Hotel Blogs - Let's talk about hotels

I have Greenland followers on @hotelblogs

Just checked where my followers on my Twitter account @hotelblogs are coming from - thanks to @RobertKCole for sharing this nice application, Twitter Analyser - and just discovered that I have 83 followers from Greenland !!! More than in France. Looks like France is not really a big fan ot Twitter.

 

The Hotel Show - Season 3, Episode 5 (Travel startups, WTM, TBC)

This week episode covers the competition between 10 travel startups last week on HB, World Travel Market with GetFunded Show and Travel Blog Camp.

Thank you for our partner HotelsCombined for supporting The Hotel Show. If you would like to sponsor The Hotel Show, please send me an email at guillaume@hotel-blogs.com. There are 2 available slots for the next 15 episodes.

Twitter cost London firms £325M a year but you can still have a cigarette break

On my way to a meeting this afternoon, I was reading the free newspaper Evening Standard and noticed this article on why Twitter seems to cost millions of pounds to London firms because of lost productivity with their staff.

Apparently London firms are banning Twitter and other social networking sites because they cost almost £325M a year in lost productivity. Some survey conducted by the IT consulting firm Morse claims that 59% of office workers admit to use Twitter spending an average of 59 minutes a week reading and sending tweets.

The press release from Morse is making the case even more alarming where they say the loss of productivity among all social networking sites reaches £1.38B a year if you take into consideration the danger of phishing scams and all security issues whilst clicking on URL shorteners with no guarantee it will leads you to the right website you thought you were going to.

I am bit surprised to see journalists like Mark Prigg still swallowing all these nonsense surveys without any sort of judgment about whether they are really making a valid case. How can you blame fantastic tools like Twitter or Facebook - that literally transform the way we communicate in the 21st century world - to be responsible for the lost of productivity with people.

Are we also asking workers to be 100% dedicated to their job 8 hours a day from 9 to 6 and forbid for:

1. picking a personal phone call  Answer ==> NO

2. receiving and responding to personal emails ==> NO

3. having a cigarette break ==> NO

4. taking a coffee break with a round of teas and coffees to make ==> NO

5. having social conversations with your colleagues "how was your weekend?" ==> NO

The list could go on...

The whole point I make here is in a typical day any workers would do something that is outside his or her job description. These little things like having cigarette breaks don't really bring any productivity to the company either but it's fine to allow them - some might even say it takes the whole stress out...

So let's cut the bullshit here. If your employees waste endless hours on Twitter and Facebook and other social networking sites, it is not the fault of Mark Zuckerberg or Evan Williams but maybe it is the fault of how you are communicating with your staff.

If people gets responsible, they would not abuse your openness to allowing them to use Twitter. Make sure you tell them that you trust them. If you can't trust your staff, maybe you should re look at your HR department and see whether you have recruited the right team for your businesses.

Here's my bet...By 2010, I am sure big corporate companies will be more relax about these sites but would have put in place a new code of conduct with their employees (you know that piece of document that is hidden in the intranet and just passed 5 years old of age).

My other bet (more risky should you say) is that in 2010, employers will gain more candidates from the new generation of workers (late teens and twenties) if they openly say they allow access to social networking sites.

Congratulations to Vipe - Ask the CEO

It has been an intense end of the week last week in terms of traffic and interaction with your votes and comments on the latest Ask the CEO competition to elect your favourite travel startups I have interviewed on Hotel Blogs.

So big thank you for participating in the contest. A bit less than 1,000 people have voted.

And Vipe - an innovative company which helps hotels to add video in their sales communication - is a clear winner of the competition with 343 votes which represents 35% of all votes.

Vipe has won a free banner on Hotel Blogs for 3 months.

Again thank you to all CEOs who participated in the interview. Looking forward to the next 10.

10 Travel StartUps CEOs, who's your favourite? - updated

 

I have conducted interviews in the last 10 weeks with 10 different CEOs with very different business models and online value proposition. Which is your favourite startup among these 10 companies in terms of usability, uniqueness, value added?

In case you need to refresh your memory, here are the links to these CEOs interviews by alphabetical order:

AboutAnywhere

ChooseToTravel

DealBase

Hotelicopter

Oyster Hotel Reviews

TicketAD/StayPlanner

TourCMS

TripBase

Trivago

Vipe

Vote now!

The startup who will get the most votes by Sunday Midnight GMT time will get a free banner on Hotel Blogs for 3 months.

The easy life of being Director of Public Relations at a hotel chain - part.1

I don't think we recognize enough how easier the job of Public Relations is in the 21st century.

Before the emergence of blogs, video sharing sites and other social media sites, you either had to rely on a 3rd party PR company to bring journalists to write and talk about your brand or you had to fight on your own to make sure every press release get read and covered by the same journalists.

These days, you have other options to get public attention.

Let's say you are a Director of Public Relations of a new hotel chain, you want to make sure you reach an audience very quickly and that people start to engage with your brand from the moment the hotel is opened.

How to do this:

1. You create a blog where you share how the brand was created and how you build a team at a hotel and how the development is going

2. You create a Twitter account related to your brand to make sure it is easy to remember and also SEO friendly

3. You create a YouTube, Dailymotion, Vimeo, Blip.tv, MetaCafe accounts with your brand as a username (don't forget to use TubeMogul to upload your videos in one go across all these video sharing sites)

4. You create a Facebook account where customers can become fans of your brand and share their experience

5. You create a Deezer and Last.fm account and share the relevant tunes related musically to your brand

Last but not least, you engage with all these above by being active and not passively throwing information to your audience. And then your brand is recognized and you haven't started to get recognition from traditional media.

So when you do start?

The Hotel Sunday #24 (All Seasons, BBC, Ryanair, EasyVoyages, Facebook, Trivago)

So what's happened this week...


Monday: The French hotel group Accor announces the expansion of the All Seasons brand in the UK with one hotel in Southwark opening  soon in London. All Seasons is the latest brand invention of Accor.

Tuesday: Ryanair CEO Michael O'Leary recently refused an interview with the BBC programme Panorama because he wanted the interview to be uncut and undedited. O'Leary meets the Panorama journalist by surprise face tot face on the same day of the programme due to be broadcasted. The unexpected encounter is very funny indeed and the BBC recorded it...unedited. Fantastic piece of advertising...

Wednesday: The Paris based online travel company EasyVoyages (not part of the EasyGroup) gets a wooping €31.6M fund injection through a LBO. EasyVoyages allows travellers to compare prices on Flights, Hotels, Car and Packages. Clearly a big competitor of TravelSupermarket in Europe.

Thursday: Experian Hitwise reveals that Facebook is now the clear leader ion the Web in terms of page views in the UK. But Google and all its sister companies still represent 5 sites out of top 10 sites. Across all social networking sites, Facebook represents almost 50% of the traffic. I also discover the website Tagged which is apparently the 3rd social networking site in the UK. Have you ever heard of them before?

Friday: According to Trivago recent survey, British travellers rely on travel guides, check out this article on HospitalityNet. The French are more attracted by catalogues and advertising. Surprising results from one country to another.

 

The Hotel Show - Season 3, Episode 4 (ABTA, Bedbanks, LinkedIN)

This week episode covers ABTA rule with bedbanks and also how to use LinkedIN.

Let me know what you think.

Thank you for our partner HotelsCombined for supporting The Hotel Show.

If you would like to sponsor The Hotel Show, please send me an email at guillaume@hotel-blogs.com.
There are 2 available slots for the next 16 episodes.

Click To Play

It cannot be more clearer...

Gary Vaynerchuk from WineLibrary explains "the value of customer is imperative..."

Hopefully companies will listen.

The value of each viewer/user/customer is NOT THE SAME!

Gary | MySpace Videos

Ask the CEO (10) - Jonathan Shaw, ChooseToTravel.com

Today 'Ask the CEO' features Jonathan Shaw from ChooseToTravel.com located in Malta, Europe.

1. What problem (s) your company is trying to solve?

Today's travellers are looking at an average of 6-7 sites (including destination information, guides, and booking engines) before they book their holidays.  Our mission is to reduce this number by providing destination specific travel websites.

By providing local knowledge (detailed guides, images, what to do's, etc) coupled with product (hotels, car hire, flights, tours etc) our sites aim to provide a one-stop shop for that particular destination.

We currently operate 50 such travel sites all branded under a Choose''.com domain (eg: ChooseItaly.com, ChooseDubai.com, ChooseSouthAfrica.com). We own a large stock of these domains and are currently launching 5 a month.

2. How did you finance your venture?

My IT Director and business partner Chris Knights used to live and work in Sydney and I met him there before moving to New York. In 2004 we both decided to move back to Malta and we joined forces. Malta is a tiny unique island in the middle of the Mediterranean and is a member of the EU. We enjoy a great lifestyle yet one big downfall is the lack of a VC culture in the country. Hence, we financed the start-up from our own savings and also a couple of years without much income! Nonetheless, we are working on a global project and this keeps us glued to our project!

3. In a difficult climate of uncertainty, how do you attract talents to join you adventure?

I think that in difficult times such as these and for small companies the question is not that of attracting talent but more a question of retaining talent! Both myself and my partner have a hands on approach to running the business. I think that the key is to:

1.    Create a fun and yet challenging work environment

2.    To respect your team and have an open communication channel

3.    And finally, to manage by example

4. Could you explain your revenue model

We own 100+ travel destination specific website, of which 50 have been launched. Two third of our traffic lands in our 'Guides' sections; our challenge is to convert these into bookers! We do this by offering primarily a hotel booking engine; however also generate revenue earning commission on other travel services and advertising solutions for local business.

5. Who gives you inspiration when you feel down whilst leading your company?

My greatest inspiration is my internal drive to make this venture a success. Whilst I understand the value of money and what global success can generate;  I’m also equally driven by other factors. The experience of creating something from nothing and the lows and highs of such a business journey does enrich one’s life and creates challenges. When I’m feeling down I think of the various milestones we achieved and the ones we can achieve. Having said this, Chris Knights, my business partner and his focused approach provides the bulk of this inspiration and strength.

And 5 Trivial questions...

a/ Fave hotel experience

Probably the Soho Grand in New York. It’s getting a bit tired nowadays but I stayed there last year and it really completes the Soho/New York experience.

b/ Mac or PC?

I was a PC user, switched to Mac for 4 years when living in New York (had the Soho Apple store round the corner, could not resist) but then switched to PC again 5 years ago in order to be in line with company set-up, platform and network. At the end of the day it's about getting the job done, so I'm fine with both.

c/ Explorer or Firefox?

I’m typically an Explorer user but my IT partner has recently set Firefox as my default browser. Nonetheless, I do find myself browsing in both especially when we launch new functionality on the sites.

d/ MP3 or CD?

I mostly enjoy music as long as it’s background music. I do occasionally blast on my CD’s when driving but most of the time I’m on the phone anyway. Nonetheless, when jogging the MP3 comes in handy.

e/ Twitter or Facebook?

Neither. I value Facebook more than Twitter yet I personally haven’t joined either. Too be honest my biz partner and IT team look after the social networking aspect of the business

GTMC admits failure when using LinkedIN, really?

A week has passed since my last blog post and here I am, still talking about LinkedIN.

Unless this time, the best business social networking tool with 40M members worldwide gets some publicity from travel agents. But not traditional travel agents. Martin Ferguson from TTG recently wrote an article about how the Guild of Travel Management Companies (GTMC) failed to created a dynamic and engaging group on LinkedIN. The group was initiated by Danny Price, Operations Manager at Travel by Appointment. Unfortunately after 3 months, only 2 discussions and 4 comments were submitted through the dedicated group. 

So where the failure comes from? If you can call this a failure after only 3 months...

In my opinion, it doesn't come from LinkedIN, neither the idea of creating a group dedicated to the Travel Management Companies frontline middle managers.

First of all, the GTMC is quite a small group compared to the business travel market worldwide. Not in terms of turnover, but in terms of members that represent the association. If you search "GTMC" on LinkedIN, you will find no more than 37 results (according to my network which is very much UK based and travel industry related). If I drill down to relevant results, maybe a dozen of people are definitely working for GTMC members such as Ian Allan, Capita Business Travel, CWT or Travel Management Group. It doesn't mean that more LinkedIN members don't work with these companies. It is because people don't put GTMC in their profile.

If I search "GTMC" in companies, I get no results. Same thing if I search in groups. The group has probably already been deleted from the most useful business social networking site. I am surprised this intitiative hasn't been further continued with more incentive for members to interact.

Not so long ago, I was launching the Hotel-Blogs.com LinkedIN group and within days I got about 100 requests to join the group. Based on 2 convsersations I have initiated, I have received about 20 comments in one week. One fact: I have less connections and business history than the whole community within the GTMC. But for some reasons, the group does work for me and more importantly for the community who is happy to share experience and thoughts about ongoing issue within the hospitality industry.

So here's my advice to Danny who leads this initiative:

1. Don't blame LinkedIN but more how the tool was used in the last 3 months. Maybe a 5 pages "LinkedIN for dummies" submitted to GTMC members would have helped.

2. Need to open the group to more than GTMC members. Remember: only 1% of the audience creates content, 10% engage and 90% are passive (never submit a comment).

3. Identify at least 5 evangelists within the group who can easily creates content and initiate conversation with other members (after working parties for instance)

4. Make sure GTMC is searchable on LinkedIN

5. Have a look at similar groups and see how people connect to eath others. HBAA group is good example and it is only 6 months old.

What not to do on LinkedIN if you're a hotelier

Some smart guy sent me a LinkedIN request to be connected to me and this is the page of his/her profile.

LinkedIN is for people first. If you want to build a community around your company, use the group. Don't use the people profile for your company name.

...unless this guy is too ashamed to name himself working for Paramount Hotel in Dublin. That's possible.

The Hotel Show - Season 3, Episode 3 (Hotel32, iPod Touch, Blogs)

This week episode covers the usage of the iPod Touch with the Hotel32 in Las Vegas, USA. We also give 3 tips you should think of before you start a blog for your company

Let me know what you think.

Thank you for our partner HotelsCombined for supporting The Hotel Show.

If you would like to sponsor The Hotel Show, please send me an email at guillaume@hotel-blogs.com.
There are 2 available slots for the next 17 episodes.

Ask the CEO (9) - Roy Manor, TicketAD

Today 'Ask the CEO' features Roy Manor from TicketAD located in London, UK.

1. What problem (s) your company is trying to solve?

TicketAD's goal is to help travel suppliers provide their customers with
value added services and generate additional revenues. In order to help
Airlines, hotel chains and travel websites improve their service and provide
their customers with a comprehensive solution and not just with booking and
pricing for flying from point A to B, or price of staying at point B we have
built and building tools that also improves their SEO performance.

2. How did you finance your venture?

Our company is financed from 3 main investors, some of them are from "3F
Venture" (Friends, Family & Fools) and more investors are coming on board as
we are just finalising a fund raising round.

3. In a difficult climate of uncertainty, how do you attract talents to join you adventure?

Key thing for attracting a talent into your company successfully in
difficult climate but especially when you don't have enough resources to
"buy" him is selling him your idea and making him believe in the team and
the chances "to make it happen". A combination of average salary with
greater benefit in options might help in making him join and feel part of
the founders team.

4. Could you explain your revenue model

TicketAD's business model is pretty much straight forward - we are
affiliating our affiliates - we share the commissions generated by our
partner's customers.

5. Who gives you inspiration when you feel down whilst leading your company?

As an entrepreneur your most important supporter, a lot more than any other
investor, is your family and especially your wife. There a lot of ups and
downs along the way and my wife will always inspire me to keep fighting.

And 5 Trivial questions...

a/ Fave hotel experience

JK Place in Florence, Italy.

b/ Mac or PC?

Both.

c/ Explorer or Firefox?

Firefox.

d/ MP3 or CD?

MP3.

e/ Twitter or Facebook?

Facebook.

What to expect at The Get Funded Show @WTM?

With SeedCamp09  and TechCrunch50 events just gone last month , it's time to register to the next important event to see shining entrepreneurs pitching their business in front of VCs, successful entrepreneurs, Angels investors and bank institutions.

The Get Funded Show is reserved for startups related to travel, hence why the event happens at the same time and location of the World Travel Market at Excel in November. If you already registered or interested to attend, please use the LinkedIN page here.

I would be attending and reporting live from the event. Would be great to meet you all if you plan to attend the event as well.

This year, the event is split in two days with the same chairman as previous events, David Scowsill.

4 groups of startups pitches have been organized on the first day:

1/ Mobile Technology

2/ Travel Technology

3/ Online Travel

4/ New Travel Products

Each session will be scrutinised by successful entrepreneurs and VCs representative. See the list of the "innovators" here.

On the 11th and 12th November, 10 travel startups will explain their next big idea in Travel.

It's not too late to register your startup to participate in the event. If you are interested, please fill and send this registration form. Good luck and see you all in November!

The Hotel Sunday #23 (Inoqo, Hotel32, W Hotels, BlueSky, TRI Hospitality)

So what's happened this week...


Monday: TRI Hospitality reveals in their latest survey in August that UK provincial cities have slashed dramatically their hotel rates in order to attract weekenders. The average room rate was around £64 / €70 last month. London is less affected but still saw in August an average room rate of £100 / €109 with 82% occupancy.

Tuesday: Ex employees from Pegasus Solutions launch Inoqo, a Twitter based application for last minute deals with hotels. More info on this coming up this week on Hotel Blogs

Wednesday: Innovation in the hospitality industry! A hotel in Las Vegas called Hotel32 gives to their VIP guest an iPod Touch in order to access different services such as room service, wake up calls, taxi bookings, spa treatment bookings and so on. Guest can also purchase the iPod Touch after their stay. Win Win Win for the hotel, Apple and the customer.

Thursday: The first W hotel in Western Europe opens its door in Barcelona. Already a lot of press covers the much anticipated opening. Starwood, when will I get my free weekend invitation at your hotel?

Friday: A UK technlogy provider BlueSky Travel Systems goes into administration after their main client Thomas Cook decides to discontinue their contract in the middle of development for a customized solution  aimed at the tour operator. Financial Times already speculates that Anite, another UK technology provider could benefit from this terrible news by picking up new customers left with no technology partner. Or maybe they could buy BlueSky as well.

Join our LinkedIN group!

Hotel-Blogs has finally created a LinkedIN group. Let's extend the conversation we have on these pages on LinkedIN.

You can join the group here. Please, feel free to spread the word across. Welcome!

Update from WAYN

Intruders.TV has interviewed recently Jérome Touze from WAYN to give us an update about their fantastic venture.

In this interview you can hear why they make this very brave moove of changing their business model twice in the last 3 years. Once, about making the site entirely free of charge instead of the subcription model and twice, more recently,  about enlarging their audience and not being only associated with the teenagers and backpackers segmentation. Enjoy.

Outside (11) Eric Schmidt

It's time for Outside. Why Outside? Because I will post here some very interesting articles, videos or any other findings that are totally Outside the travel and hospitality industry. I have always tried to stay focused on what I know best (Hotels, online distribution, Technology in case you haven't figured out yet) but I thought I should share with you the best bits of what I find on the web in terms of inspiration, entrepreneurship, creativity and so on.

Today is a Q&A between Google CEO Eric Schmidt at Web2.0 Expo in 2007 with John Battelle, author of the excelled book The Search,

If you are interested to check out other "Outside" sessions, all of them are here.

Social Networking and Travel Agents: a winning combination

In the last ten years, we have seen the emergence of low cost airlines, online travel agents and the globalization of content offering. All of these makes the work of an offline travel agent much harder that what it used to be. Can the agent on the streets survive?

The 20th century traveller has progressed into the 21st century to search information on the web in real time and is able to converse with his peers with different communities available to him like TripAdvisor, Vinivi or blogs like TravellersPoint. The behavior of the traveller has changed dramatically. She can make her mind quickly and cannot be predictable anymore. Access to exotic destinations is greater with competitive airlines fares available and no more does she have second thoughts about staying in cheap accommodation as long as she  has checked recently the latest reviews of the hotel thanks to travellers like her.

Even better, the words do not dominate the content she's after. She can preview a video of the room she will stay at, thanks to different sites like TvTrip.com, Trivop,  YouTube or Dailymotion. She can view the pictures on Flickr or Picassa that other travellers have taken at her next holiday destination. So she knows that this is the right destination for her. She can't wait to see for herself what it's like to be in front of the Great Pyramid of Giza. She can also download free audio guides from iAudioguides in her own language so she won't be lost whilst visiting cultural sites.

So professional agents almost compete with these Internet information savvy travellers. How can he re-gain trust from them?

A common thought is that short haul city breaks (below 3 days) are no longer in the hands of offline travel agents. Travellers can make their mind up and book on online travel agents like Expedia or Lastminute without spending too much time on the decision making process.

Long haul and long stays are still better to be booked with offline travel agents. Especially if you have a complex itinerary in your head. And this is where offline travel agent can add value and innovate.

They have access to real time fares, hotel rates and can generate in minutes different itineraries for you with different pricing options. Try to do this yourself online and you will see how painful the process is. Travel Agents also have their own online community thanks to sites like Vinivi customized portal GalileoOpinions or AgentStream where agents can report problems at properties, flights, transfers. They can also exchange tips about destinations thanks to TripShake and asks the question "What is the faster route to go from Bangkok to Chang Rai" and so on. The offline agent has also a name, a face and a personal experience that you can read by yourself. You can relate to this person and even contact him or her during your trip. In fact, you should be able to email him or her and if the offine agent is innovative enough, you can correspond with him via Skype or Facebook or Twitter.

The reach of travellers is 100% easier for offline agents. You just need to be geared up with the right tools and be keen to be adventurous. When I hear offlline agents in their office can't access these social networking tools because their IT director decided to, I feel sorry for them. Why take away the places where travellers exchange? Ok I hear the reason. It is to control work productivity. Really? What about phones, mobile phones where you can download Facebook applications, emails.

So here's the innovation. An offline agent can engage online with travellers and offer advice on their next trip and guess what, I am sure some will probably pay a visit to this travel agent who took the initiative to help him. And if the traveler is happy, he would probably tells his friends and family about this travel agent and why not sharing this on Twitter or Facebook. The benefit is free publicity for an offline agency employee who dared to interact online by using 21st century communication tools.

Happy agents! Happy customers!