LAS VEGAS - October 11, 2011 - From IMEX America in Las Vegas, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc. (NYSE: HOT) today announced that it is continuing to innovate its meeting and incentive offerings with the Starwood Convention Service Consultant which offers meeting planners one point of contact to coordinate service between properties when booking at a Starwood Convention Collection hotel. This is the latest of several recent initiatives designed to make Starwood one of the easiest hospitality companies to do business with worldwide. As business travel continues to grow in key markets, Starwood has made improvements and expanded popular offerings, including its Telepresence videoconferencing suites, while continuing to add properties to its global portfolio to meet the needs of corporate travelers.
"Our customers are incredibly important to us and we are continuously looking for ways to make the booking experience as simple as possible," said Christie Hicks, Senior Vice President, Starwood Sales Organization. "We're encouraged by the fact that business travel continues to rise and are ready with products and services that help our corporate and business transient guests get the most out of their experience at Starwood properties."
Innovative Programs Make Booking with Starwood Easy
The Starwood Convention Service Consultant program was created with a goal to provide one point of contact for meeting and group planners to ensure consistent service when booking across Starwood Convention Collection hotels. After an extremely successful pilot and additional enhancements, the program now includes 33 consultants - one at each of the Convention Collection hotels - who are on hand to coordinate service between properties and provide true continuity throughout the booking experience while reducing repetitive processes. The only major hospitality company to offer this position, the Starwood Convention Service Consultant is trained and certified by Starwood, is an expert on the customer and sees that the booking process is seamless from hotel to hotel.
The Starwood Convention Collection is a group of 33 of Starwood's premier convention hotels and resorts set in the most desirable urban and resort destinations in North America. Together they comprise more than 30,000 guestrooms, 1,000 meeting rooms and over three million square feet of meeting space to cater to small and large scale group business, as well as multi-year programs.
Since June 2009, Starwood has partnered with Tata Communications to offer Cisco Telepresence virtual meeting suites at properties in key domestic and international business markets around the world. Now with 14 Telepresence rooms worldwide, including the Sheraton New York Hotel & Towers, Sheraton Centre Toronto, the Westin Los Angeles Airport, Westin St. Francis, Le Méridien Etoile, Sheraton Kuwait Hotel & Towers, the Westin Tokyo and Le Méridien Brussels, Starwood offers customers a more turnkey solution for planning meetings and events with participants regardless of their global location. The Telepresence rooms offer state-of-the-art technology that provides life-like, high-definition conferencing with superior audio, video and environmental qualities allowing face to face meetings across the globe.
Boutique Properties Ideal for Small Meetings
With more than 1,058 properties worldwide, Starwood's diverse portfolio offers meeting facilities that accommodate groups of all sizes from large-scale events at convention hotels to small board meetings at boutique properties.
For smaller scale meetings, The Luxury Collection offers intimate spaces for small groups at its ensemble of hotels in exciting and desirable destinations in more than 30 countries around the globe. Each hotel offers unique and authentic experiences that are expressions of its location and offers a boutique alternative to traditional meeting sites. The Chatwal New York, the latest addition to The Luxury Collection's ensemble, offers 2,100 square feet of meeting space for groups of up to 100.
Additionally, the contemporary, design-led Le Méridien brand offers venues for a variety of meetings from informal conferences to large social functions with a palette of hotels that offer their own individual flair in locations including Palm Springs, Philadelphia, Marrakech, Bangalore, Taipei, Panama, Paris and Chiang Mai.
Meetings at eligible hotels that are booked through Starwood Preferred Planner earn Starpoints for the planner and attendees through the Starwood Preferred Guest program. For more information visit www.StarwoodPreferredPlanner.com or www.starwoodconventioncollection.com.
