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Le Méridien launches concept website

Published: 09/12/2007 - Filed under: News »

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Le Méridien Hotels and Resorts has relaunched its website, promising “a global community for those who appreciate creativity”.

The all-new lemeridien.com has been designed to attract guests interested in travelling to discover “a new perspective in arts, music, fashion, design and cuisine”. The new site offers visitors an “image-based navigation system”, with “sound collages” and a “destination canvas”. If like us the only navigating you do is through your satnav, and a collage is something you remember from playschool, allow us enlighten you…

A sound idea

The new website features 300 music and sound samples, crafted by French composer Henri Scars Struck, which change and combine depending on the time of day and which part the user is browsing. Le Méridien hopes to create “an interactive sound experience utterly unique to the online experience”, so you’d best upgrade those computer speakers.

Destination unknown

Lemeridien.com now features a “destination canvas” which allows visitors to choose from a bank of landscape and interests images (varying from sports venues and trendy bars to mountainous vistas) and save them onto a blank screen within the site. Depending on what images are chosen, and their positioning on the canvas, guests will then be presented with suggested destinations that Le Méridien says “reflect the guests’ passions”.

Action stations

Le Méridien wants its guests to interact both with the new site and with the hotel experience as a whole. People can now read 50-word stories by other visitors and post their own missives onto the site, as well as offering their services for future Le Méridien projects or recommend “established or emerging talents who reflect the brand’s core values”. Meanwhile, at the hotel itself, room keys have been designed as pieces of art and double as passes to cultural centres near individual hotel properties.

Joined-up thinking

The new website also includes a members section called LM100, which enables guests to access “a creative community” of member videos, images and podcasts. This is not your average hotel loyalty scheme however, as potential members will need to be selected to participate by Le Méridien’s “cultural curator” Jerome Sans.

The launch of the new site follows a recent revamp of the brand under Starwood Hotels and Resorts. The group aims to transform Le Méridien into a “leading edge lifestyle brand” with the use of sound and visual effects in reception areas and video installations in the lifts. Still confused? Visit lemeridien.com and let us know your thoughts on the new design.

Report by Mark Caswell, Business Traveller’s "news collation curator"

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