In hotel news, there’s a new luxury property in Silicon Valley; San Francisco’s largest hotel gets a makeover; Kimpton adds a location in the nation’s capital; one of East Asia’s leading hotel companies is making its U.S. debut in Miami; and Marriott opens a Moxy in New Orleans.

How can a city of 66,000 support a hotel with room rates starting at $700 a night? It helps when that city is in the heart of Silicon Valley’s tech giants and venture capital companies. Thus Palo Alto, California is the home of a new hotel called The Clement Palo Alto, which describes itself as “one of the most innovative, personalized and unique luxury hotels in the country.” It has 23 luxury one-bedroom suites, each 650 square feet, and its rates are seriously all-inclusive: They include three meals a day plus snacks; alcoholic beverages; in-room dining; valet service; Internet; gratuities; a personal concierge; a 24-hour guest pantry, and more. (Sounds like staying at the Clement is sorta like working for a unicorn!) The Clement is close to Stanford University and downtown Palo Alto.

Visitors to the Hilton San Francisco Union Square – the largest hotel in the Bay Area – will see some changes this spring. The property just finished a $25 million renovation that upgraded guest accommodations and meeting rooms, provided an overhaul of its huge lobby area including a new lobby bar, and gave it a new grab-and-go food area called Herb N’ Kitchen with a variety of fresh edibles and set meals as well as a full-service coffee bar. Rates start around $230 a night. Plus, all rooms can now be opened with guest mobile phones utilizing the Hilton Honors app.

Kimpton Hotels has opened a new property in Washington D.C. The 178-room (including 18 suites) Kimpton Mason & Rook Hotel is at 1430 Rhode Island Ave. NW near the city’s trendy 14^th Street Corridor. The hotel features what it calls “a culinary-focused cocktail bar” (actually a bar/restaurant) called Radiator (because the area used to have a lot of auto repair shops), and it offers a raft of Kimpton-style guest services like free morning coffee, a nightly wine hour, yoga mats and bicycles. Rates start at $159.

Swire Properties, which operates renowned hotels in Asia including The Upper House in Hong Kong and The Opposite House in Beijing, has set a May 31 opening for its first U.S. hotel, called EAST, Miami. The 352-room property will serve as the anchor hotel for Swire’s $1 billion mixed-use development in the city’s Brickell district. Rooms and suites range from 300 to 1,800 square feet, offering floor-to-ceiling windows with skyline or bay views and free Wi-Fi. It has two signature restaurants including the Quinto La Huella, with Latin American cuisine; and a rooftop (40^th floor) space called Sugar, serving tapas and cocktails. There’s also a lobby café and bar, a poolside bar, and 20,000 square feet of meeting space. Rates start at $195.

The new Marriott brand called Moxy – aimed at “today’s next-generation traveler” – has opened a location in New Orleans, on O’Keefe Avenue near the French Quarter. The 108-room Moxy New Orleans provides mobile check-in and –out, keyless room entry, motion sensor lighting, in-room Internet TVs with Netflix, YouTube, Hulu, and Pandora; fast free Wi-Fi, and lots of power and USB plugs. There’s a 24/7 self-serve food and beverage outlet as well as communal areas with work and game spaces. Rates start at $124. More Moxys are coming to New York, San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago and Nashville.

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