To create buzz for its newly reopened Metropolitan Hotel and reposition itself in the New York tourism industry post-9/11, Doubletree is making a splash with a brand new, multi-million dollar look. It hosted the party of the year to tie it all together.
The timing couldn’t be better. New York City is among the list of five candidate cities to host the 2012 Summer Olympic Games (other cities in the running are London, Madrid, Moscow and Paris). A decision is expected in July 2005.
More than 600 people flocked to the Jan. 27 grand re-opening of the Doubletree Metropolitan Hotel in New York City, packing hallways, elevators and dance floors to sample the $40 million, year-long renovation project. The four-hour event led guests on a time-travel experience through a five-room tour representing the 1960s (with go-go dancers) to the present day (with an on-site body painter).
Doubletree, a Hilton brand, pitched the event to travel agents, meeting planners and other guests to boost awareness and increase its client base, says Howard Givner, president of Paint the Town Red, the New York event-planning company hired to organize the promotion.
“The idea was to really change people’s perception of the hotel,” Givner says. “The challenge was to show people the hotel is alive again.”
The former Lowe’s Hotel, once known as the filming spot for the infamous Marilyn Monroe skirt-flying scene in The Seven Year Itch, sagged in popularity in recent years. An investment group made up of Rockwood Capital, San Francisco; Highgate Holdings, Dallas; Oxford Capital Group/Oxford Lodging Group; and Goldman Sachs’ Whitehall Street Real Estate Funds purchased the site at Lexington Avenue and 51st Street in July 2003.
The upgrade, which began in January 2004 and ended 12 months later, included a facelift to the hotel’s 755 guest rooms and meeting rooms, and a redesign of the lobby, bar and restaurant.
During the event, guests sipped drinks, sampled hors d’oeuvres and listened to live music in the Metropolitan Ballroom. A trip to the 19th floor led visitors to remodeled guest rooms. Go-go dancers, lava lamps, disco balls and a dance floor awaited visitors in Lava Lounge in the hotel penthouse.
Visitors to the SIN Lounge saw the live transformation of a man into a half-alligator via body painting. The performance art honored hotel architect Morris Lapidus, who kept an alligator as a pet. The room, covered with leopard-printed furniture and zebra rugs, also included a running chocolate fountain into which guests dipped bananas, pretzels and marshmallows. At the end of the tour, guests dropped by the newly designed “Met” Lounge for a drink.
The renovation project transformed the Double Metropolitan Hotel from an “ugly duckling into a pretty princess,” says Ronald G. Drake, the hotel’s VP-sales and marketing. Doubletree estimates it spent $150,000 to $200,000 on the promotional event, he said.
“We are really trying to showcase our product,” Drake says. “The best way to do it is to have some type of impact,” on travel agents and planners.
In the week following the grand reopening, sale inquiries were running 43% above target, Drake says.
To thank guests, Doubletree sent visitors home with a tin of its signature chocolate chip cookies. As a further incentive, the hotel also offered a drawing, awarding a total of 225,000 Hilton Honors points to guests who visited each showcase room.
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