Searching for the Sandman : Hilton Hotels Want to Help Travelers Sleep

It’s called the “first night effect” and many business travelers know it well--sleepless in a strange bed, in a strange hotel room far from home.

Hilton Hotels Corp. says it’s doing something to fight the problem that will go beyond obvious gimmicks.

One possibility, according to Michael Ribero, executive vice president for marketing and strategic planning at Hilton, would be “East Coast” and “West Coast” wings or floors in major transcontinental destination cities such as New York, Boston and Los Angeles.

While the concept is still being thought out, it could involve controlled artificial lighting that would follow the time zone schedule of the coastal city from which the traveler came, allowing him or her to acclimate more easily.

The same might be tried in other gateway cities frequented by travelers from various time zones, he said.

“We have yet to implement anything,” he said. “We don’t want to do gimmicky things. What you’re doing is promising a better night’s sleep, and there’s no gimmick that can do that.”

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What Hilton is doing now, in cooperation with the National Sleep Foundation, is giving away a booklet that helps people deal with what Ribero calls “transient sleep.”

It contains several insightful tips. Among them:

* Stay up until 10 p.m. local time before going to bed, even if it’s several hours later where you came from. Too much sleep may be counter-productive. A short nap or two earlier in the evening is better.

* At the risk of looking like an insecure 4-year-old, bring along your own pillow or blanket. The small clock radio you usually wake up to at home might take the chill off the room, as will a familiar family picture.

* Sunlight does help your body clock adjust. On eastbound trips get out in the sun early in the morning; when headed west do just the opposite and take in the sun late in the day when you arrive.

* Many travelers are impressed with melatonin, a non-prescription synthetic tablet version of the hormone of the same name that is released by a gland in the brain. Release of melatonin is stimulated by darkness and suppressed by light. It is the out-of-whack releases of the hormone are thought to cause jet lag. But some experts believe more studies are needed to determine the effectiveness of the drug and whether it should be sold through a prescription.

* Skip that trip to the workout room if it’s late in the day. Heavy exercise just before bedtime is a bad idea.

The booklet can be obtained by writing to “Sleep and the Traveler,” c/o DCG, 7758 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90046. It can also be ordered via fax at (213) 845-0189.

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Ribero says Hilton was led to the sleep project because today’s travelers usually have at least four or five competing hotels to choose from, and guests choose increasingly on the basis of service and amenities since prices are about the same.

Studies show one of the most important “tiebreakers” when people are choosing a hotel, he said, is how well the guest expects to sleep.

“We’re very serious about our commitment to find out about the physiology of transient sleep,” he said.