Hotel News, Planning Tools
Hotel News
The Grand Luxxe Opens in Nuevo Vallarta, Mexico
The Grand Luxxe, a Grupo Vidanta hotel located in Nuevo Vallarta just 20 minutes north from the Puerto Vallarta airport, will open in April, 2010. The hotel will offer private butlers on each floor and features The Grand Luxxe Suite and the Grand Villa that each range from 2,700 to 3,000 square feet with a large terrace, fully-equipped kitchen and a private plunge pool.
Part of the Riviera Nayarit, Nuevo Vallarta is considered a fairly new destination, about three years old. (www.grandluxxe.com)
Staybridge Suites Debuts in New York City’s Times Square
IHG (InterContinental Hotels Group) has announced that a new 310-room Staybridge Suites will open in early April in the center of Manhattan. The Staybridge Suites Times Square is within walking distance of the Jacob Javits Convention Center. The 32-story building will be designed less like a traditional hotel and more like studio apartments.(www.staybridge.com)
Crowne Plaza Chicago O’Hare Renovates Ballroom
The 503-room Crowne Plaza Chicago O’Hare Hotel & Conference has announced the opening earlier this month of the remodeled O’Hare International Ballroom. In conjunction with the new ballroom opening, events booked at the hotel through June 30 will receive 10% off the total bill, according to Patty Connolly, Crowne Plaza Chicago O’Hare general manager.
The 23,500-square-foot ballroom – one of the largest column-free rooms in the O’Hare area – has new high-end décor with state-of-the-art LED chandeliers and finishes mirroring the property’s recently renovated guest rooms and suites. More than 4,000 square feet of pre-function space has been added adjacent to the ballroom for staging registrations, pre-meal receptions (capacity: 400), dessert buffets, small-scale trade shows and similar events.
The ballroom can be divided into as many as five separate spaces, said Connolly. The combined ballroom space can accommodate receptions for up to 3,800, sit-down meals for up to 2,300 and theater-style seating for up to 3,000. When divided, each smaller room can handle around 30 6-foot trade show booths or classroom-style seating for about 250.
The hotel is just 1.5 miles from O’Hare International Airport, across from the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center, and adjacent to the Rosemont Theater.(www.CrownePlazaOhare.com)
The Leading Hotels of the World Adds Five
The Leading Hotels of the World has recently added the four new member hotels in Peru and the newly-built 304-room Lotte Hotel Moscow, which has two meeting rooms. The Peru properties consist of the 126-room Hotel Monasterio in Cusco, once a 16th-century monastery; the 82-room Miraflores Park Hotel in the residential Malecon de la Reserva section of Lima, which offers six banquet rooms for conferences; Las Casitas del Colca with 20 private casitas in Southern Peru, set in one of the deepest canyons of the world; and the Machu Picchu Sanctuary Lodge, located within the walls of Machu Picchu. (www.lhw.com)
Vietnam Gets Upscale Beach Hotel
The 30-story Sheraton Nha Trang Hotel & Spa, which bills itself as first international upscale hotel brand to open on the beach in Vietnam, will feature six food-and-beverage outlets, a full-service spa, an infinity-edge swimming pool overlooking the sea, and ocean views from all 284 rooms. It is 30 minutes by car from Cam Ranh Airport, which offers daily service between Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi and Danang. The hotel had its soft opening this week and is slated to be fully operational on April 30.
(www.sheraton.com/nhatrang)
Tools
StarCite Partners with EveryScape to Provide 3D Visuals for Planners
StarCite, Inc., a provider of Web-based solutions to strategically manage corporate meetings and events, has announced an exclusive partnership with EveryScape, creator of “The Real World Online,” allowing participating hotel properties to add WebScapes – fully navigable and interactive 3D replicas of their destinations – to their listings in StarCite’s Global Online Marketplace.
EveryScape’s WebScapes will provide eye-level, photographic content of specific hotel properties. “With WebScapes users can now view space flows, guest rooms, meeting space,and in some cases, even the city streets online, said David O’Donohoe, senior vice president of global supplier sales & operations, StarCite. To view a demo, visit www.everyscape.com/corporate/demo/starcite/index.html
HotelPlanner.com Launches New Meeting Space Reservations Platform
Hotelplanner.com has introduced a new meeting and banquet space search tool to help leisure and corporate meeting planners find and book hotel meeting space. Planners can search space, pricing and available room layouts in a user-friendly interface, according to the company. The system also contains proprietary information on food and beverage pricing, meeting related taxes/fees, meeting space photos, and special promotions for free or discounted meeting space.
The meeting space search can be found by visiting the “Meeting Space” tab at HotelPlanner.com or by visiting http://www.hotelplanner.com/Search/Meeting-Space.cfm.
HotelPlanner.com, a provider of online services to the global group hotel sales market, reports that it processes over 15,000 group leads per month completely online and that over 33,000 hotel members compete online for HotelPlanner’s group business daily.
