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A hotel Web site is not a typical place for a birth announcement, but for Victor L. it made perfect sense: He and his family were staying at the Sheraton Seattle Hotel when his wife went into labor during a snowstorm. "After a bath in the Heavenly tub," he writes, plugging Starwood's signature bath experience, "we met three girls in the elevator on their way to a prom. My wife had a wild contraction. ‘This is what happens when you don't use birth control,' I said."

Victor L. is not alone in sharing his unique Sheraton guest experience on the Starwood Hotel brand's Web site (though he's probably one of the few with an Afterschool Special message). He's actually part of a growing number of guests who've joined the brand's "global community," a social networking feature that allows people to post accounts and photos of their stay-a forum that's one part MySpace and one part TripAdvisor.

The new Sheraton site launched in June 2006 and, according to Jeff Mirman, director of Sheraton Interactive Marketing, it continues to grow in popularity with guests. "What the brand stands for is connecting and belonging," Mirman says. "The idea...it was kind of perfect timing because last year the idea of groups and social connectivity and user-generated content was really starting to pop up. We said it's so perfect for Sheraton; Sheraton stands for people connecting with one another. What better way to do it than to have some kind of user-generated content and social networking on the site?"

Both user-generated content and social networking fall under the umbrella of Web 2.0-a buzzword that has caught fire in the e-world. Starwood Hotels & Resorts isn't alone in incorporating Web 2.0 into its online presence, but it certainly leads the pack with its breadth of Web initiatives. Still, many hotel companies, large and small, have begun to redesign and relaunch their Web sites with such features as blogs, podcasts, RSS feeds, and desktop tools.

And guests are starting to expect it. "My thought is-and this isn't just with hotels, this will be the way of the Web-it's about communication," Mirman says. "It's about the user-experience and the way the user wants the experience to be-that's what's happening. Most sites that are up-and-coming are about me creating my own space. I'm assuming that is what's going to move forward on any Web site, whether it's Amazon.com or Sheraton.com or American Airlines. I think that's a big part of the future."

Web 2.what?
Except for an elite cadre of technophiles, most people are at a loss when it comes to defining Web 2.0. While a fixed definition is still up for debate, the term generally refers to the next generation of Web features, including social networking, blogs, mash-ups, RSS feeds, wikis and folksonomies-tools that encourage collaboration and information-sharing among users.

Web2.0 is not, however, a specific new technology. In layman's terms, it points to a change in the way people develop and use Web sites. Where Web 1.0 had linear pages that doled out information, Web 2.0 is more dynamic, involving user-participation, better software and more bandwidth. Think Encyclopedia.com versus Wikipedia. Web 2.0 has certainly made an impact on the travel industry. At the forefront is TripAdvisor, which launched in 2000 and allows travelers to post reviews about hotels and destinations.

In addition, meta-searches, sites such as Mobbissimo.com, Kayak.com and Sidetrip.com that pull content from multiple locations, are gaining popularity among travelers who want to compare room or airline rates simultaneously. At the other end of the spectrum, blogs such as HotelChatter.com and "Crazy Hotel Worker" offer readers an inside look at the industry and a chance to vent.

Philip Wolf, CEO of PhoCusWright, a travel research firm, coined the term Travel 2.0 when talking about these new technologies as they apply to the industry. In June 2007, he talked to Lodging about the need for hotels to play catch-up in this online evolution. "It's all about creating a conversation with customers," he says of Travel 2.0. "Hotels have to see their role differently. They can't over-manage or over-control their customers; the relationship has to be more collaborative. Marriott's home page now has a blog. That's a start, but you can't just check these things off and forget about them. You have to keep changing along with the customers."

Still, the problem can be figuring out what's right for your company. Some companies may be reluctant to add a new Web feature for fear that it's a passing trend or of little value. Others may hear about a cool tool and want to post it immediately to their Web site. But like any new purchase-and the bill for newer technologies can certainly be hefty-it's best to do research and a cost-benefit analysis and look at what other industries are doing, experts say.

"As with every new technology, you get into their early- adapter stage, and as a hotel you need to think about the demographic of who your guests are," says Mike Montemurro, senior vice president of Product Management-Reservation Services for TravelCLICK, a provider of hotel business process management. "Because based on that information, you can then start to correlate how these people are interacting differently in their shopping for travel experience. How much are they using social networks? Do they use PDAs and other tools that RSS feeds might be interesting for? It's the classic case of it's dangerous to get technology for the sake of technology because sometimes they're solutions in search of a problem. I think it's increasingly important for hotels to understand: Who's my core audience? What is happening with them? How are they changing? Then, being able to associate how these people are choosing the way they behave and seek information and travel. It will vary widely based on any number of those factors."

Meet the Neighbors
While beautiful pictures and accurate descriptions of a property are still important for a Web site, the bottom line is hotel companies can't ignore Web 2.0.

Starwood certainly hasn't.

"On the travel industry as a whole, it's having a profound impact. It's very exciting," says Chris Holdren, vice president for global Web services at Starwood. "Travel is at its nature a communal experience, period. A large part of Web 2.0 centers around blogging, community tools and sharing. People are becoming a lot more comfortable with that. It's really about the guest taking more control over the business and the marketing message. It's really an exciting time. It's more exciting because it is evolving so rapidly, and there are a lot of ways it benefits our hotels. We want people to have great experiences when they stay with us, so the more information we can provide them, the more they will learn prior to arriving at a destination that will help them have a great experience. That's exciting to us."

Sheraton Hotels, which promotes a brand identity around the concept of belonging, has put the marketing message in the hands of its guests. Logging on to the Sheraton.com Web site, users will find a globe-the hotel's global neighborhood-that is organized by region and populated with pictures and stories that guests have submitted. Users can click on one of the snapshots, and a story will open on the right side of the page.

The project took eight or nine months to complete, according to Mirman, and the company conducted a sweepstakes to help pre-populate the site before going live. "The user response has been fantastic," he continues. "The stories people are telling on the site are truly incredible. Revenues are really important to us, so I'm not discounting them at all, but to be able to see some of the stories people are uploading about how they named their kids because of where the hotel is located or things in the hotel, that they'll go back to that hotel just because it has an elephant on the property, [we're] learning so much more about how the hotel changes people and how it affects them."

Being the first hotel company to allow user-generated content was exciting, Mirman says. But adopting new technology can also be a risk-especially if the technology doesn't match the brand identity. "The way we look at Web 2.0 is not if we should be doing it. It's more if it's going to be positive for a guest experience or do we see a value in it," Mirman explains. "We're not trying to do things that are cutting edge. We have to have some kind of value to it. If there are things that float by themselves that we definitely think are going to provide a value for our guests or our bottom line, we're going to be interested in this."

The hotel company made a groundbreaking move long before it broke ground on its new lifestyle brand, aloft, when it introduced the hotel in the virtual world Second Life. There, Second Lifers could not only explore a 3D prototype, but also make suggestions and offer feedback. And in May, a new aloft prototype debuted in the virtual world incorporating those changes.

For Holdren, working on aloft was a labor of love-employees couldn't access Second Life from Starwood's headquarters, so Holdren and his team often worked on the project after hours at home. "A lot of the projects we do, part of it is educating the company," he says. "When I first called our IT security group and tried to explain what Second Life was and why we needed access, they were like, ‘Sure, you just want to play a video game there.' With any of these new technologies, part of it is educating and bringing excitement [to] corporate as well. The Web world is something my team and I live in and breathe it."

Holdren adds that Starwood looks for innovation as a company. "It's a core part of our DNA," he says. That's apparent from surfing around its brand Web sites. Westin recently launched an interactive Web site, www.findrenewal.com, that lets visitors read advice, recipes and tips from the company's new Renewal Council-a panel of six lifestyle experts. The daily tips are available via e-mail and RSS feed and can

be delivered directly to users' desktops or blogs via a custom widget. Four Points by Sheraton, which has a brand message of simplicity, reflects that in the easy search tool on its home page, which simply asks, "Where are you going?" And Le Meridian's Web site offers "50 Beans," a feature that allows guests to share their stories about coffee.

"Each of our brands is uniquely positioned," Holdren says. "But what we do is build things on an enterprise level and roll them out as appropriate for each brand. We don't approach it like: We did a simple search for Four Points because our Four Points brand is all about the uncomplicated and really making travel much easier. That doesn't mean it automatically doesn't get rolled out across all of our brands. Really, we have to make sure there is a unique fit for it. But it's all built on the same platform to be used enterprise-wide so that when we do decide that something should be rolled out, the benefits are easy to realize across the enterprise."

Starwood isn't about to stop, according to Holdren. The international market has great potential in terms of Web initiatives and with mobile devices, he says. "To see the growth in the importance of the Web, not just from a revenue perspective and booking perspective, but really to see how it can drive a lot of benefits for a company across the board, whether it's getting feedback or helping to enhance the experience our guests have in our hotels, all of those initiatives are supporting that path and it makes it a great journey," he says. "Our mission for our Web site isn't just about driving revenue and transactions...it's also about creating unique experiences and [to] drive value for our guests."

Defining Web 2.0
Web 2.0 isn't one tangible thing. Rather, it's composed of different tools, features and technologies that are all changing the way we use the Internet. Here are some of its key components:

„ AJAX: (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) | Web development technique for creating interactive Web applications. The goal is to shift a great deal of computation to the user's computer so the entire Web page doesn't have to reload when a change is made due to user interaction. This, in turn, increases the Web page's interactivity, speed and usability. „„„Real-world examples: Google Maps, GMail, Zuggest

„ API (Application Programming Interface) | Interface that a computer system or application provides in order to allow requests for service to be made of it by other computer programs, and/or to allow data to be exchanged between them. „„„Real-world examples: DirectX for Microsoft Windows and Google Maps API.

„ Folksonomy | A blend of "Folk" and "taxonomy," it's a user-generated taxonomy used to categorize and retrieve Web content, such as Web pages, photographs and Web links, using open-ended labels called tags. Folksonomic tagging is intended to make a body of information easier to search, discover and navigate. „„„Real-world examples: Flickr and del.icio.us

„ Mash-up | A Web site or Web application that seamlessly combines content from more than one source into an integrated experience. Content used in mash-ups is usually from a third party via public interface or API. „„„Real-world examples: Kulist.com, LookLOCAL.com, iTripr.com

„ RSS (Really Simple Syndication) | A family of XML dialects for Web syndication used by news Web sites and Weblogs. RSS formats provide Web content or summaries of Web content together with links to the full versions of the content and other metadata. This information is delivered as an XML file called an RSS feed, Webfeed, RSS Stream or RSS Channel. „„„Real-world examples: CNN.com breaking news, podcast subscriptions

„ Social Web | Refers to an open global distributed data sharing network similar to the World Wide Web, but instead of linking documents, the Social Web links people, concepts or organizations. „„„Real-world examples: MySpace, Facebook

„ Wiki | A type of Web site that allows users to easily add and edit content and is particularly suited to collaborative writing. „„„Real-world examples: wikipedia, Mediawiki

Source: Lodging Magazine, July 2007