Starwood Preferred Guest - Why are *woods missing in certain countries?

Being a frequent traveller & a SPG platinum member I absolutely adore Starwood hotels. With Starwood I simply feel at home.

I’m just a little puzzled about the lack of Starwood properties in some very popular European locations. For instance Prague, a major European city for tourists as well as businesses, every single major hotel chain (Hilton, Marriott, InterContinental, Radisson & even Four Seasons) have got huge properties there except for Starwood.

The same is with Bucharest, Romania which is now a strongly upcoming city & every major hotel name you can think of has got massive 5 star buildings there. Once again, where is Starwood?

I guess our dearly beloved Starwood Lurker will have a good technical reason for this. However a reason is not good enough; just bring on the Starwood’s!!!

...I guess our dearly beloved Starwood Lurker will have a good technical reason for this. However a reason is not good enough; just bring on the Starwood’s!!!

No technical reason I can think of, actually. Probably no hotel owners in these cities have a desire to align themselves with Starwood. That would be the only reason I could think of. <shrug>

Sincerely,


William R. Sanders
Customer Service Coordinator
Starwood Preferred Services

guest.forum@starwoodhotels.com

I, too, wondered if Starwood had a property in Prague. After doing a Google search I discovered that a Le Meridien will be opening in Prague in 2009:

http://www.starwoodhotels.com/lemeridien/about/news/news_release_detail.html?obj_id=0900c7b980557b07&back=-1

I guess we just have to be patient in the meantime. :)

Heck, I feel the same way about Auckland NZ. I still enjoy the former Sheraton now it's the Langham, but no more Starpoints of course, and no Plat qualifying stays :(

We have Hyatt, Hilton and IC, and Marriott is rumoured to be coming. When do we get the W Auckland? After all, somebody has to try to outdo Skycity in the hipness stakes :D

justakiwi

...Probably no hotel owners in these cities have a desire to align themselves with Starwood.




In that case, one would think that Starwood would make a special effort to attract hotel owners in those cities, including sweetening Starwood's usual incentives. Or Starwood might even buy their own hotels in these places, using the piles of money they got from recent sales. Complacency is not, as far as I know, an efficient business technique.

Take Mauritius as an example of how to get a major chain interested:

Island nation of roughly 1.5 million people in the middle of the Indian Ocean says:

"Come build a luxury resort hotel here branded to a major chain and we'll give you a 15% local tax rate, and no import tax. You can bring in your own people and as long as you pay them more than <the equivalent of $20,000 US> per year they can live in the country under a residence scheme. The per capita income here is $3500 a year, so you can hire our citizens for your non-management positions at an amazingly affordable rate."

Suddenly, there are two One and Only's (there's something wrong with that statement), a Hilton, a Le Meridien... :)