In honor of this holiday, many of our Courtyard hotels throughout the U.S. are offering special Labor Day rates and packages for their guests. The Courtyard Vacaville in Northern California is offering the Shop ‘Til You Drop package. Rooms are $159 per night and include breakfast for two, a $50 gift card to the nearby Vacaville Premium Outlets, a shopping survival kit and late checkout. If shopping’s not your thing, you can also check out the Vacaville Art, Wine and Brew Festival going on now through September 6.

On the opposite coast, the new Courtyard Jacksonville Kendal Town in Florida, which features the new Refreshing Business lobby, is offering a special Labor Day weekend rate of just $89 per night. The Courtyard Louisville Downtown in Kentucky is also offering an $89 per night rate and is the perfect location for anyone heading there for WorldFest, Louisville’s international food and music festival, just three blocks from the hotel.

And don’t forget – with our current Visa Gift card promotion, guests at any Courtyard in the continental U.S. or Canada will receive a $20 Visa Gift card when they check in for stays that include a Friday or Saturday night.

We wish you a happy and safe holiday weekend! Thanks for helping us keep Courtyard on the go.

This new site features photos and videos of the many different elements and amenities found in Courtyard hotels around the world, just as tourcourtyard.com did. And now that is combined with the interactive and social media components of gocourtyard.com like this blog and the videos of guest reactions to the new lobby features now found here, under the “Buzz” tab. A new feature on this part of the site is a Twitter feed that automatically pulls in content from our CourtyardHotels Twitter page that ranges from brand news to deals and promotions to local area information and fun facts.

The format of this blog is changing, too. From now on, it will no longer be “Brian’s Blog” but a source for all Courtyard news. You’ll still be hearing from Brian King, the brand VP, but you’ll also see posts by guest bloggers from within the brand, throughout Marriott and hopefully some of our guests, as well as frequent news updates.

We’re really excited about the new site and the fact that this new format allows us to communicate so much more openly with our guests and that they can respond. This is a very important time for the brand as it is experiencing rapid growth and many changes with the implementation of the new lobby and guest room designs. And now, we can update you frequently on what’s new, a well as respond to any questions or feedback you, our loyal guests, may have.

We hope you like the new site as much as we do and will come back often to keep up to date with the latest from Courtyard. And be sure to leave us comments and let us know what you like and don’t like. Thanks for your support and all of us on the Courtyard team look forward to continuing to share updates and interact with you.

Thanks for helping us keep Courtyard on the go.

With the current economic difficulties we’re all experiencing, we know guests are looking to add value to their hotel stays.  You may remember that earlier in the year, we gave guests a $20 Target™ GiftCard with a weekend stay.  That was an immensely popular promotion so we decided to repeat it for the summer.  But this time we wanted to give our guests the option to choose where to use their gift card, and the beauty of this card is it can be used anywhere in the world Visa® is accepted.

The launch of this promotion got me thinking, “What would I buy with an extra $20?”  One of my favorite indulgences is going for ice cream at Gifford’s Ice Cream & Candy Co. in Washington, D.C.  Gifford’s has been a local D.C. favorite for almost 70 years.  I love to grab a scoop of their monthly special (Caramel Apple Crunch is my favorite!) and walk around town checking out the latest happenings in the city.

What about you?  What would you do with your $20 Visa® Gift card?  Leave a comment and share what you’d do with your extra spending money.  I hope you’re able to get away and take advantage of this great offer this summer.

Thanks for helping me keep Courtyard on the go.

Brian