Hraba Hospitality Consulting

No, it’s no vacation.  It’s the loud foot stomping of behind the door positioning in the travel vertical of the modern web wars!  In fact, the positioning is more like a game of Twister, and although I am not sure anyone is going to fall, someone is surely going to get tangled up.  Is that Expedia / Tripadvisor? Facebook?  Google?  What about ITA?  Maybe it will simply be Yelp.

Here we go!

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Revelation!  I love it.

I don’t always have stuff hit me, but it hit me today.

So I hadn’t figured out why Tripadvisor’s Restaurant Reviews had recently, so vigorously, taken off.  For those of us in hospitality who are aware of our brands online, it was hard to miss.  It is vital to stay on top of all conversation, reviews, and mentions, and whether through Google Alerts, or a random internet search… you noticed restaurants began to get reviews on Tripadvisor. It’s not really a surprise, and it is a completely natural direction for a travel site like TA.  But, where there wasn’t even an option to review or add (more…)

This is a quick and dirty post, something I seem to be a fan of.

YELP IS INCREASING TRANSPARENCY

They are discontinuing the sponsored business listing “favorite review” feature which confuses the most complex of knuckleheads….. but they are also releasing their incredibly fault algorithm’s hold on hidden reviews. Instead of trying to *HELP* the user by engaging them with relevant, meaningful reviews, they are suspending the algorithm’s effort in (more…)

I imagine this is one of the first mash ups of a live-twittered conference?  If not the first, one of the only ones because this was massively, overly, insanely, time-consuming.  I do think what came of it was worthwhile, and I hope this sort of serves as a testament to all we spoke about and considered during Eye for Travel SM SF 2010.  First thing: I am not going to list contributor names here – I assume this is mostly for those who (more…)

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 (more…)

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 (more…)

The rest that is cut off (hey I am a hotel guy, not a HTML guy) says “($42/month), would you?”  You can take the survey yourself right here: TripAdvisor Survey for Owners.

I will let the pic speak for itself.  I know it’s just a survey, but I assume some (more…)

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 (more…)

Has this really happened? Have we found ourselves in the position to have a guest blogger? Oh my have we. I wouldn’t normally do this, but 1) I am always insecure about the pertinence and efficacy of my posts and would love a very, VERY smart man to bolster them, and 2) Property level employees — no matter how thoughtful, philosophical, and skilled — rarely have time to sit down and blog. Therefore, I would love the opportunity to represent some of the finer, more polished minds that are still doing the prop level grind.

So.. I present one Theo McKinney, The Concierge & Guest Service Specialist at Hotel Carlton, a Joie De Vivre property in San Francisco. In the past couple months, working on the previously mentioned “Hotels that Help” (and more to come) charity. In our conversations, Theo had offered some of the most intelligent, passionate, and competent conversation about hotel management and operations. I fear it is a conversation I stray from too (more…)

Here is something incredibly important, and widely overlooked, by businesses big and small.

It is great to be sailing, right?  Lovely 13 knots, gliding along water that looks like glass. But where are you going?  What is your destination?  I know, as it is so often stated, that it is about the journey, not the destination. Sometimes, however, you need to prepare for the course and what provisions are necessary to get where you are going.

These are questions I don’t ask myself very often, and are something I think many of us overlook in our panic to check 3 voicemails and 5 email accounts, twitter, facebook, ad naseoum.

So…. Where are *YOU* going? Where is your company — from a business of thousands to a (more…)