Link@Sheraton
$5.01 for a hotel room in San Diego had me calling the Sheraton reservations line several times today. The deal was advertised as a promotional offer of a room for two Lincolns (a five dollar bill and a penny) for the San Diego Hotel & Marina as the first Sheraton to install the new Link@Sheraton wireless internet facilities in the lobby.
I was not able to find a hotel room for the advertised promotional offer of $5.01 at the San Diego Hotel & Marina despite being on the phone by 7am California time. I was not able to find any rooms through online reservations either. You would think that a promotion to launch an internet accessibility feature of the Starwood Hotels chain would have given preference to online reservations.
Once again Starwood puts out a big press release for a benefit that is quite difficult to receive. I was less than impressed with the response I received from reservationists regarding the promotion. None of the reservationists I spoke with seemed to have any clue about the promotion. I had to explain it, give the promotional code, and then be told nothing was available, over and over again.
The promotion was to celebrate the first ever Global-Out-of-Office-Day (G-O-O-D). Starwood CEO Fritz van Paasschen even opened the NYSE with a remote ringing of the opening bell from a large Starwood Link@Sheraton business center set-up in Central Park, New York City.
Seeing as how the US stock market had its worst day in six years with over 5% drop of the NYSE, a more appropriate moniker for the day may have been the Global-Out-of-Work-Day (G-O-W-D).
As a person who studied labor economics and workplace issues in graduate school, I find the Starwood press release survey results an interesting reminder of the impact technology has played in our lives this past decade.
· 85% of US professionals feel technology makes their job hours 24/7.
· 81% of US professionals say they work harder today than they did five years ago.
· 85% say they check their PDAs in the middle of the night.
Work interferes with seeing the world.
