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Today's featured interview is with Chris J. Austin, VP of Global Customer Partnerships, Leisure & Luxury Sales for Starwood Hotels & Resorts.
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Chris J. Austin
VP Global Sales, Leisure & Luxury Sales Starwood Hotels & Resorts
For more information visit:
StarwoodHotels.com |
Jessica: Hi Chris! Thank you for being a part of the 2009 MAC Awards. Let me begin by saying that I am so excited about the luxurious 6-night Hawaiian vacation accommodations Starwood Hotels & Resorts is providing for one of our lucky participating travel agents to win. That's such a great prize. Can you tell us a little bit about it?
Chris: Starwood is delighted to support Mail Pound by offering a 6 night hotel stay in the Hawaiian Islands. The lucky Travel Professional winner will enjoy 3 nights at The Royal Hawaiian Hotel, a member of The Luxury Collection. An icon of comfort and romance, this stunning property captures the warmth of a true Hawaiian home, calling back visitors year after year. Located on the famous Waikiki beach the hotel reopened earlier this year after a meticulous renovation, repositioning the famous Pink Palace as the luxury landmark befitting to her. Follow the stay in Waikiki travel to Kauai where we are offering 3 nights at The St. Regis Princeville Resort, that official opens on October 1st 2009, located on the lush island of Kauai. Perched majestically atop Kauai's emerald cliffs, The St. Regis Princeville Resort holds court over crystal waters, silver sands and golden sunsets, a palatial landmark of exquisite marble and glass set against the stunning Namolokama mountains. Flights, transfers and all incidentals are at the winners own expense.
Jessica: What are some of the hotels and resorts that are part of the Starwood family?
Chris: Starwood is continuing to expand its footprint around the world! We have nine powerful brands including St. Regis, The Luxury Collection, W Hotels, Le Meridien, Westin Hotels & Resorts, Sheraton Hotels & Resorts, Four Points by Sheraton, Element and aloft.
We have many famous properties well known by our travel professional partners, too many to reference, however as one of the leading hotel and leisure companies in the world, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc. constantly looks for opportunities to expand our global presence. We have more than 400 hotels and resorts, representing each of our well-known brands, slated to open in the next several years – ensuring every guest will find a hotel to suit their specific needs.
Just to give you an idea of the breadth of new properties opening this summer, I ask that you go to our website and explore the newest St. Regis properties including The St. Regis Atlanta, The St. Regis Deer Crest Resort, and The St. Regis Princeville Resort. Or in the W brand, among our newest openings are the W Atlanta – Buckhead, W Boston, W Washington D.C. and the W South Beach. Among the newest Westin’s you might explore the The Westin Book Cadillac Detroit or The Westin Jersey City Newport. And for something unique and fitting in our Luxury Collection portfolio, perhaps a stay at The Joule, Dallas, A Luxury Collection Hotel, The Fairfax in Washington DC or Equinox Golf Resort & Spa in Vermont. These are just a sampling of the properties that have recently opened or are soon to open.
Jessica: What is it about the Starwood Hotels & Resorts experience that attracts so many?
Chris: Established less than fifteen years ago, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc. has grown at a dynamic pace to assume an industry-leading position in the global hotel and leisure business. Known by travelers and industry insiders alike for having many of the best brands in the business, Starwood has reshaped public perception of the hotel experience with its emphasis on innovation, design and brand differentiation.
Starwood is a global lifestyle hospitality company that has nine diverse brands from luxury to select serve; resort to airport that appeal to leisure, business and group travelers. Starwood makes emotional connections with its guests, offering lifestyle-focused venues, signature experiences and leading-edge branded products.
The wide variety of brands and guest experiences means Starwood will have the best experience to fit a travel professional’s client’s needs. Innovation drives our business. Travel professionals can trust Starwood and our brands when booking their customers. Be it Westin Hotels & Resorts that this year is celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Heavenly Bed, St. Regis Hotels & Resorts, that feature the iconic luxury, unmatched privilege and bespoke services to guests in 19 locations worldwide, or Sheraton, where guests can connect with loved ones back home using our free internet services at the Link at Sheraton.
Starwood is looking at this economic climate as an ideal time to renovate properties. We are ensuring that we are ready for the turn a round, that our hotels and resorts truly exceed our customers expectations and hence our retail travel professional partners can trust Starwood. We are committing millions of dollars to property renovations worldwide and our new hotel pipeline is still incredibly strong. This year Starwood will open our 1000th hotel, but what our agency partners need to understand is this is not a pure numbers game, every hotel that Starwood opens is additive to the brand it belongs to, if it cannot be, we simply won’t open the hotel.
Jessica: I noticed on your website that you have a Starwood ProLearning program. Can you share some information about it with us?
Chris: ProLearning – a learning and development tool - helps travel professionals better understand and experience our brands, learn more about our hotels & resort locations and find topics that are relevant to their business, all with the goal of improving profit performance and deepening customer relationships.
While ProLearning has a focus on Starwood’s hotels and brands, it also explores general consumer needs and motivations. ProLearning defines what makes a brand, examines the human truths that impact purchase decisions and provides insight to help travel professionals better understand and meet customers’ travel objectives.
ProLearning also includes attractive STARPRO rates for those who complete the training. STARPRO rates are only available to graduates of ProLearning and are designed to allow continual education by offering travel professionals great rates to experience our hotels and resorts first hand. STARPRO rates start at $69 and can be booked at starwoodpro.com. To participate in ProLearning, travel professionals should visit starwoodpro.com today.
More than 5,000 fellow travel professionals have completed the first module of ProLearning and are eligible for our STARPRO rates. The second module, focusing on Business Development has just debuted and all new graduates of our second module will be automatically entered to win a Westin Heavenly Bed. Our modules are designed to share some strategies we use at Starwood to build our business and sharpen our sales skills. We certainly recognize the challenges our industry has faced in the first half of 2009 but we all hope to be busy selling this fall and these modules are designed to facilitate strong sales for our agency partners and, in turn, for our hotels.
Jessica: Do you have any special offers you would like to mention to our travel agents?
Chris: Yes, it truly is a great opportunity currently and Starwood stands up for travel and are doing our part by offering commissionable offers that our travel professional partners can promote to their customers. Visit starwoodpro.com and click on our special offers tab to identify the specials currently in market. Some examples include our Caribbean or Hawaii Sunsational Savings, and our Mexico Sensational Savings, that include free nights and stay credits. The Luxury Collections, Linger Longer promotion also includes free nights and a donation to UNISEF. Starwood also has over 150 hotels and resorts across 60 of the world’s cruise ports. Our hotels in these locations offer bed and breakfast rates and travel professionals need not look any further than a Starwood hotel or resort to satisfy their customers travel requirements.
Thank you Chris for sharing all of this great information about Starwood Hotels and Resorts with us!
Please feel free to submit comments below. Have an excellent day!
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