Room With a Vroom
2007 Hotel Trends
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Drive a Porsche along the Pacific Coast as part of a Fairmont special |
While many hotels offer fabulous on-site amenities to attract prospective customers, the most forward-thinking are now giving guests the opportunity to take luxury from their rooms to the road, and put pedal to the metal. More and more establishments are offering packages that include the use of a top-of-the line vehicle, giving guests further opportunity to sample an entirely different lifestyle while away from home.
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| Waikiki Parc Hotel |
The Ritz-Carlton first teamed up with Mercedes-Benz in 2003, and still offers its “Key to Luxury” package at select locations; mileage is unlimited and the car is refueled while you sleep. The Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, meanwhile, takes the idea a step further, presenting a veritable fleet of vehicles—including an Audi A4, BMW 3-Series, Volvo XC90, and several Lexus and Mercedes models—to patrons of their Wilshire Tower guestrooms. For those looking for a sportier ride, the Waikiki Parc Hotel in Honolulu provides guests with a Lotus Elise roadster in which to cruise the island.
Many other hotels are embracing the “experience” angle, with deals that allow travelers to enjoy both the landscape surrounding the hotel and a flashy piece of topnotch technology. For example, the Fairmont Newport Beach and The Fairmont Miramar Hotel Santa Monica offer a special that includes a stay at both locations—and a Porsche for hugging the curves of the Pacific Coast Highway between them. If you want an even wilder adventure, The Fairmont Sonoma Mission Inn & Spa lets you trade pampering for speed with their “Techniques of Racing” course.
In Dallas, Hotel ZaZa’s Full Throttle package puts guests up in one of its “Magnificent 7” luxury suites and provides them with up to an hour-long tour in each of an assortment of five cars including a Ferrari F430A, Bentley Continental GT, Aston Martin V8 Vantage, Corvette Z06 and a Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder. And to thoroughly enjoy the surrounding landscape, but at a laid-back pace, Maison 140 in Beverly Hills provides guests with Segways as part of their “Ride the Town” package. That’s one way to beat L.A. traffic!
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