A while back, I mentioned to a travel savvy friend that I was covering hotels for Travel Weekly.

She almost immediately wanted to know whether 'I would get a chance to stay at a W hotel in the keen sort of way someone might ask an entertainment reporter if he ever interviewed Angelina Jolie or Elton John.

It was then that I realized that W Hotels had become the equivalent of a rock star. Hip, cool, trendy, stylish, sophisticated, wired and accommodating, W hotels have what entertainment types like to call "good buzz." But W didn't get it by accident.

Months before the brand launched with the opening of the W New York in December 1998, Barry Stemlicht, executive chairman of Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, the parent of W Hotels, teamed up with Dan Klores Communications (DKC), a New York-based public relations and marketing firm, to turn W's trendy hotel concept into buzz. (DKC also was involved in the launch of Song, Delta's low-fare airline).

DKC used a combination of "press outreach and unique teasers that reflected the style of the property," said Diane Briskin, DKC's executive vice president.

"We looked at ways to market the brand to people in a way that the brand took on a bigger impression," Briskin said. "So even before it opened, this would be a brand that people were anticipating."

By the time the W New York opened, Briskin said, people were lined up around the block to get into the bars and lounges.

"The hotel had to start locking the doors because the lobby would quickly get filled to capacity," she said. "That set the tone for how we launched each W after that."

DKC has been involved in the opening of 18 Ws.

The success of W Hotels demonstrates that there is a segment of the population "motivated by more than just space and rate," Briskin said. "W really legitimized the 'style' hotel segment."

It did so by becoming a "power brand," said Peter Warren, chairman of New York based WarrenKremerPaino - a firm that markets several hotels, including the New York Palace.

Warren would like to see more hotel brands follow W's lead.

"There is a cloud or fuzziness that exists between brands in terms of what the expectation is and what the delivery is," Warren said. "We are so much in a people business that our delivery cannot be a mechanical process."


Warren said a hotel stay should be an experience.

"When you think about it, you are not selling real estate. You are not selling a building or a restaurant. You are selling what that guest comes away with," Warren said.

He said the hotel industry, at times, "talks a good game."

"We grab onto buzzwords like 'positioning: 'promise' and 'experience: " he said.

"But that has to be translated into real terms at the front desk, on the reservations calls and on the Web site."

When it all works together, said Warren, it's like beautiful music.

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