NEW YORK— Jack Lynch walked the aisles of the recent International Hotel/Motel & Restaurant show in New York with a keen eye on every booth. The director, capital/operating supplies of Starwood Hotels & Resorts was on the prowl for a leather coffee tray that his in-house designers determined they wanted as an in-room amenity in some of Starwood’s guestrooms. They found a tray available for retail, but Lynch’s task was to find one he can get in massive quantities and at a good price in the commercial market. That was just one of the goals Lynch set for himself at the show, having traveled down from Starwood’s White Plains, NY corporate offices to meet with the many vendors who gathered here at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center. “I am here really to say hello to people,” said Lynch as he toured the main floor of the IH/M&RS, stopping to shake hands with one vendor after another who had met the Starwood executive at previous shows over the years. Lynch said he already had a good sense of what products are being promoted at the show, as he spends a good deal of his time speaking with vendors who call him. “If you come to this show seeking to meet people for the first time and to see what new products are available, you’ve missed the boat,” said Lynch. At the Marietta Corp. booth, Lynch stopped to eye the amenity-provider’s offerings. Marietta already supplies in-room shampoo and soap packages to several of Starwood’s brands. Speaking generally of the industry, Marietta’s Michael Stokes said he sees a trend of amenity providers styling their shampoo and lotion containers in a “minimalist design, which mimics what the cosmetic companies are doing.” Natural, easy to open caps on bottles designed to accommodate the aging population is another trend, he told HOTEL BUSINESS®. At the Vingcard Elsafe booth, Lynch stopped to talk to Bob Eamer, who showed off his company’s new biometrics in-room safe, which uses technology that identifies the user and provides access to the safe via an electronic fingerprint reader built into the safe’s front panel. Lynch then headed over to say hello to American Hotel Register, the nationwide purchasing company which services Starwood’s Four Points, Westin and Sheraton by purchasing in-room products like hairdryers and clock radios. “We do a ton of business with them,” said Lynch. “The beauty of these folks is they negotiate the deals with companies like Sony and Proctor Silex. And they have the buying power because they do business with other hotel companies, so they leverage their buying power,” he said. Still looking for that leather coffee tray, Lynch decided to head down to the lower level of the show, in hopes of finding what he calls “a sleeper,” or a “diamond in the rough,” perhaps a vendor new to the show who can supply him with a unique guestroom item, available in large quantities, that can be shipped in a timely fashion. Searching for that “find,” Lynch happened upon Oggi, a supplier of barware which already provides ice buckets to Starwood via Supply America. Showing Lynch his latest offerings, Oggi’s Aji Das noted that he was expecting to fulfill a lot of business from Starwood in the coming weeks as the company’s owned Westin and Sheraton hotels by year’s end rushed to comply with rules that require specific brand amenities in their rooms. In Oggi’s case, that could mean supplying in a short period thousands of the company’s ice buckets which have been selected as required in-room products. Still searching for that one surprise at the show, Lynch spied a vendor he’d never seen before, Pittsburgh-based Riverside Design Group, whose booth is filled with colorful glass plates, trays and vases in muted colors. The company was at the show for the first time. Lynch’s eyes lit up. He asked the booth attendants if they had a bud vase, and they search around to find something for him. They assured him they are able to supply their product quickly because of their western Pennsy
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