Los Gatos Weekly-Times

Local hotels keep pace with business centers

By Kristin Kusumoto

In order to be on the cutting edge of the corporate hotel industry, the Toll House recently opened its high-tech "business center," which provides an office away from the office for visitors to the Silicon Valley and for local clients who attend meetings in the hotel's conference rooms.

The Los Gatos Lodge also plans to establish a business center in its front lobby which will be renovated specifically for that purpose, general manager Ron Nelson said.

This new amenity is becoming increasingly important for corporate hotels, according to Toll House manager Dan Ponder. Since 75 percent of Toll House customers represent the business sector, Ponder said, he believes that the $22,000 cost to implement the center is a worthwhile investment.

"It's almost a necessity--business travelers on the road need to make presentations and get their email and send faxes," he said, adding that during the week, the hotel books 100 to 130 business guests from all over the world. The center is equally useful for local clients conducting meetings in the hotel's five conference rooms, he said.

Ponder said he designed the center to match the setting of an executive office. Located behind a handsome counter in the front lobby, it has leather chairs, contemporary-style lamps and desk supplies. There is a Pentium computer with a 15-inch Sony color monitor which operates on Windows 95 and runs Microsoft Word, Powerpoint and Excel so guests can edit their business documents or make new ones, Ponder explained.

The high-speed copier enables the documents to be copied onto transparencies for overhead projectors. The most widely used items, Ponder said, are the serial port cables which guests use for their laptops in order to access their email.

In addition, the center has cables for connecting laptop PCs and Macs to the HP laser printer, as well as a fax machine with a credit card activator. The center is open 24 hours, and there is no charge to use the equipment. "The guests really love it; it saves them from having to get in their car and drive to a copy center," Ponder said. He speculated that more customers in the future will want a high-tech business center and said that currently only a few hotels have them. The Marriot in Santa Clara and the Fairmont in downtown San Jose are two examples; their centers are open during business hours and charge an hourly rate of $20 for the computer.

According to Nelson, who counts various Silicon Valley companies as major clients of the Los Gatos Lodge, "If you want the business, you have to keep up with the business community."

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