THE NEW YORK TIMES - OCTOBER 2014

The first generation of hotel smartphone applications was about as useful as a flimsy shower cap: nice idea, poor execution. Now, the next iteration is proving more powerful, giving guests incentives to download them, if only for the length of their trips.

Among those offering financial incentives, James Hotels, operating in Chicago, Miami and New York, will offer a new app feature in November that sends push notifications of in-hotel deals such as, when a guest walks by a spa, 10 percent off spa services, or a two-for-one appetizer deal in the hotels’ restaurants.