New twist: An upside-down
room at Propeller Island
Steven Dobson believes
experiences are more important than price tags. “Luxury is defined
by how much you spend,” laments the former corporate marketing
professional and world traveler. “It’s not defined, as I think it
should be, by how much enjoyment or how much ‘wow’ you get for your
dollars.”
In 2004, Dobson launched UnusualHotelsOfTheWorld.com, a directory of
jaw-dropping places, with his business partner Simon Penn, a former
incentive coordinator. Dobson and Penn now work with incentive
planners to match their top performers to the right unusual
getaway.
Dobson warns that not all of the hotels
on his site are suitable for incentives, but there is plenty of
conventional luxury to be found in his directory of international
curiosity.
The U.K.-based site features ice and
cave hotels, tree-house resorts and an alpine camp accessible only
by air. There’s a hotel built in a former bullring, a one-bedroom
escape dangling from a crane and inhabitable works of art like
Propeller Island in Berlin. The site also favors conceptual
oddities, such as the Library Hotel in New York City, which looks
typical, but its rooms are themed and organized according to the
Dewey decimal system.
The directory has total editorial
credibility; hoteliers can’t buy their way in, and if users find a
hotel middling, it’ll be erased from the files. Now, at 150
properties deep, the site is just getting started. Dobson’s got
hundreds more that he hasn’t had time to upload yet.