Holiday Inn Select Launches Web-Based Site Inspections

<H1> Holiday Inn Select Launches Web-Based Site Inspections</H1>By Lauren Bielski

<B>H</B>oping to attract meeting professionals to a relatively new brand of business hotel with the enhanced capabilities of its updated Website, Holiday Inn Select this month launched a virtual walk-through of a "representative hotel" on its homepage at http://www.HISelect.com.

The site, with three-dimensional graphics designed by Cadmus Interactive, will feature room layouts, online RFPs, e-mail on demand and comprehensive catering menus, said Bill Masciangelo, marketing manager for Holiday Inn Select Hotels. A section called "Satisfied Clients" will feature testimonials from guests, a resource that can speed the process by which planners begin to assess a property.

<B>Virtual Site Inspections

</B>The Select "anchor store" (which will use an updated Netscape browsing technology) will feature fast-acting links between each of the participating properties, the corporate homepage and other relevant Websites.

"Lots of World Wide Web projects that are announced might have one aspect of the Holiday Inn site, but none that I know of can rival its comprehensiveness," said Rodman Marymor, president of Cardinal Communications, developer of the Meetings Industry Mall.

With the advent of this cluster of Websites within the Mall-a comprehensive meetings industry site that lists many hotels-Holiday Inn is setting an example of comprehensive online marketing that other hoteliers will be certain to follow, Marymor said. At press time, he confirmed that he was in discussions with major hotel chains for similar sites within the Mall.

"Nobody is saying that this will do away with standard inspection practices, but it will give planners a very distinct sense of what Holiday Inn properties have to offer," he said. To facilitate use of the VR tour, the site will be equipped to download a copy of the Apple QuickTime program, which planners must have in order to participate. As each hotel puts a Website online, it will include digital still images of the facilities.

<B>Listings Of Local Attractions

</B>The virtual site inspection, modeled after Holiday Inn Select's Atlanta Perimeter-Dunwoody property, can illustrate the level of quality offered by the brand, Marymor said. The property also is the only one that has its own site (http://www.hiselect.com/atlperimeter). Listings include the Carter Presidential Center/The Jimmy Carter Library, the Chattahoochee River National Recreational Area and local restaurants. "A planner who wants to determine the good restaurants and attractions in the area will be able to execute quick searches to find out," Masciangelo said.

Introduced in 1994 as part of a new strategy for Holiday Inn Worldwide, the Select brand offers travelers and planners productivity-enhancing amenities, including express checkin and checkout, faxes, dataports and a minimum of 5,000 feet of meeting space. Holiday Inn already has fielded several calls from properties requesting Website development.