WHITE PLAINS, NY and ITHACA, NY, August 18, 2004 — Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc. has partnered with eCornell, a leading provider of executive and professional development, to deliver online courses in Hospitality Management, Essential Management Skills, Strategic Management, and Human Resource Management to its worldwide employees.

The four-year agreement makes eCornell courses available to employees of more than 740 corporate-owned, managed, and franchised Starwood properties. Associates have the opportunity to take the full portfolio of eCornell courses and complete the Master Certificate in the Essentials of Hospitality Management, as well as other eCornell certificates offered by Cornell's world-renowned School of Hotel Administration, School of Industrial Labor Relations, and Johnson Graduate School of Management.

"As a global organization, we are quite geographically dispersed. We needed a partner who not only provided outstanding course content, especially in the area of Hospitality Management, but who also offered an instructor-led online format. These were the primary reasons we selected eCornell as our principal provider of Hospitality and Management courses," said Mariangela Battista, Ph.D., Starwood's Director of Organizational Capability.

"eCornell is delighted to add Starwood Hotels & Resorts to our client list," said John Neuman, eCornell's CEO. "Starwood has a long history of partnership with Cornell University and we are pleased that they have selected eCornell to deliver Ivy League instruction to their worldwide employees."

About Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc. - Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc., is one of the leading hotel and leisure companies in the world with more than 740 properties in more than 80 countries and 110,000 employees at its owned and managed properties. With internationally renowned brands, Starwood is a fully integrated owner, operator, and franchisor of hotels and resorts including: St. Regis, The Luxury Collection, Sheraton, Westin, Four Points by Sheraton, W brands, as well as Starwood Vacation Ownership, Inc., one of the premier developers and operators of high quality vacation interval ownership resorts. For more information, please visit www.starwood.com.

About eCornell - Established and wholly-owned by Cornell University, eCornell has the most comprehensive online professional and executive development curriculum offered by any top-20 university in the United States. eCornell provides exceptional online learning experiences tailored for professional and executive development in the areas of strategy, leadership and management development, human resources, financial management, and hospitality management. Collaboration between Cornell faculty experts and learning and user-experience designers provide for engaging, rigorous, and interactive learning.