Green Madness in Danmark

A few days ago I found a very interesting article. But no for the reason you may thing.

The Crowne Plaza Copenhagen is now paying its guests. No, I did did mistyped. Let me explain.

They have created a new program: guests are invited to pedal for 15 minutes on bicycles transformed into electricity generators. At the end of the session they receive a 36 € meal voucher they can use at the hotel restaurant.

I am pretty sceptic about the reason of the global warming. I do not contest the fact that human activities have an impact on the environment. But I can't stand the way ecologists make eveyone feel guilty so that there are no absolute proofs. I just want to remind them that global warming episodes already occured on Earth, even when there were no humans beings.

For me, the interesting aspect of this article is not this the presentation of revolutionary method that would save the planet. The interesting aspect is that it shows that marketing people do not know what they can imagine to create mediatic buzz, that ecology is most of the time an empty shell, an argument to improve sales and helps companies feeling better.

I have to say I am a bit disappinted by the solution they proposed. Usually, scandinavian people are more realistic when dealing with environmental issues. If we want to reduce our impact on the environment we should take real measures like the improvement of the isolation in buildgings to keep the heat inside.

You can find the original article here

DDIH Report

On April the 24th, I attended my first think tank, the DDIH, Digital Development In Hospitality. Thanks to this event I had the opportunity to participate to four very interesting and versatile conferences about:
- Reputation management
- The new expectations of luxury consumers
- The future of concierges
- A brand new app dedicated to hotels managers and customers


In this article I wish to share with you some perspectives and thoughts I had during and after the conferences about the two most interesting topics.


Reputation management by reviewPro


It was the first conference of the day. And we had the luck it was made by one of the founder, RJ Freidlander.
Thanks to his presentation I discovered a new aspect of the strategic approach an entrepreneur, an hotelier should have. Thanks to my studies and previous experiences I knew that a company or its manger should manage, protect, and develop their brand using brand management techniques.
We can define the brand management as follows: “the application of marketing techniques to a specific product, product line, or brand. It seeks to increase a product's perceived value to the customer and thereby increase brand franchise and brand equity. Marketers see a brand as an implied promise that the level of quality people have come to expect from a brand will continue with future purchases of the same product. This may increase sales by making a comparison with competing products more favorable. It may also enable the manufacturer to charge more for the product. The value of the brand is determined by the amount of profit it generates for the manufacturer” (source: Wikipedia). And a job has been created: brand manager. You can read a description of the job here: http://www.e-marketing.fr/Marketing-Magazine/Article/Brand-manager-un-metier-qui-reste-a-construire-15235-1.htm
However this definition ignores a new yet very important phenomenon: the emergence of social networks and their consequences on companies and on their financial results.
I thought the idea of reviewPro is very clever because it matches this new and very powerful trend. When I came back home I made some researches about the reputation management and I noticed that reviewPro is not the only company on this market. This let me think this business is promising. The main competitors in hotel reputation management I found are:
- TrustYou
- Brand Karma
- Review Analyst
- Escuchatucliente

Moreover, in 2009 BDRC, an english consulatncy company published a study about the impact of review sites on hotels companies. This study tended to show that they have an impact on revenue. Unfortunately I could find this study.
Last summer I had the opportunity to do my training at MKG Group, the famous counseling company. And they developed a computer based service to analyze the client satisfaction. Their product is very similar in its form to the reviewPro.
As I said previously reviewPro faces a strong competition. As a consequence, I thought that they could do a partnership with companies like MKG or develop their own version of the satisfaction management tool to improve their offer and gain market shares by providing a wider range of services to hoteliers.

Online luxury consumers


I have a real interest for luxury brand management. So I was very interested in the conference dealing the luxury consumers and their new expectations.

Customers’ expectations changed quickly. Of course people with very high purchasing power are still looking for products and services offering the best quality. However, they are now looking for something more. They are now looking for exceptional experiences, new emotions and sensations.

The lesson I learned from the conference is that the feeling of something unique, different should begin with the website of the hotel.
So, after the conference I tried to make a small analysis of the website of some of the most famous palaces in the world. I have randomly selected three hotels among the most luxurious and famous in the world:
- The Ritz, Paris: http://www.ritzparis.com/home_ritz/home.asp?show_all=1
- The Savoy, London: http://www.fairmont.com/promo/savoy
- The Waldorf Towers, New York: http://www.waldorfnewyork.com/towers-accommodations/


And the least I can is that these three amazing hotels have completely forgotten their website.
When looking at them you notice that they are commercial sites with commercial details like the number of rooms, the prices, and so on rather than being a website that immerses potential customers in the amazing atmosphere of these legendary places.
The worst example of the three is the Savoy whose first page picture is at least 10 years old. None of them tries to make customers feeling special, none offers any virtual experience.

We may think this lack of action and consideration for their website is dangerous for these hotels. But if we look at the situation from another point of view, we, future professionals in hospitality and luxury brand management, can see some work opportunities: why not offering our vision, experience and knowledge acquired in e-business classes and conferences to theses companies?

The App Economy - Guid'El Application

Guid’el app economy

View more presentations from MatLaboye.

LVMH to manage Hotels

Fianally they did it. On April 8th, 2010 LVMH group annouced it signed a partnership with the Egyptian Hotel company Orascom Developement Holdings.
It has been so many years since we have been waiting for this declaration that we almost lost faith in this project. However, now it is annouced, it is a great opportunity for us as future professsional in the luxury-hospitality industry.

The reality is a bit more complex because the new compnay, "LVMH Hotel Management" will be owned by the M. Arnault's private holdind, Groupe Arnault SAS.

The objective of this new company is to capitalize on the name and the reputation of LVMH, the leading company in the luxury ndustry and on the fame and the concept of their first exclusive hotel in Courchevel. We have seen their interst in traval with their last communication campaign showing famous peoles and luguages in exotic destinations.

The first two hotels will be launched in 2012 in Egypt and Oman. As weel we can think this is the first step for the group to finally start its major project: the revival of the parisian Samariatine.

Crowdsourcing

The class objective today is to find a business concept using the crowdsourcing.

We think about a website specialized on the hospitality industry: gradeyourcompany.com

The concept is based on the grade given by the employees or former employees for the work condition & atmosphere in their hotel. This will help the new applicant to have a better idea on the company they want to work for.

The second interest is that the website can be a tool for the Human Resource department of each company and help them to improve the employee satisfaction.



Marion Fournaud
Marina Guilleux
Matthieu Laboye

Class Work 08-04-2010: TIARA HOTELS & RESORTS

Tiara Hotels & Resorts

View more presentations from MatLaboye.

Best Western Social Netwoks Strategy

Best Western

View more presentations from MatLaboye.

This is my first article posted via Ping

AVAILPRO

This the work we made about Availpro booking engine.

A MODERN HOTEL WEBSITE FOR 2010

PERSHING HALL

By Caroline Bonnel, Matthieu Laboye & Ignazio Sutera



Designed for the user with emphasis on supplying the information they need
Only half the screen is used, font is too small to ready easily


Information is missing in many sections: no price, no info about spa…
easy to navigate with no clutter
Interface very clear, no clutter at all but not easy to navigate because the toolbar in two parts
dynamic with continually updated content We can doubt the make frequent updates because they are celebrating St Valentin 2009 !!! cf. special offer


Links to Twitter and Facebook (or place Twitter stream directly on site)
No


A blog to supply useful content to users and help SEO efforts
No


Videos of hotel and city – videos should be authentic and not glitzy ads
No


Information should be organized by type of traveller and answer specific questions
No FAQ, no specific offer for specific travelers


Calls-to-action should lead user through the sales funnel
No


Offer an incentive for users to supply their e-mail (i.e. a downloadable city guide)
No


Give users a reason to re-visit your site (i.e. ski conditions if your hotel is in the mountains)
No attractive content, special offers are not highlighted


Maintain a database of your clients and learn their preferences. This allows for more targeted email campaigns, and a better guest experience at your hotel
No questionnaire to learn from clients


Request reviews from your guests and post them on your website
No review section

Hotel Direct Booking

View more presentations from MatLaboye.

Can TripAdvisor Hotel Reviews be Trusted?

This is an article presenting some of the upcoming challenges TripAdivisor will face.

TripAdvisor had a very positive role. Thanks to its review function, hoteliers had to make serious efforts on quality because guests are now able to exchange review almost instantaneously and worldwide. The community is now so huge that a single bad comment or bad picture can ruin the renown of a hotel.

But hoteliers could not let consumers do so. They took measures to manipulate such a powerful tool. This is not fair play at all. We even may think this is a bad strategic decision. Let me explain. Managers and hotel owners had at their disposal a very useful tool to improve their quality and measure the results of their efforts. Thank to the website they could measure and analyze the reaction of customers after they made some changes. Moreover it was free so that they have to pay counseling companies to get such information about what the client thing about the quality of the hotel.
But instead of considering TripAdvisor as a tool, they considered it like a threat and made all they could to influence and manipulate the reviews. In the article we can see the website created a brand new business. For me, managers and hotel owners should have refuse to corrupt this tool. Instated, they have chosen the easy way and pay to influence reviews.

As well, TripAdvisor users will more and more be aware of such methods. And their confidence in this section will decrease mechanically. This is very dangerous for the website because they have built their renown on this service.
We can consider TripAdvisor has reach a peak of audience and will now face a decrease in terms of frequentating.
But we can think the website managers are aware of this challenge. Indeed the already began to diversify the services by offering new services and applications (cf my previous post about Local Pics).

http://www.smh.com.au/travel/traveller-tips/can-tripadvisor-hotel-reviews-be-trusted-20100202-nafk.html

Dubai becoming a hub for cruise tourism

This is an article about another facet of tourism in Dubai: the welcoming of cruise ships.

I have chosen this article for two main reasons.
Firstly, it shows an unrecognized aspect of the tourism in Dubai. Usually, when talking about Dubai we think about its amazing hotels like the Burl Al Arab, its cutting edge architecture, its huge malls, its gigantic projects like the Palm with hotels and so many facilities for tourists. Even if Dubai is located on the seaside, we do not always think about its activities related to ports. But Dubai is becoming one the most important platform for cruise ships. This is another part of the conversion of the economy of the emirate imagined by Sheikh Mo. And this part is increasing year after year. We must not forget that ships brigs thousands of tourists each time they dock in Dubai. We can consider that each ocean liner is a short-lived hotel.
And even when a difficult economic situation, it seems that the demand will not collapse. On the contrary, if seaborne companies adjust their offer, the number of tourist will keep its growth.

Secondly, this article shows something unexpected about Dubai. It seems that the Dubai administration made some mistakes when building the port facilities. Usually they plan bigger and more than necessary. But according to Costa Cruises there are some quality issues with the services provides to the tourists.
But we can be confident in the reaction of the Dubai Tourism Administration because everywhere else the quality of service is one of the major selling points of Dubai facilities.

http://www.dubaitourism.ae/DubaiWeeklyNewsletterBlog/tabid/322/EntryId/136/Dubai-becoming-a-hub-for-cruise-tourism.aspx

Hotel firm offers human bed warmers

This is an article presenting a brand new service: the human bed warmers.

I have chosen this article for two main reasons.
Firstly, because I thought it was unexpected. This is the first time I heard about such a service. And I think this is a very fun service. As well, it is very useful for Holiday Inn because it will create a buzz in the media and will increase their renown.

Secondly, it’s cleverer that you may think if you take a moment to think about it.
This service is based on scientific analysis and recommendations. Studies show that sleep is more efficient and more restful when you bed is warm. Through this service, Holiday Inn uses a very strong argument nowadays: health.
We know that people are more and more careful about their health and take measures to keep in good shape. For example, the sushi food booming is the perfect illustration of this huge trend. People eat sushi because in their mind Japanese cuisine is healthier. Holiday Inn uses the same strategy. They want to become the reference. With this service they are at the cutting edge of what can be done to offer the best sleep possible. And we must keep in mind that sleep is the essence of the hotel industry. A good sleep means you are good at what is your main objective.

However, the service may be difficult to implement. You have to imagine the situation. Either you are in your room and then you call the bed warmer. He or she arrives. But what would you do while he/she is “working”? Then the hygiene question appears. What clothes the warmer will wear? Are they clean? Or you are not in your room and order the service. But you have to be on time when you come back because the heat will vanish from your bed very quickly.

http://www.independent.ie/and-finally/hotel-firm-offers-human-bed-warmers-2018405.html

Now is the Time to Invest in your People

This is an article that gives us some clues about how dealing with the economic downturn and the upcoming recovery. As well, it let us think that US companies would do better than French ones because they seem to have a better ability to anticipate this recovery.

Everybody knows we are in a period of strong economic crisis and it had huge consequences on the market and for professionals. As a consequence, they decided to take measures to maintain a certain level of occupancy and thus a certain level of employment. For example, most of chains and individual hotel owners reduce prices to keep attracting clients. So, they do not have to dismiss too many people. But these measures are short term ones and lowered significantly the financial results.

However, we must not forget that after every economic crisis there is a recovery. And many opportunities will appear with this recovery. But, as a professional, if you want your company to take the advantage of such opportunities, you have to be ready to this come back of the economic growth.
What do I mean by “ready”? If you want your company to benefit from these future opportunities, it is time for you to anticipate right now what would be the future needs and wills of customers and adapt your offer. So, professional have to make strategic decisions right now in order to be ready when the recovery would appear (forecasts say the situation would start to improve over the next 8-24 months).
I agree with the author and the Texas Hotel & Lodging Association. It now time for professional to invest in formation to improve workers knowledge and give them long term vision and objective. With such measure you will give them confidence in your company and in return they will do they best. Other consequences are that they would not quit your company and if they do their best to offer a quality service, customers will spend more money in your properties and you will win their loyalty.
Moreover, thank to this formation, you can give higher responsibility to the best employees and win their loyalty too. And we know that the stability in the teams is one key of success.

Finally, I notice that I did not hear of such institutional project in France to anticipate the recovery. This let me think that the recovery would be, as usual, quicker and better in the US than in France.


http://ehotelier.com/hospitality-news/item.php?id=A17731_0_11_0_M

HOW TO BEAT PRICELINE?

For once I decided to talk about a video and not about an article. I think this one is interesting and fun at the same time. This is pretty rare.

In this class, everybody knows Priceline and their imaginative of concept of reverse auction “Name your own price” where customers bid on the price price they are willing to pay for a stay, an airline ticket,...

This concept is very clever because it targets two main types of potential clients.
The first type of customers is the professionals, I mean hoteliers, airline companies, etc. who already have reached their breakeven point. But they still have rooms or seats available on a specific day and are really favorable to increase their profit. So they offer their product on Priceline.
The second type of customer is people really price oriented. For them the most important factor is the price. They have a really small brand loyalty and most of the time they buy a price rather than a product or an experience.

So, we may consider Priceline is the perfect match for theses price oriented buyers and sellers who have already reached their breakeven point. However there are some disadvantages using Priceline. For example you discover the brand of your hotel only after you paid, there is no refund possible, and you can make only one bid per 24 hours in the same geographic zone.

In this period of economic downturn, more and more people consider the price as the most important aspect when buying a service or a product. And those, who were already price oriented, are seeking for even better opportunities. This is how the concept of “free bid” appeared.
The objective of this method is fooling the website to be able to make several bids on the same hotel in one day, until your price you named is accepted.
I am not going to explain again the method. However if you want some more information about it, google “free rebid” and you will find some tips and examples. But I hope this short video will help you saving money for your next stays, flights…



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpQk5xBIdZo

embed code:

Swisscom First to Offer Smartphone WiFi Service and Mobile Communication Solutions in Hotels

This is an article presenting Swisscom new WIFI service for hotels.

This article perfectly shows the ongoing revolution in our ways of communicating. Nowadays almost everyone has a mobile phone. And most of us use it for more than giving phone call. We use our phone to listen to music, to find our way, take pictures, interact with friends through social networks, keep in touch with business, and so on.

As I told before, we use more and more and more our cell phone. And we all have the same problem: will the network coverage be good enough for me to use all the features of my phone. We know that business travelers are big users of communication tools to keep their business running. But individuals have strong requirements as well in terms of bandwidth and quality of network. So, hotels that will offer this Swisscom service to their clients would probably have a competitive advantage to attract both business travelers and individuals compared to competitors.

Swisscom chose to develop a service based on WIFI for technical reasons. Indeed, smartphones are now so powerful that the traditional mobile network may not have sufficient capacity to use our devices at their best. Thanks to the WIFI technology, the navigation is much quicker, like with a computer. And we know that speed is the most important factor when talking about mobile access to the web. If your hotel has a full WIFI efficient coverage, you will be able to charge this service a little more than if clients can only go on the Internet from their room. And it would become a selling point to attract and develop the loyalty of customers.

Swisscom had a very good idea when they decided to enter the hotel market. By definition people in hotels are far from home. If the clients are satisfied by the service they experienced in a hotel equipped with Swisscom solutions, they would make the promotion of it to their colleagues, friends and may be they would asked in other hotels if they have this technology. Hotels are strategic places because they allow Swisscom to target people from all around the world. As a consequence, the reputation of Swisscom will increase, and so the turnover.

http://ehotelier.com/hospitality-news/item.php?id=A17606_0_11_0_M

Hotel rates start to increase again, according to Amex

This article presents the results of the Q3 American Express Business Travel Monitor (BTM) for North America. This analysis tracks paid hotel, airfares, rental car rates in key business travel markets.

I thought this article is interesting for at least three main reasons.
Firstly, we can see there is a slight increase in airfares and hotel rates paid. Or at least the decrease is slowing down. This is positive information for the actors in hospitality industry. We know there is a strong relationship between demand and prices. Due to the economic slowdown and the drop of demand, prices fell down. But Amex noticed there is a reversal on its domestic market. As a consequence we may think these last months shown us a reversal of the economic situation with the comeback of a small economic growth.

Secondly, the US are the world economic leaders. When the situation is fine in the US, everything goes pretty well everywhere else. Their power is so huge that their demand creates opportunities and wealth all around the world. And the economic crisis is the perfect illustration. The collapse of some of the main US banks had repercussions all around the world. But Amex is telling us good news. The demand slowly increases in the US, so we may thing it will raise soon in other countries.

Thirdly, this article is interesting because it gives us a new type of indicator of the economic situation. But this indicator is less formal than official ones. Usually, to measure the health of the economy we use indicator like GNP, or the evolution of market indexes. But there are other type types of indicator that can help us having a wider vision of the situation. For example we can use the turnover or the number of order received by companies manufacturing cardboard boxes to have an idea of the situation in the industry. If these companies’ turnover is increasing, we can reasonably think that the economy is doing pretty well because most of the products we buy have cardboard packaging. A huge need of packaging means a vigorous economy. It’s the same with the BTM index. It is not official but it gives another point of view.

Finally, this article gives us a last info: hotel rates continue to decrease in upscale categories. This means a demand reduction. During the last months we have seen that companies and individuals were less disposed to show big expenses, nowadays it’s no right-on. But we could consider that the economic situation would have come back to a normal level when people and companies would buy again upscale airline tickets and book in high-end hotels.

http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/hotel_rates_start_to_increase_again_according_to_amex/

How to Use Hotel Reviews for Viral Marketing

This is an article published on www.ehotelier.com and dealing with simple and efficient recommendations for hoteliers to benefits from social network and viral marketing.

For around ten years the Internet became essential in our lives. Its development has been made at an amazing pace. We don’t even remember how we used to live before its introduction in our lives.
These last few years we have seen the booming of social network. For example, Facebook proudly claims it has more than 300 million members. And many websites add social community features to their services. TripAdvisor is a good example of that.

This article is interesting because it show the gap existing among hoteliers’ behaviors. Most of the time they are good professional and have no problems dealing with customers face to face, or on telephone.

However, they are not very good at virtual communication. It’s a pity because there are many opportunities online.
Indeed hoteliers could significantly improve their notoriety and revenues thanks to a smart use of the viral marketing. But what is it? According to the definition from Wikipedia, the buzzwords viral marketing and viral advertising refer to marketing techniques that use pre-existing social networks to produce increases in brand awareness or to achieve other marketing objectives (such as product sales) through self-replicating viral processes, analogous to the spread of pathological and computer viruses. It can be word-of-mouth delivered or enhanced by the network effects of the Internet. Viral promotions may take the form of video clips, interactive Flash games, advergames, ebooks, brandable software, images, or even text messages.

These techniques have two main advantages. Firstly, these action are not very expensive because internet users spread you message for you if they consider it interesting, fun, useful. You only have to be creative. Secondly, it is almost the only method to reach potential consumers worldwide because internet has no borders.
But you should be careful when using this type of tools. You should not use these social platform to copy-paste your selling points. You should use them to create special links between you and your target customers. Otherwise the impact of your campaign would be minor.

http://ehotelier.com/hospitality-news/item.php?id=A17712_0_11_0_M

TripAdvisor’s new LocalPicks app: Restaurant Marketing is Social and Mobile

This article presents us the brand new version of the LocalPicks app by TripAdvisor. This app allows users to post restaurant reviews from their iPhone.
In this article we discover as well the new features of the app and we have a look at the different opportunities that such apps can offer to restaurant owners.

What’s new?
In this version some improvements have been made.
Nowadays you can a filter that helps you finding a restaurant that matches your requirements in terms of style, quality, price, location…
The second new feature on this version is that all the comments generated through the mobile app will appear directly on the TripAdvisor website. The objective is not killing their website with their mobile app.
The last improvement is the opportunity for the user to include pictures to their reviews. The picture will help readers making their choice. As the adage says, a picture is worth thousand word.

This type of apps is a step forward in consumer review.
With the traditional review websites a computer is required to post your comment or review on a restaurant. But you do not always have one with you. So, you have to wait until you come back to your home or your hotel room to post your comment. However, there is a time gap between your experience in the restaurant and the moment you write your review. During this period you can lose some information, forget some details and feelings you had.

Thanks to the development of such mobile phone apps, some advantages appear.
Firstly you gain time. Secondly, your review is more faithful to your feelings at the moment you experience the service. And finally, you can add some multimedia content to your post.


We should not forget the impact of such new tools. The power is shifting to consumers.
So, restaurant owners have two choices. Either they install communication scrambler in their restaurant. But this is stupid and it’s the best method to lose clients. Or, they take the advantage of this new behavior and tools by offering a better service to the customers thanks to internal formation and encourage clients to post (good) comments about the restaurant.

http://www.tourismkeys.ca/blog/2009/12/tripadvisor-localpicks-restaurant-reviews-all-marketing-social/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+InternetMarketingForTourism+%28Internet+Marketing+for+Tourism%29

E Biz Community Sites 02

View more presentations from MatLaboye.

Online Travel Agency Analysis

View more presentations from MatLaboye.

Reverse Auction

View more presentations from MatLaboye.