Red Room Chronicles

Marriott has unveiled a “live billboard” in Times Square, New York City designed to highlight the company’s hip new room design. Apparently, this is some sort of a window display of a guest room, located at street level and wired for sound.

The way it sounds, the updated room design isn’t anything that we haven’t heard before. Marriott will be focusing on more updated technology and improved bedding when designing their new rooms. The stodgy furniture will be replace with sleeker, more modern sets.

This all sounds great. I can’t wait to actually stay in one of these newly designed rooms.

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This Businesss Week interview details the efforts of Marriott to update it’s image to appeal to a younger demographic.

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What a wacky week! I flew into Houston on Tuesday and later that day detailed issues with my room reservation at the Residence Inn Houston Westchase hotel. Alex (the manager of the Residence Inn) was very nice in explaining the situation and booking me a room at the Courtyard Houston West University hotel. I tried to find a hotel closer to my office with no luck so I took Alex up on the offer of the alternate hotel, which was about twelve miles away from my office. Residence Inn also took care of the bill for that night.

Yesterday I was preparing to begin a two night stay at the original hotel but Hurricane Rita changed my plans. In the end I was none the worse for wear.

So what could have Marriott done better? Well, the original situation I detailed in my previous post was one that the folks at the Residence Inn could have anticipated a day or two prior to calling me. A little advance notice of the situation might have enabled me to search for an additional hotel based on my own preferences. In the absence of that, they did take care of me by arranging alternative arrangements and taking the further step of picking up the tab.

I just got a call from the manager of the Residence Inn Westchase here in Houston. He told me that the hotel is full and cannot accomodate me even though I’ve had this reservation for weeks. It was explained to me that the hotel is filled with New Orleans evacuees and they won’t be going anywhere this week. Somehow I think that they should have known that was the case yesterday or even a few days ago. A phone call then would have been nice instead of a call just three hours before I check in.

The Residence Inn has made other arrangements for me tonight at the Courtyard Houston West University which is about 20 minutes away from here. The Residence Inn will also foot the bill for tonight’s lodging. That’s only for one night though. Tomorrow night they’re going to try to accomodate me at the original hotel where I had a reservation. Stay tuned to see if that actually occurs.

Tags: Marriott

According to this story in Business Week, Marriott is making some moves to try and attract younger travelers.

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I was in San Antonio last week, coveting a Marriott stay. This week I’m in Houston, booked in a Marriott of course. More on that later this evening. Meanwhile, my friend Shel Holtz finds himself at the Marriott Courtyard Medical Center in San Antonio but he’s having some problems with the high speed internet access there. I agree with Shel. Net access outages are frustrating for business travelers and hotels should do their best to inform us of known issues at the time of check in.

Marriott has a double reward points promotion going from October 1, 2005 thru January 1, 2006. Earn double points starting on your second paid stay with a Visa card. Register here.

Tags: Marriott

I’m in San Antonio staying at the Emily Morgan Hotel for four nights. It’s a nice place but I’d rather be staying at one of the Marriott hotels nearby. There’s the San Antonio Marriott Riverwalk and the Residence Inn San Antonio Alamo Plaza which is nearby as well. So no points and no Marriott benefits. Reservations were set up by my company with special rates so I had no choice on this one. I just hope that I don’t end up four nights short of platinum status at the end of the year.

Not surprisingly, Marriott won’t be able to open most of it’s 15 hotels in the New Orleans area any time soon.

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The Marriott family and Marriott International have pledged a total of $3 million to aid employees and victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Press Release