Brian’s Blog: Take a Video Tour of the Courtyard San Diego Mission Valley

Last month, I was out in San Diego, California, and stopped by to visit our newly opened Courtyard San Diego Mission Valley hotel. It’s a beautiful hotel in a beautiful city, but instead of writing about it, I decided to film a video with the hotel’s general manager, John Blem, while I was out there. Click below to see the hotel for yourself!

Thanks for helping me keep Courtyard on the go.

Brian

Green Your Hotel Stay for $1 a Day with Marriott

Today, Marriott launched an exciting new program that allows our guests to “green” their hotel stays with us. Did you know that most of your basic day-to-day functions, like turning a light switch on and off, release harmful greenhouse gas emissions into the earth’s atmosphere, which contributes to global warming? Well, we have calculated the average greenhouse gases emitted from a one night stay in Marriott hotels, including Courtyards, and developed a way for our guests to offset these emissions created during their stay.

Marriott has been working with the Amazonas Sustainable Foundation to help protect 1.4 million acres of rainforest in The Juma Sustainable Development Reserve in the state of Amazonas, Brazil. And now, you, our guests, can help too. For as little as US$10, or US$1 a day for 10 days, you can offset the greenhouses gases generated and emitted during your stay by helping to protect this rainforest.

Rainforests are like the lungs of the earth and help to breathe in the carbon that is released into the air from our greenhouse gas emissions. If we do not help protect this rainforest, more than 60 percent of it will be lost to illegal deforestation by 2050, which will result in 4 million tons of carbon being released into the atmosphere in the first 10 years alone.

This is a really important new initiative for Marriott and all our brands. I hope you’ll check out our site where you can make your contribution to help protect the rainforest in the Juma Reserve. I’ve also included a video below, as well as some pictures from a trip some Marriott associates recently made to Juma. And, you can keep up to date with all of Marriott’s green practices through our Marriott Green Twitter site, as well as learn how to Travel Green on Facebook.

Thanks for helping me keep Courtyard on the go – and the earth a little greener.

Brian

Courtyard Fitchburg, Mass.

Courtyard Fitchburg
150 Royal Plaza Drive
Fitchburg, Massachusetts 01420
(978) 342-7100

Courtyard Greensboro Airport, N.C. (new hotel)

Courtyard Greensboro Airport
7811 National Service Road
Greensboro, North Carolina 27409
(336) 668-1090

Courtyard Bradenton/Sarasota Riverfront, Fla.

Courtyard Bradenton/Sarasota Riverfront
100 Riverfront Dr. West
Bradenton, Florida 34205
(941) 747-3727

Courtyard by Marriott Opens its 800th Hotel in Shanghai, China

I’m blogging today from Shanghai, China, where we are celebrating the opening of our 800th Courtyard hotel. This is an absolutely beautiful hotel with 364 guest rooms on 23 floors, a large state-of-the-art fitness center and our MoMo café, a full service restaurant featuring local cuisine. Courtyard prides itself on recognizing and adapting to the needs of business travelers from different regions around the world and this particular hotel truly caters to the high expectations of Asian travelers.

Today’s celebration was really spectacular. It was attended by many VIPs from all over China and featured a traditional music and costumed dancers. The celebration ended with the lighting of festive firecrackers that officially marked the opening of the hotel.

And back at our headquarters in Bethesda, Maryland, the associates there are joining the celebration, too. A traditional Chinese lion dance will be performed right outside of the cafeteria and traditional Chinese food will be served for lunch. A video of the ceremony that took place in China will also be played so associates in the U.S. can commemorate the occasion as well.

We chose to celebrate this milestone in Shanghai to reflect the brand’s global growth and reach. Currently, we have Courtyard hotels in 28 countries around the world. This is the seventh Courtyard to open in China and we plan to open another one there later this year. The brand is also growing rapidly in other parts of Asia as we plan to open five new Courtyards in India in 2009 and eight new Courtyards in the Middle East by the end of 2011.

It is remarkable how far the brand has come from its first hotel in Atlanta, Georgia, that opened in 1983.

Thanks for helping me keep Courtyard on the go…at 800 strong, and counting!

Brian

Courtyard by Marriott on Target with Weekend Guests

Sorry it’s been so long since my last blog entry. We’ve been having some technical problems with the site, but now that we’re starting to get through them, you’ll be hearing a lot more from me again.

We know a lot of our weekend guests like to get some shopping done while they’re on the road, so we thought we’d give them a little extra spending money. So, today I want to tell you about an exciting offer we have going on at our Courtyard hotels right now. Any weekend guests who stay a Friday or Saturday night at a Courtyard between February 5 and April 6, 2009 will receive a $20 Target GiftCard when they check in.

All you have to do is book your trip between now and February 23, 2009 and use the booking code YB3. You can see the rest of the terms and conditions by clicking here.

I hope you’re able to get away to enjoy a weekend at a Courtyard and take advantage of the $20 Target GiftCard. There’s no better way to shop than with a gift card!

Thanks for helping me keep Courtyard on the go.

Brian