Friday, July 11, 2008

iGoogle adds to customer experience



My family had our first experience with the Hyatt Place brand a few weeks ago in the beautiful little city of Roanoke, Virginia. I will say that we were impressed with the concept ... everything had a very nice design aesthetic at a reasonable price. Strangely enough, my wife raved about the bed, something I can't recall her ever doing in a hotel before. And the 42-in. flat panel TV was a big hit with my son.

But another little touch caught me by surprise. While logging onto the complimentary wireless Internet in my room, I was sort of stopped dead in my tracks by the landing page for the hotel. I've seen dozens if not hundreds of these things in my business travels, and can't say that I've ever paid more than 2-3 seconds of attention on any single one. But this one was so well done, with very cleanly laid out weather forecast for Roanoke, hotel information, travel and restaurant details, and more. 

Once I returned from vacation, I contacted Amy Patti at Hyatt to pass on how impressed I was. And it turns out that Hyatt is using iGoogle, which I suppose is to be expected. Where isn't Google these days?

“When we developed Hyatt Place, we realized reliable, complimentary access in all areas of every hotel was crucial but that’s only the first step."   said Alison Kal, vice president, marketing, Hyatt Corp. "We wanted to ensure relevant information was immediately accessible so we integrated iGoogle – a product of one of the world’s leading technology firms – to provide guests with content they need while on the road.”

“Users want immediate, at-a-glance access to the information wherever they are – at home, at work, even when traveling,” said Dan Stickel, responsible for Google Partner Products. “With the customized iGoogle webpage, Hyatt Place guests can tap into the simplicity of Google search, while accessing the information they look for on a regular basis, like local weather, flight schedules, maps, calendars and Gmail, within seconds of logging on.”

So once again, Google appears to conquer one more aspect of life in today's world. Now, if they could only do something about the price of gas ...

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