Luxury Collection whisks guests on vintage road trips

Starwood Hotels and Resorts' The Luxury Collection is partnering with One Kings Lane, purveyor of vintage home decor, to tailor customized experiences and unearth the local treasures of property locations for guests.

The partnership offers exclusive sales, dinners and opportunities to road-trip across some of America's quintessential landscapes. San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Portland compose the showcased itinerary and at each of these locations guests will encounter a distinct cultural flavor.

"We hope these packages will remind customers that there is glamour and adventure to be had in cities just around the corner," said Brooke Travis, director of North America brand management at Starwood Luxury & Design Brands, New York.

"This partnership reinforces The Luxury Collection’s mantra, ‘Life is a Collection of Experiences, Let Us Be Your Guide,’ and aims to inspire global explorers to discover or rediscover destinations throughout the country," she said.

Follow the signs
The three packages include All American Road Trip, Limited-Edition Curated Sales and Preview Supper Series.

The packages overlap and cater to the predilections of both brands' consumers.

Curated road trips are designed based on a guests location and their interests. Food and wine, speed and sport or art and design are possible road trips themes.

A concierge will take care of all the trip's details so that guests can enjoy the journey.

Starwood created a short film to give consumers a taste of what the road trip might be like.

West Coast Road Trip

Luxury Collection's Web site recommends San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Portland as road trip points.

Luxury Collection Web site

One Kings Lane will cull vintage items representative of the area where each sale takes place. Although shadowed by the road trip, the sale of rare items seems to be the crux of the partnership as it may bring together different groups of consumers.

One Kings Lane consumers may visit a Luxury Collection hotel and embark on a road trip for a chance to see the exclusive sales.

One Kings Lane Web site

Likewise, regular Luxury Collection guests may discover One Kings Lane's creative offers for the first time as a result of the packages.

Regardless of particular motivations, guests may find the preview suppers to be a good place to survey the limited sales.

The sales will give special access to furniture, textiles and design accent and will take place July 2 and July 9, per One Kings Lane.

"For One Kings Lane, The Luxury Collection was the ideal partner to showcase our buyers' frequent shopping trips around the country where we visit antique and vintage dealers to find perfect items for our site," said Mark Shambura, senior director of brand marketing for One Kings Lane, New York.

"We see our consumers respond favorably to unique, one-of-a-kind items, which is why we round out our home offerings with vintage product and sales events," he said.

"Each package is designed to cater to the specific traveler's enthusiasm for exploration, wanderlust and design."

Wanderlust

The summer season lets luxury hotels experiment with offers because the spike in travel calls for greater creativity to pull in larger shares of guests.

Furthermore, devising creative packages can provide insights into what consumers appreciate.

Other hotels have searched for inventive ways to draw consumers.

For example, Waldorf Astoria Park City, UT,  is reaching out to ultimate foodies, beauty mavens and others with summer packages to provide guests with exclusive experiences and stir interest in the Utah property.

The summer packages are likely to broaden horizons of affluent travelers who would normally not consider Park City, UT, as a vacation destination. Enticing guests with exclusive events to a certain location can help drive foot-traffic to a hotel (see story).

Travel packages can contain highly specific details and still appeal to a broad range of consumers.

"Because this program speaks directly to creating signature experiences, it helps us reinforce this belief, while at the same time enabling our consumers to express themselves through travel, design and home decor," Mr. Shambura said.

Final Take

Joe McCarthy, editorial assistant on Luxury Daily, New York