WHITE PLAINS, NY– February 19, 2008 – Sheraton Hotels & Resorts is celebrating the second season of the highly acclaimed SHOWTIME original series, The Tudors, by providing a sneak preview for guests in more than 50,000 hotel rooms across the country beginning March 16.  Through its industry-exclusive partnership with Showtime Networks, Sheraton guests will receive advance access to the second season premiere episode before its March 30 debut on SHOWTIME.  Sheraton will also host the red carpet world premiere screening event for The Tudors’ second season on March 19 at the Sheraton New York Hotel and Towers.  The Sheraton-SHOWTIME alliance is one component of a larger effort to dramatically differentiate the guest experience at the Sheraton 408 hotels across 75 countries, currently rolling out nationwide.

“We’re excited to align our iconic brand with another leading brand in its industry -- SHOWTIME,” said Hoyt H. Harper II, Senior Vice President for Sheraton Hotels and Resorts.  “This partnership provides Sheraton guests special access to critically-acclaimed and popular content before it can be seen at other hotels.”

Last year, as part of its industry-leading entertainment program Scene@Sheraton,Sheraton forged a partnership with SHOWTIME in an effort to enhance and differentiate its in-room channel lineup and is now mandating that its U.S. hotels carry SHOWTIME as its “premium channel.”  The alliance provides hotel guests with access to several SHOWTIME critically acclaimed and award-winning original series in advance of the network premiere.

“We are very excited to be working with Sheraton on this exceptional opportunity.  We hope that once Sheraton guests sample our programming, they will want to have SHOWTIME when they get home,” said Tom Christie, Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Showtime Networks.

In the first year of the partnership, Sheraton offered the season premiere episodes of two SHOWTIME original series, weeks before they were available on SHOWTIME:the critically acclaimed Brotherhood and the Emmy^® nominated Dexter. Guests provided rave reviews.  SHOWTIME has achieved overwhelming success in the last several years, with a long list of acclaimed new original series, including The Tudors, Dexter, Weeds and Californication.  SHOWTIME’s original programming set a record for award nominations and “Best of” lists for 2007.  The network’s shows were placed on over 60 lists by prestigious publications including The Los Angeles Times, Newsweek, San Francisco Chronicle, New York Post, Chicago Sun-Times, People, The Boston Globe, Entertainment Weekly and was named “Network of the Year” by USA Today. In addition to reshaping its traditional Free-To-Guest lineup with SHOWTIME original series, Sheraton is upgrading to new HD Televisions in all guest rooms.

The Tudors sneak peek is part of Sheraton's in-room entertainment initiative, “Scene@Sheraton,” launched last year to provide guests with special access to a wide variety of entertainment content available first or only at Sheraton Hotels and Resorts. Through “Scene@Sheraton,” Starwood’s most global brand is taking a leadership position in the hotel category by forging exclusive partnerships with coveted entertainment brands, including not only SHOWTIME, but also Sony BMG Music Entertainment.  These alliances enable Sheraton to provide unique access to content that is highly acclaimed, popular among guests and, in some cases, exclusive to Sheraton.

Content offered through “Scene@Sheraton” will focus upon three thematic pillars:

• Sneak Previews:  advanced access to original programs offered complimentary on-demand.  Additionally, Sheraton hotels will offer guests a $25 rebate toward a new SHOWTIME subscription*.
   
• Sports at Your Fingertips:  sports games and network programming available on-demand.  Sheraton will offer NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL all-day access to on-demand packages through DIRECTV^® Sports from LodgeNet’s Hotel SportsNet^SM service for any game airing nationwide. 
  
  
• Always Something Good to Watch:  a suite of up to 30 former television programs, available on-demand, built around a diversity of genres that will appeal to the Sheraton guest.

Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc. is one of the leading hotel and leisure companies in the world with approximately 900 properties in more than 100 countries and 155,000 employees at its owned and managed properties. Starwood Hotels is a fully integrated owner, operator and franchisor of hotels and resorts with the following internationally renowned brands: St. Regis®, The Luxury Collection®, Sheraton®, Westin®, Four Points® by Sheraton, W®, Le Méridien® and the recently announced Aloft^SM and Element^SM Hotels.  Starwood Hotels also owns Starwood Vacation Ownership, Inc., one of the premier developers and operators of high quality vacation interval ownership resorts. For more information, please visit www.starwoodhotels.com.