Landmarks History

Landmarks began its products evolution over 20 years ago when the founder and President, Ron Szpatura moved here and became involved in the emerging Annapolis and Anne Arundel County Visitor’s Bureau. As a member of the board and heading up the original membership campaign, Ron enlisted 100 new members. Many of the Hoteliers that became involved asked Ron to develop a quality product that could be placed in the hotel rooms. What began as a magazine developed into to a four color hard bound publication that is placed on the coffee table or desk in over 6,000 rooms in the Annapolis and surrounding area creating a yearly readership of over 2 million visitors.

In the year 2000 The Landmarks hard bound publication ventured out to Ron’s alma mater, the University of Virginia and Landmarks of Charlottesville was born. From there Ocean City, Md, Rehoboth and Wilmington Deleware. Within three years 13 publications were being done each year and nearly 100,000 rooms were hosting a Landmarks book creating a readership of over 20 million.

To compliment Landmarks services the Visitors Channel was started in 2001. A dedicated channel is used in the Hotel to play a 30 minute DVD that is centrally located in the hotel and cabled out to each room through the TV system. The DVD is reset on a continuous loop and becomes a 24 hour Concierge, only better, as you can actually see the restaurant, attraction or store that you just may decide to visit (about 58% of the time according to an independent Neilson study).

In the last year, a first class internet service with the same valuable information was added. This now allows you to use this quality info to better plan your trip on the internet and then have the same valuable information available when you arrive on the TV screen or the the hard bound book sitting on your coffee table or desk in your hotel room.

More recently the handy dandy Key Card booklet and a special feature called the Prestige Partnership were added to add valuable and easily accessible information as well as increased income opportunity for our territory managers. More information on all of our products is detailed on the following pages.

Landmarks newest product is Landmarks LIVE, which plays in select hotels in markets that have our Visitor Channel.  Landmarks LIVE provides guests with up to the minute information, including weather and local events.  Landmarks LIVE also allows our advertisers to reach clients 24 hours a day, 7 days a week by providing them with live access to their advertisement, allowing them to change it at their convenience.  Visit this page for more information.