Hraba Hospitality Consulting

Cheers and good day! Your friendly neighborhood Hotelier trying to stay on top of hotel news, and travel info, and hospitality & management philosophy… oh yeah… and technology or social media.  Okay okay… I am apparently trying to keep you updated on everything, and here is a little more from my corner of the internet…. endless relevant information filtered into a relatively decadent lunch sized chunk.  Enjoy!  Don’t hesitate to let me know your thoughts or comment… be well and big RevPar to you all!

• Stop using 2009 rates in recovering economy! That’s about all I can say about this, because I would never want to encourage price setting and have the Feds after me.  Still… if you all do it independently, well that’s just good business. Collusion, however, is a nasty word.

• Cornell hotel school has their 2009 wrap up, 2010 report, & another couple studies… like fairness & perceived differences in rate differential, or cases in innovative practices.  If you don’t look at anything, I suggest you take a gander at this…. chock full of info, especially the 2010 report with articles and excercises for marketing, spa, F&B, Operations and more!

• Neil Salerno with “Does Anyone Remember When A Suit Came With Two Pair Of Pants?“ Beyond having quite a fine tailor, it’s a smart idea that Neil takes into the world of hotels skillfully, with a powerful and accurate piece on hotels, social media, websites, and more.

• TOURISM IS SOCIAL – a 90 minute love note to the power and impact of social media in Hospitality, the need to have less manipulative marketing, and the need to create a powerful community advocating your brand.

• Successful email marketing is all about reaching an appropriate demographic, that you can target more specifically, while not “spamming” people who don’t have the same interests, *but* are fans of your hotel.  By setting up preferences in email marketing, Hotel Marketing Strategies has advised our world yet again!  Think of a branded guest that loves wine and food, but not the spa… while you have other fans of the spa that are into health and not so much fine dining.  Sure they cross paths often enough, but here is a way to target them individually and be even more successful.  Well done Hotel Marketing Strategies!

• Speaking of Josiah, well we have to say well done on this GOOGLE BUZZ primer for hotels and marketing people.  Fantastic stuff.. learned a lot!

• Some good news!  Hotels are gaining attention from lenders, travelers are ramping up leisure trips, and some interesting insight into your luxury branded guests…..

• Attempting to reach affluents, luxury brand guests, online?  Where here are some facts that may raise your eyebrows about their behaviors.

• Some not so good news for you F&B people – or just more about the complexity of being green, community rooted, and sustainability focused…. like  the implications of sourcing locally.

• Service is the new Sales – a piece in line with listening, learning, being engaged and involved – and tempering traditional marketing methods that sell glitz and gooey glamour.  That stuff is out this year, and true, refined, classical luxury is in.  I know it’s just one of millions of hyperbolic or effusive blog titles in this world of too many posts, but I might say that service has always been on the front end of sales…. since the local Main St. Hardware store and before.  Service has always been paramount in helping you sell.. this is nothing new.  The article has some great points, though.

• TOURISM IS ALL OF US blog chats about “filling seats” (a la movie theatre analogy) with social media in hotels.  An interesting approach to understanding what your internet presence really is….

• Optimizing your hotel’s “Social Graph” - a great and simple visual way to understand social media’s impact on your guests and potential guests.

• Hotels experimenting with social communities: Foursquare, Yelp, Blogs, Tripadvisor and more.  Discussion about some of the ideas and methods hotels are using for interaction, listening, and community.

• It’s Okay To Be Anti-Social? – I don’t always agree with what I am posting here so much as attempting to engage thought and discussion.  I think this methodical approach to understanding the impact of social media is fading as more and more people find meaning and potential conversion from interacting with the online world.  His sanguine points are well taken, however, and he does help get a bird’s eye view on this madness that is too much media.  What do you understand? What do you have time for?  This article probably helps in going over all of it.

• It’s about time…. an affordable iphone/droid app for European hotels… Referred to as groundbreaking, but what isn’t at this point.  I remember groundbreaking used to mean we just broke ground, and have 18 months (or lesS) from pouring concrete to opening the doors.  It is much more ethereal than the brick and mortar world… but important, potentially useful news nonetheless.  I haven’t contacted them to find out more, as I am Stateside.  But this is something we all have our eyes on, and if you don’t… you should.  Mobile is the future, and it’s fairly important (I assume you have been following my blog, and will spare you the endless linking).

• Are you sick of too much info?  Too much data?  Does it feel numbing as you sit by and try to beat the internet every day?  Well… MS has innovative approaches in how to sift through massive amounts of raw data and content with “Pivot”.

• If that isn’t enough for you, I would highly suggest the new Economist special article about Data… none of this is about business for you, or your brand.  It’s about collecting data, and you are just part of something so big it will melt your head.  Like issues of Privacy in the 2.0 age… and how it basically doesn’t exist anymore.  Try controlling your brand’s message… sure, right after you figure out how to stop being stalked by the internet.

• Google Wave starts to come of age – and real meaningful commerce is happening!  If you can get past the fact that I was quoted in this article, maybe you can envision Google Wave this way:  No more misplaced log book in PBX, and no more yellow sticky notes on the desk.  That’s sort of how I want to play it…. NO MORE STICKY NOTES! =)

• It isn’t about you… at all.  It’s about them.  I am starting to realize this about everything… social media, website development, new marketing… it’s “what can you do for me, what have you done for me lately”.  Well, hotel blogosphere goes on a bit in regards to this, and reminds you that it might not be about what you know, but what, fundamentally, it means to potential clients.   What’s more, he hits the nail on the head in regards to hotel websites, relevancy, and standing out.

• This is perhaps one of the most affordable, functional, and cool devices I have seen in a long time – zero sticker shock, stunning savings, obvious ROI, and green to boot.  Amazing what these guys are doing - the future of waste management on hotel property:

• Martha Stewart Wedding magazine and Hello Lucky take on one of my favorite escapes in the world… WILBUR HOT SPRINGS! (I am sharing this for no other reason than it’s a beautiful place!  The pics from the print edition are out of this world!

• (Also… if you hadn’t been aware of what’s going on here, social media in travel becomes legitimate business force)

Another Class Action Lawsuit for Yelp!

Enjoy the TechCrunch article… and always, always, always enjoy the commentary.  I find it interesting if not hilarious.  If it isn’t hilarious enough for you, check out the comment section of this blog post, where it basically proves Facebook users are clueless (or 4chan had a blast acting like a mischievous army, once again).

Yelp seems to be taking this situation seriously though; umm….enough to post a Craigslist ad for legal counsel.  I would imagine there are better ways to hire lawyers than CL, but hey, just says a lot about the management that got them into this mess.

But these cries of extortion… once again… are more about bad management than out and out unethical behaviour.  There is no way these suits will be able to prove the “WE WILL DELETE A REVIEW FOR YOU” concept, because I don’t think it has ever happened; if it has, I doubt anyone has gotten a record of it as fact.  Someone would have proof by now… a recorded call, etc.  Admittedly, these guys at Yelp are from Paypal, and they know not to be sending privy or damaging info across email, etc…. but I still doubt something like that is going on.  It’s more likely confusion on the level of businesses not getting what is happening with the algorithm, as well as the dubious (but not out and out unethical) “move the best review to the top” program, that seems to confuse a lot of people.  This is more about business owner’s lack of understanding about social media, and Yelp’s apparent incapacity to clarify just how their algorithm works.

Using the algorithm as an excuse is not a wise move – blaming the foundation of their business opens them up to scrutiny.  By blaming the process of your sorting model, there will be more curiosity as to how it works.  Until people can trust that algorithm without question, their entire model will be extremely unstable.  Regardless of proprietary, privileged information, it jeopardizes their ability to be viable and dealt with as ethical business people.  Of course, the bungled Google deal and whatever really happened there (it’s all speculation) might offer a small window into their world.  Theories abound that Yelp was lying to Google, leaking information, and fabricating higher offers from unnamed suitors.  Yelp walking on this deal doesn’t make as much sense as Google calling their bluff, but logic doesn’t always figure into business dealings.  All in all… Google knows how to negotiate, and they were “rattled” by Yelp’s lack of transparency…. seemingly a theme for Yelp.

All they need to do is be open about their algorithm, and it will bolster and gel their business model.  I am sure there would be growing pains with being that open, but it would pave the way to have a stronger, vetted business that actually has trust from other people.  Until then, their algorithm nonsense will be the blood in the water that keeps the sharks (lawyers & lawsuits) coming back…

As the solution to their issues seem obvious, it starts to beg the question whether Yelp really has something to hide.  Without being conspiratorial, it isn’t that much of a logical leap that they are concerned about *something* – whether there are significant flaws in the algorithm, or they have work arounds that allow you to disregard specific aspects of it.  Frankly I don’t like conspiracy theories; people are typically not intelligent enough to orchestrate massive lies involving endless people that agree to keep secrets without being morally challenged.  Our government can’t, big businesses can’t…. why should a web 2.0 startup be able to get this far?  If moralistic heart strings being tugged isn’t enough, money talks… and one of the employees would have blown the whistle for their future book deal and fame, at this point.

However, if they ever get caught jockeying reviews under the guise of their algorithmic mistakes, Yelp will be *decimated*…. but I can’t imagine that ever happening.  What might happen is that serious flaws in the algorithm get noted, and short term it will seriously hurt them.  Depending on how they handle this fictional problem, it won’t likely be a Yelp killer.  However, watching Toyota deal with public fallout, it never ceases to amaze me how business’ often choose to ignore history and good sense.  What’s more, Yelp is a leader in flipping the marketing model and giving consumers a voice, taking a business’ ability to control damage with PR and spin.  Yelp is acting exactly like the companies that they are helping expose… you can’t be secretive, you can’t market your mistakes away…. if any business should understand this, it’s Yelp.  If you aren’t ethical, or don’t operate with the best of intentions… the public has ways of exposing that.  It’s humorous, and possibly ironic, that Yelp is caught in a trap of their own making.

I love seeing unethical people getting brought down, but I just don’t see this as mitigated behavior so much as foolish bungling, something I touched on before in this article.

People who don’t understand what Yelp is offering endlessly cry about the review site’s shifty ways… but Yelp’s program for advertising isn’t that nebulous.  The $300, $500, $1000 plans get you “impressions”…. those lightly highlighted/colored ads at the top of searches on yelp.  You also get a “slideshow” style picture gallery which is pretty meaningless, and you get to pick your favorite review to automatically appear at the top.  It says, “this is the company’s favorite review” and it’s fairly obvious when people are sponsors.  Most of the worthwhile aspects of managing the business owners accounts on yelp have nothing to do with their advertising options, by the way.  It is a valuable tool and can help you listen, learn and grow…. but you don’t need to pay yelp for any real reason.  For most businesses I doubt it makes sense at all; I don’t get it for a flower shop or bakery, etc…. there is no return on investment, so those constant calls they must be getting are annoying, to be sure.  But I still don’t think there is some devious plot going on…. I have spoken to at least 5 different account managers in different markets who try to get me to advertise, and none have pulled any unethical behavior beyond being ENDLESSLY annoying.

I still prefer google adwords, but if you are already doing those it might not be a bad idea, depending on your business.  Think about it from a hotel’s perspective – If I choose to pay $1000 a month from our marketing budget (which has moved online from print media), that means I get something like 4800 impressions (aka a banner ad that a consumer may or may not see due to “banner blindness”… I mean, I don’t see those ads at all, frankly).  If our average daily rate is $500, that means I literally have to pluck one person for two nights out of the 4800 impressions to cover the cost of advertising with yelp.  It actually is sort of a slam dunk, in that sense.

I just can’t convince old school marketers who are scared of losing the message, and not controlling the brand, due to sites like this.  What’s more, Yelp is only successful in SF Bay and a couple other markets.. barely.  Boston, LA, Chicago, NY seem to be okay… but even social media savvy Portland and Seattle aren’t that strong a market at all.

Look at open table reviews vs. yelp reviews in other markets…. opentable reviews which are verified and confirmed from a reservation are much more common than yelp reviews outside of the SF market.  One of our fine dining restaurants in the Portland area has 2 reviews on yelp, and over 200 on open table.  That speaks volumes.

But in the end…. it’s all bad press, and it douses their equity every time this happens.  I can’t help but wonder why they allow this to continue unabated?

Social media is supposed to be about transparency and Yelp is failing at that…. massively.  Everyone thinks Yelp is some immutable, immovable behemoth, but people moved from Myspace to Facebook in less than a couple months.  Youtube is less than 5 years old, and Facebook is less than 3 1/2 years old..  Yelp needs to recognize that their high horse isn’t that high.  The basic upshot is that this is all very young.  I think it’s interesting tho… all of it… which is why I am rambling here to all of you.  This will all be sorted out within a couple years, I am sure.

Do you guys think this is more about confusion from the companies themselves, or do you really think yelp is committing some expertly maintained conspiracy?  What are your thoughts on the future of online reviewing?

An impressive LEED Platinum for a hotel, Napa’s Bardessono.  I would like to take the time to point out that the incredibly complex reuse project from the NPS and ECB/Fort Baker Retreat Group, Cavallo Point, was just awarded LEED Gold.  Being NPS land, historic buildings, and completely “green” presented an  interesting array of problems (aka opportunities), and I am happy to say 2 years after opening it’s doors, it has finally received it’s status.  It is a shining light for the Bay Area, a stunning addition to the National Parks and GGNRA, and a model for future development being ethical and about sustainability.  I applaud both these properties, especially knowing how complex the LEED process can be!

Sign of the times – Ritz Lake Las Vegas to close 2nd May.  The economy may be leveling off it’s slide, but foreclosures lurk everywhere.

Gulliver points out a fairly brilliant honors scheme hatched by Intercontinental Hotel Group over Hilton’s disastrous alteration of honor awards points.

This is sort of scary, but nothing new to our industry:  Hotel industry needs flexible graduates.  “Skeleton staffs don’t bode well for hospitality students preparing to enter the market today. As if the long hours and weekends shifts in the hospitality industry weren’t unattractive enough, students entering the job world in today’s economy are forced to be more flexible than ever, often taking jobs outside of their geographical preference and much lower on the corporate ladder than they had hoped.”  Honestly – if I had known the hours I was going to work prior to starting my career in hospitality, I don’t know if I could have done it.  Of all the things I have dealt with in my life, the hours as manager at every property were dehumanizing and exacerbating.  Looking back, I don’t know how I did it for over a decade.  But that is what our industry is… high pressure, fast paced, grueling grinds, and the self delusion that it is as important as saving lives and that it will all be better tomorrow – oh, and that “lateral promotion” you took to get out of the department you are currently pigeonholed in… was totally worth it. (a little cynical humor, of course – not at all from my career.  Riiiiiiiiiiight).

Why do hotels have so much trouble answering emails? This is an epic, well timed, post.  It’s a HUGE problem, and not enough companies have corporate policies.  It becomes a disaster for communication if people think they can reach you, but have zero real access to you.  It makes our industry look bad, and it has to stop.  On the up side…. if you make it a priority to reply to emails, and it becomes everyone’s priority, maybe they will slow down with better communication.  More phone calls, less emails (including those horrible passive ones hiding the real question of “why haven’t you answered my emails?) – but that might just be wishful thinking.

Interesting and thoughtful piece on being a cautious, calculating restaurateur & entrepreneur in these times.  Fact is, it pays off big in a lot of situations.

Hotels converting F&B space into meeting space. A lot of hotels are looking for revenue, and this was an actual conversation we had with a client in the last couple weeks…. nice to see the article agreeing with us.  Lounges and comfy spots don’t generate revenue – but meeting space does.

Here are some interesting thoughts on Luxury Lifestyle and Travel Trends for 2010

Is Social Media the next Search Engine?  Some people think it is, just as we find out Facebook directs more online users than Google.

Augmented Reality is buzzed about for a reason… and not just because it is PHENOMENALLY AWESOME.  But it may actually create business, even for small businesses.

Is geolocating the future of hotel marketing?  I love that hyperbole, I really do… but let’s just leave it at “a really important, impacting development” before waving the white flag at all other types of marketing.  I actually think it is… for one, there’s FourSquare.  But I don’t like getting *too* carried away. =)

Foursquare does have some strategic growth;  First Zagat, then Chicago.  Some pretty big stuff happening, and it makes me excited that with all this activity, and other industry people cloning their format in multiple ways, Foursquare seems aware and fluid enough with a solid enough business acumen, to withstand the turbulence in this crowded arena.  They seem smart, and I think you need to keep an eye on them.  If you haven’t gotten a google alert from them about someone “checking in” to your hotel or business, trust me… you will.

The future of marketing in hotels? This is a tech guy with idealistic notions of what hospitality *COULD* do – with money, foresight, more labor, and planning.  It’s a good idea, some luxury brands might try to get there with this as a gimmick, to start….. but interesting and enthusiastic read nonetheless.  Beyond that, I liked the idea… and don’t mind plugging him.  He has got to be one of the only people out there that I know building Iphone (and I assume Android as well) apps that has even the most rudimentary understanding of the hotel business.  A lot of people are yapping about apps in our industry…. we might not be able to afford one, but for those that moved enough of your 2009 marketing budget online, and have a bit to spare…. check him out.

An interesting blog about the development of social media in the Kenyan hotel industry, and can possibly be extrapolated to other small inns and boutique properties that don’t have the monster marketing budget, but know there is an audience to reach.

The UK heats up about online hotel reviews, looking for some sort of validation process for Tripadvisor.  Is this another aspect of GPS & Geolocation that could help curtail fraud and shill reviewing?  Whatever the case, I think the industry can handle itself…. it’s in their best interests.  Getting the government involved to regulate seems a bit much.  The only winner when you start legal proceedings are the lawyers.  Very few other people actually win besides them.

Speaking of Tripadvisor… here are a couple best practices for a top ranking.

Social media as customer service for hotels.  Thank you for not saying social media as a way “to sell” or “drive revenue”.  Social Media may have a valid ROI, but this is more about being a cost of operations than a revenue stream.  We can all drive revenue with it…. but it is simply more important to *ENGAGE*.  Because in the end, ignoring it will cost you.

Here’s an odd piece – great thoughts… horrible grammar.  I didn’t understand this, so I include it to see if you have any thoughts?

That’s it!  Just thoughts and links and interesting stuff!  A real post is coming soon, I promise!

So it seems that I have enough work that I can’t write a proper blog post…. which is good.  I do enjoy putting them together because it’s like a coffee break for my noggin’, and I can take a second to observe and learn rather than keep my head down in the hurried pace of being a modern hotelier.  But operations and actual business take a front seat to my intellectual (or charlatan) musings…. and frankly I think this forum for soundbytes fits our world a bit more efficiently.  I will get back to a couple thoughtful posts (of which I have about 8 or 9 hanging, waiting to be finished) soon…. until then, here are the links that stayed open in my tabs for far too long not to share.  More to come, but enjoy these because you never know when I will have time to put this together again. =)

1) You might just want to go out and buy this one:

A lovely special report from the Economist on Social Networking, and modern communication.  All the buzzwords are here.. and *EGADS* they actually hold this wonderful new tech masquerading as cult to task for being important without an economic feasible business model…. what will support this wonderful new thing!  It covers Facebook, Twitter, small biz using SN to be big biz, how to profit from friends, whether social networks at the workplace are problem, distraction, or potential benefit.. and more.  My favorite two pieces are about Privacy and endless communication socializing the state.  So to speak.  Whatever the case… some big thoughts in there, and likely… another post.

2)  Cornell does it again with a couple reports available… the INCREDIBLY interesting one about price differentials for consumers, and how it effects them, your brand, and their likelihood of staying.  If you don’t want to download it, the long and short of it: People want information about differential pricing – including transparency and accessible to information about how prices are regulated.  The OTA’s have created a conundrum in controlling our own rate at the property level… and in doing so have confused regularly savvy travelers.

3)  OTA’s begin their own bargain basement for branded OTA users.  To have the distressed rates of distressed rates makes me sick to my stomach, but hey… there are a lot of those types of rates out there, aren’t there?  Anyone have an opinion about this sort of stuff?  Like Jetsetter getting packages that marginalize luxury positioning?

Maybe it’s luxury doing it themselves… they’re even dropping “resort” from their marketing.

and yes I adore the line : “To attract business conferences in these tough times, some luxury resort hotels have resorted to a sort of strategy of last resort: They’re dropping the very word “resort” from their names.”

4)  I hate to think that hospitality is entering a realm where it’s as difficult to manage normal business as it is for F&B.  That’s why we choose to be in hotels… because someone needs to help us if we enter F&B.  Hell you can open a teensy little outlet and it will completely alter you ability to “do” hospitality – and what’s more, your bottom line.  I was in front of a well respected head of PKF (who will remain nameless) that said, “Buckle up… RevPar and the entire industry won’t return until 2014.”  And I heard that in 2009.  It’s sounds scary, but seeing as we are already a couple months into 2010, I might believe it for one reason alone:  Our industry is so completely tied to the unemployment rate.  Until employment stabilizes, we can’t come back.  It’s too important a part of our industry.  Period.

5) Facebook conversion tool is offered… attempt to track Facebook consumer’s tendencies.

But is Facebook really the place to go for travel, lodging, and commerce? You know what I think from about a year ago:

But so much changes in social media so fast.  People saw Facebook as a HUGE marketing experiment which is more about amalgamating data than it is caring about the interests of the consumer/user.  Oh wait… it’s still like that.  Well – has any more commerce started happening beyond the jaw dropping revenues from Zynga’s social, yet annoying, games?

Well here is some data and metrics from Facebook…. and if they aren’t interesting, maybe pay attention to the conversation.  Some very interesting data and insights here… as well as the comment section (a part of blogs and papers that continues to amaze me with relevant, if not hilarious, conversation).

6)  Daniel Craig has a lot of good stuff to say, even if he does seem wholly unaware of my existence.  Tis fine tis fine Mr Craig…. we are all in this to help others.  My ego is transcended by knowing I help establish the pulse and tide of our industry.  That’s more than enough for me (tongue firmly jabbing cheek).  If you want to make sense of social media, and are just entering the world… well you *ARE* in the right place.  You are here reading me…. but if you want a little more, check out his latest post.

He’s right… know who you are reading, target that exhaustively…. or you won’t ever get anything done.  I am at the point where I barely have time to read myself. =)  He is always on point, and usually helps add a dose of levity.  Speaking of precisely that, I offer you Gulliver’s frazzled end of newsday ramblings…  A fun discourse into how to make airline food better.  I love that he actually, somehow, engaged me on a conversation about hot sauces.

7)  Photo Fakeouts caught by Oysters blog… great stuff! A piece on what they are doing with it *HERE* , and Oyster’s Blog here.

As for the gent in that rantrave.com comments section which talks of Oyster’s photo blog, I don’t mind leading those creeps on…. not one bit.  If I have the time, I will ruin their day with bizarre non sequitrs and baffling logical progression.  If you somehow found out how to get a hold of me for marketing reasons, you better realize who you are messing with.

8)  A fantastic and interesting interview with Hilton CEO Nassetta.  Amazing… with the allegations flying around about his involvement in the Denizen disaster, this is a very interesting interview (that doesn’t for one second come close to touching on anything at all in regards to Starwood’s newer claims.)

9)  SOME HELPFUL NEW YEAR TREATS! These are something I mull over, look at, think about throughout the year.  It might not be patently obvious why these are important, or how to leverage them…. but the more you read and learn, the more you will get why these are vital!

The top 15 web 2.0 websites as of January 2010

The 20 most popular social bookmarking sites on the web, as of January 2010

There you go!  I am sure I missed some stuff, but I will add more next week in what promises to be a constant addition too my blog.  Cheers!

I just found this.  1) Don’t know if it’s useful, but it’s interesting, 2) I am sure you guys can leverage this in some way, 3) I don’t know if this is supposed to be visible or not… so take advantage now.

This isn’t just about keywords by market which is endlessly fascinating, but it also says a lot about their markets…. the sheer volume of terms in SF compared to, say, Portland is pretty intriguing.

http://www.yelp.com/topsearches?page=01

that’s for SF.

You can also search other cities

http://www.yelp.com/topsearches/nyc?page=01

http://www.yelp.com/topsearches/la?page=01

http://www.yelp.com/topsearches/chicago?page=01

http://www.yelp.com/topsearches/sacramento?page=01

http://www.yelp.com/topsearches/portland?page=01

750+ pages of terms for SF, 521 for LA, 443 for Chicago, only 59 for Sacramento, 63 for Portland, etc.  Enter your city and see if it is at all worthwhile or interesting for you.

Cheers… just thought I would share.

Also….

I apologize for posting the below (I had published the keywords, but didn’t feel comfortable with them, now I just list the #), as it is the nefarious naughty words of net searches… but I doubt this will be up for long, due to searches like this tarnishing yelp’s equity with user base searches like #35, #47, and #60 among other less illegal or salacious terms on the SF search term board (like #99).  Ouch, yelp.  Ouch.  If these pages are removed, I will post the terms.  Frankly, they are sort of disturbing. =/  Can any SEO people suggest what these are?  I cannot believe they are organic searches?

FIRST:  Daniel Craig at EHotelier is incredible funny.  Well played sir… 2010 Trends.  Hilarious for us dorky hotel types.

And… anyone that wants to look at and figure out this abstract from a couple UK universities:

A model of hotel occupancy performance for monitoring and marketing in the hotel industry

Spas adapt to these rough times:

appetizer sized spa portions… down economy forcing a reorientation of full sized treatments

green recoverings – donating used linens for the needy
a simple, PHENOMENAL program that would be easy, and beneficial, to implement.

What would google do? – vilifying google for content distribution

Gradigio / Hotel Marketing Strategies – Josiah’s best of 2009 and Strategies for 2010

Social Media integrated with email marketing for hotels

How sustainable tourism effects travel and your wallet

Google study suggest marketing imperative to travel

Some great books for the businessperson just entering social media, and trying to make sense of it.

La Croix meets hotel uniforms to equal high fashion on the frontlines

Google’s Real Time Search, and hotel social media marketing

And The CMO of Morgans talking about their “Recess is on” recession campaign by staying and being “outrageously” cool.  I will tell you what…. I am including this because I just think these guys are way off.  Time will tell…. but using words like psychicgraphic.. is idiotic.  Their new campaign is “get dirty (two dirty martinis), get wet (big bathtub), get blown (in room salon services).  They are, apparently, adding value… and asking guests to trade up.  It just feels like a syrupy mess of creepy and scummy come together.  Which is why The Clift in SF, likely, is known as “The Place where locals go to cheat on their wives”.  Ugh.

Sorry I have been to busy to blog, everyone.  I have about 10 hanging about, and will get through them in the next couple months.  Cheers, be well, and happy new year!

A USA Today reporter had asked the question… what do you do when you have a complaint on property about a barking dog.

Oh boy do I remember this… and it is a delicate matter because people typically complain about this when they are trying to relax. So your approach to the situation matters greatly… it is always professionally wise to be a bit obseqious when you have issues that our out of your hands. But how to handle it? Well my thoughts are below.

Why are my thoughts below? Because I let this blog run to tech and social media far too often, when my 15 years is operational rooms and F&B know how! Frankly, I didn’t grind out 16 hour days at hotels just to be known as “that twitter guy”. =)

So enjoy a bout of SOP conjecture… and let me know what your thoughts or procedures are about this!

1) It is important not to wait for a problem to occur… on the website, at check in, in the room (as long as you don’t have billboard blindness with 100’s of tent cards throughout the room) and ESPECIALLY at check in = you need to equate dogs with children. You never, ever leave a dog alone in a room. It is a foreign area with no familiar smells… and it is tantamount to abandoning your dog. Nervous dogs, or ones with separation anxiety will start chewing things, urinating, etc. If you have an emergency, or need to get away for a private dinner, the dog should go in it’s “den”, aka the vehicle that it knows and understands that the owners will come back to. As long as it’s safe, and the weather temperate…. a dog left alone in the owners car is much safer, sanguine, and relaxing to a pup, rather than a foreign room. So a proactive approach is imperative.

2) When the dog is in the room, and the barking has started: a) like any guest complaint, whether right or wrong, real or imagined – you take accountability & ownership to best of your capacity, see what options are available like finding the dog owner’s phone number on their folio (a practice that is a vital part of check in). If all else fails, do whatever it takes to move the offended guest away from the area… and room move them to the other side of the property.

3) Sometimes, room moves are not possible. What’s more, it is vital that you do not go into a room where a nervous dog is already scared… I have had housekeepers bitten, and dogs run out of rooms. It is a tremendous problem for labor and consistency. What’s more, sometimes the smallest dogs can be the most destructive or aggressive. Size means nothing in regards to this, so it is imperative you do not go into a room with a lone dog. In this respect it is vital to engage the guest’s empathy. Help them to realize, with the utmost of deferential accountability, that this is a problem guest more than an issue with hotel service. You are doing your best to deal with the situation as you would a belligerent drunk or a loud wedding party. Most guests will understand this predicament, and instead of being antagonistic will professionally defer to the hotel’s capacity to make things right.

4) How do we make things right when the going gets rough and all avenues of resolution have been spent?

Free Breakfast! Discount on the room! Coupon to come back and visit when there are no dogs here! The free breakfast is mindless, simple solution… but sometimes seems lazy. Discounts hurt, which is why I like to do gift certificates because about 15% (approx) of those guests actually use them, but it pacifies them at the time of the issue.

So there ya go! A little hospitable support and advice from a guy who hasn’t worked on property in a couple years. Thanks for getting me to think operationally!

So I know Yelp works in the San Francisco Bay Area. LA’s sprawl might hinder it down there, NY seems not to be catching on (at least slowly), and Canada and the UK seem as if they were failures, at least as of yet.  I don’t have numbers on this (which is, by the way, a TERRIBLE way to start a blog post), and Yelp is always beaming with monthly hit reports, but it still seems their critical mass is the Bay Area, while a foothold in other markets seems elusive.

Doing Bay Area hotel/restaurant advertising w/ yelp is, basically, a no brainer.  Because of the sheer page hits, it will likely lead to conversion.  The margin isn’t at obvious for restaurants, but I would assume it might be of interest.  If you do the math, paying their scale plan for ads at about $1000/month, you would really only need to convert one or two people into a couple room nights each. If your yelp page is getting 1000 views, it isn’t that far of a stretch that you could convert to get solid ROI. Even with 500 hits a month for a mid range hotel, it should be compelling to do the math on how many people need to book to pay for the expense of advertising on Yelp.  Yes there are ethical grey areas, yes there is a lot of flap about how yelp does business….. but the bottom line is that it may be worthwhile for your property.  However, that is in the Bay Area.  Let’s look nationally.

I notice in other markets that should be strong, like Portland, it isn’t really taking off at all.  It is a massive assumption that it *should* do well anywhere, and as of yet I haven’t seen it stabilize with a critical mass of users anywhere but major metropolitan areas, and depending on the definition of critical mass, that may also be conjecture.  With the population of New York, and the type of food town it is, Yelp should be a massive powerhouse.   Portland is a *wee* bit smaller, but you have tech/web savvy foodies galore in the area, and I would have just assumed it would be utilized more than it is in that market.

Now, as a user of yelp I have ridden the ups and downs of their botched marketing and PR, issues with ethical murkiness as well as their problematic algorithm, or inability to embrace crisis, etc.  Yelp is a great idea that is being run by young, inexperienced tech-youth, non-businessmen.  We are all new & inexperienced at some point, but it is our duty to be aware of that and grow accordingly.  I know this is the management style in much of 2.0, and much of the 2.0 crowd pejorativize the word businessman as “bad”, but there are simple decisions that could have been handled better with acumen garnered from real management/business experience, etc.  The concept of the “businessman” is being reconsidered, or at least looms, as sites attempt to monetize and gain a foothold of the share of social reviewers & content providers.

Enter OpenTable, how it can matter, and it’s own take on restaurant reviews: Guaranteed no fake reviews.  I don’t know how it works if you cancel a rezzie, or if you are able to rig the system, etc…. but in theory it works. Like Expedia, you are not able to write a review unless you have a confirmation of the reservation through the open table service.  This is far and away more credible than Yelp’s practices. What’s more important, in my mind, is opentable’s reach.  Besides being a functional software for restaurants and diners alike, it seems that it is reaching a critical mass that Yelp could only dream of.  Maybe it is the simplicity of the format… simple rating systems bolstered by simple reviews with a few short sentences, or maybe it is because it is more about food, and less about social networking or user generated content.  However, since they rolled out the ability to review, many people in the social media realm took notice.  I find it interesting that their reservation product garnered enough of a following that it’s foray into content generation sort of immediately took off, piling up reviews of restaurants with reviews that have massive legitimacy compared to Yelp.

Of course, comparing the two seems myopic…. Opentable isn’t a full review site with reviewer profiles, etc.  They both operate in a different realm, and I am willing to bet there are crossover users that have completely different purposes for the sites.  Just like facebook and twitter, some people likely use both for different reasons.  In fact, many would claim they are *entirely* different services, but Opentable is obscuring those lines.  They can move into reviewing fairly simply, while Yelp would be hard pressed to move into a reservations technology.  This gives Opentable a very interesting upper hand.  What I think is a real challenge to yelp is that 1) opentable offers verification and unheard of legitimacy in regards to reviews, 2) it has a market and reach/impact far beyond the Bay Area, and 3) they have a less shaky business model.  The margins are somewhat slim, and I am not sure I can do the overall math… but if you compare their user base to how many reviews they are churning out, that could be an issue for Yelp.  I may be way off here.  At the very least, 100% of those reviews, purportedly, are legitimate while yelp deals with endless shill review issues.

However, it is important to realize that just because Opentable provides credibility, it doesn’t mean that yelp isn’t a useful tool.  Pardon the negatives parade in the preceding sentence… I am just saying, Opentable is a bit more legitimized, while yelp serves as a different tool to interact and learn from your guest’s reviews.  Opentable hasn’t opened up their site to the more social side of the web, and in regards to that they aren’t creating a meaningful conversation or interaction between diners and restaurants, which is, to some extent, what social media is all about.  But if they choose to go that direction, it will definitely be an interesting development.

As I mentioned, Yelp in the Bay Area works, but if the National competition is to be had, Yelp might have it’s back to the wall.  In a foodie centric city in the Northwest, a brand new fine dining restaurant I am involved with has opened.  In the first month and a half, there was one yelp review, and 57 Opentable reviews.  The difference is massive.  The reviews are more succinct, the verification based off reservation is very comforting, and it comes along with a considerably more professional tone overall.

I am wondering your experiences with Yelp vs. Opentable, and if you find yourself trusting or interacting with one more than the other?  Please feel free to share your thoughts.  Until then, I might suggest to watch out for Opentable… having been around and surviving the web bubble in the dot com burst, they may just be the seasoned, professional medium to provide truly meaningful interaction and content, leading social user generated reviews into the 21st century.  In the end, it might provide the competition necessary to help social media mature, and become more functional than controversial.  Until that happens, Yelp will continue to be a vital tool to reach your consumers and guests.  It may be useful, but until people start anchoring their reviews to a real, legitimate profile…. it is nothing more than a sophomoric, juvenile Myspace like world.  One that you have to work with.

So…. do you know where yelp works outside of the bay area? AND…. do you think opentable.com lends more legitimacy than yelp reviews?  Do you think Open Table could open up their reviews to interaction from ownership?

I actually got into a conversation on linked in today!  Go figure… I haven’t used it much as the “professional facebook”, but every once in awhile meaningful discussion about the industry pops up…. even then I typically don’t dive in.  But it is interesting…. so much conversation about the recession being over, and hoteliers, ownership, and properties are popping up their heads to see if they see their shadow.  As real winter looms, our proverbial “winter of discontent” wanes.  But instead of being rife with joy… let’s cast our doom & gloom nets out a bit.  If you look anywhere in media – fear and panic are often confused and countered by people’s desire to find the light at the end of the tunnel.  There are two types in this debate…. the sky is falling, or it’s looking up.

Well… I am cautiously optimistic.  The Dow hit 10,000 today, briefly, and a “painful recovery” is nothing in light of 80% of economists saying “The Recession is Over”. What’s more – It isn’t just the normal public mags, but trade mags are being VERY cautious in saying… “recession lifting, let’s get back to it!”.  In fact, not many are even highlighting articles about it… it is just a general “how to weather the rest of it”, “ideas for getting out of the recession” and the like.  There are articles like this (and here about a community’s B&Bs, and I have seen many like this about international markets)  all over the internet… little niches surviving or doing great!

It is a good feeling to see people conversing about an end to our economic woes.  Of course, I don’t forget that it is the talk and panic that drives the initial problem, as well as talk and optimism that can drive us out of the “mud” on our bottom line…… that is……decidedly….. black.  In fact, that negativity and existential concern about hotels and their future still pervades the news feeds.  But let’s not give the time of day to those who pander to the lowest common denominator… let’s look at a tried and true brand who’s consistent and professional tone to the industry is a good earmark for our collective concerns:  Marriott’s blog post.

I think it sums up the problem we hoteliers currently have… we would like to celebrate the dow at 10K, or the economists reporting, en masse, “it’s getting much better!”.  The problem is the reality, and that many hotels in standard, normal markets can feel the pinch for some time longer.

Another reason to hesitate…. we are growing, but current growth is *slow*.  I don’t have the articles on me, but I do know that lenders are still holding all the keys because the value of properties since 2007 have basically halved (Hotel Business Vol. 18 No. 19 Oct 7-20, 2009)… which is ground shakingly tragic.  The foreclosured and distressed will hit the market soon, and more problems will be discovered than are currently known.  But on the other side of this coin, it is time for equity and ownership to start finding PHENOMENAL deals.  Everyone should be able to buy a hotel in the coming year (joke)….

Economic recovery and slow growth is one thing… but we are hotels, and we might need to take a closer look at the national unemployment rate.  The economy might be recovering, but our industry is so COMPLETELY controlled by labour and unemployment, I am worried it will give a false sense of security when certain segments might still get hit hard.   I saw Tom Callahan the other day from PKF in San Francisco, and he said the basic consensus is that we will not hit q4 2007 or q1 2008 ADR and RevPar until 2014… which is…. depressing.  But it is only a climb up from here.  As long as you retained some rate parity, the property should be able to bounce back.  If you are like Vegas, you may have dug a hole so deep, you will have issues “digging up”. =)

(To be fair, even some people think that Vegas is finally on an upswing, or at least battling the recession.  True their tourism is down, their rooms are empty…. but finishing City Center in a climate like this is amazing, and frankly… although they are reducing flats @ $2000 / sq ft possibly to below $1000 / sq ft…. I am shocked 55% of it has been sold.)

All this being told… I think the slide and panic is over.  Our awful day at the beach is done, and what happens next is shaking out the blanket to clear the sand…. and we will see what is jarred loose from the hotel economic fabric.  The problems that are still to come are not pro-longed troubles for hotels, it is simply the back end of the recession working itself out.  Until then…. buckle up…. I doubt it will be too bumpy a drive home, but it’s gonna be a long ride.

Yes I am fully aware of how many metaphors I used in this.  =)  Good luck EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU… be well, hang tough… and see you on the other side!

A professional acquaintance and I were communicating today about the odd nature of social media in regards to “friending”, and navigating the tightrope that is personal and professional.  Social Media and Online Communication are still very young, and it is still learning to become the “metaverse” Stephenson conjectured, or at least fantastical replication of the physical world.  As it starts to more accurately and efficiently replicate tangible existence, we will see a new vision of a social platform – something that is capable of being augmented, and adapatable enough for the most diverse of us. For now, we have the frustrating complexity of navigating our professional selves, and awkwardly surrendering our personal lives in lieu of building a professional network.

The question she asked was “How do you decide who to friend when someone finds your profile off of the page you administer?”

This is, truly, a billion dollar question.  The online world is slowly revealing itself to be a simulacrum of the real world…. whereas MySpace’s vague and anonymous profiles caused confusion and apprehension, FB verification process through jobs and schools creates a more acceptable legitimacy in regards to the “realness” of a person.  If the person tried to build a “fake” profile, it would sort of become irrelevant because there were no real world connections to make.  That poses a problem for the more diverse of us.  I note Twitter facilitates the need to compartmentalize interests, hobbies, characters, etc…. I have multiple twitter accounts – one for my music and DJ’ing, one for art and science, one for biz, and so on.  The nature of communication is that we compartmentalize these interests, so we aren’t talking about the new museum to a hotel person, or the renovation of a hotel to someone who like to listen to music.  It’s vital – it’s who we are, and how we do biz.  At the very least, there needs to be a separation of professional life and work life.

This is where FB really lets me down.  Originally I had two profiles… my main normal one professionally (networking and managing pages), and a goofy one for all my closer friends, music/art/SF scene friends.  I soon realized it is literally impossible to juggle between the two accounts, let my alt-profile go dormant, and now I am simply an open book on my main profile.  I use it however I wish, post whatever I wish… all the while accepting professional peers as friends.  If they like my personal stream, that is fine – if not, they will unfriend.  But I note, for my own mental sanity, that I couldn’t possibly keep up to speed with trying to maintain two FB profiles, all the FB pages… and figuring out what interaction happened where.

So I ditched that alternate profile, and it has been incredibly freeing.  1) FB is not like twitter… it is a closed social network.  What is odd about that is that people don’t seem to want a closed social network in regards to their friends… because they will simply call and chat with them, see them at work or dinner, etc.  People want an open network like twitter, for sharing funny stuff, professional networking, etc.  So I note a lot of people on FB have just become friend junkies and will say yes to whoever might want to be their friend, simply to expand the network and ability for meaningful interaction.

I doubt you insulted anyone… most likely it is another Oregon local just trying to expand their network.

Whatever the case… this is a widely spoken about… you are not alone.  I think Twitter “gets it”, and Linked In sort of gets it.  There isn’t that much interaction there, but it is a valuable tool in conjunction with FB, at this point.

However, I think someone is going to soon create a tool/medium that allows you to truly compartmentalize these personna…. and create alternate profiles, conversations, etc within one network.  The person that figures out how I can post some inappropriately irreverent and sardonic nonsense on one part of my profile, and professional news and tidbits on another, while posting a video or new mix on my other “side” – that person is going to make a lot of money.

Google Wave could be a start to this.  I just realized something… Facebook would be able to adapt to this, but I am not innovative enough to figure out how Twitter to handle this sort of shift in friend management.  Whatever the case, pardon my afternoon verbosity.  The sun is hitting the office window and for some reason I just caught fire. =)