Starwood Enhances Corporate, Branded Websites

WHITE PLAINS, NY— Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide has re-launched its corporate and branded websites to offer greater flexibility and common features designed to create more awareness of the company’s diverse portfolio. “It’s the first generation of the new Starwood websites, which were designed as a way for all of the brands to come together and have a common technical infrastructure throughout,” said Mike Koehler, vp/interactive marketing at Starwood. With the new upgrade, all of the company’s websites— www.sheraton.com, www.westin.com, www.fourpoints.com, www.stregis.com, www.luxurycollection.com, and www.whotels.com— will be linked to the Starwood.com website. When Starwood acquired the Westin and Sheraton brands in 1998, the company went from a real estate owner to an owner and operator of real estate brands, said Koehler. “They felt they needed to take the existing brand websites, and put them on a common platform with a common reservation engine and common features,” he added. The redesigned Starwood websites launched earlier this month, and blend common functionality and services with each brand’s individual style. “It was very difficult,” said Koehler, who added that the company spent about a year developing the sites. “When you have brands as different as the Luxury Collection, which has arguably some of the best real estate assets in the world, and on the other extreme you have Four Points by Sheraton, which competes in a very different space, offering price and convenience, you have to somehow allow for each of the brand’s personalities to emerge,” he said. One way Starwood tried to create brand distinction was through the use of different color schemes on each of the sites, with the Luxury Collection displaying rich, deep colors and Four Points offering more “everyday colors to match their everyday value,” said Koehler. Despite different hues, photos, and fonts, all of Starwood’s sites feature the same navigation tools, allowing travelers to access their profile information, book a room, or search the company’s directory in the exact same manner on each site. Koehler noted that next year Starwood plans to add new infrastructure that would allow the company’s reservations system to more effectively communicate with its property management systems. Currently, guests can select their preferred newspaper and pillow type in the reservation system and have the information instantly relayed to the property to which theyre traveling, but Koehler would like to evolve the infrastructure further so a guest could have a meal waiting in their room when they arrived. Starwood also plans to redesign its preferredguest.com website within the next few months, which will link to all of the brand’s websites and serve as a “loyalty club portal,” according to Koehler. Guests will soon be able to make and modify reservations, cancel bookings, redeem points, and download electronic statements on the new loyalty program website. Online travel purchasers using Starwood’s new booking engine are already able to modify their travel plans on all of the company’s websites— changing dates, room types, and preferences instantly.