Hotels Prep For Latin America's Emerging Market
<H1>Hotels Prep For Latin America's Emerging Market</H1>by Stefani C. O'Connor
<I>São Paulo </I>- As greater numbers of multinational firms establish outposts in a more democratic and business-friendly Latin America, several hotel companies are racing to accommodate new levels of inbound travel-with an eye toward capturing the corporate market.
A recent report by The World Travel and Tourism Council shows that business travel to Latin America will account for $20 billion in 1996. With a 75 percent hike in business travel expected by the year 2006, increased room demand is inevitable.
In São Paulo, for example, Inter-Continental Hotels and Resorts, Grupo Sol Meliá and Caesar Park Hotels and Resorts have all either opened or are opening corporate travel-oriented properties.
The 300-room Meliá São Paulo, an all- suite hotel, last year opened in tandem with the World Trade Center, a $200 million international business complex and convention center. "The WTC is extremely important for Brazil. International business can come here now and find the type of services, accommodations and level of capabilities it is used to finding in other parts of the world," said Emanuel Schreibmaier, vice president of sales and marketing-Americas for Spain-based Grupo Sol Meliá.
Business services include in-room dedicated fax, telephone and PC lines, express checkout, currency exchange, a worldwide reservations center and an airline checkin counter. For high-end travelers, the property offers transportation via helicopter from the rooftop to either Congonhas Regional Airport or Guarulhos International Airport-a considerable time-saver given the city's notorious traffic.
Inter-Continental, which hopes to establish 50 properties in the area by the year 2000, now has 15 hotels in Latin America, the most recent being its São Paulo property in the Av. Paulista financial district. Opened in June, the property showcases a new concept-business-room service. Within 15 minutes of calling the front desk, a guest can have delivery of any of the following: cellular phone, color or black-and-white printer, computer and CD-ROM drive, copier, fax, paper shredder, notebook computer, and Internet and e-mail access. Other services in the technologically advanced 193-room property include direct port access to in-room fax and modem, voicemail and portable phones.
Meanwhile, Caesar Park Hotels and Resorts, the hotel division of Tokyo-based Aoki Corp., is developing four Brazilian properties set to open by April 1997. The $84 million expansion includes the 204-room Caesar Park Cabo de Santo Agostinho, an eco-friendly property plus convention center; and three Caesar Towers brand properties: the CT Berrini, a 200-room hotel near the São Paulo World Trade Center; the CT Beach Park, the Fortaleza; and the CT Porto Alegre, a 132-room property catering to transient and group business.
Because Caesar Park has a marketing relationship with Westin Hotels, each property participates in the Westin Premier program, a frequent-guest recognition program.
Jack Walsh, vice president of sales, U.S. and Canada, said the hotel company is aggressively targeting corporate business for its Latin American properties. "We're going to multinational companies," he said. "We get business from The World Bank and others and we're trying to build on that."
Walsh said the New York sales office, which he oversees, will work primarily with corporate travel planners and travel agents and will negotiate corporate rates.
"The privatization process in several countries has changed things quite a lot," Walsh said. "In Brazil, the government is selling traditionally owned and managed government facilities, and we've seen a lot of traffic from investment houses in the United States into the country."
Meanwhile, Caesar Park also is considering expansion into Chile, Peru, Venezuela and Uruguay.