Guests at the Emerald 5 ShowTel can buy what they see on their "journey."

Sunday, December 09, 2007

By Rick Moriarty

Staff writer

Destiny USA's 1,342-room, super-green hotel won't look like any other hotel and it won't have a familiar hotel name. It won't even be called a hotel.

Destiny will call the 39-story structure the Emerald 5 ShowTel and Conference Center. The name was developed by Mark Russell & Associates, a Syracuse advertising agency hired by the developer to "brand" the hotel, which will be independent of any national hotel chain.

Russell said the name Emerald reflects the hotel's green color and eco-friendly features including a facade made of solar panels. Artist renderings released by Destiny last month show a building that looks like giant blades of grass overlooking Onondaga Lake, on the north side of the Carousel Center mall.

"The building will be the brand," said Mark Russell, the ad agency's founder and chief executive officer, pointing to one of the renderings. "When people think of Syracuse, what image will they have in mind? That is the image they're going to have."

What about the 5? No, there won't be an Emerald 1, 2, 3 or 4. Destiny officials said each hotel that is built as part of the Destiny resort complex will have a unique name. So no other will even have the Emerald tag.

Tom Merrick, senior vice president and chief creative officer at Mark Russell & Associates, said the 5 was added because it is associated with a top-flight facility such as a "five-star restaurant."

He said it also speaks to the "organic" nature of the grass-blade look and green-technology that the hotel will feature. (Five elements make up the earth's natural environment air, earth, fire, water and wood.)

So what's a ShowTel, you ask? Guests at Emerald 5 will be allowed to purchase anything they see at the hotel copies of the prints they see on the walls, the same brand of thin-screen televisions in their rooms and even the same linens on their beds (except they'll be new).

Russell said Destiny plans to work with brand makers to promote their products in the hotel. So the hotel will be a showcase for many products thus the name ShowTel.

The name won't be the only thing that's different about the hotel . . . err, showtel.

Instead of stays, guests will have "journeys." If they'd like, guests will be able to stay in a different room each night, each room having a different decor, Destiny officials said.

Taking a page from Walt Disney World, where employees greet visitors, "Have a magical day," Emerald employees will greet guests with a, "Enjoy your journey with us."

Destiny executive David Aitken said the company does not expect to have trouble getting people to call Emerald 5 a "showtel" rather than a hotel.

"It's a new product that we'll be introducing into the marketplace and we think it will quickly be adopted," he said.

Staff writer Rick Moriarty can be reached at 470-3148 or rmoriarty@syracuse.com.