Ace Hotel in Portland has partnered with local distillers House Spirits to stock their minibars with limited-edition artisan spirits. In addition to gin, vodka, rum and blended whiskey, guests can also get a cocktail kit including fresh citrus, bucket of ice, cocktail shaker, jigger and martini glasses. Plus cocktail recipe cards for amateur mixologists in need of inspiration.

Launched by native Northwesterners in 2004, House Spirits Distillery makes its spirits on SE 7th Avenue, less than two miles from Ace Hotel's lobby. Its Apothecary Line—a collection of small-batch, limited edition spirits packaged in individually numbered 375 ml bottles—is currently only available at its own Apothecary Tasting Room, and in the Portland Ace Hotel. By offering guests an exclusive homegrown product, the hotel adds a unique element to their experience while supporting the local economy. Move over, Absolut and Toblerone ;-) (More urban beekeeping, this time atop a Toronto hotel — Loews Hotels adopt local farmers.)

Website: www.acehotel.com/portland
Contact: www.acehotel.com/portland/contact

Last month, we wrote about Heathrow Airport installing Alain de Botton as its writer in residence for a week. As tweeted by de Botton a few hours ago, the book he wrote at Heathrow was launched today, in the airport's Terminal 5.

As described on the author's website: "Working with the renowned documentary photographer Richard Baker, he explores the magical and the mundane, and the stories that inhabit this strange 'non-place' that we are usually eager to leave. Taking the reader through the departures lounge, 'airside' and the arrivals hall, de Botton shows with his usual combination of wit and wisdom that spending time in an airport can be more useful and more revealing than we might think."

Heathrow doesn't seem to have started handing out 10,000 copies as announced last month, but we expect that will happen soon. Meanwhile, it's an admirable feat of speedy writing and publishing, and of innovative brand building.

Update 25 Sept 2009 | Passengers can get one of 10,000 exclusive copies distributed for free at Costa Coffee stores in all 5 terminals. (Thanks, @airlinetrends!)

Website: www.heathrowairport.com — www.alaindebotton.com/a_week_at_the_airport.asp

Spotted by: Raymond Kollau

Thanks to the economic downturn, domestic tourism in the UK has been booming. The UK Caravan Club reported a 40% rise in bookings this year over 2008 figures, while according to the National Office of Statistics, the amount of Brits travelling overseas fell by over 7 million compared with last year. To capitalise on this, camping and caravanning site directory Pitchup.com is making it easier than ever for UK "staycationers" to settle on the right destination.

Launched at the beginning of this holiday season, the website lists over 5,000 camping and caravanning sites around the UK and Ireland. Users can easily narrow down the selection using a whopping 79 different criteria, including whether the site has wifi or disabled facilities, and whether campfires are allowed. Some campsites are grouped by themes, such as "Gastronomic delight" and "Tipis, yurts and wigwams". Users can also search by proximity to attractions such as beaches, battlefields or national parks. And if holiday memories of struggling with maps on the dashboard are putting anyone off, an "Add to TomTom" button next to every listing makes it easy to load directions onto a GPS navigator.

Campsites can be rated by users, creating a listing is free, and no sites are given priority in the search results. So what's the revenue model? The site is currently affiliate driven—listed next to every campsite are, for instance, tickets for upcoming events in the area. But Pitchup's founder, Dan Yates, says there are plans to add an online booking functionality within six months.

One to bring to campers in your neck of the woods? The bigger picture here: online directories for campgrounds are hardly new. But most were built back in the 1990s, and haven't been updated much since. And the same goes for directories in many other categories. Find a few that need to be brought into the 21st century—preferably in related fields—and you could have the makings of your own directory empire. Just be sure to keep innovating ;-)

Website: www.pitchup.com
Contact: www.pitchup.com/about

Travellers planning a trip can already tap a variety of sites for creating guides and itineraries, including TripIt, Offbeat Guides and Tripwolf—to name just a few. Focusing more on travellers' own search process, however—specifically, the time they spend scouring the web for ideas—comes Gliider, a Firefox plug-in aimed at organizing all the best results in a single, online place.

Now in invitation-only beta, Brooklyn-based Gliider is essentially a digital file that lets travellers keep track of all the interesting ideas they come across while researching and planning a trip. Users begin by downloading the application, causing the Gliider icon to appear in their Firefox browser bar. (Currently, Gliider works on Firefox 3, but support for Explorer, Safari and Chrome are coming soon, the company says.) When they're surfing the web and come across a hotel, restaurant or photo they want to remember as they make their plans, they need only click the icon and Gliider drops down on the right-hand side of the browser. Into that window they can then simply drag and drop whatever it was they wanted to save, creating a neater, more organized alternative to a list of bookmarks. Users can share their trip files with up to four other users, and they can also create a summary travel document PDF for emailing and printing. Perhaps most interesting of all is that Gliider tracks deals on hotels relevant to a specific trip and allows users to take advantage of them in a single click.

Through a partnership with Expedia, Gliider currently earns revenue from affiliate fees when users click on the deals it presents to book a hotel, according to TechCrunch. Coming soon are deals on flights too, as well as an iPhone application and an “ask around” feature that taps Facebook. Hospitality entrepreneurs: one to get in on—or emulate—early...?

Website: www.gliider.com
Contact: talk@gliider.com

Spotted by: Carmen Magar

Travellers looking for city maps and advice face an overwhelming array of alternatives, all competing with a slightly different approach. Whereas recent entrants such as Tripwolf, Offbeat Guides and TripIt all strive to provide some tailored package representing the best of what's on the web, however, a new Swiss startup aims to focus instead on what a local friend might say, presented artistically with hand-drawn notes.

Launched earlier this month, A la Carte Maps are designed to combine guidebook, tourist map and original art in one. Currently available for six cities—Barcelona, Munich, Zurich, Shangai, Tokyo and Washington, DC—A la Carte Maps present an array of each city’s best-kept insider tips on a beautiful, 70-by-42-cm, hand-drawn map. An accompanying welcome letter provides key information about the city in question, such as where to exchange money, how to get around, what to do on a rainy day, etc., while access to a comprehensive city database—provided with each purchase—adds even more insider information as well as the ability to create a customised itinerary. In addition to its curated "My City à la Carte" maps, A la Carte also allows seasoned travellers to create their own, customised maps of a city with their own notes and artwork. Both types of map are ad-free and matt-laminated, and are priced at EUR 8.90; A la Carte donates 10 percent of the profits from each map to a social project in the city it represents.

Maps have always been an essential tool for travellers of every kind, but in this era of technology-enabled mapmania, they are the focus of perhaps more attention than ever before. With its unconventionally personal and hand-crafted approach, A la Carte could stand out amid the sea of web-focused competitors. Where else could a low-tech and artistic approach provide a compelling alternative...?

Website: www.alacartemaps.com
Contact: www.alacartemaps.com/index.php?id=121

Spotted by: Yuan