Meeting News - December 17, 2007 - (Page 14)

Hotels/Resorts Double the Pleasure: Sofitel Spins Off Two Brands Hotelier creates new luxury and boutique chains in effort to be European luxury leader Paris—Significantly boosting its profile, Sofitel Luxury Hotels has announced plans to create two new brands. The French company will return to its roots to establish a European look and feel across its two new lines—Sofitel Legends, luxury hotels in historic buildings, and So by Sofitel, a boutique concern. The company will retain the Sofitel Luxury Hotels chain as its flagship brand. Sofitel’s goal is to be the first European luxury hotel brand with a global reach. It will focus on major metropolitan markets for all of its hotels as well as key resort destinations for some of its Legends. “France is known world over for luxury retail—such as Louis Vuitton, Cartier, Hermes—so who better than us to operate a French luxury brand?” asked Craig Cunningham, vice president of brand marketing for Sofitel North America. “We realized we had a jewel with Sofitel that could be elevated and made into a more consistent global brand.” The company plans to have 139 hotels in business and resort destinations across the three brands by 2010. Though it’ll be worldwide, North America is a particular focus: Boston, Miami, and San Francisco are key areas of interest. “The things people look to France for—amazing cuisine and attention to detail in service and design will be featured in both new brands,” Cunningham said. Sofitel Legends will debut through the reflagging of seven hotels: the Grand, Amsterdam; the Palais Jamai, Fes, Morocco; the Winter Palace, Luxor, Egypt; the Old Cataract, Aswan, Egypt; the Santa Clara in Cartagena, Colombia; the Hua Hin resort, Thailand; and, the first Legend hotel, opening mid-2008, the Metropole, Hanoi, Vietnam. The size of these properties, both in guest room count and meeting space, will vary by market but they will target high-end corporate meetings and incentives with elements like luxury spas, fine dining restaurants, and butler service. So by Sofitel properties will all feature 80 to 200 rooms but meeting space will vary. The first one will open its doors in Paris in 2009, replacing the Sofitel Arc de Triompe, followed by So Berlin, replacing the Sofitel Am Gendarmenmarkt. tures lit from below in changing colors and four different shaped meeting rooms, each with a unique scent. The Sax has also partnered with Microsoft to deploy cutting-edge technology; it was exploring those options at press time. “The idea is to take people out of what they’re used to: the four-walled meeting space,” said Kaplan. “They’re more likely to come up with new idea if they’re put into a unique setting.” continued on page 16 Edited by Rayna Katz rayna.katz@nielsen.com Gaylord Saddles Up Westin in San Antonio Nashville—Keeping to its usual Texas-sized ambition, Gaylord Entertainment Co. has purchased the Westin La Cantera for a cool $252.5 million and announced plans for a major expansion, more than quadrupling the resort’s meeting space. The hotelier plans to turn the 508room resort, which has 39,000 sf of meeting space, into a 1,000-room hotel with about 160,000 sf of meeting space. Also, Gaylord made plain its intent to grow the property further in the future: It purchased 90 acres of adjacent undeveloped land. “We’re bullish on San Antonio and, now, this is small for us,” Gaylord Executive VP and COO John Caparella told MeetingNews. Where will the business needed to fill such a vast space come from? “About 50 percent of our business is from groups that rotate around our properties, and we turn away millions of room nights a year,” he said. Gaylord Texan Resort and Convention Center being in the same state—it’s near Dallas—may help the hotels.“We see them as comparable, so one might be able to help the other if it can’t host a group,” Caparella said. He is not worried about competition between the two hotels. “They’re different destinations. San Antonio brings in 21 million visitors a year, so there’s a lot to draw from.” The expansion is slated to take until 2011. Construction will start after the deal closes early next year. As for the adjoining land, Gaylord does not know what it will do with it, Caparella admitted. The company bought it to stave off competitors. “We’re a big economic engine wherever we go. If other properties benefit from that, that’s great for them but not for us,” said Caparella.“We’d rather manage our destiny.” www.meetingnews.com The Sofitel Chicago is a good example of the unique architecture the hotelier wants to bring to the market. Windy City Hotel Hits Unique Note with Guests Chicago—When the Hotel Sax set out to build new space, it didn’t want to create more of what the city already offered. Instead, after careful analysis and some creative thinking, the hotel added 10,000 sf of meeting space— which opened two weeks ago—that promises to stimulate attendees’ minds while also providing relaxing spaces to foster creativity. “Most of the meeting space around town is designed to be flexi14 MeetingNews ble and hoteliers say ‘we’ll customize it by getting some slinkys and koosh balls, and we’ll call that a creative set,’” said Adam Kaplan, director of marketing. “We wanted to do something more inspiring.” The new meeting space at the Sax—which also has 3,000 sf of previously existing event facilities and 350 guest rooms—includes a retreat area with a modular sofa; a small meeting room with a fireplace, creating a den-like feeling; a skylight-like element in the boardroom, sculp- December 17, 2007 http://www.meetingnews.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Meeting News - December 17, 2007

Meeting News - December 17, 2007 Contents What’s Up @ MeetingNews.com Inside the Meetings Industry MN Webcast Report Successful Meetings University Malibu Hospitality Safe After Third City Fire Advertisers Index Live from the Forum

Meeting News - December 17, 2007

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.