WHEN the hotel group Starwood opens the first of its new concept hotels under the aloft name in America next year, thousands of people will be able to claim that they have already been inside.

These people are fantasising. They have never stepped across a real aloft threshold, but have merely walked into a virtual copy of the hotel that has been developed on Second Life, the online alternate world.

Starwood has created a virtual hotel on the site to gauge how people use it.

Second Life allows virtual "residents" to live an imaginary life, perhaps as a poet, architect, property speculator or even as a prostitute offering virtual sex.

Once you have bought a suitable plot, you can build pretty much whatever you like, from hovels to hotels, using tools developed by other residents.

Starwood wanted to find out what tickled the fancy of its virtual visitors before launching the aloft chain of stylish budget hotels.

The company says the chain will offer "urban-inspired, loft-like guest rooms, enhanced technology services, landscaped outdoor places for socialising day and night, and an energetic lounge scene."

Starwood certainly took the opening of its virtual aloft property seriously and held a launch party with the pop star Ben Folds providing the music. Like all good parties, more people wanted to go than could get in.

However, rather than your name not being on the guest list, in this case it was technical reasons that inhibited the number of people who could "attend".

The virtual hotel has a serious purpose - to see how guests use it and to study their preferences. Ross Klein, aloft's president, says the virtual hotel "gives us an opportunity to get behavioural indicators, even in a virtual space.

"The design and programming you see is very close to what we will be doing in the non-virtual world. We have moved things around and we have moved some programming in and out to see how the virtual inhabitants react to it. When we put the fireplace in, it became the natural gathering place."

Already, the real hotel chain's design team has had ideas about putting pool tables in the reception area, inspired by feedback from the virtual world.

"Our customers are more sophisticated and they expect more than just a place to sleep,"says Steven Hayer, Starwood's chief executive.

"We're shaking things up and offering something fresh, inspiring and ultimately more fun," .

Klein says that the company will not pull out of Second Life. "We will probably become transactional in the near future with some of our products."

However, Klein is the first to admit that a virtual hotel can be very different from the real thing. "In Second Life, nobody sleeps or eats," he says. He would not have a job in the real world if the same were true there.