Blog built to bring bookings

Starwood Hotels and Resorts isn’t a hotel chain, it’s a “branded lifestyle company”. It’s blog, thelobby.com, isn’t a blog, it’s a “multi-brand marketing tool”.

Brian Pratt, its VP for EMEA, told delegates at EyeForTravel that the various brands within the group were not allowed to cross-promote, and that one of the upmarket brands would never use “sale” in its promotions.

Starwood’s brands are Starwood Hotels, Aloft, Element, Four Points, Le Meridien, Sheraton, St. Regis, The Luxury Collection, W and Westin.

Thelobby.com is written by employees, as well as professional travel, culture and leisure writers. It is aimed at members of Starwood’s loyalty programme. It features ‘star pick’ properties which are on promotion to its Preferred Guests.

Talking of which, Pratt said that in a slowdown, “loyalty schemes had to prove their worth.” He wants to drive occupancy in the bad times by persuading guests to cash in the points built up during the good times.

Social media is seeing a “considerable” amount of Starwood advertising cash at the moment as the business “tries to figure out a way of using this opportunity”. But maybe it already has decided – at the end of the Q&A Pratt admitted that for the next few months at least “there are better places to spend money”.

Martin Cowen chief writer Travolution

I name this ship...Virtual Costa Serena

Anyone kicking about in Second Life today can bear witness to the first ever launch of a cruise ship in a virtual world.

Costa Cruises will simultaneously smash the champagne against the hull of its newest ship, the Costa Serena, in the French port of Marseille and in Second Life.

[Costa Cruises microsite]

After the SL ceremony there will be various bits of entertaintment including a treasure hunt, live DJs and fireworks, as well as the opportunity to stroll around the entire ship.

Nice idea. We'll check with Costa next week to find out how many people actually turned up.

Costa is the latest travel-related brand to enter Second Life. Travel technology provider Comtec has showcased its new Travel.co.uk travel comparison engine in Second Life. Starwood Hotels also built a prototype hotel there last summer.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: second life maiden voyage

Aloft Hotel virtual tour

The Second Life guys have put together the definitive tour of the recently completed Aloft hotel.



[See Travolution's first night in Second Life and the video of the hotel's construction]

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Travolution@PhoCusWright Hollywood

Madeleine Wood from Spannerworks reports from the PhoCusWright conference in Hollywood, California:

Three days of “two dot ohhh”… So what’s the theory on the future of online travel from the other side of the Atlantic?

Prostitution is not the oldest human profession – travel writing is.

According to Lonely Planet chief executive, Judy Slatyer, we are compelled to share our travel experiences and learnings. Cave paintings show detail of where to get water, meat and shelter.

They even show evidence of rating systems, in the form of palm prints for useful content. Such communication is an inherent part of the human nature and has been for 20,000 years, making it -20,000.0.

Web 2.0 just means we have a fancier array of tools and gadgets through which to share our insights.

One third of those who use MySpace also use CNN.com, says a survey by Yahoo!-ComScore.

That’s not teenagers; it’s the general public of 35+. Social media isn’t just trendy or about planning for where future customers will be. In the UK and in the US, it’s where travel consumers are now.

According to director of interactive marketing for hotel chain Sheraton, Jeff Mirman, Web 2.0 wasn’t a seismic shift in their online strategy. Second Life, for example, which parent company Starwood used to showcase its new Aloft hotel, was simply about evolving their marketing in line with the new platforms people engage with.
[See Travolution's visit to the Aloft in Second Life]

So, Web 1.0 was about price led aggregation of content, Web 1.5 was Meta Search and Web 2.0 is about aggregation of content with product and relevancy. Users have moved beyond online travel as being about cost saving.

Web 2.0 is about fulfilling the function of the travel agent – inspiration, personalisation and trust.

The commercial benefit to social media is generating online loyalty, engagement and an emotional connection to inspire the purchase.

TripAdvisor, Travelocity and Starwood all say they generate significantly higher conversions to purchase following exposure to social media content.

So that's the business case we've all been looking for...

Madeleine Wood, business development manager at Spannerworks

Travolution@WTM - Vive La France

The first day of World Travel Market kicked off today with the usual storm of rum-punch stands, belly dancers, and marching bands.

Things were a bit more civilised at the Starwood-owned Louvre Hotels stand, which was serving champagne, not sparkling wine.

You can say what you want about the French, but there are far worse ways to wind down the first day of WTM than sipping properly chilled champagne.

Though it is doubtful the folks at Louvre Hotels were toasting their acquistion by an American company, they do have reason to celebrate. The company is launching two new, yet-to-be announced brands and new websites for its existing budget hotel brands., including Campanile, Premiere Classe Hotels and Kyriad.

The website for the Concorde Hotels & Resorts brand, a predominantly corporate chain serving the meetings and incentive market, will also receive a facelift

The new websites will speed up the reservations and booking process to “three to four clicks”, and will allow customers to book at any point during the reservation process.

The new sites will also feature 360-degree views of guest rooms, as well as local area maps and the hotels’ global location on Google Earth.

Guillaume du Poy, director of marketing for Louvre Hotels, told Travolution he wants to drive 80% of bookings online. The company's budget brands currently get only 10% of thier bookings online. No matter. “If Travelodge can do it, we can do it,” said du Poy. Now that's the American, I mean French, spirit.

Tricia Holly Davis, freelance journalist

First night in Second Life

Travolution entered Linden, the virtual world created by US-based Second Life, for the first time last night.

We have been tracking this new world over the summer ever since it emerged the Starwood hotel group had commissioned developers in Second Life to build an exact replica of one its new Aloft hotels.

Last week we gave birth to Kevinluke May, our own ‘person’ in Second Life [another Kevin May already lives in Linden – and we will be looking for him!], ahead of our arrival.

After grappling with the control console, which unfortunately for your average home user requires some pretty hardy kit such as a fast graphics accelerator, we set about assigning clothes, hair (or lack of), facial features and the like to Linden’s newest citizen.

[It was certainly a rather unnerving experience to find oneself without any outer garments on arrival in the drop-off one where other all new residents also begin their adventures]

The drop-zone is actually a bizarre but, on reflection, probably sensible place to start.

With the population increasing every day as us immigrants arrive, it actually resembles not much more than a nudist colony for the insane.

Every other new resident is also frantically running around, learning the controls and busily trying to add clothes and ensure they have a passing resemblance to their real self [or, in reality, someone they aspire to look like] as quickly as possible.

As promised last week, Kevinluke May then decided to find the new Aloft hotel.

A directory of places in Linden quickly located the Aloft island and within seconds – via the handy teleport button – a now fully clothed new resident of Linden found himself standing outside the new hotel.

A quick tour of the hotel revealed everything is in place for the hotel’s official opening this week.

Picture shows our resident standing by the pool at the Aloft.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Having a Second Life

After closely following the construction of the virtual Aloft Hotel over the summer we thought it was about time Travolution became a resident of Second Life.

We have now registered under the name Kevinluke May and hope to move into Linden shortly. There is, alas, another Kevin May among the 900,000-odd other citizens in the population

We will try and make our first visit one to see how work is progressing at the Aloft.

Here begins the adventures of Travolution in Second Life!

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Aloft hotel built in 71 seconds

The Aloft virtual reality hotel is nearing completion and the Second Life team has produced a fantastic video of the hotel’s construction.

The YouTube video below, “shot” from a perch high above the site, charts its growth in little over a few months.



Visit the Aloft blog to see more of the latest developments.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

More from the Aloft in Second Life

The Aloft virtual hotel is looking very promising, with developers recently adding textures to hotel rooms and the lobby area.

The quality of the graphic rendering is absolutely fantastic.


Only a few weeks to go until the official “opening” of the hotel. Mine's a Pina Colada by the pool...

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Latest on Aloft hotels in Second Life

We recently highlighted the Second Life experiment – a series of virtual worlds being built by some seriously clever people in the US.

Starwood Hotels has partnered with the creators to build one of its hotels within the system, ahead of a “real” hotel being constructed in a few years time.

It’s a fascinating project.

Recent events have included putting the finishing touches to the exterior of the hotel and its surroundings – a rather nice island, in fact – before heading inside to install everything else a hotel might need.

Perhaps the most bizarre recollections on the creator’s blog – and one that will perhaps reinforce opinions of those critical of the “virtual world” experience and its effects on people – comes in the form of a promotional photoshoot for a magazine.

More updates here in the coming weeks, ahead of the hotel’s grand opening in September

Kevin May, editor, Travolution