“New hotels are green from the start” plus 2 more |
- New hotels are green from the start
- Hotels.com Guest Reviews Reveal Increase in Airport Hotel Popularity
- The Strip's CityCenter hotels up the ante
| New hotels are green from the start Posted: 02 Sep 2010 07:02 AM PDT
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| Hotels.com Guest Reviews Reveal Increase in Airport Hotel Popularity Posted: 02 Sep 2010 03:58 AM PDT Press Release Source: Hotels.com On Thursday September 2, 2010, 6:58 am EDT DALLAS, Sept. 2 /PRNewswire/ -- Hotels.com has revealed an increase in approval ratings for airport hotels. According to guest reviews collated by the accommodation provider, staying at an airport has gone from bleak to chic with the introduction of luxe amenities and convenient time and money saving services that rival more expensive city-centered hotels. It's a fact that airport hotels have always given travelers the ease and convenience of being as close as possible to their gate the night before a trip, and are also known as a place to crash in between bad weather and "technical difficulties". Hotels.com's guest reviews show airport hotels have surprisingly exceeded expectations and have made travelers reconsider staying at airport hotels. "Travellers today are highly influenced by the opinions of others," commented Hotels.com Director of Public Relations, Taylor L. Cole, APR. "Many of our 1 million guest reviews are showing an increase in the approval rating for airport hotels which indicates that more often airport hotels are meeting and exceeding the needs of busy business and leisure travelers who expect savings, amenities and the convenience of an airport location." Staying at the airport costs on average 42 per cent* less than staying at a centrally-located downtown property. Business travelers looking to save money during these difficult economic times can trim costs by utilizing airport accommodations versus more expensive downtown hotels. Many airport hotels aim to save money for the business traveler as well as the leisure traveler by offering complimentary Wi-Fi and hot breakfast. Additionally, many airport hotels are conveniently located within major cities, with easy access via subway, bus, shuttle or light-rail. For instance, Boston's Logan International Airport is a short ride to the world-famous Faneuil Hall Marketplace shopping and entertainment district. Many hotels in this area average $250-$400 per night. With rates as low as $119, the AAA Four Diamond Hilton Boston Logan Airport boasts its own skywalk that links guests to the airports terminals where Boston's public transportation can be accessed. Hilton Boston Logan Airport's Cafe Presto prepares travel-ready meals and is conveniently located in the lobby for guests in a hurry and in need of something on the go. A Hotels.com guest reviewer said: "Great place to stay, easy access to transportation. We were able to either take the shuttle or walk across the skywalk to the airport where we could hop on the Silver Line and then connect to whatever train line we wanted." Hotels.com makes it easy for travellers to choose an airport hotel. Customers can visit the Hotels.com homepage and use the 'Where are you going?' box to search by city/destination or airport code. Users can then add travel dates, the number of rooms required, view pictures of hotels and read guest reviews from real travellers. Notes to Editors: *based on airport hotels averaged at $75.50 per night and downtown hotels averaged at $130.80 per night on random dates. Prices/rates are subject to availability. See site for details. About Hotels.com Hotels.com is a leading provider of lodging worldwide, offering more than 85,000 properties in over 60 countries including New York hotels, Vegas hotels, hotels in Chicago and hotels in Orlando. Hotels.com is the smarter way to book travel by offering welcomerewards, an industry leading loyalty rewards program; the real opinions of other travelers captured in over 1.5 million Guest Reviews and; a Price Match Guarantee, so that those booking with Hotels.com can be assured they are getting the best deal, either online or by speaking directly to a travel expert at 1-800-2-HOTELS 24 hours a day. For more information, please visit hotels.com. Hotels.com is an operating company of Expedia, Inc. (Nasdaq:EXPE - News). Please visit the Hotels.com Travel Smart Blog for consumer and business travel information. Follow Hotels.com on Twitter via twitter.com/hotelsdotcom, on Facebook at facebook.com/hotelsdotcom and take a VirtualVacation at virtualvacay.com.
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| The Strip's CityCenter hotels up the ante Posted: 02 Sep 2010 08:31 AM PDT High-tech touches and green innovations are set on a luxurious stage at the Vdara Hotel & Spa, Mandarin Oriental and Aria Resort & Casino.  Packed into 67 acres between the Monte Carlo and the Bellagio casino hotels, CityCenter is billed not just as the Las Vegas Strip's next evolutionary phase, but also as a spectacle capable of pulling the region's tourism from its death spiral. Yet with nearly 5,900 new luxury hotel rooms to fill, that spiral may be intensifying. Between Dec. 1 and 16, the developers unveiled the 1,495-guest room Vdara, the 392-guest room Mandarin Oriental, and the 4,004-guest room Aria Resort & Casino and its 17 restaurants and cafes. As a whole, the hotels offer a template for 21st century Vegas; it's the locus of sophisticated recreation for the well-heeled brainiac. Stuffed with whiz-bang technology, cutting-edge green operations and urbane décor, the hotels create a new kind of wonderland where pampered lifestyles tread softly on the planet's resources. Vdara and the Mandarin Oriental offer a respite from sensory overload with casino-free lodging. The centerpiece, Aria Resort & Casino, provides an orgy of deluxe gambling, dining and people-watching. The complex is connected by sometimes-confusing ramps, escalators and a three-station monorail, which make the place look more like a futuristic airport than a distillation of Manhattan. Without the chaos of taxis, office workers and urban grit, many areas feel more like a fantasy Manhattan, a sort of Theme Park for Rich People. The cleanliness is a plus, the product of many eco-conscious, unseen factors. CityCenter made environmental impact central to its design and operation, and most buildings boast one of the highest ratings of sustainability, the U.S. Green Building Council's Gold LEED certification. Happily, natural light and fresh air are abundant in most private and many public spaces. Clean air was one welcome surprise in a three-day visit to the new hotels. (The 400-room boutique Harmon Hotel won't open until late this year). Though a similar design sensibility of modern, curvilinear shapes and earth-tone palettes unites the hotels, each offers distinct amenities and advantages. Here are the highlights from my recent stays at all three. Vdara With nary a slot machine on the property, entering the 57-story Vdara is practically serene. Had I booked one of the hotel's natural-gas-powered limos, I could have offset my airplane flight's carbon emissions. Yet my arrival was cushioned by the lobby's light perfume, a 32-foot Frank Stella artwork and a (mostly) competent staff seasoned after 16 days on the job. Though it has a sizable spa, pool complex, restaurant, bar and nearly 1,500 suites, the hotel's orderly layout makes it easy to navigate. Originally designed as a condo hotel, the 500- to 1,650-square-foot suites have the most residential yet urban feel of the three hotels. Even in the smallest suite, there's room for a lush king bed, sofa bed, reading chair, desk, kitchen, dining table and a free-standing spa bathtub. Vdara (an invented name) is one of the few upscale Las Vegas hotels hospitable to families. Spring for one of its 250 Panoramic rooms, and you'll get a four-person dining room table, a washer-dryer and full-sized kitchen appliances. Vdara also may be CityCenter's best hotel for conducting business, given the guest rooms' generous work spaces, laptop safes, fast wireless access and media hubs that can connect an array of electronic devices to the flat-screen TV. Those features and access to the compact fitness center are covered by a $15 daily resort fee. A pool deck offers a variety of smallish swimming/dipping spaces and views of buildings. Life is better indoors: Even the smallest, lowest-price rooms offer multiple, wired-for-technology work spaces. The wide array of green materials in the custom-designed décor shows that sustainable design doesn't always mean burlap and bamboo. Design firm BBG-BBGM used stone, wood and metal to create a durable, eco-friendly and more natural environment, said Julia Monk, managing partner. Vdara, which is behind Aria, is removed from the intensity of the Strip and from most CityCenter visitors. A corridor connects the hotel to a monorail that zips to the Bellagio, Crystals and the Monte Carlo. Just don't expect to transfer easily to any other hotel in the complex. Despite the developers' boasts of the center's "connectivity and access," Vdara refused to move my luggage across the road to Aria. This eco-conscious hotel required that my guest and I retrieve the car, drive the confusing loops to Aria and park again, instead of allowing a bellman to push a cart half a block down the sidewalk. 2600 W. Harmon Ave., Las Vegas, (866) 745-7767, www.vdara.com Doubles from $129 Aria Resort & Casino Aria is a universe unto itself, though the curving steel-and-glass structure designed by Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects serves as CityCenter's crossroads. It's the destination for high-energy, high-priced activities such as gambling, drinking and dining. Its two hotel towers, nine bars, 17 restaurants, 1,840-seat theater, gift shop, spa, pool and 300,000 square feet of meeting space mean you need never leave. Even if you're not a Vegas person who loves the roar of gambling energy, Aria offers a sophisticated new take on casino hotels that should appeal to the poker-phobic. You need a flow chart to track the contributions of every designer and architect who gave the place its many distinct personalities. Some modern-day Mussolini must have made the hotel crews operate on time, which may explain how every restaurant was ready with menu samples at the Dec. 16 grand opening party. Most large hotel projects open in stages, yet all but Aria's pool and several Peter Marino-designed deluxe suites were ready for the gala, though paying guests, including me, arrived the next afternoon, its first open-to-the-public day. Compared with Vdara, Aria's handsome guest rooms are less spacious and offer fewer in-room amenities, but the ivory, green and brown palette, walnut furnishings and chrome accents make it feel as luxuriously cozy. Aria switches up the predictable hotel room layout with built-in wood media centers (bring your own cords), automated curtains that wrap an entire wall and a large spa tub within the marble shower enclosure. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php |
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