Golden Toque

I am one of the few who enjoyed my stay... upgraded to suite, cheap rate included breakfast, staff was fantastic and friendly, free humongous bottle of water was replaced by maid, and at turndown. BTW the hotel has a great location too.

Was looking forward to my next stay there in May... but now that not SPG unless the rate was as good, I might be inclined to go elsewhere.

Agree that more options in that part of the world would be great!

Starwood Lurker

So, when you find a hotel owner in Scandanavia that wants to re-brand their hotel be a Starwood property, let me know and I'll pass it along.

Otherwise, I guess the "push" on our end of things will have to continue on its current course.

Best regards,

William R. Sanders
Online Guest Feedback Coordinator
Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide

[email protected]

raunow

According to Danish travel site TakeOff (http://takeoff.dk/news.cfm?nNewsWeekly=1&nNewsId=19815), Palace Hotel is switching to Scandic, where it will remain a 4 star after renovations have completed.

This leaves Denmark and Norway as the only countries in western Europe with no Starwood presence

15 years ago the Sheraton in Copenhagen also switched to Scandic. In the meantime Scandic has been owned by Hilton for some years, but are now on their own again as a local Scandinavian chain.

I'll start looking for an empty spot for Starwood to put up a Four Point or a Westin in Copenhagen ;-). InterContinental found a spot and are opening a Crowne Plaza later this year only a short distance from the Hilton Copenhagen airport.

Or how about pursuading the Grand, but slightly tired Old D'Angletererre hotel to join. The current Icelandic owner are looking to get out with some cash and with a little make-up it would fit the Luxury Collection nicely.

Seriously we need a decent global hotel chain to throw us some love. The only global hotel loyalty program with decent coverage in Scandinavia is GoldPointsPlus, and that's a terribly poor program.

tommy777

This Scandic guy is pretty clueless. He thinks that the Palace will do a good job selling in to current American customers

The only reason I stayed there is because it was as Starwood. Now, the Radisson SAS a couple blocks away will get my business.

William, don't you have sales guys who are supposed to look for potential Starwood hotels??

tommy777

http://www.hotel-continental.com/ in Oslo and http://www.dangleterre.com/?IDX=161&...ngleterre.html in Copenhagen would be the first on my list

Starwood Lurker

No, our sales guys (and gals) are busy selling hotel rooms. This would fall under Hotel Development, which is quite actively seeking new opportunities to bring in more Starwood properties. Didn't you hear that we are opening our 1,000th property later this year and expect to have 1,500 by 2013?

Only thing is, it takes two to tango; and, whether or not they're going to dance with us depends a lot on whether or not it makes sense to both parties.

Best regards,

William R. Sanders
Online Guest Feedback Coordinator
Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide

[email protected]

onobond

After 2+1 nights recently at Palace Hotel, my impression is that the major effect of re-branding the Palace from Starwood to Scandic, is an increase in the mean level of standard for both hotel chains

LH747FTL

Might be for that particular property.

But look what's left in the Nordic Countries.

LC Kämp Helsinki - never a single promo, pretty much no upgrade as plat.
Sheraton Stockholm - your Asian 4Points with 10x price.

Awful.

onobond

Only 3 stays so far in this very central gem of HEL. Twice upgraded, one of them in June 2007 when I found a rate of 142 euro/n, which was a very promotional rate for this property. ^^^

HOTguy

yeah this is sad. hopefully starwood can move forward with the Angleterre.

mizzou miles

Wow, so when did Starwood open hotels in Iceland, Luxembourg, Vatican City, San Marino, Liechtenstein and Andorra?

BHSA

Because you can really compare those nations to Denmark and Norway ?

If this is the same view that is shared by the decisions makers in the Starwood management I can understand why we have no Starwood hotels in Norway/Denmark.

But if they look at the underlaying aspects like that the buying powers of the consumers in the Nordics are amongst the highest in the world ? in addition they are amongst the countries with the lowest impact of the financial crises.

And at last so far there are no international chains except Radisson in at least Norway, this should be enough to at least not treat us like those other micro countries as you mentioned. Even though we don't have more inhabitants than half of an average US states we still are 2 independent countries that at least learned how to handle our state economy without going more or less bankrupt.

mizzou miles

Was just a joke...notice the smily face... no offense meant.

3Cforme

Well, that hit a nerve. The truth is that Starwood isn't represented everywhere. Even now, they have, what, 1/4 of the hotels offered by Hilton, Marriott or IC?

Before one cites purchasing power, however, try a little after-tax calculation on Purchasing Power Parity exchange rates. Maybe the new Scandinavian motto can be 'Expensive for the traveler - but worth it.'

skrosvik

We used to have a Starwood (brand new Sheraton) in Oslo, Norway. But Sheraton pulled out, and it was re-branded by a local hotel chain.

I remember it as a nice and fresh property, but a bit out of the city centre - even though stars like George Michael and Whitney Houston used to stay there, hahahaha.