The five star Gleneagles resort in Perthshire (above) and Rocco Forte's The Balmoral in Edinburgh are teaming up to offer an incredible "Taste of Scotland" package this season, providing guests with a true Scottish gourmet experience in two legendary, luxurious and multi award-winning locations. At the historic Balmoral in Edinburgh, travelers will be welcomed into a complimentary upgraded Executive Room, complete with a bottle of Bollinger champagne on ice, and will enjoy dinner in the Michelin-starred number one restaurant. While at Gleneagles, set on 850 acres of Perthshire countryside, guests will relax in a sprawling Estate Room before sampling a Scotch whisky tasting for two in the bar and then dining at the Michelin-starred Andrew Fairlie restaurant. Gleneagles is also home to three of the top Scottish Championship golf courses, a wide range of exhilarating outdoor leisure activities and a spacious spa. The Taste of Scotland package costs £1,200, or about $1,985, for two people with two nights at each hotel.

[via JustLuxe]

Marriott has announced a new brand within their global portfolio that will bring distinctive hotels under the Marriott umbrella. The Autograph Collection will be a new brand comprised of upper upscale and luxury independent hotels around the world focusing on major cities and resort destinations. The collection is designed to offer the individuality of an independent hotel with the assurance of the Marriott brand.

The brand plans to add approximately 25 hotels through 2010 with locations throughout the world. Each hotel will go through the same hotel and operator approval processes as other Marriott full-service hotels and the Autograph Collection will be affiliated with the Marriott Rewards guest loyalty program.

USA Today has more details on the collection including the information that Marriott is in talks with 12 to 15 hotels about being part of the Autograph Collection. The brand launches at a time when many great independent hotels are struggling due to the economy so Marriott plans to target higher-end hotels that have opened recently but might be facing hard times. Hotels that become part of the collection will benefit from Marriott's worldwide network.

Pack your bags for Tunisia! A new Radisson Blu Resort & Thalasso has opened in Monastir. It's the second Radisson Blu in Tunisia and boasts 280 rooms on beachfront property -- facing the Gulf of Hammamet in the Mediterranean Sea. The resort has 264 guestrooms, 14 junior suites and two senior suites, all equipped with high-speed access (no fee!) and a private balcony or terrace overlooking the pool and sea.

Of course, it's nice to have a comfortable room, but when you really want to unwind, you're looking for the spa. The Radisson Blu in Monastir has a 150,000-square foot facility in the Royal Elyssa Spa Cinq Mondes & Thalasso, with a 48,000-square foot Thal'ion Thalasso center that specializes in restorative treatments using seawater. The spa facilities are set to open early next year and will also have a fitness club and salon. The saunas, hammams and treatment rooms are great, but you'll want to get to the top floor, where you'll find 20 spa suites, many of which will boast private Jacuzzis.

I've visited London a few times over the past couple of years, and my visits have ranged from being a bit on the pricey side to being punishingly expensive: when it took just shy of two dollars to buy a pound, I thought twice about shelling out for the Tube. At eight bucks a go, my irrational version of travel budgeting had me figuring I'd rather spend the additional money on a taxi. (Hey, I'm a writer, not an accountant.)

Avoid all of the currency calculations when you book "The Capital Idea" package at London's Capital Hotel, in Knightsbridge. The hotel has just announced fixed-dollar rates for 2010, which includes, among other things, full breakfast, luxury chauffeured car to and from Heathrow, London City Airport or the Eurostar Terminal. The package is for three nights, singles to junior suites from $1,199 to $2,530, with additional nights from $320 to $550.

Take your savings and spend them at nearby Harrods. At least that's what I'd do.

The Columbia Gorge Hotel in Hood River Oregon has a new owner. The troubled hotel had closed in January of this year but will reopen under new owner Vijay Patel. Patel owns five other hotel properties in the Pacific Northwest. The Oregonian reports that a subsidiary of his A-1 Hospitality Group will buy the Columbia Gorge Hotel for more than $4 million from ShoreBank Pacific. The bank had foreclosed on the property over a year ago and had used a management company to operate the hotel. Patel and his business partner, Rakesh Malhan, president of NS Construction Group Inc., plan to close on the property October 30.

The hotel, which is on a bluff overlooking the Columbia River, was built in 1921 and has a long and distinguished history. It has 39 guest rooms and has room for meetings and weddings. Rates will be between $160 and $185 per night.

We write about hotels when they enter foreclosure and its nice to see that some of them get out of it too. The W Scottsdale hotel in Arizona has announced a resolution to its battle with contractors and with its lender HSH Nordbank AG. The hotel's developer, Los Angeles-based Triyar Cos., has paid off the hotel's $82 million mortgage for an undisclosed amount. Lawsuits between Triyar, Nordbank and general contractor Hunt Construction Corp. were dropped. The Wall Street Journal reports that Triyar Chief Executive Michael Mahoney said that hotel is the first to "successfully come out of the situation with the whole project restructured without the need for bankruptcy or foreclosure." It's a pretty neat feat at a time when the number of hotels in foreclosure is reaching an unprecedented height. Details on how Triyar did it haven't been revealed but Mahoney said the developer put together money and an outside investor chipped in. The hotel remains open and has a variety of special offers available include an offer that when you stay two or three nights the second or third night will be charged at a rate equal to your birth year (for example, if you were born in 1970, your first night would be $269 but your second night is only $70).

Montreal is a fantastic destination, but like any city, it can be hard for a visitor to get to know. To that end, Tourisme Montreal has engaged five in-the-know locals to basically blanket social media from Facebook, to Twitter, to blogs, sharing all of their knowledge about their city -- and answering questions from travelers in town. Katerine Rollet is one of these insiders, and she recently selected these 12 can't-miss experiences in Montreal for Luxist.

1- Go for tea at the St. James Hotel. This chic boutique hotel is where the likes of the Rolling Stones and Madonna stay when they're in town, and the tea at newly renovated restaurant XO is a a great way to experience a proper British tea with a modern twist. UPDATED: The St. James no longer serves afternoon tea, but the new Salon XO is worth a visit.
2- Experience the spa at Place D'armes -- one of the best places in town for a mani-pedi, not to mention one of the few places in Montreal to experience a hammam, or Turkish bath. Wrap up with a drink on the terrace.
3- For men: at Québec's own Phillipe Dubuc -- the place for a man to fill his closet with stylish, business appropriate clothing with an edge.
4- For women: fill your suitcase at Montreal's achingly stylish, unfailingly feminine Marie Saint Pierre.
5- For everyone: visit Oglivy, a lovely shopping mall filled with charming boutiques, great book stores, stationary shops, international designers and more.
6- For the shopping-shy: Engage the style hounds at Les Effrontes to have your own guided tour of Montreal's up and coming designer's ateliers.
7- Dine at Joe Beef, on raw bar and steak in up-and-coming neighborhood Little Burgundy ("Petite Bourgogne") .
8- Or, hit Toque -- widely considered one of the best meals you can have in Montreal. Try the tasting menu.
9- Or reserve the chef's table at Europea, and dine in the kitchen of charismatic Chef Jérôme Ferrer. 10- After dinner drinks: check out Hotel St Paul's bar for cocktails with Montreal's chicest.
11- Sweet treats: visit Point G for waffles, artisanal ice cream, and most importantly, macarons.
12- Brunch the next day: La Cantine in the Plateau neighborhood, for a traditional Québec brunch revisited.

I have to confess that I have a lot of cynicism about hotels and their efforts to help the environment. There's hardly a hotel that I visit that doesn't give me the opportunity to save the earth by opting not to have my sheets and towels replaced, which does indeed save on water and detergent, but, I know it also saves the hotel serious dollars. Don't get me wrong, I'm not against win-win situations, I'm just not getting too many green good vibes if doing less laundry is the only earth-friendly step that a hotel takes.

In fairness, it's often hard for a guest to tell what a hotel is doing for the environment, because most of the heavy lifting comes behind the scenes -- in the hotel's construction, energy supplies and so on. Here are a few fabulous properties that are also doing right by the planet, in ways you might not recognize.

• The Nines in Portland, Oregon. In the renovation of this hotel from its previous life as a department store, 90 percent of construction waste was diverted from landfills for reuse or recycling. In addition, housekeeping employs green cleaning products and the hotel gets 100 percent of its energy from renewable sources including wind power and carbon offsets.
  
• The Westin Riverfront Beaver Creek, Colorado: This hotel just received Silver LEED certification, and it's saving energy in a variety of ways, including a building control system that allows the front desk to adjust the temperature in guest rooms so unoccupied rooms aren't heated or cooled unnecessarily. The hotel also donated a 5 acre zone along the Eagle river as a permanent public open space.
• The Ritz Carlton Highlands, North Lake Tahoe: This soon-to-open hotel was built with environmental factors in mind, from careful site planning designed to spare as many trees as possible, to the introduction of underground parking, which reduces the use of asphalt, allowing snow melt and rain to return to the water table. What's more, Northstar Resort, which the Ritz is a part of, is the first ski resort to be entirely LEED certified.
• Harbor View, Martha's Vineyard. One of the most luxurious places to stay on Martha's Vineyard also has a serious commitment to the environment, from its use of low-flow plumbing, to energy efficient appliances, to an active recycling program that includes replacing the distribution of plastic water bottles with reusable water bottles and water stations.

The Global Soap Project is a new initiative to recycle the bazillions of bars of soap that hotels throw away every day.

You know how some luxury hotels replace your bar of soap every day, even if you barely touched it? Derreck Kayongo, a former refugee from Uganda, saw this not as hopeless wastefulness, but as an opportunity. The Global Soap Project collects these partial bars of soap, sterilizes and reshapes them and redistributes them at refugee camps in Africa. How'w that for thinking outside the box?

There are currently 40 hotels participating in the Global Soap Project, one of which is The Ritz-Carlton, Buckhead in Atlanta (above). The project is currently localized in Atlanta and serving Uganda, but both Kayongo and Ritz-Carlton manager Olivia Brown hope to expand it.

We at Luxist think this is a great idea and a great way to make hotels more sustainable!

It didn't end up as part of a Chapter 11 filing like so many hotels, but the circular Hotel Angeleno in the Brentwood area of Los Angeles has been sold in what appears to be a deal in the nick of time. The LA Times is reporting that the hotel has been sold for $35 million. The sellers were investors led by Namco Capital Group Inc. which is headed by Ezri Namvar. Both Namco and Namvar had filed for Chapter 11 in recent months. The 16-story tower near the 405 freeway was a Holiday Inn for 35 years before it got a new name and a posh renovation in 2006. It remains open and is managed by Joie de Vivre which manages a string of boutique hotels in California and other places. Rates at the Angeleno start at $179.

The Fairmont Kea Lani is one of Maui's finest (and most expensive) hotels, with its own unique character. Luxury and casual relaxation are rarely so effortlessly combined.

Firstly, the property is gorgeous (see above). I know, I know; throw a rock in Maui and you'll hit something scenic, but the Fairmont, in Maui's lavish Wailea area, doesn't impose upon the landscape. Because the hotel wasn't originally a Fairmont, it doesn't ascribe to the usual layout standards and blends nicely into the island. The pools are lovely and include a terrific 140-foot waterslide, which takes you directly from the pool bar to the basketball net. (For those looking for a quieter or more romantic place to sun and swim, there's a chicly appointed adults-only pool set at a distance away.) One of the real draws is the beach upon which it sits -- all beaches in Hawaii are public by law, but the rock outcroppings on either side of the stretch keep the beach feeling private and secure, and the sand is a beautiful mixture of white sand and ... sand-colored sand, creating a lovely marbleized effect.

Not only does the hotel fit into the environment, but it respects it, as well. Fairmonts are known for being among the greener choices in the bunch, and this hotel recycles water, uses biodegradable materials when possible, they give food scraps to local pig farmers, and in each room they have a special thermostat that starts cooling when you check in and stops when you check out -- it's wired to the computer. There's more: "The smart thermostat detects when a door is opened, signaling motion detectors to scan the room. If no motion is detected, the temperature adjusts to five degrees higher." These thermostats reportedly save them over 20 percent on their electric bill AND help save the Earth.

Every room in the Fairmont Kea Lani is a suite (unless it's a whole villa), and each has its own refrigerator (not a minibar) and a microwave. There's also a "Deli" located on the premise which sell everything from cereal for the kids to beer and wine for grown-up time. The hotel is equally popular with families and with couples on honeymoons -- maybe other hotels should pick up on this "I don't want to spend $200 in a restaurant every night" mentality. The hotel is by no means cheap; prices range from $339 for a one-bedroom suite (the smallest room they've got) to $2,000 per night for a 3-bedroom, 2200 square foot, ocean-view villa (includes rental of a minivan, convertible or luxury car). It's nice that they give you the option to eat and drink by your own rules.

The guests and staff alike seem to love the place. A bartender, an east-coaster who's been there since before it became a Fairmont eight years ago, noted the "casual elegance" of the place, and the guests agreed. "At the Four Seasons, you have to have closed toed shoes, and dress up ... here it's just more casual. And the staff remembers you -- they don't have it all plugged into their computer; they recognize you from last year, know you by name and know what you like for breakfast." His wife added with a relishing smile that the nearby golf course is fantastic. The bartender reminded me of the type you'd find in a pub in Brooklyn or even Dublin; easily comfortable with the well-to-do and the young partying types, and striking up a witty conversation with everyone. "I don't feel like I have to 'perform,'" he said.

"Casual elegance" really is an excellent descriptor for the hotel. The staff exudes an almost midwestern friendliness, and the guests are smiling and unaffected. No one around the pool was sucking in their stomach. I liked that.

We wouldn't put it on Luxist if it weren't a fabulous place, but in the interest of full-disclosure, here are the drawbacks: Nothing is included but coffee, neither breakfast nor boogie boards, so unless you're a coffee-and-cigarettes-only type, you should expect to spend some money (and cigarettes aren't included, either). The decor in the villas is somewhat bland -- there isn't much on the walls and nothing feels Hawaiian or otherwise remarkable -- but they are slated to be remodeled in a couple of months. Lastly, the hotel has no shuttle and is a $56 cab ride from the airport before tip.

If that stuff doesn't phase you too much (and after you have a look through the gallery, it probably won't), I recommend you come and visit the Fairmont Kea Lani. "Every hotel attracts a certain kind of guest," said an Indiana-native PR rep. "I love the guests we get here. They're so relaxed." We looked around and found she was quite right. Someone urgently stopped her as we were heading out, but it was only to ask how much a nearby sculpture cost. Some people just can't turn it off.

Here's a fun one: The Lorien Hotel (managed by Kimpton) in Alexandria, Virginia, is offering a Social Media Detox package, designed to get you off of Facebook, Twitter and any other network that you're currently addicted to, and out into the world of human interaction.

While I was at first imagining that they'd borrowed some cellphone jamming technology from their not-so-far-off US intelligence neighbors -- was this relatively new hotel built with a Faraday cage in its structure? -- it turns out that the Lorien is relying on more of a carrot than stick approach.

The Social Media Detox package includes various incentives to step away from the internet, including a 10 minute chair massage at the hotel's spa, a $20 credit to BRABO or BRABO Tasting Room just next to the hotel for appetizers and drinks with friends. (Suggested cocktail: "The Face to Face", which is Belvedere vodka, pear puree, apple juice, lime juice and fresh rosemary.) There's also a push to get you out into the real world: you'll also receive a walking map of town, or if you prefer, they'll let you borrow a bicycle, gratis, and give you a route map. At night, the package includes an item off the hotel's "Dream Service" menu -- if you're traveling alone, you could select the teddy bear, who will be happy to hear your whispered, otherwise wasted, witty status updates.

(Since you'll still probably be pacing all night long, I'd go ahead and book the Presidential Suite, which has a 550 square foot private terrace overlooking Old Town Alexandria, and runs about $550 a night.)

It's not all teddy bears and sunshine, however. You'll only get the package's $25 certificate towards a future stay at the hotel if you prove "non-activity" on Facebook or Twitter, which you do via print out from an in-room computer or cellphone.

Clever, huh? Personally, as a frequent traveler, I think I'd feel much more stressed out not being able to be in contact with my friends and family on Facebook -- since it's replaced email communication for so many people, I wonder what the response would be if a hotel decided to offer a package contingent on not emailing or calling home? (In fact, there are programs like that: Outward Bound and the National Outdoor Leadership School, although they don't include massages and cocktails.) On the other hand, I'm sure I could be persuaded to let Twitter go for a few days. Especially if I got a teddy bear.

It's not your imagination, hotel rooms have gotten cheaper. According to the hotels.com Hotel Price Index (HPI) room rates around the world have dropped. According to the hotels.com Hotel Price Index, hotel prices around the world fell by 17 percent in the first six months of 2009, when compared to the same period in 2008. What's even more interesting is that with the exception of the Caribbean, every major region around the world experienced the sharpest price drops since the hotels.com Hotel Price Index began in January 2004. Latin American hotels were down 18 percent year over year, while North America saw a 17 percent drop and Europe's average was 16 percent lower than it had been a year before.

The hotels.com HPI tracks the real prices paid per hotel room rather than advertised rates, using a weighted average based on the number of rooms sold in each of the markets in which hotels.com operates. The latest report issued looked at hotel prices paid at 78,000 hotels across 13,000 locations around the world for the period January to June 2009, compared to the same period the year before.

In the first half of 2009, the world's most expensive destinations, with the exception of Capri, saw dramatic falls in prices paid by travelers compared to the same period in 2008. Two major U.S. travel destinations, New York and Las Vegas, saw a 30 percent drop in hotel rates in the first half of 2009. In the first half of 2009, New York overtook Las Vegas as the U.S. city with the fastest growth in hotel rooms. A total of 8,000 new rooms are predicted for New York City for 2009. London is also adding rooms in advance of the 2012 Olympics. Hotel room supply in the city increased by more than 3,000 new rooms in 2008 and an additional 3,400 are forecast for 2009.

In the first half of 2009 hotel prices across the United States dropped 17 percent with room rates on average $115 a night down from $139 a night during the same period in 2008. New York City held its spot as the most expensive domestic city for U.S. travelers and Washington, D.C. rose to second place (a response to the travel for the presidential inauguration). Las Vegas had the third least expensive hotel rates in the first half of 2009 but is the top spot for tourists and Orlando, the third most popular destination for U.S. travelers, ranked number 10 in lowest hotel rates.

The hotel, which is a series of linked pavilions, will have 170 guest rooms, 16 suites, each room with a gas fireplace. A gondola connects you to the bustling and lively Northstar village. The hotel's design, handled by Hornberger + Worstell, is meant to be a contemporary take on traditional great mountain lodges, like Oregon's Timberline Lodge. It was also designed to blend into the hillside, and to that end, the site was not clear-cut --- landmark trees were tagged, and worked around.

The Ritz-Carlton, Atlanta marked its 25th anniversary with a complete redesign of the entrance foyers, lobby, and lobby bar, now named Lumen, which features exotic, sophisticated edible cocktails, a Lumen signature cocktail, and art-themed cocktails.

The new interiors feature well-known, traditional elements transposed in an updated way, such as a Chippendale Mahogany sideboard refinished in a hand-applied gilded platinum tone; sheer shrouds wrapped around the hotel's crystal chandeliers; and accent chairs graced with damask patterns in oversized formats.

Lumen underwent a great change. The lounge, so named for its many light effects, now greets guests with crystal chandeliers that glow red at night; seven-foot tall custom settees covered in midnight blue mohair, complete with their beaded sconces; a bar cabinet that glows blue in the evening; mirror-polished, handspun metal tables custom-designed by Brad Oldham (brother to designer Todd); beaded corkscrew floor lamps; and a custom-designed, under-lit onyx-topped communal-styled table seating up to eight.

My friend Nancy is scheduled to speak at a meeting being held at this Ritz, and I can't wait to hear what she thinks of the new spaces. See the gallery for before and after shots.