Partner News

INTERNATIONAL REPORT—Whether it’s celebrating an anniversary, receiving an award, earning a certification, debuting a new product or expanding the business, hotel companies and vendors achieve new milestones on a daily basis. Here’s a look at recent accomplishments:

HotelSigns.com Enhances Services with Launch of SignStars Rewards Club
HotelSigns.com, a supplier of high-quality ADA-compliant architectural signage, has launched its SignStars Rewards Club, open to HotelSigns.com customers both new or old. CEO Hank McMahon said, “SignStars members can expect exclusive benefits, such as 5% off web orders, free shipping within the continental U.S. and additional special promotions. Upon joining the program, customers will immediately see the 5% discount and free shipping applied to eligible orders.”

The SignStars Rewards Club adds to HotelSigns.com’s existing distinctions, including its mobile-friendly website, Life-of-the-Building and ADA Compliance guarantees and its SignSpec Planning Service.

Viceroy Hotels & Resorts Goes All In with Volara
Viceroy Hotels & Resorts is expanding its relationship with Volara to power in-room smart speakers and enable automated voice services at its luxury boutique hotels. Viceroy L’Ermitage Beverly Hills is the third property in the brand’s portfolio to add Amazon Alexa devices powered by Volara in all guestrooms; Viceroy’s Hotel Zetta San Francisco and Viceroy Los Cabos in Baja California are already equipped with Volara and are relying on it to support their voice-on-command in-room initiative—with the remaining Viceroy properties to adopt the solution in 2020.

Viceroy and Volara are currently discussing a meeting-room application as it would be a valuable guest service for meeting planners and social groups to use voice commands to control lighting, start video presentations, order food and beverage and place additional requests from meeting rooms at the hotels. Viceroy is also considering a voice assistant solution powered by Volara for back-of-house applications to streamline engineering tasks, enable room status changes and facilitate staff-to-staff communications.

Concord Hospitality Named No. 1 Service Provider within Marriott’s GPNS Program
Concord Hospitality Enterprises’ Information Technology (IT) department has been ranked as the No. 1 service provider out of only 12 other vendors certified by Marriott’s Global Property Network Standards (GPNS) program.

The program’s stringent standards create a consistent, high-quality online guest experience across all Marriott brands in the Americas for high-speed internet access. Marriott was one of the first hospitality companies to enforce certain data network requirements, and Concord has been a certified GPNS vendor since the inception of the program.

Each year, Marriott has continued to enhance the program by requiring more rigorous reporting and sophisticated systems, with an emphasis on keeping hotels current with the most updated and superior hardware. Along with upgrading and maintaining current hotel networks throughout 2019, Concord continued to add to the number of hotels it services under the Marriott brand and within the GPNS program across the U.S. and Canada.

PureStar Names Alex Dixon West Region President
PureStar, a provider of laundry services and linen management to the hospitality industry, has appointed Alex Dixon as West Region president to lead the company’s West Coast operations and service lines. Headquartered in Las Vegas, PureStar is a unified family of independent market leading brands, including Brady Linen, United Laundry Services, Royal Hospitality, AC Linen, Hotelier Linen Services and Five Star Laundry, among others.

Dixon is a Nevada native and third-generation hospitality operative with an understanding of the industry, the service lines and the Southern Nevada community. He previously served in various executive roles for hospitality companies such as Caesars Entertainment Corporation and MGM Resorts International—including most recently as the president/chief operating officer for Circus Circus Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas—and brings a unique perspective as a former PureStar customer.

Crave Interactive Installs In-Room Tablets at The Higgins Hotel & Conference Center
Crave Interactive, the developer of cloud-based digital guest service solutions for hotels, has installed its in-room tablets in The Higgins Hotel & Conference Center in New Orleans. The eight-story hotel is an extension of The National World War II Museum. Though inspired by the 1940s time period, the hotel incorporates modern amenities and technology such as Crave’s innovative 8′-in. T-Mini digital directories, which are available in all of its 230 guestrooms and suites.

The in-room tablets serve as a one-touch directory for the hotel services, which include dining reservations at its restaurants, TV controls, alarm clock, weather information, local area information and more. Guests can also purchase tickets to The National WWII Museum directly via the Crave tablets. The hotel also has the ability to instantly send messages or updates to any room or group of rooms.