The hotel industry of late has discovered that guests--both business and leisure travelers--covet a good night's sleep. And nothing contributes more to that sleep than a comfortable mattress. Right now the hottest hotel trend is to transform those sterile, cookie cutter rooms with florid bedspreads into comfy residential spaces, perhaps, if you're lucky, like your own bedroom, or with the feel that you see in Crate & Barrel or Room & Board.The idea behind the quest for true comfort is simple: Hotels are in the business of selling sleep. That revelation came from Barry Sternlicht, chairman and CEO of Starwood Hotels and Resorts. Starwood's brands include W, Westin, Sheraton and Four Points by Sheraton. While the creme de la creme of hotel brands--Four Seasons, Ritz-Carlton, Peninsula--have always prided themselves on delivering luxe sleep surroundings to match their luxe room rates, other brands are catching up quickly, introducing their own variations of the bed theme.By most accounts, Starwood's Westin Hotels & Resorts launched "bed wars" five years ago when it introduced its Westin Heavenly Bed.
The bed was modeled after the one Sternlicht had in his Connecticut home. For the uninitiated, including me, the Heavenly Bed is a custom-designed Simmons mattress set with 900 individual coils. Three sheets with thread counts from 180 to 250, a down blanket, comforter, white duvet and five goose-down/goose-feather pillows make up this rectangular marshmallow. ZzzzzzzThe Heavenly Bed became an instant hit with guests who wanted the same sleep experience in their homes. Thus a new profit center was born. The whole Heavenly Bed Ensemble, as it is called, sells for $2,565 for a queen set, $2,990 for a king. Some 30,000 guests now have Heavenly at home. Sales are expected to exceed $8 million this year. A 2004 hotel guest satisfaction study by J.D. Power and Associates, based on 29,424 individual evaluations from 13 upscale chains, gave Heavenly the top ranking of 9.19 out of 10."Hotel groups are putting in the new beds to be competitive," said Joseph McInerney, president of the Washington-based American Hotel & Lodging Association.
"If you're a Sheraton or a Westin, Wyndham and Hyatt have to compete with you in the marketplace, so they are going to have to do what they need to do to compete with the Heavenly Beds."Sheraton Hotels & Resorts last year launched its own brand of bed--the Sheraton Sweet Sleeper Bed. The company committed more than $75 million to put 110,000 beds in 200 North American hotels. The new beds are also going into Sheratons in London and Latin America. Unlike Westin, Sheraton is using a high coil count, 11.5-inch thick Sealy Posturepedic plush top mattress plus appropriately designed bed linens to lend that homey look. Sheraton, too, is selling its bed. Yet another Starwood brand, Four Points by Sheraton, said it will be spending $13 million to put Four Comfort Beds into all of its 100-plus properties by July 2005. The Four Comfort, covered by its own style of linens, is similar to the Sheraton bed."At Hyatt, we want to provide an experience that is equal to or better than your home," said Gary Dollens, vice president-operations of Chicago-based Hyatt Hotel Corp., where the Grand Bed recently was introduced.
The bed, which features a 13.5-inch pillow-top Sealy Posturepedic 720 series mattress, eliminates the traditional bed frame and dust ruffle and sits on a base. Grand Bed, with plush linens and decorative pillows, will be phased into Hyatt Regency and Grand Hyatt hotels in the U.S., Canada and Caribbean by the third quarter of 2005.At Hilton Hotels, based in Los Angeles, guests of its family of brands--Hilton, Doubletree, Embassy Suites--will be getting a Suite Dreams by Hilton bed, including a plush top mattress designed by Serta. Hampton and Homewood Suites by Hilton also have bedding programs that will be phased in over the next year or two. Hilton Garden Inns' bedding plan is in development.Marriott International, with 2,600 hotels worldwide, will soon roll out more luxurious bedding across all its brands--Marriott, Renaissance, Courtyard, Fairfield Inn, SpringHill Suites, Residence Inn and TownePlace Suites. The full service hotels, of course, will get the thicker, plusher quilted-top mattresses and the 300-thread-count sheets, said spokesman Roger Conner.
"Installation of our new luxury bedding packages will begin next year, and all brands--from Marriott and Renaissance to Fairfield Inn--will start to feature thicker, plusher mattresses, higher thread count sheets, duvets or duvet-style blankets and fluffier pillows," added Mike Jannini, executive vice president of brand management. Princess Grace`s Fatal Crash: Her Daughter`s AccountYoung mother shot in the head on South Side: 'My baby's fighting for her life'New Owner Demolishes O.j. Simpson Mansion Nicole Simpson's Grisly Death Described To JuryComplications common for adults after tonsillectomy10 reasons why you want the jobPhil on 08/16/2015I was desperately looking for a place to crash in the night, every other hotel near the airport seemed to be sold-out. I knew about the bugs, but I wanted to give it a try. I inspected the room without bringing my stuff. The room looked cleaned, but the mattress had a bedbug cover and a suspicious stain on it. I have asked more info at the reception, they told me to open the cover if that made me feel more comfortable.
What I discovered is that the stain was done by bedbugs, and some of them whe re crawling on the mattress. It seemed they were aware of the problem but instead of buying a new mattress, they simply put an envelope on it. With all the bedbugs inside. The staff was very apologetic, checked me out immediately with no costs. I stayed in a much better and cheaper hotel nearby. Anonymous on 07/06/201503/16 and 03/17 2015 1. Read about the bedbugs, but it was too late to move out. Asked for bedbug proof matters covers. 2. Got bite by bedbugs. The manager came, could not find bugs. She tried to use the fact that she could not find bugs, to deny the fact that I got bites. 3. Senior manager promised to dry clean my clothes and refund my stays. 4. Haven't got the refund yet as of 07/06/2015. 5. Have got bedbugs with me to my home, probably the dry cle an didn't kill them all. It was a nightmare. Absolutely the worst experience! The hotel knew the problem and they just don't care.
Anonymous on 02/19/2015You Can't Sleep Tight Cause The Bed Bugs Bite @ Four Points By Sheridan at the Los Angeles Airport!! I checked into the hotel on Tuesday, February 9th and by Thursday I woke up and saw these three, red, itchy bumps on my chest and on my side that I was curious to know what they were, so as I usually do, I went online and BAM, it was said that these kinds of bumps are in fact #BedBug bites!!! They look just like the photos I saw on the internet. Check them out for yourself in my video. I'm telling you right now, I am never staying at #FourPointsBySheraton ever again because what I also discovered when I was online was that they had a bed bug problem since at least 2012!! There have been several complaints about a bed bug infestation at your hotel since then and now three years later you still have a bed bug issue!!?? That tells me you did nothing about it for three years!! So you 'mothercluckers' took my money and let me get bitten up by bedbugs over the course of several days!!??
There is even a review in #TripAdvisor about the hotel in 2012 that exposed the bed bug infestation at Four Points by Sheraton at the Los Angeles Airport. A Starwood Preferred Guest member and frequent traveler said, "I was HORRIFIED when I pulled back the corner of the sheet and saw the mattress corner covered in dried blood." There is another review in #TripAdvisor in 2014 about the hotel's bed bugs where a customer complained, "The next morning I woke up and had a breakout on my arm. I figured it was a reaction to the lotion because this usually happens to me with different skin care items. On the flight back to Florida, my back started itching really bad and I realized the same reaction was all over my back. Again, thinking it was a reaction to the lotion, I just applied Benadryl and called it a day. Fast forward 2 weeks later, the itching and the bumps are only getting worse, I go to my doctor and find out I have bed bugs. I am seriously grossed out. I keep gagging every time I think about it.
My husband is calling the hotel tomorrow. I hope they burn that freaking bed." So based on my research, their bed bug problem dates back to at least 2012. Ok, when I went to the management to complain, I spoke with Charles Fort, the Director of the Front Office, he was extremely nice, apologetic and accommodating. I couldn't have asked for better customer service. He had me fill out an incident report, he called a man named Hidle, Executive of Housekeeping and Mohamed M. Abouelrous, Director of Operations, to assist in changing my room, sending all of my clothes to get laundered and dry cleaned to make sure there were no bed bugs in them. However, they took a thousand hours to bring my clothes back, which made me late for a meeting. If I didn't harass them for my clothes until I got them, I would have missed the meeting altogether!! I wasn't happy about that but I had to pick my battles. Anywhoo, they did make attempts to satisfy me by giving me three free breakfast vouchers to use for the remainder of my stay and even discounted my me for my entire 5 day stay.
Butcha know what, my issue isn't about the money!! My issue is about the fact that Four Points by Sheraton did absolutely nothing about those bed bugs since 2012 and didn't give a 'cluck' if people got bitten up by bed bugs between then and now because they're greedy!! They want to continue to make money without spending any money to clean up their current bed bug issue or preventing future issues. I found it very suspicious that the mattress and box spring that I slept on in my first room had no bed bug covers on them, but when they moved me to my second room, those mattresses and box springs had bed bug covers on them, which tells me that they knew full well, the whole time, they had a bed bug issue in the entire hotel!! They have 500 beds in the Four Points By Sheraton at the Los Angeles airport and they only covered some of the beds and not all of them!?? It's clear they don't wanna spend the money on covering up all 500 mattresses and box springs with bed bug covers to ensure that ALL customers are comfortable!!
They're only interested in making money, not protecting customers!! I spoke with the General Manager, Peter Kolla on the phone and he actually admitted that it would be too expensive to cover all 500 mattresses and box springs with bed bug covers. I told him, "those covers are not expensive at all, but it doesn't matter if they were, that's the price of doing business!!" Later that day, he had the nerve to email me the results of some bootleg report that went something like this, "we are pleased to inform you that the results of our investigation which included a thorough inspection of the room you stayed by Kill Masters, showed no evidence of beg bug infestation. I have attached a copy of the inspection clearance form for your records." Does he think that we're stupid!!! That game has played out!! The reaction to bed bug bites ain't brain surgery!! I was bitten by bed bugs in their hotel!! THAT'S IT AND THAT'S ALL!! So I didn't even respond to that ridiculous email!! Although the hotel washed and dried my clothes, the FIRST STOP I made before I stepped into my house was straight to the laundry to wash and dry my clothes AGAIN!!