We've seen hotels before in SL, they came with a bang and went with somewhat of a whimper, although a whimper that left a good taste in the mouth.Crowne Plaza are entering SL doing one of the other things that hotels so often do in real life - they're offering a conference centre, with three different rooms. There are some nice touches - being a hotel chain and used to running booking systems online, there is a nice, easy to use interface to let you check room availability, although it does require registering on their site.
If you teleport to the Place To Meet Island there were, when I was there anyway, some issues - the main teleport HUB is hidden behind ban lines, which is a little surprising (the rooms may have been booked though, and restricted for that) and their in-sim teleporters bounce you off those ban lines (which makes me suspect it's more of a mistake than a plan). However, it is a pleasant sim, with at least one nicely appointed room, and the pictures of the others suggest they will be nicely appointed too - you can check out some publicity pictures on their website. There are other conference facilities around in SL - but it will be interesting to track this one and see how they do.
(Thanks to Diedre for the pointer)
