Las Vegas Airport was 103 degrees at 9:00pm last night according to the National Weather Service.

This city is melting.

Las Vegas Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health, Frank Gehry building architect.

The question on the mind of many Las Vegas visitors at the major casino hotels on the Strip is simply:

Why are all the hotel resort swimming pools closed on hot summer evenings?

I wrote a piece on Las Vegas pool hours in August 2009 after spending a week in the city for my sister’s wedding.

Skinny or Not, Pool Dipping Hours in Las Vegas are Severely Restricted (August 15, 2009)

Seriously, Las Vegas in August for a wedding?

She also vacations in Cancun in September.

Starwood Shines for Las Vegas Pool Hours

I praised the Westin Las Vegas Hotel on that August 2009 trip for being the rare pool open at night near the Las Vegas Strip.

The Westin hotel’s website now says the pool is open 24 hours a day all year. Read More…

Club Carlson PR emailed me survey results on Americans’ attitudes to hotel loyalty programs: Findings from National Kelton Survey on Loyalty Habits.

This post provides my commentary to the hotel loyalty program survey findings.

21% belong to a hotel loyalty program.

1 in 5 people belong to a hotel loyalty program.

I think reasons for not belonging to a hotel loyalty program could be infrequent travel, preference for other accommodations like staying with friends and relatives, hostels, couchsurfing, camping, Priceline, Hotwire and online travel agency bookings like Expedia. Many travelers prefer independent hotels and B&B lodging.

Of the 21% who do belong to a hotel loyalty program, 3 of 5 belong to more than one program.

Gender Gap Read More…

Sitting in an air conditioned hotel room in downtown Toronto with a view of the CN Tower while listening to the Toronto TV  weather news talk about how this was the hottest day so far of 2013. The official temperature was 30 C, however, the news reports said it was more like 36 C with the humidity. That is 97 F.

I spent 9:30 to 3:30 pm touring Rouge Park north of Toronto and sweated the day away with 30 other TBEX bloggers and Parks Canada officials.

Parks Canada is in the process of trying to establish Rouge Park as the country’s first urban national park here in the GTA – Greater Toronto Area.

The woods, meadows, rivers, marshes and Lake Ontario beach of Rouge Park were probably a better place to spend the day outside than touring the hot streets of Toronto today.

Rouge Park, Ontario, Canada. Read More…

Westin Riverfront Resort in Avon, Colorado consists of a hotel, Westin Riverfront Resort & Spa, Beaver Creek Mountain and a Starwood Vacation Property, Westin Riverfront Mountain Villas, Beaver Creek Mountain.

The Starwood resort property sits in the valley beside the Eagle River at an elevation of 7,400 feet at the base of Beaver Creek ski resort. Ski lifts are on the property to take travelers to Beaver Creek  Mountain which offers 149 ski trails at elevations of 8.100 to 11,000 feet. Vail is ten miles away to the east with shuttle bus access daily in ski season to the Vail slopes.

Two weeks ago I stayed at the Westin Riverfront Villas in the off-season with a AAA rate of $116 per night. There was also an additional nightly $20 resort fee.

Read More…

Starwood Hotels says the future of luxury hotels is catering to the luXurY traveler, according to an exclusive interview given to Melanie Nayer in her column at 4Hoteliers.com.

The article says 85% of Starwood’s luxury guests are Generation X and Generation Y wealthy travelers. These are the people who were born 1966-1976 Gen X, and 1977-1994 Gen Y.

Generation X and Generation Y are the two age groups that encompasses most of the BoardingArea bloggers, although a few of us are older Baby Boomers and there is even a Generation Z blogger or two who were born after 1994.

Generation X in the USA is also called the ‘lost generation’ since they were exposed to a much higher divorce rate and time in daycare than baby boomers. This cohort of 40 million or so is considered to be the generation of people who tuned out the news and politics. They had the lowest voter participation rate of any generational cohort. Yet, this is the best educated cohort with nearly 1 in 3 earning a college bachelor’s degree. Read More…

One of the BAcon bits that was made clear to me over this past weekend is most readers find the slideshow image on Loyalty Traveler of the hot tub with rose petals ‘creepy’. I heard that word a lot over three days.

This photo is from the Holiday Inn Express in Yreka, California November 2008. The newly opened hotel had an open house for the community.

I arrived on a road trip from Portland, Oregon heading south back to Monterey in November 2008. The hotel stay was a Priority Club 5,000 points PointBreaks award night. Besides a cheap room using points, the hotel was serving complimentary Sierra Nevada beer for the two hours of Open House.

There were several hotel rooms open for visitors to see. The hot tub with rose petals was in one of the open house rooms at the Holiday Inn Express, Yreka.

There was no hot tub in the room where I stayed the night.

The slideshow will soon be gone from Loyalty Traveler

My website was reviewed by Andy Hayes in a seminar session for BAcon, the Boarding Area conference in Colorado Springs May 10-12, 2013.

Andy recommended the entire slideshow be removed since the reader has no control to stop and gaze at any photo and there are no captions to the photos.

Andy also said the rose petals around the hot tub were creepy.

My mental association with the hot tub photo is remembering a cheap hotel night drinking free beer with the great people of Yreka, California. I wonder if the community members from Yreka thought the hot tub room was creepy at the time?

What association do you make with the hot tub and rose petals that makes it so creepy?

The hot tub image has been removed from the front page, although still visible if reading an older post from 2012 or earlier. The entire slideshow will be removed from Loyalty Traveler soon. The changes have to be made by BoardingArea technical staff. I do not have control over that plug-in which is why it has not been changed to date.

Another hot tub photo

Today I photographed another hot tub on my BAcon to KPIG road trip from Colorado Springs back to Monterey.

No rose petals.

Is this hot tub creepy?

Sheraton Mountain Vista Villas, Avon, Colorado hot tub on 7th floor with view of Beaver Creek ski area.

Last night I was blessed with a sighting of three Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep near Georgetown, Colorado as I was driving Interstate 70.

Finally a dream come true after many trips through the Rocky Mountains without ever sighting bighorn sheep.

The sighting came as I was driving I-70 going 60 mph at about 10,000 feet in elevation. No cars immediately behind me meant I could slow down as I moved to the left lane and passed by the bighorn sheep going about 25 mph.

The three sheep were standing next to the freeway at dusk. There was no barrier to keep the bighorn sheep from stepping five feet into the I-70 road traffic.

My first impression is these bighorn sheep were huge. A little Wikipedia reading informs me that Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep are the largest of the three North American sub-species. Males can weigh up to 500 pounds. The three bighorn sheep I saw looked to be full sized males. The bighorn sheep’s curved horns can weigh more than 30 pounds.

Unfortunately my camera was in the trunk of my car.

This photo is from Wikipedia. Imagine three of these images side-by-side and that was my sighting.

I pray they headed back into the wilderness to survive the night.

Wikimedia Commons: Bighorn Sheep (Ovis canadensis) in front of Mount Wilbur in Glacier National Park, Montana, USA

Washing the gravel out of my travel

The second best thing I saw last night was this hotel room amenity at the Westin Riverfront Villas in Avon, Colorado.

After seven days and nights on the road, I needed to wash out the dirt and gravel from my travel.

Patio view of Beaver Creek Mountain ski area from Westin Riverfront, Avon.

This property has average rates of $322. My rate last night was $116.

Full review of Westin Riverfront Resort to come soon. I have to visit some Beaver Creek area resorts today and touch Moab, Utah for stargazing tonight.

Today is checkout day for the Cheyenne Mountain Resort in Colorado Springs for the final day of the Boarding Area blogger conference hosted by Randy Petersen and the House of Miles.

I was looking for a hotel tonight in Colorado and checking Denver rates.

Sheraton Denver Tech Center:

• BAR = $179
• AAA = $69

This is the largest AAA discount I ever recall seeing.

While that hotel rate looks tempting, the Sheraton DTC hotel is one I have stayed at before and I did not have great things to say in my previous reviews. As I recall, the walls were paper thin and carried sound from room to room.

Going Upscale

While a bit more expensive, the rates for Starwood Hotels in Beaver Creek (near Vail) are truly deals right now.

Westin Riverfront Mountain Villas, Beaver Creek, Colorado

• AAA = $116
• 12,000 Starpoints (SPG category 5)

This looks like the right time to be heading for the mountains and a nice resort.

Registration for the Double Take current promotion with Starwood Preferred Guest is open. This promotion offers 2 bonus points per dollar.

There are many nonparticipating Starwood hotel properties for this offer. Check the list carefully for your planned stays.

The best part of the promotion is the mobile booking bonus of 500 points per stay for any booking worldwide, even for hotels not participating in the double points offer.

SPG Double Take May 1-July 31, 2013.

When I registered I received a notice that I had not yet registered for Delta Skymiles Crossover Rewards.

Thanks for the reminder SPG.

Related post:

Elites meet when SPG and Delta Skymiles Crossover Rewards begins March 1, 2013 (Loyalty Traveler Feb 7, 2013).

HotelNewsNow has an article this week, “W put ‘lifestyle’ on map 15 years ago,” sharing some insight into how W Hotels impacted the development of lifestyle hotels.

Interestingly the comments on this article point to Kimpton Hotels as launching this trend a decade earlier, but without the marketing power of SPG to push the concept into the public eye.

My first W Hotel stays were in 2003 at W Newark Silicon Valley (now an Aloft hotel) and W Sydney in Woolloomooloo (now a Taj Hotel).

Since then I have stayed at W San Francisco, W Chicago Lakeshore, W Washington D.C. and W New York Union Square. I have also visited a couple other W Hotels.

Lost W Hotel of Woolloomooloo (8-26-2012).

My hassle-free stay @W New York Union Square (10-5-2012)

W Silicon Valley, Newark, California (5-30-2011)

W Silicon Valley Fly-by in HD (July 28, 2009) – This piece touches on the adjacent wildlife refuge and history of sea salt production in San Francisco Bay.

W San Francisco in HD (Sep 4, 2009) – Loads of photos

My Square Foot – Are Hotels Like Men? (8-30-2010) – commentary on W San Francisco room size.

W Chicago Lakeshore Hotel (Oct. 26, 2010)

W Chicago City Center in Blue Ray (October 27, 2010)

W Barcelona Extreme WOW Suite (9-19-2012)