magic air con really exists, the rest of London will be adopting it soon…
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For Better or Worse, These Hotels Have Realized 'There's An App For That'
We've been variously hot and cold about hotel chain iPhone apps. As a rule we embrace anything that can help us travel easier while already on the road, and we certainly embrace it if it lives in the App Store. But hotel apps fall into that dicey category where we're not sure that the bother that goes into them is worth whatever comes out.
Hotel iPhone applications generally help you find a nearby chain hotel and check in through your rewards account. Sometimes they may automatically dial customer service. All of which is great except people rarely book within just one chain. Price is usually the most important factor, which means using a search engine, and rarely is someone in so much of a pinch that exact GPS-pinpointed location matters.
As for checking in, well, we're not talking about flights. The hotel will still be there waiting when you arrive, and you'll still have to wait in line to get it. Checking in doesn't have to happen from the road.
Nonetheless, hotels aren't going to stop producing apps. It's just what companies do these days. So here's our roundup of the industry's current offerings. Feel free to sound off in the comments: would you make space on your beloved iPhone for something like this?
Tags: Hotel Key Cards / Thailand Hotels / Bangkok Hotels / Hotel Technology / → All Tags
Bangkok's Chaophya Park Hotel Has The Best Multi-Use Key Cards Ever
Security issues aside for the moment, Chaophya Park Hotel in Bangkok, Thailand has what are possibly the best hotel room key cards ever: they also function as one-day subway passes. It's the first hotel in Bangkok to offer the amenity of hotel-keys-as-subway-passes since it lies along the MRT route of public transportation. But it won't be the last; the MRT is looking to partner up with further hotels in Bangkok and make this a regular perk.
Still, the Chaophya Park might look like your typical business hotel in the picture above, but judging from this new feature and the fact that they've got iPod docking stations in the rooms, have greening initiatives, and are the first hotel in Thailand to offer free internet, the Chaophya Park is more dynamic than boring.
Now let's talk security...
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Because We Shouldn't Have To Open Hotel Room Curtains By Hand
The "remote control" found in the rooms at Encore and Wynn in Las Vegas.
If you listen to the people who make remote controls and motors for curtains, apparently it's becoming essential to have motorized drapes in your hotel room. This is a fact we hadn't realized yet, but we admit, we're kind of lazy, and perhaps there should be more of them.
According to the gang at LEG Motorized Systems (with a name like that, will they motorize our legs next?), motorizing bits of a hotel room and adding remote controls for their operation is a big trend in hotels at the moment. They've done work for the Mandarin Oriental Miami, for example, motorizing the drapes which then part, at the push of a button, to show you views of Miami Beach or of the skyline.
And in news that will make you feel better about yourself as you contemplate a breakfast room service menu in bed, having motorized drapes in the rooms is not just about being lazy.
Tags: Omni Hotels / Hotel Technology / iPhone Hotel Apps / → All Tags
Omni Hotels Builds iPhone App To Help Customers Do...Umm...Stuff?
If you're a travel company obsessed with new media technologies and you've already set up your Twitter feed and Facebook fan page, what's next? If you're Omni Hotels the answer is apparently to build an iPhone App.
The new app, available from the iTunes store, allows customers to do a bunch of things that are either already effortless or that phones seem bad at doing. But at least they'll be able to do them on their iPhones.
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