Hraba Hospitality Consulting

To celebrate Facebook’s Deals going live…. it’s time to comment on the coupon craze. And craze it is…. it’s captured our attention to no end.  Not being fully versed with the Facebook model (I will fence sit until I know more), I will say one thing about these coupon sites in relation to your hotel, restaurant, or brand: *DO NOT DO THEM*.

WHAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaT did you say???

The power of Groupon’s success has surely been due to the happy consumers rambling on about the score they just made.  You can’t go anywhere and not see it.  The crisis of perception is that everyone is beside themselves with how “cool” coupon sites are, but only regard them from the perspective of being a consumer. Stop being selfish, and think about these poor businesses. Everyone seems to be in a mindless consumer mindset when they consider them, and especially when they sign on to participate in them; all the proselytizers are consumer advocates or discounters. I don’t know one thoughtful business person that finds them to be anything but frightening, even if deemed necessary (and in hospitality, they never are necessary). They can surely bring business into an operation with low to no overhead, huge margins, or zero variable operational costs…. but to businesses like hotels, it’s a losing proposition.  Please, check your giddiness at the door – and hope these coupon publishers are a fad, because if they are not we are in big trouble. Whether you scored a good deal on Living Social is moot, so put on your business acumen hat… and let’s explore!  This post is meant to be a simple, accessible cautionary tale to Hoteliers and the like.  I am not covering entirely new ground.  But, I rather have something for us to refer to than having to explain my dour skepticism to each person incredulous as to how I am “missing the biggest thing ever”.

In fact, I wouldn’t mind being known as that one guy that stopped the entire hospitality industry from participating in any form of online coupon site.  At least, realize the impacts.

Search “Is Groupon Killing” in Google, or simply click this link.

(more…)

I read this article today, and to say the least, I reacted. Privacy is a term used far too loosely, and I think people might not really know what they are defining. Whatever privacy is to you, you need to consider how privacy exists in the real world.

A ghostly voice:

Consumer privacy issues are a “red herring.” — “‘You have zero privacy anyway,’ Scott McNealy told a group of reporters and analysts Monday night at an event to launch his company’s new Jini technology. Get over it.’”

That was in 1999.

Subsquently…. resultingly….. These privacy conversations kill me. If one wishes for privacy, one shouldn’t leave the house, nor ever go online.

It is completely within the best interests of a hotel to protect a guest’s privacy… we go to significant lengths to do so. To suggest otherwise is misinformed and ignorant.  It is the hallmark of our success, among other things.

This issue isn’t about a hotel’s sensitivity to privacy. The issue is our current preoccupation with the concept of privacy. No one has any idea what “privacy” means. We have relative freedom, and our lives are relatively unobstructed and we are able to do as we please. But leaving the house – you are subjected to the largest shift in communication history, coupled with modern technological achievements that have, together, completely negated the concept of privacy. It doesn’t exist anymore. In fact… younger generations shed it as a by-product of the lifestyle they seek… a reminder that, shortly, it simply isn’t going to be an issue for people that will be controlling the world soon. How can we really expect any privacy, anyway?

It’s a fun conversation about a word few people really understand…. but whether or not we need to be sensitive (hotels, in fact, are sensitive) is moot. The point is that privacy is ending, and to some extent we are willfully giving it up as a biproduct of being able to access these amazing tools of the internet age.

(more…)

Just to take our head out of the daily grind (aka I have spent seemingly countless days posting management responses to my properties.  It’s like painting the Golden Gate Bridge. As soon as I reply to all of them I have to start all over again)…..

Let’s talk about the future.  Let’s talk about where things like social communication technology, genetics, computer and network science are going to go.

So, without further ado, Ray Kurzweil:

Kurzweil’s new documentary “Transcendent Man”, “probes his breathtaking, possibly balmy, vision of the future.” You can read more about it in this Economist piece at this link *HERE*.  Time runs an amazing piece on him RIGHT HERE (thanks Katie Clapp!).

What’s more, Michio Kaku, our pragmatic, skeptical, modern day science magnate (or hero? or Sagan-esque lightning rod for science to light up the public’s minds?) who proffers forth a more conservative view of our immediately future into the years that lead us to the 22nd Century.  Internet enabled contact lenses that tag everything in site, telekinesis will be commonplace, but it’s not all just sci-fi.  The Economist covers this in their Futurology (2) article here.  His new book is called “Physics of the Future”.

Assuming you got here because of our industry, we travel and hospitality professionals forget we are dabbling in technologies that not only resolve significant problems for the human race, but which can also completely alter what it means to be human, to begin with.  We are in the first moments of a revolution – one who’s major accomplishments may not even be on the horizon of our life’s timeline.

Even at this point, superhuman technologies bolster our frail frames and help us to walk, to breathe, and much more.  Even now it would be difficult to gauge where a human ends, and biogenetic, biotech, or bionic extensions begin.  It’s interesting to think about…

…….to remain human, we may need to become more human than human.

Now back to work! =)