Palo Alto Properties Reveal Their High-Tech Prowess
<B>Palo Alto Properties Reveal Their High-Tech Prowess</B>
By Judy Jacobs
As Northern California's Silicon Valley continues to flourish, the city of Palo Alto, a university town turned high-tech mecca, is establishing itself as a center of the action. With the headquarters of companies like Hewlett-Packard and Sun Microsystems, Palo Alto is attracting a growing number of business travelers and is improving its hotel product to serve them better.
"The demand is incredible," said Dayna Zeitlin, director of sales and marketing at the Crowne Plaza Cabana Hotel. "More and more businesses are moving in. Alta Vista and Rambus are both relocating to Palo Alto. Even businesses moving into San Jose and Foster City need more hotel rooms. Companies want to have an office with a Palo Alto address because it's impressive."
Many hotels would like that address as well, but for hotels, a Palo Alto location is not so easy to come by, thanks to strict local planning regulations. In fact, the city's first new hotel in more than a decade, the Westin Palo Alto, will open May 1. The boutique-style property intends to set itself apart from the other hotels in the area.
"It's going to be a four-diamond, high-end service hotel for Silicon Valley executives," said Suzanne Murdoch, corporate director of sales and marketing of Pacific Hotel Management, which will operate the property under a franchise agreement with Starwood Hotels & Resorts. "The Westin is next to the Sheraton, but will be about $100 more per night than the Sheraton."
The new Westin's design was inspired by the small garden courtyard hotels of southern France and Italy, and is surrounded by five courtyards.
Meanwhile, the Crowne Plaza Cabana Palo Alto, the latest incarnation of the former Cabana Hotel reopened last fall, after a $20 million renovation that brought the property, closed for four years, back to life. When it debuted in the early 1960s, the hotel served as a retreat for celebrities. Its true claim to fame, however, came in 1965, when the Beatles stayed there. To commemorate their famous guests, the hotel has created a Beatles Room, a guest room filled with Fab Four memorabilia.
The Cabana's guests these days are more likely to be Silicon Valley corporate travelers than entertainment celebrities. "Eighty-five percent of our business is corporate," the hotel's Zeitlin said. The hotel does midweek corporate meetings and has 12,000 square feet of meeting space, including a 9,400-sq.-ft. ballroom.
"Our ballroom can hold a lot of people, but we only have 200 guest rooms, Zeitlin said. The Cabana will be able to expand its ability to handle larger meetings in January, when the new Courtyard by Marriott opens just down the street in Mountain View. Meeting groups will be able to use both hotels and walk between the two.
Meanwhile, the hotel's primary guests are FIT corporate travelers who work in high-tech and expect the latest in high-tech amenities. To cater to them, the Cabana is a beta testing site for a new wireless technology being developed by Softnet, called Softnet Zone. Softnet Zone offers guests wireless high-speed Internet access.
When guests check in to the hotel, they receive a card that is inserted into their laptop, allowing them to receive e-mail or search the Internet anywhere on the property without plugging in their computers. Guests, for example, can do their work out near the pool.
Although currently there is no charge for the Softnet service, once the three-month testing period is completed and the system installed, Cabana guests will be charged a yet-to-be-decided daily fee.