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The Five Best Hotels Just Outside of Washington, D.C.
In many cities, a suburban stay equals hours on the train each morning and night. But Washington D.C. is small enough that its closest suburbs are often destinations in their own rights — from Old Town Alexandria, Virginia, to downtown Bethesda, Maryland. Throw in D.C.’s crime-ridden rap, combined with the suburbs-serving Metro, and suddenly it makes sense why so many D.C. tourists actually spend the night in a neighboring city (where, ahem, the residents have the right to vote).
Of course, this is hardly a secret; so if you’re looking to the suburbs for a no-frills deal, stick to family-friendly classics. Otherwise, here are our picks for five convenient suburban DC hotels that offer more than just a free (stale) breakfast.
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Aloft Does Dallas...Again
Remember when we were sorta obsessed with the idea of Aloft Hotels taking over the world? The recession may have thrown a hitch in that plan — at least for the time being — but it seems world domination is alive and well in the Dallas area, where the brand’s fourth hotel, The Aloft Dallas Downtown has just opened its doors.
The newest Aloft has us excited for two reasons: 1) it’s actually located in downtown Dallas, not out in the boonies; and 2) it’s the first Aloft to also be adaptive re-use, an endeavor the brand apparently has plans to continue with future projects. Operating out of a 1924 railroad freight depot and commercial dry goods warehouse, the eight-story antique has been re-imagined with the sleek, loft-style aesthetic Aloft has been oh-so-diligently working to trademark.
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The PDX Aloft Hotel Introduces New 'Bike and Fly' Program
Aloft Portland Airport at Cascade Station is trying to make transportation even easier for PDX residents with the country's first ever “Bike & Fly” program. With the purchase of a one-night stay (starting at $130), guests departing Portland International Airport can stash their bikes in a secure bike parking storage area for up to 14 days. The city’s MAX light rail line conveniently stops right in front of Aloft.
This all sounds good and green, but we’re having a hard time wrapping our head around why anyone in the Portland area would want to plunk down $130 to store their bike and what instances would require an overnight stay on an outbound itinerary? Wouldn’t it be more economical (and easy) to simply take MAX light rail line straight to the airport, suffer through TSA and call it a day?
Tags: 2009 Brand Expansion Report / Hotel Brands / Industry News / Aloft Hotels / Element Hotels / Hotel Indigo / Andaz Hotels / Edition Hotels / Barry Sternlicht / NYLO Hotels / → All Tags
Brands Born in the Recession: Where Are They Now?
It's no secret that the economy has had a massive impact on the hotel industry. Hotel openings have been delayed; construction has been halted on properties in development; jobs have been lost; room rates have been slashed — but the last several years also saw a boom in the introduction of new brands and a handful of entirely new, supposedly game-changing segments (the "budget chic" pack, for example).
Naturally, with the introduction of each new brand came a wave of hype and some big, big expansion plans — and then came the recession. Needless to say, those big plans changed.
Here's a look at the current state of some of those newer brands — a progress report, if you will — that outlines how many properties each brand had planned on when the concept was introduced, how many properties they've actually opened as of mid-2009, and, of course, how they're faring out there in the cold, brutal world.
Tags: Hotel Rumors / Hotel News / Manhattan Hotels / Industry News / Budget Hotels / Aloft Hotels / Element Hotels / Sam Chang / → All Tags
Element and Aloft Are Coming to Manhattan. Someday.
Not to bum you out on a Friday or anything, but we were hearing some sorta-sad whispers about a pack of budget hotels planned for Manhattan that are getting seriously delayed. Specifically, budget hotel guru Sam Chang — the dude behind many, many affordable hotel developments in the NYC area — and his McSam Hotel Group have delayed starting construction on five projects planned for Manhattan. We already knew McSam's Tri-Pack hotel was having some issues and delays, but some of the upcoming hotels are already facing major setbacks before any shovels have hit the dirt.
But what hotels are they? We took a lookie-look at the glorious HVS Hotel Market Overview this morning (which seems to have finally been updated) and noticed McSam has had quite a few irons in the fire, including a Hyatt Place, a Hilton Garden Inn and — no joke — an Element for Manhattan.
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The New 'Aloft Experience' Site is Kind of Awesome
Aloft recently explanded their website, launching a totally new section called The Aloft Experience — and the most important thing we have to say here is this: the music on the site is stellar. There is a little music player rolling through a playlist that includes Duran Duran, Jem and Sarah Bareilles. And you know how much we love us some decent hotel website music.
The new "microsite" is pretty sweet; the official purpose of the new offshoot is:
It showcases a range of interactive features, including a guided insider’s tour of the hotel, maps and city guides for each location which engage visitors through a series of original, branded games that bring the Aloft Hotels experience to life.
Tags: Hotel Technology / Hotel Amenities / Starwood Hotels / Hotel News / Aloft Hotels / Element Hotels / Four Points by Sheraton / → All Tags
Aloft, Element and Four Points Introduce 'Digital Newsstands'
Whoa. Sweet. Just when we thought Amazon Kindles topped the list of awesome tech offerings for word nerds and news junkies, we hear about this: Starwood announced this week that they've entered into a partnership with Zinio (a company that digitally publishes print magazine titles) to offer a "Digital Newsstand" for free to guests in Aloft, Element, and Four Points by Sheraton hotel properties.
According to a press release:
The digital newsstand, which will be accessible in Starwood's guest rooms and lobby kiosks, will offer participating titles including: Caribbean Travel & Life, Destination Weddings & Honeymoons, Field & Stream, Golf Fitness Magazine, Kiteboarding, Macworld, mental_floss, Outside, Outside's GO, PC World, Saveur, Ski Magazine, Skiing, Spa Magazine, U.S. News & World Report, Wakeboarding and Working Mother. Also, Starwood will be the first hotel company to offer VIVmag, the first interactive digital women's luxury-lifestyle magazine, conceived and designed exclusively to be read digitally.
To access the digital newsstand during your stay, you click through from the internet portal page (on your laptop in your room or on a lobby kiosk) "to the private-label newsstand where free single issues will be featured," pick the magazine you want to read, register for Zinio, and read mags to your heart's content.
Tags: Industry News / Aloft Hotels / NYLO Hotels / Element Hotels / The New York Times / → All Tags
Breaking: New Brands Not Growing As Quickly As Originally Planned
Remember when Aloft, NYLO, Element and Indigo were announced [Ed Note: wow, that early Aloft post makes us feel as nostalgic and wistful as our high school yearbook], back in simpler times when the insanely rapid expansion plans of the mid-priced hip hotel brands seemed only sorta-insanely rapid but still somewhat feasible?
Ah, those were the days...and those days are gone. A New York Times article ran today that spelled out just how much the growth of those new budgety brands has varied from those rather-hopeful initial goals due to the recession and its impact on travel.
NYLO, for instance, had always planned on a franchise model for growth — but they'd planned to build and operate the first few hotels themselves and then franchise the rest, and had 40 franchises in the works when the brand first launched — but now a rep told the Times that they'd be "lucky 30 hotels open by the end of 2011."
However, the NYLO exec still seemed to have high hopes for their spinoff XP brand, which he hopes, once the economy turns around, will be a little bit easier to "build and sell" than a NYLO-branded hotel because it is a limited-service brand, not a full-service hotel like NYLO.
Tags: Hotel News Briefs / Aloft Hotels / Hotel Hell / Odd Hotels / IHG Hotels / → All Tags
The Aloft Harlem Is Back On and Set To Open in 2010
There's tons of hotel news flying around this week and we don't have time to give each and every story the love and attention it may deserve, so you will have to settle for some news briefs.
· Aloft Harlem Will Rise in 2010: Another Aloft is planned for the NYC area. Curbed has some renderings and predictable Aloft room photos. But before this one hits town, Aloft Brooklyn should open first. [Curbed]
· Problems with the Gaylord's Tap Water : A water main break caused the hotel guests to go without tap water for three days. A new round of tests is being done but until then, bottled water only please. [Wapo]
· IHG Drops Holiday Inn for Indigo?: While plans are moving forward to expand the Hotel Indigo brand, the planned refresh for Holiday Inns across Europe gets delayed. [Marketing Magazine UK]
· Jumbo Hostel is Now Open: Do you love hostels and jumbo jets? Then this is your ultimate fantasy. [Jumbo Hostel official site]
Tags: Aloft Hotels / Inauguration Hotels / Airport Hotels / DC Hotels / Facebook Hotels / → All Tags
Aloft Dulles Opens For Inauguration But All Rooms Are Booked
Standard Aloft Signage (Not from Aloft Dulles North.)
It's been a while since we reported on an Aloft Hotel opening but that's because those hotels are opening up seemingly every week across the country. However, the most recent opening in Washington D.C. (ok, scratch that. We mean Ashburn, Virginia) has us wondering if there are any rooms open for Barack Obama's Inauguration.
The Aloft Dulles North opened its doors to guests just before Christmas and will hold it's officially opening party on January 15th. Unfortunately, when we plugged in prime inauguration stay dates (Jan. 18-21st), the online reservations system had nothing for us. Null, in fact was the term that came up.
Still the Aloft might be a cool place to stay one day...if you're ever stuck near the airport. One thing we kinda like about the hotel is something that you can't see. It's the time capsule they created and promptly buried. The time capsule is called DNA which can stand for either the scientific DNA or for Dulles North Aloft and it will be unsealed on the hotel's ten year anniversary.
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Best Hotel Video Tour:: Inside Aloft Hotels
Best Hotel Video Tour: Aloft Hotels
In 2008, we were able to visit many hotels far and wide to round out our video collection from Mexico to Los Angeles to Buenos Aires to London and Munich. To pick a best hotel video tour was actually really hard to do. But the ones from our trips inside Aloft Hotels had the most impact.
That's because this year, the anticipation of the most hyped hotel in all of history ended when we first entered the Aloft Hotels. We first toured the Aloft Rancho Cucamonga, just outside of Los Angeles. We weren't that impressed the first time around. Sure, the rooms were new and the style different than what we're used to from airport hotels and other budget types of roadside hotels. But it all just seemed so...weird...to us.
Then we took another trip a few weeks later to the Aloft Lexington in Massachusetts. And it kind of sunk in for us. We got the whole hip roadside hotel thing that Starwood and W Hotels was throwing at us, especially with the free WiFi, the outdoor pool, the car wash, the 24-hour mini-mart and the game room/lounge that makes up the lobby. If you want (or have to) to stay somewhere cheap in a secondary or tertiary market (read: near corporate office parks and airports) why should you have to sacrifice style and fun?
Tags: Hotel Amenities / Aloft Hotels / Starwood Hotels / → All Tags
Aloft Beijing Is a Little Different From Aloft Everywhere Else
Remember when we said that Aloft Beijing was no different than Aloft everywhere else? We stand corrected.
True story: a Boston Globe reviewer hit up the brand new Aloft Beijing (doors opened two weeks ago), where she found all the amenities we've come to know and love about the hip new ubiquitous Starwood chain.
In the reviewer's room, there was the standard sunny shower, 42-inch LCD flatscreen television, iPod connectivity; in the lobby, the "Skittle-color pillows and nightclubby neon stripes" were familiar and welcoming.
And then she opened up her guest room's closet and found a quart-size canister with a gas mask sort of thing inside. Startling:
The canister, which Aloft only provides in Beijing to meet China’s standards, contained a “Fire Fighting Filter Type Self-Saving Breather.” And it came with this handy step-by-step “method of application”:
1. Take out the fire fighting filter type self-saving breather.
2. Tear at the packaging bag of the fire fighting filter type self-saving breather.
3. Wear helmet and pull contractive belt fast.
5. Choose way and flee for your life decidedly.
Guh! Scary (also: where is step number four?)
And do we smell (er, not smell) a late addition to our Best Gifts for Hotel Geeks?
[Photos: Nicole Wong / Boston Globe]
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