Tag: HOTEL

Rather than cluttering wallets with key cards, hotels will soon adopt a new technology that allows guests to use their smartphones to unlock rooms. According to USA Today, InterContinental Hotels Group will begin testing this phone-as-room-key technology this June at the Chicago O' Hare Rosemont and at the Holiday Inn Express Houston Downtown Convention Center. Though Koehler is considering ...

What would you do for a free meal? According to BBC News, the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Copenhagen is giving guests a $36 meal voucher if they ride an exercise bicycle for 15-minutes -- or until they produce 10-watts of electricity. This program, which launches April 19th, will not only reduce the hotel's carbon footprint, but it will keep guests healthy. An iPhone that shows how much power your legs ...

An English resort chain, once known for its low rates and quaint seaside cottages, has given an incredibly high-tech renovation to its reputation. The result is the impressive Butlins Ocean Hotel -- a seven-story, 200-room vacation destination in Bognor Regis, West Sussex that looks to be straight out of the Woody Allen movie 'Sleeper.' According to the Daily Mail, the brand new facility ...

The most satisfying part of any flight (unless you fly first-class, in which case we hate you) is the moment you get off the plane. That said, we were intrigued when we heard that the Costa Verde Resort in Quepos, Costa Rica had transformed a plane into a new luxury suite. The two-bedroom Boeing 727 Fuselage Home's exterior looks just as you would imagine it to look. Constructed from the actual ...

Ever walk onto the beach on a sunny day, only to have to hip hop your way to your towel or risk burned tootsies? It's part of a day at the beach, right? Not so, according to the designers of a new luxury hotel in Dubai, the Palazzo Versace, which will weave pipes of coolant through the sand in order to keep it cool on those hot desert days of days. The luxury hotel is set to open sometime in ...

Manhattan's Algonquin Hotel has a long tradition of nurturing the literary-minded -- Dorothy Parker, Robert Benchley, even Harpo Marx hung out there in its heyday. Keeping up with the times, the folks running the Algonquin today apparently still have literature on their minds, and are offering Amazon's Kindle pre-loaded with a book of their choice for guests of the hotel during their stay. If ...

digg_url = 'http://digg.com/apple/Room_service_via_iPhone_iPod_touch_at_Malibu_Beach_Inn'; Take one look at the room rates at the Malibu Beach Inn, and you'll fully understand why you'll be treated to a loaner iPod touch for the duration of your stay. For those who already own an iPhone / iPod touch, they'll be given access to a web application that was built for the Safari browser to give ...

Surely you've noticed this by now if you happen to end up in hotels often -- there's an HDTV there on your wall, thought nary a single HD channel appears when you flip it on. It's an unfortunate trend that's sweeping the lodging industry, as more and more chains cave to the pressures of having sexy, thin TVs all while disregarding the need for HD programming. Of course, most are playing the ...

The Travelodge hotel chain in the United Kingdom is rolling out a new test program aimed at helping people get a good night's sleep. The method for giving guests a better snooze experience? A futuristic set of pajamas made from a material called Dermasilk, which is supposed to feel like a second skin. According to a statement by Travelodge, the Dermasilk sleep suit "allows the skin to breathe, ...

Long-haul airships got a bad reputation after the Hindenburg disaster, but French designer Jean-Marie Massaud seems to think that the secret to resurrecting the flying gas bags is by turning them into luxurious floating hotels. The so-called Manned Cloud, which isn't set to take flight until 2020, will cart 40 passengers around the world at a height of 18,000 feet. When completed, the flying ...

It seems like this whole space tourism thing is getting closer and closer to reality. Former space engineer Xavier Claramunt started planning the Galactic Suite -- a three-bedroom space hotel -- as a hobby, but then a space enthusiast gave Claramunt $3 million to help turn his sci-fi dreams into a reality. (Since then, investors from the U.S., Japan, China, and a "U.S. company intent on ...