Hraba Hospitality Consulting

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!

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 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. =)

So…

This is a fairly funny, interesting article about the complexity of social ads, and how they can exploit any of your proprietary data for their own ends…. in that you agree it isn’t proprietary anymore by uploading it to the site.  IE:  Complain all you want, but if you are on a social media site, they own you.  Some try to be fairly deferential to the artist’s rights (Flickr, Tribe, etc), but others like Yelp and Facebook seem to have little concern for their single users, and are wholly concerned with users overall (read: business).

That being said, have you heard about any of these wildly incorrect or funny social ad gaffes?

Here are some from Cheryl Smith’s original article:

Husband sees his own wife in a picture for “hot singles”.

Karen said: “Despite having three degrees and no children, I keep getting ads urging ‘Moms’ to ‘go back to school and earn a degree.’”

Rachel said, “none of my friends have come up in dating ads but one of my guy friends – a 20 something with perfect skin, popped up in an ad for a wrinkle cream”

“I saw a Facebook ad that read “Pinecones. In glass. The want is real.” They were advertising just that — pinecones in glass jars. Very odd.”

[The following, I assume, was for a dating ad?] “My picture was posted in an ad for my sister, who then posted a comment in her status on FB, and everyone got to share a great laugh – after a collective: Ewwwww. Cheers!”

“Best one so far was a picture of our church’s pastor next to an ad asking my wife if she were hot enough to be in his sorority!”

These are hilarious… but somewhat frightening.  If you use FB, or most of these sites…. you should simply consider privacy over.  Don’t give up on it, but don’t act shocked.  At least, have a great sense of humour like Cheryl did on her original post.  The fact is – social media is young, and growing.  This will all get hammered out, and someday there will be parity and the new model will synch up.  Until then, please share the weird, wild, or funny things you see or hear about on social media ads!  Cheers!

Spot on and completely hilarious, I am sure many of you have felt this frustration. Apparently, everything is negotiable nowadays, eh? This makes it nice and ridiculous, for easy lunch time digesting.

Once again, I got carried away with a response to a blog post, and decided to expound on it.  I am sure this counts as real business right?

Newsweek’s Budget Travel has a great article about TripAdvisor trying to deal with the long coming revelation that many of their users and reviews are not legitimate.  This is, frankly, a huge blow to the site, and should pose a happy problem in it’s early adolescence as they deal with all the changes that come along with growing into adulthood.  Frankly, I am thrilled that this may provoke User Generated Content sites to seek the same verification model other sites have.

At any rate, this is vital to all of us, and it recalls some of my previous post (which I seem to mention once or twice):

You know I am skeptical of social media, whether speaking of Facebook’s lack of meaningful interaction, or Flickr’s nebulous TOS.  In general, I have had major concerns since my yelp research project, and resulting thoughts on ethics in social media. I had even mentioned in January that Yelp should consider verification processes.

One scotch fueled evening my jocular side protruded a wee bit and I became a prankster. To be honest it wasn’t to learn the lesson I did, rather just good fun.  I speak of the Ryan Air Twitter spoof of mine, which got considerable attention in traditional media (namely because Ryan Air claimed @ryanaironline was their account).  It  helped me realize that there is a grave concern for brands and trademarks, and both the businesses & social media sites should have a vested interest in a verification process of brands.  There is a serious risk of hijacking and damaging people and businesses, with inauthentic people (or dim ones not realizing pranks and social media can go viral) damaging a brands reputation.

Social Media is young. FB beat out myspace because it is better at replicating and verifying the real world (although it can’t actually do anything more meaningful than provide a wonderful marketing data gathering opportunity for FB, coupled with a nice phonebook)… but it was verifying that the person was the *reality* based person, which quickly attracted people to it. If you aren’t relevant to any networks, or aren’t genuine… you quickly become invisible.

As user generated review sites follow a similar path, these things will stabilize. It is very young, and still in the myspace period of fake profiles and people… but as twitter adds verification services & FB starts considering verification due to trademark infringement issues with it’s new URL program: , it will be obvious for User Generated Content Sites to authenticate, across the board. I am not sure if open ID and attaching accounts to mobile phones is the simplest way, but if something doesn’t happen quick the sites will implode through sacrificing the only thing that makes their business model feasible.  I am sure Tripadvisor has seen the start of accounts closing due to the breach in ethics.

We will wait until services like Yelp and TripAdvisor grow into the awareness of what they have created.  People sardonically jest “the internet is serious business” when it comes to this sort of stuff.  But it is.  It isn’t just 2.0.  It’s a massively powerful tool that completely reorients the consumer model, putting control into the hands of the people, and out of marketing and PR companies, possibly for the first time in capitalism’s history. The message can no longer be managed, and PR doesn’t work the same way anymore. You are only as strong as the advocates and endorsers that believe in your brand. Ethics is paramount.

The only way for these sites to continue their validity is by echoing the sentiment of their own taglines: Tripadvisor’s “get the truth… and go”, or Yelp’s “real reviews, real people”.  If they commit to intelligently policing their own site by being completely transparent, authentic, accountable, and earnest, they should be able to emerge better than before.. They might need to take a huge dip in registered users, as well as delete a lot of existing content. This open and honest method of dealing with this situation will undoubtedly sacrifice trust in the short term, but it is the only way for a social media site to maintain the trust that they leverage for business.

It will hurt… but this is an opportunity for them to re-organize into a leaner and more valid site than ever before. Most people saw this coming. Let’s hope it isn’t something they try to spin away or ignore… instead of doing what is right and being honest, while doing everything they can to curb the problem.

I admit concern about the idea of having to hire non-revenue generating staff to handle the massive clean up project, and the fact the money simply might not be there to handle it.  However, it is obvious they are quickly responding, like April Robb from Tripadvisor commenting to Christopher Elliott. I do like the warnings they put on some hotels, but it could be markedly arbitrary?

We’ll have to see.

Not sure what age social media is at right now, but it is certainly hitting a painful growth spurt.

Another “coffee break” post that has nothing to do with hotels, and is just waxing about the nature of tech, or being dorky, etc. So here ya go….

My friend was commenting about the contest, started 8th of June, giving away 30 iphones in 30 days. I was telling him, “It’s vaporware”. I know it’s has no place there, but I just adore saying it. I hear more silly arguments over vaporware comments, I just have to be part of it. Don’t get me started with “eminent domain”.  I love it.

At any rate, Iphones won’t help me with my problems. AT&T isn’t helping any, either.

However, I did sort of experiment with my phone last week, on purpose, to prep for getting the Palm Pre. I just assumed I would be getting the Palm Pre, so I wanted to make sure by really maxing out my phone.  After *despising* my HTC Touch Pro, I finally took the time (aka a day’s worth of functional productivity for my actual job) to tweak it and trick it out a bit with some .CAB files and registry edits. You have to, to get any real life out of the battery.

So, am I going to get a Pre?  Noooo way….. dig this:

On my HTC Touch Po at a conference last week (Sustainable Brands 2009), for about an hour and a half:

1 ) I had a facebook ap open (searching the speakers, etc)
2 ) a GPS enabled google maps app w/latitude looking at others in attendance
3 ) a “Word” doc for writing full sentences that aren’t 140 characters
4 ) a twitter app for twittering the conference (hashtag #sb09)
5 ) my opera browser with two tabs open (twitter search, random searching)
6 ) my text messages chatting with others
7 ) my Picture Mail
8 ) I had stereo bluetooth music playing (in one ear… I know I know – But I *was* at a conference taking notes.  I didn’t want to be rude)
9 ) while taking pictures of the event
10) while checking my email
11) *AND* using a calculator to do math on the concept of “slow money” and “nurture (vs venture) capitalism”..

That is 11 applications – all at once, with a full sized qwerty keyboard. Switching back and forth, while cutting and pasting.

The battery barely drained in an hour and a half, but I do have a spare to swap out just in case…..
That’s just insane. I am interested in what the Pre does, but for now I think I am fine with the Pro.

Like… whoah.

some of the conference pics:
carboard computer kiosk / internet cafe (cool carboard chairs and all)

or how about $450 for 10 hours of wireless at the hotel I was at?

A colleague and I were bemoaning the difficulty with modern customer service, and the fact that so many tech support numbers are no longer offered as toll free unless it is someone like HP or Dell. Per usual, I fanatically inject my own experiences into the situation, and muse about the long and wild road of in-room phones at hotels… specifically the way technological innovation and advancement has, constantly, caught our industry unaware to the point that we shoot ourselves in the foot.

It isn’t right not to have access to free phone tech for a product, but it is the way modern business is happening. Telephony has altered greatly (understatement) in the last two decades…and property level we are still calling them “PBX”. What’s more is that the IT guys at hotels are well versed enough to know just to ignore it.  I have seen one or two try to explain.. “Well the PBX doesn’t really exist anymore”, the GM will point to the operator, and then the IT guy capitulates with a shrug.

We hotels used to gouge consumers for phone calls because they had no choice, and it was a BRILLIANT revenue stream. Then came calling cards, and hotels started losing lots of revenue… and per our typical furrowed brow, it took us a couple years to figure out why. Even dial-up modems for AOL and prodigy services were a complexity to us… which is why we started charging people to call out to 800 numbers. Of course this garnered more distrust from guests about our call accounting, but it also got the enraged guest at the desk who had left AOL connected for 3 days and owed the hotel $5545 for a 2910 minute phone call to an 800 number.  I had at least 3 of those that I can remember… and those people were all completely, and totally, hysterical.  Not the funny kind, either.

By the time we admitted to ourselves that the revenue stream was lost and started charging enough simply to cover costs… hotel guests had already decided to never trust in-room phones ever again. Calling cards were used almost exclusively, and guests now have cell phones that simply makes in room telephones, for all extensive purposes… obsolete. This has been patently obvious in the last 5 years…. in-room phones are nothing more than an intercom now, which is why telephony solution providers are trying to make them into a marketing gimmick with big LCD colour touch screens, etc. What’s more is that anyone silly enough to install payphones on property has them regularly taken back out within 3-5 months because it simply isn’t profitable for the companies to maintain them.

By the way – that might be my only professional advice in this post, along side the historical ramble…. stay away from that “slick” nonsense.  LCD screen phones are nothing more than an annoyingly bright & pricey business card for in house outlets where guests are already likely to contribute incremental revenue. These phones are a gimmick, and they are part of the technological in-between period of telephony companies trying to generate need and create a new niche for them while everything swirls up in the air.  These “hubs” will become something incredibly powerful, and useful… but the new tech coupled with cost and lack of dynamic functionality (beyond being flashy) makes them a poor investment for the time being.  For now, think of in-room guest phones as IP “intercoms” for your next project, and you will save a lot of money. Heck… you may start having guests order room service online before calling on the room phone…or they may plan travel without even considering a voice call – like GPS enabled hotel booking apps, or basically just making an app to make every department available by PDA as seen at the Malibu Beach Inn. Even Choice Hotels has an incredible mobile app that not only sells their brand, but it enables an entire community of brand endorsers.

So in this panic of the phone industry changing, everyone has been hit… robots handle call volumes of humans, 800 numbers are incredibly expensive, and customer service has tanked in general because of it. In 20 years we went from fully staffed calling centers with live operators to a computer voice that handles the volume of 20 employees’ worth of labour. With cell phones all but destroying traditional landlines, they have also made the 800 number obsolete. When it is used, it is strictly for high end marketing, because no one else can afford it. It usually only goes to the departments that generate revenue (SALES) and the guys doing all the real work have the fun of not having one, then fielding complaints from already unhappy consumers that have just been further inconvenienced.

As we continue forward, I think the traditional phone will die, but rise a bit like a Pheonix – the same thing existing in a different form.  It will not only take on the traditional rolls, but also a hotel intercom, then soon to be an internet hub… and slowly integrating with other guest room controls and being not unlike the new Verizon Hub, which demonstrates that you can have a phone that is highly adaptable and functional.  Think of it as the Looney Tune cartoon “House of the Future” where panels & buttons on the wall call outside, surf the web, program the house settings, washes, cools, power management, etc.  The only thing is that we are a long way off from that kind of functionality…. and for now spend as little as possible on both ends.  As for 800 numbers, if the department’s revenue can’t cover it without impacting business, it simply isn’t a wise choice.

In the future, however, someone in your hotel will also have grown up playing around with making apps, and you will have your first person on staff managing the 2.0 of your hotel.  I like to think this would be a salaried position from a truly innovative management company, but I am aware this starts with property level people engaged with the brand that have extra time and know how.  As for the salaried position, we shall see.  I know we are all looking down the road at Concierge 2.o, and few of us might have thought that could be possible. Now with IP, Google Voice, and even browser enabled chat sessions… there is an exciting future of unending real time communication with brand advocates (returning guests) and potential clients.

These conversations about archaic forms of communication will fall to the wayside during the tremendous fervour for hotels’ future comm abilities, where we will have to adopt a more pro-active and less wary view of technology, so the hospitality industry can be carried forward by technology and the advent of 2.0 – at the intersection of commerce and the community that is selling your brand.

Basically… email has been around 40 years. Wave is a rebuild of the concept, building email as it would look with all the modern tools in today’s world. From our perspective, Wave is going to be perfect for hotels, eventually replacing outlook and slimming down on unnecessary meetings, facilitating real time business.

Watching the hour and twenty minutes was better than a sci-fi movie for a heavy eyelidded, scotch drinking, tired hotel dude. You might not have time, but in case you would actually like to know what these fractured notes are about, watch the embedded video (below)

This stuff is amazing.  I took notes.  I am a dork.  They are incomplete, and possibly erroneous.  They are certainly not words of a developer or programmer.  But I hope they help, and at least save you an hour and seventeen minutes.

And yes, the smiley guy with sunglasses is really “8)” but I have decided to leave my numbered lists with a cute smiley guy. It seems fine to me. =)

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instant messaging “see letters as you type” and you can switch back and forth from instant or email style typing

Video Here:

Basically.. in 1995 or 1996 there was some fantastic work going on with the use of html and web based programming for nothing more than esoteric or experimental purposes.  Some pretty nifty stuff arised out of that, and I am sad to say I haven’t been able to remember or find any of those sites… interactive, bizarre, weird sites that were meaningless but enveloping.  If any of you know what I am talking about… sites that are nothing more than a portal to interactive art.. not selling anything, not built for any real reason… share those with me.  I love them.  Whatever the case, below are some great usages of flash and some awesome programming.  These sites, for the most part, *ARE* selling something.  But they are fun, well done, and deserve recognition.  Whatever the case…. share your own in the comments.  CHEERS!

http://www.creaktif.com/