The rebranding will be effective March 10, when the website Belmond.com launches. The company will spend $15 million to market the new brand in the first large-scale advertising campaign in the company's 38-year history. The Belmond name is derived from "beautiful world" in French. "The new brand name provides us with a fresh opportunity to tell our story," said Orient-Express CEO John Scott in a statement. "We are excited that we are entering the next chapter in our journey with a name that celebrates our character, resonates with our guests and encompasses the broad scope of our celebrated collection of hotels, river cruises and trains." Orient-Express Hotels was founded in 1976 with the acquisition of Hotel Cipriani in Venice, Italy. The company's 45 hotels include Rio de Janeiro's Copacabana Palace and New York City's 21 Club.
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The spa at Copacabana Palace, Rio
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Starwood and the smartphoneStarwood Hotels & Resorts will start a pilot program this Spring in which guests can use their Smartphones to check in and enter their room. Starwood Preferred Guest members who sign up for the program will be able to use their Smartphones within the next three months. Starwood plans to roll out this feature at all Aloft and W hotels by next year.
Hotels: 100 'Institutional Investors' favorites
Institutional Investors list of top 25 hotels around the word
See the full list here
Customer satisfaction varies by country
Hoteliers need to take cultural differences into account when they compare guest satisfaction levels for hotel guests in various countries. This study by J.D. Power finds that those differences can be remarkable. For example, the length of time that guests from different countries will wait to check in before they become unsatisfied varies greatly-- from as little as five minutes to as long as half an hour (see below).
Cornell demonstrates value of hotel loyalty programs
Well designed hotel loyalty programs encourage frequent guests to become even more frequent, according to a new study from the Center for Hospitality Research (CHR) at the Cornell School of Hotel Administration. "What we found is that the frequent guests became even more frequent after they joined the program, and the result was a 50-percent increase in revenue compared to those who did not join the program," said Prof Voorhees at Michigan State University. "It's important to note that these guests are already some of the hotels' best customers, so the program is not only attracting the best subset of customers, but also fundamentally increasing their patronage too after they join."
