CP Hotels Add Corp. Rooms

<I>Toronto</I> - Bolstered by an "overwhelmingly positive" response from business travelers, Canadian Pacific Hotels & Resorts is outfitting another 1,000 rooms in 15 city-center properties with office amenities.

The chain launched the corporate guest-room amenity program in 1995 "to satisfy the emerging needs of the business traveler," said Brian Richardson, CP Hotel's vice president of marketing. The new upgrades will bring the total number of business-equipped rooms to 5,000.

Chainwide, corporate travel represents about 50 percent of CP's business at its 15 downtown properties in Canada. About 35 percent of the total business is transient, while the remainder comes from meetings.

"We felt very strongly that you shouldn't limit it to a few hundred rooms because if you do, by definition, you've created a specialty product that isn't widely available to the general business travel population," Richardson said. "By making such a high percentage of our downtown inventory business-equipped rooms, we're really saying, 'this is the norm.' "

When the $1.5 million upgrade is complete by fall, about 70 percent of CP Hotel's downtown inventory will have business-equipped rooms, Richardson said.

Each room is equipped with a large desk with computer hookup capability, two telephones including one portable phone, a halogen desk lamp, a desk drawer organizer and supplies, dedicated fax service on request, a coffeemaker with free coffee and tea, a hair dryer, an iron and ironing board, two bathrobes and express checkout. Guests also can take advantage of free local phone calls. The hotel does not slap on an extra fee for these rooms.

CP also plans to equip about 400 guest rooms at its resort properties with business amenities, Richardson said. Many of the chain's resorts are popular meeting venues, and even vacation-bound travelers want to keep in touch with the office, he said.

The hotel company also is adding work centers. The centers have a relaxation area featuring televisions and reading material, workstations equipped with a telephone, modem access and office supplies. They also feature a private boardroom, faxing and photocopying machines, complimentary luggage storage, and free tea and coffee. The facilities are available at Toronto's Royal York and Skydome hotels, the Hotel Vancouver, the Palliser in Calgary and Edmonton's Hotel Macdonald. More are planned for Montreal's Queen Elizabeth, Vancouver's Waterfront Center and Ottawa's Chateau Laurier.