Barry Sternlicht is joining a rapidly growing field with Crillon, a luxury hotel brand he is launching to compete with St. Regis, the upscale hotel flag he developed at his former company, Starwood Hotels & Resorts.

According to Reuters, Starwood Capital Group, which is not related to the hotel company, will open European-styled hotels based on Paris’s Hotel de Crillon in major cities.

The question is, how big is this market, particularly in light of similar moves by Hilton and by Horst Schulze? Just last week, Hilton trumpeted the Waldorf=Astoria Collection, a luxury resort flag including the landmark New York Waldorf=Astoria and resorts in Hawaii and on the West Coast. And last year, former Ritz-Carlton guru Schulze launched Solis and Capella, luxury brands catering to different sub-markets.

According to a company statement, Crillon properties will deliver a “one-of-a-kind luxury experience.” That claim rings increasingly familiar. Still, given Sternlicht’s record at Starwood, where he invented the W and St. Regis brands and spread the gospel of the Heavenly bed, Crillon might stand out from the pack.

I’m inundated weekly with press releases breathlessly touting the latest hotel room bells and whistles. From bedside MP3 players and flatscreen televisions, to creamy Belgium chocolates and cashmere bed throws, I’ve seen it all. But one announcement in particular caught my eye the other day—and it’s not particularly sexy. Microtel Inns & Suites has introduced informational pamphlets, “Accessible Fitness” bags and Upper Body Ergometers for guests with special needs.

These new features are just the latest development in a company-wide initiative to go the extra mile for the disabled guest. For instance, Microtel offers three ADA-room designs throughout the chain and employees are trained in disability etiquette. Microtel claims to be the only budget hotel chain to implement the training program known as Opening Doors systemwide. Plus, the chain annually participates in the World Congress & Exposition on Disabilities and is proactively involved in several other initiatives that target the needs of travelers with disabilities.

This issue is very close to the heart of Roy E. Flora, executive vice president, franchise operations. I witnessed this at a US Franchise Systems convention two years ago.
Seated at lunch next to Roy, I was surprised when, instead of touting his company’s latest development figures or RevPAR numbers, he spoke with pride and conviction about measures he and his team had developed to better serve travelers with disabilities.

Reservations among travelers with disabilities at Microtel hotels around the nation continue to grown, reports the company. Last year, net revenues for ADA room nights increased by 42 percent over 2004. Internet hotel bookings for ADA rooms also increased significantly, it says. Clearly, serving this important market is not only the right thing to do, it’s the smart thing to do.

“Meet me at the Waldorf.” For decades, that message was more than sufficient for people looking to get together in New York City. There was only one Waldorf, the Waldorf=Astoria on Park Avenue, the Queen of all Big Apple hotels. That all changes—albeit slightly—this morning with Hilton’s announcement that it’s launching a sub-brand based on the untold equity it has built from the reputation and performance of the original Waldorf.

More precisely, Hilton says it will brand a number of high-end properties it manages with the tagline, “The Waldorf=Astoria Collection,” to as it says, “extend the cachet” of its legendary property. Initially, the appellation will appear on the Grand Wailea in Maui, the Arizona Biltmore in Phoenix and the La Quinta Resort in the California desert. Hilton is assuming management of the three properties on Feb. 1 for their owner, CNL Hotels & Resorts.

The announcement signals a number of opportunities and challenges for Hilton. For one, it gives the company a stronger footing in the luxury resort market, a segment that’s been a minor weakness. Thanks to the recent acquisition of London-based Hilton Group, the company can now fly all Hilton flags overseas, and the Waldorf brand (as well as Conrad) gives it a logical vehicle in the luxury segments. The three resorts, as well as other non-Hilton hotels and resorts that may also become part of the collection, get to tap into the company’s storied reservations system, Hilton HHonors program and other assorted branding, marketing and operational systems.

The only downside, if there is one, is that Hilton must be careful not to tarnish the Waldorf name and mystique as it plants the name on other properties and in other countries. It’s taken Hilton and previous owners more than 100 years to burnish the Waldorf name and reputation into the collective consciousness of travelers. Just one hotel that doesn’t live up to the Waldorf tradition can have a potentially disastrous effect. Above all, Hilton and its management team are careful custodians of their brands, so I don’t believe they’ll let anything or anyone tarnish either the Hilton or Waldorf names.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency, that whipping boy of last fall’s hurricane season, is extending hotel subsidies to victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita until Feb. 13, The Washington Post reports. The extension is at least the fourth time the government has postponed efforts to end the hotel program, which has cost the feds $400 million-plus since Katrina struck Aug. 29.

That might be good news for hoteliers, but it’s a disturbing comment on FEMA. God forbid I slam a federal agency, but FEMA is operating under a cloud of ignorance, not to mention incompetence. The Post says that only under pressure from a lawsuit did FEMA acknowledge it doesn’t know which Katrina victims are living in more than 25,000 hotel rooms nationwide.

In negotiations with lawyers seeking to extend the deadline, FEMA said such information is not available in its databases, partially because it took over the hotel subsidy program from the American Red Cross—which means that until FEMA gets new computers, hoteliers will be able to take advantage of subsidies that FEMA can’t track. The possibilities of corruption are endless and disheartening.

The busy bees at Starwood Hotels are at it again. The company will announce this morning that it is hooking up with Yahoo! to test an Internet lounge concept at two Sheraton hotels. The lounges will have workstations and spaces for guests to plug in their laptop computers. Ho hum, you say. The kicker, and the key to the program, is that Internet access in the lounges, including wireless hookups, will be FREE, FREE, FREE.

The partnership also includes a test at two other Sheratons of in-room Internet access. In this wrinkle, guests who log-in to the web on their laptops will first see a customized Yahoo! home page. Again, access to the net will be free.

For Starwood, the beauty of the deal is two-fold: First and foremost, the properties will be offering the service most desired by business travelers—high-speed Internet access—at the price point they want to pay—nothing. The notion of free Internet especially appeals to the up-and-coming pool of Gen X travelers, most of who believe—thanks to companies such as Yahoo! and Google—that the Internet is a public asset, like a park, a library or an interstate highway, that shouldn’t directly cost anything to enter or use.

The scheme also positions Starwood at the forefront of an emerging concept—the power of cross-branded marketing. Sheraton and Yahoo! are two instantly recognizable brands (albeit ones that each appeal mostly to different generations). Put them together and you have clout that exceeds the combination of their individual powers. This kind of thinking isn’t unusual at Starwood since the arrival of CEO Steve Heyer and several other executives from Coca-Cola Co. To Heyer and his cronies, business is all about branding, and the lodging industry is no different.

And, of course, the program provides what many hotel guests believes is the ultimate amenity while creating a dynamic competitive edge for the hotel brand.