Using Cisco TelePresence technology, both Marriott International and Starwood Hotels & Resorts have started to launch virtual meeting suites at properties in major business gateways this year. Among the first to get the technology is the W Chicago City Center, which unveiled one of the suites earlier this year.
The suites, which contain a wall of large, high-definition monitors with real time audio, enable small groups of 20 or less to come meet with participants in one or more other telepresence locations.
Other Starwood locations with the suites include the Sheraton on the Park in Sydney, Australia, and are soon expected to include the Sheraton New York Hotel & Towers, Sheraton Kuwait, Sheraton Centre Toronto and Westin Los Angeles Airport. Marriott locations where suites are up and running include the Renaissance Washington DC, Marriott Dallas/Fort Worth Airport and JW Marriott San Francisco Union Square.
How significant is it that two hotel giants have invested in telepresence technology?
"I think it is very significant," says Betsy Bondurant, CMP, CMM, president of Coronado, Calif.-based Bondurant Consulting. "Telepresence technology is very interesting. There is a lot of collaboration that can be done. You can see facial expressions, work on whiteboards and see body language. That is all invaluable.
"I applaud the hotel chains that have gone out there to support this," she says. "I think there is a niche for it and I don’t think it is going to go away."
Meetings tech guru Corbin Ball, CEO of Corbin Ball and Associates, notes that telepresence suites are useful, but expensive to build.
"They can cost up to $300,000 to set up, but if you can rent one of the rooms for a meeting instead of flying across an ocean, it can be the next best thing," he says.
