Participating Sponsors
BOUTIQUE & LIFESTYLE LODGING ASSOCIATION
What You Need to Know About the new Boutique & Lifestyle Lodging Association …..
Being distinctive is simply not distinctive enough.
If you are a boutique property with plenty of pizzazz, simply standing out is not going to put heads in your beds and diners in your restaurants. The Boutique & Lifestyle Lodging Association (BLLA) was established to address the needs of boutique hotels and lifestyle properties worldwide with the collective clout an official organization can muster. BLLA puts a name and voice to a niche that has not, until now, had an official association to address the needs, the tools, the marketing solutions and the branding of small and unusual hospitality companies and properties – often too small to make the big sound they require.
“We are defining the words boutique & lifestyle and ensuring the public understands the meaning as it relates to our industry,” says Frances Kiradjian, Founder & Chair, The Boutique & Lifestyle Lodging Association. “We are also setting industry-wide standards so consumers know what to expect at boutique hotels and lifestyle properties worldwide. We want to bring global attention to the signature style and special experiences travelers encounter at boutique accommodations and this can be done only with the collective presence of an official association.”
Members of the Boutique and Lifestyle Lodging Association now have a chance to join knowledge and ideas in confronting the issues of our times as they come, ensemble, sharing problem solving tools and better business building solutions gained through time and experience. The Association is there to offer resources and guidance as well as facilitate distribution, events, alliances and partnerships for members around the world.
|
|
BRILLA GROUP
Brilla Group is a specialized and integrated investment firm focused solely on acquiring a portfolio of exceptional luxury beachfront resort assets in South Florida and the Caribbean region. The current global economic crisis has given rise to significant distress in this market, which, in turn is propelling extraordinary discounts and acquisition opportunities.
Brilla is a specialist in this asset class and market. We create, control and actively manage project-specific investment funds targeting cash-flowing resort properties and unique land bank/development projects. Today, Brilla manages multiple investment funds spanning Mexico, the Bahamas, and the French West Indies, which control in excess of 2 miles of beachfront, 1 five-star boutique hotel, 5 hotel sites, 5 residential sites, and 1 marina site.
Our Executive Team and Advisory Board are comprised of experienced investors, entrepreneurs, professionals, and operators with outstanding track records, who bring their expertise in start-ups, finance, real estate, law, international relations, government, tourism, and hospitality. |
|
VINGCARD
With the introduction of the world’s first recodable door lock in 1979, VingCard reinvented the hospitality security industry. Today, VingCard continues to develop and refine global solutions, including traditional magnetic-stripe, upgraded smartcard and cutting-edge Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) locking systems that protect hotel owners from liability, hotel assets from physical attacks, and travelers and their valuables from internal and external threats. For more information, visit www.vingcard.com.
|
|
INTERCONTINENTAL HOTELS GROUP (IHG)
InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) is the world’s largest hotel group by number of rooms. IHG owns, manages, leases or franchises, through various subsidiaries, hotels in nearly 100 countries. Its portfolio of hotel brands include InterContinental® Hotels & Resorts, Hotel Indigo®, Crowne Plaza® Hotels & Resorts, Holiday Inn® Hotels and Resorts, Holiday Inn Express®, Staybridge Suites® and Candlewood Suites®. IHG also manages the world’s largest hotel loyalty program, Priority Club® Rewards.
|
|
GBCBLUE
GBCblue is a leading innovator in guest computing technology and support services trusted by major hotels in the US, Canada, Mexico, UK, and the Caribbean. The Company focuses on providing the hospitality industry with the finest remotely managed, self-service, automated business centers, public computing, in-room applications and fully hosted web-based property guest portals. GBCblue delivers its services on both the classic Microsoft platform and the popular Apple systems.
GBCblue’s renowned new ORION system allows hotel operators to easily create customized web-based property portals. These portals allow guests the ability to directly interact with property services, such as ordering room service, amenities, or other property services right from their laptop or web-enabled phone. The new GORION product is an iPhone/iPod Touch application that puts the power of the ORION portal directly in the palm of your guests. With direct integrations available into POS, PMS, CRM and CMMS systems, hoteliers can streamline guest services and increase staff productivity while providing the highest level of customer service.
At GBCblue we understand that design and aesthetics are very important and we always customize applications to fit your individual brand. Discover what GBCblue can do for you to enhance your guest facing technology while adding incremental revenues and reducing costs at www.GBCblue.com or call us at1-888-GBCblue (422-2583). |
|
DESIRES HOTELS
Honored as the Best Hotel Management Company by Lodging Hospitality magazine in 2008, Desires Hotels understands that boutique hotels need a specialized touch. By focusing on the diverse and individual concerns of these modern boutique and lifestyle hotels, we guarantee the results you expect while maintaining the individual personality of your property.
Our guests are consumers looking for a unique lifestyle-oriented experience. They are tech savvy, enjoy trendy restaurants and seek personal recognition, comfort and attention. They expect an outstanding level of service, as well as unique and exciting amenities.
Our clients are owners and developers of modern boutique hotels who are looking for an increased return on investment on their asset and a proven, turn-key management solution.
Our expertise as a hotel management company in the areas of Branding, Sales, Marketing, Revenue
Management, Operations, Human Resources and Financial Management gives our properties a competitive advantage. Our emphasis on culture is consistently rewarded with a high level of employee and guest satisfaction.
And lastly, our commitment to innovation led us to develop a proprietary hotel Customer Relationship Management solution and loyalty program, aptly named "Your Desires", and to implement E-Commerce and Social Media initiatives that are some of the best around.
|
|
HOSTMARK HOSPITALITY GROUP
Hostmark Hospitality Group (www.hostmark.com) is an independent third party hospitality management company with over 40 years of experience in the management, workout and ultimate disposition of hospitality assets. Currently, Hostmark’s management portfolio encompasses 31 properties across all markets with room counts of 40 to over 500. Since its inception, Hostmark has managed over 300 hotels in 40 states.
Formed in 1965, Hostmark Hospitality Group continues to be led by the Cataldo family as a private company. The management and operations team covers all disciplines and has worked cohesively through several industry cycles with no corporate function outsourced. On average, senior operations managers have nearly three decades of industry experience with over two decades on the Hostmark team. Hostmark Hospitality Group is the only truly independent management company with all of the eight disciplines functioning at the corporate level: Accounting, Food & Beverage, Sales, Marketing, Human Resources, Construction & Renovations, Purchasing and Information Technology. The corporate staff numbers 49 people; a total of 4,200 people represent the company on a property level.
Hostmark is approved to operate assets for the major franchise companies including Marriott, Hilton, Starwood, InterContinental Hotel Group and Radisson. |
|
BOUTIQUE HOSPITALITY MANAGEMENT
Boutique Hospitality Management is a dynamic hotel management company dedicated to putting business back into the business of boutique hotels. Conceived by Keith Space in 1997, BHM specializes in property management, operations, acquisitions, repositioning, marketing and competitive analysis. Having amassed decades of experience, BHM leadership stands ready to exercise its own distinctive vision of unique hotels and bring excitement and glamour back into the boutique hotel experience. Whether it is a boutique product or traditional flag, BHM has the skills and diversity of talent needed to identify, acquire, renovate, market and most importantly, operate both limited and full-service hotels.
Projects in the portfolio range from the Angler's Boutique Resort in Miami Beach, the Pelican Grand Beach Resort in Ft. Lauderdale and the newly renovated Artmore Hotel in Atlanta, to hotels on the Caribbean island of Dominica. In addition to these transactions, there are several other projects which will soon enjoy the benefits of Boutique Hospitality Management’s efforts, increasing the BHM portfolio. The company plans to add three to five properties per year over the next five years to its collection.
|
|
ELSAFE
Since introducing the world’s first electronic in-room safe in 1979, Elsafe has been the leading provider of safes to the hospitality industry, offering the most advanced audit trail, modular design and upgradeable technology to suit any budgetary requirement. Supplying more than 50 percent of the world’s in-room electronic hotel safes in 165 countries, Elsafe provides the industry’s only UL-listed (1037) hotel safe series on the market today in keypad and card-based models under its Infinity and Sentinel product lines. For more information, visit www.elsafe.com.
|
|
BEST WESTERN
With more than 4,000 hotels in 80 countries, Best Western International is not only the World’s Largest Hotel Chain®, it also is the world’s original boutique hotel chain. Each of our hotels is unique, providing custom décor and a service experience that fits its local market.
Guests choose Best Western because of its reputation for service, quality and value. Developers choose Best Western because of the flexibility and high level of service and marketing support it offers its member hotels – at fees that are among the industry’s lowest.
Visit bestwestern.com to see some of our boutique properties, including the Best Western Sundial in Scottsdale, Ariz., Best Western Pioneer Square Hotel in Seattle, Best Western The Parlour Historic Inn & Suites in Stratford, Ontario, and Best Western Hotel Tomo in San Francisco. Our high-end, boutique-style hotels in Europe and Asia are distinguished by the “Best Western Premier” (www.bestwesternpremier.com) descriptor.
Each night, Best Western is the home away from home for over 400,000 travelers. Consider Best Western as the home for your boutique hotel. |
|
TIMELOX
TimeLox is one of the leading suppliers of electronic hotel-locking systems worldwide, with a selection of advanced, widely compatible solutions that are among the simplest to install and run. Specializing in meeting the unique security needs of gaming properties and other large resorts, TimeLox has become an industry leader in smartcard, dual-card, infrared and RF-online locking technology, as well as the integration of locks with other systems, such as property management systems (PMS), point-of-sales systems (POS) and player tracking systems. For more information, visit www.timelox.com.
|
|
DIGUISEPPE ARCHITECTURE
DiGuiseppe is a full service international design company with studios in New York City, Boca Raton and Upstate New York. The company provides architectural, interior design and procurement services for the boutique hotel, resort, spa and residential industry.
The firm specializes in an all inclusive “hand-in-glove” approach to upscale projects combining design, management and procurement services. This approach results in personalized project management, efficient time lines, and cost effective fees. The firm is actively involved sustainable design research and has been incorporating “ green products and awareness in all of it’s new projects.
The firm is presently designing boutique hotel / resort projects , as well as luxury residences, in New York City, and recent projects which include The Spa for the Trump Soho, The Niagara Falls Crowne Plaza( cited by Intercontinental as the Best Renovation of 2007), The Emerson Inn and Spa ( on the cover of Hotel Design Nov-Dec 07), and The Providence Biltmore Hotel ( obtained 70% market share in Providence after room renovation), Gurneys’ Inn Resort & Spa, The Sanctuary at Desert Hot Springs and The Hotel at Mount Charleston, in Las Vegas.
A portfolio of the firm’s work can be seen on our web site: www.diguiseppe.com
|
|
CENDYN
Since 1996, Cendyn has excelled at being a full-service, multi-channel interactive marketing firm specializing in turnkey solutions for the hotel and travel industries. With a strong understanding of branding and customers, and most importantly the knowledge of how these customers use interactive solutions to make travel and buying decisions, Cendyn has become one of the country’s leading interactive marketing firms. Cendyn’s depth of understanding and experience in direct and interactive marketing, combined with effective technology and ROI focus has helped many leading hotel companies and other organizations around the globe harness the power of all available marketing resources on a single platform. The result is increased revenues, lower costs and improved customer acquisition and retention.
Based in Boca Raton, Florida, Cendyn’s products and services are in use by more than 9,000 hotel and travel destinations worldwide. From website creative design and search engine optimization to electronic proposal response and robust CRM systems, Cendyn provides a full suite of products and services that drive bottom-line results for hotels and destinations worldwide – all from a single platform.
Cendyn has received an award for Outstanding Public and Private Partnership for “its unique commitment and command of interactive marketing within international tourism” from the 2nd World Tourism Marketing Summit held this past October in Beijing, China. This event is sponsored by the World Trade University Global Secretariat, which is a development project of the UN and the European Union. Cendyn was named one of the Top 5 website design firms in South Florida by South Florida Business Journal, recipient of SFBJ’s “Union Planters Bank Business of the Year” award and has been a multiple-award winner of HSMAI’s Adrian Awards every year from 2004 to 2008. For more information, please visit www.cendyn.com.
|
|
IQWARE
Deerfield Beach, Fla.-based IQware has been “Helping Hospitality Partner With IntelligenceSM” for 25 years. Today, more than 5,000 end users utilize IQware software to help best market and manage more than 100,000 rooms generating more than $3 billion in gross room revenue. IQware brings with it more than 300 years of combined experience managing hospitality properties and developing and supporting related software. “Built By Hoteliers For Hoteliers,” IQware’s Global Property Management System and more than two dozen add-on modules optimize operations at properties of all types − limited- and full-service hotels, resorts, condo-hotels and timeshares − and all sizes − from regional hotel chains to multi-property management companies to small independents IQware is Your Single-Source Technology Partner through ongoing customized training, user-driven technology development, 24x7 support and lifetime software upgrades. Looking for a competitive edge? Look no further. IQware “Helps Hospitality Better Find, Book, Host, Know & Retain Clients.” IQware solutions offer numerous ROI-generating tools including e-marketing, four-tier yield management, Web- Rez, packages, loyalty points, IQDestinations and IQLink — which pushes your existing PMS inventory directly to the most effective and profitable Intranet, GDS and Extranet channels. And because IQware’s Global Property Management System has served as the heart of so many hotel operations for a quarter century, today IQware also can provide the lifeblood for Condo Management, Point Of Sale, Sales & Catering, Online Reservations, Spa Management, Marina Management, Central Reservations
System and e-CRM electronic (Customer Relationship Management). For more information, please visit www.iqwareinc.com |
|
|
|