Starwood Hotels & Resorts is testing about two dozen
technology-driven amenities for its Aloft, Element and Four Points by Sheraton
select-service brands, as the hotel company looks to attract more owners and
grow the brands’ footprints.
At some Aloft properties, Starwood will test a system that
lets guests control room temperature, lighting and coffee-brewing pre-sets from
their smartphones, while offering Apple TV video-streaming service at some
properties.
Such potential amenities may complement Aloft’s robotic
butler (“Botlr”), which is being tested at two hotels in California’s Silicon
Valley, and the SPG Keyless feature that lets loyalty members check in and
unlock their hotel room doors with their smartphones.
An Element hotel kitchen, with touchscreen cookbook on the wall.
As for Element, Starwood is testing SPG Keyless as well as
“smart” floor tiles that light up to guide the guest between a darkened bedroom
and the bathroom, “nature-inspired” lighting to combat jetlag, touch-screen
virtual cookbooks on the wall near the rooms’ kitchenette, and virtual-reality
“bike rides” that guests can experience riding stationary bikes at Element’s
gyms.
At some Four Points, Starwood will test side-by-side
dual-streamed TVs that let guests watch multiple programs at once with wireless
headphones, and digital “smart mirrors” that let guests read the news or get
weather reports while preparing for the day.
Starwood is looking to accelerate growth with its
select-service brands after the company’s slow growth (relative to Marriott
International, Hilton Worldwide and Hyatt Hotels Corp.) and relatively small
presence in the select-service sector helped lead to the resignation of former
CEO Frits van Paasschen in February.
Smart mirrors in Four Points by Sheraton rooms will enable guests to read the headlines and check the weather.
The company’s select-service brands — Four Points by
Sheraton, Aloft and Element — total about 300 hotels, less than 25% of
Starwood’s total. In comparison, Hyatt’s
approximately 275 select-service properties account for almost half of that
company’s total hotels. Marriott International and Hilton Worldwide have an
inventory of about 2,700 and 2,000 select-service hotels, respectively.
Since van Paasschen’s departure, interim CEO Adam Aron has
stressed the need to accelerate Starwood’s unit growth. Earlier this month,
Starwood last week unveiled a five-year plan to expand the global footprint of
its Sheraton upper-upscale brand by about one-third with the addition of 150
hotels.
The “Sheraton 2020” initiative also calls for an investment
of $100 million in a new marketing program and the introduction of the Sheraton
Grand sub-brand for higher-end hotels. Starwood hopes to have more than 100
Sheraton Grands by 2020.