Business travelers seek amenities: anchorage hotels update properties, technologies.

• Author: Kalytiak, Tracy

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Kathryn Helsel has dealt with a variety of headaches during the years she journeyed to Anchorage for the National Indian Head Start Association training sessions she organizes.

"I usually traveled up there in wintertime," said Helsel, a meeting planner who also serves as vice president of Three Feathers Associates in Norman, Okla. "I'd get in about midnight, rent a car. One night there was no shuttle service, so I was out walking by myself, with luggage, in a frozen-over parking lot. The ice was 2 inches thick on the windshield. By the time I got to the hotel, I was fit to be tied."

It was a relief for Helsel to pull into the Hotel Captain Cook's covered parking lot and receive help from one of the bellmen who are available 24 hours a day. After a smooth check-in, Helsel settled into her room for what remained of the night.

Business travelers, such as Helsel, expect a lot nowadays from their homes-away-from-home.

Hair dryers, upscale toiletries, irons and ironing boards, in-room coffeemakers, places to plug in dial-up laptops, and wireless Internet in the lobby were seen as perks not so long ago. Now, business travelers expect to find all those things, as well as in-room, low-cost or free wireless Internet service, flat-screen TVs, refrigerators and enhanced service from hotel staff who can do everything from helping them find a great restaurant to shopping for their groceries. Covered parking, as Helsel can attest, is another amenity highly valued by business travelers arriving in Alaska during snowy or slushy months.

A recent Inside Business Travel survey by Carlson Hotels Worldwide revealed that 72 percent of the 1,000 international business travelers who participated remain frustrated by basic inconveniences such as the condition of hotel rooms. Sixty-four percent expressed frustration with uncomfortable beds and rooms that weren't ready following a late arrival. Sixty-one percent were disgruntled about being hit with miscellaneous surcharges and also about requesting a nonsmoking room and not getting it.

The most popular hotel perk was a room upgrade, which 59 percent of the respondents mentioned, followed by the availability of free Internet service, cited by 56 percent of the respondents. Half of the respondents craved an exceptionally comfortable bed.

Hotels in Alaska are working to address these kinds of concerns and keep pace with the evolving needs of the business travelers who jet in and out of Alaska each year.

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The Sheraton Anchorage Hotel, for example, is spending $10 million on a remodel that will install refrigerators in every room as well as redo the lobby, restaurant and club lounge; construct a luxury spa on the 16th floor, and move the health club up to the 15th floor. Next year, the hotel will undergo renovations that will add 2,000 square feet to its meeting space.

"Having refrigerators...