Westin Windows

Damage to the Westin Peachtree Plaza occurred Friday, March 14, 2008, when a 130 mile-per-hour tornado ripped through part of downtown Atlanta and snaked across a six-mile long, 200-yard wide stretch of the city with the Westin in its path. The storm had disabled 320 of the hotel’s 1,068 rooms and the story was front page news. Our goal was to manage the messaging of the largest window replacement project in the Western Hemisphere leading up to and throughout the 15-month period that all 6,350 windows in the 73-story hotel were replaced. We needed to communicate the key points, some of which had initially been skewed, including the fact that hotel operations would continue normally throughout the replacement; that we would restore the landmark design of the hotel; that we would follow a safe construction process ensuring minimal inconvenience to hotel guests; and that we would bring the building exterior up to today’s standards, returning the hotel to the icon status it has enjoyed for more than 30 years. We created key messaging, fun facts, proactive and reactive talking points and a series of press materials that highlighted each milestone of the process. Our success was largely due to the fact that we got “in front of” the story by providing as much information as possible to our key constituents: meeting planners, the media, clients and guests. Favorable stories were run both locally and nationally and with the shining new windows emerged our shining reputation as a great hotel.