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)

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.

I was ranting and raving about not being able to keep structure or organization with social media, so I took some time to find some useful programs to help me out.   Well…. this is pretty cut and dry:    A quick, succinct post for you to be made aware of (and yet another onslaught from) useful social media tools.  Social Media is simply a tool in itself… so they are tools for tools.  With some of my friends’ more sophomoric moments of wit… they might suggest including myself would make it a third tool.  =)

A list of 10 tools that you might know of, or might not.  As many of these lists go you will likely act as I do…. Stoic, dismissive, and blase…  I will find myself say, “I know all these already,” ……. and then my eyes humble me by finding an exciting new gem.

1) I am very pleased with Google Voice.  The sheer amount of functionality is not only superb… but it is useful without being daunting.  I do not know if this is public yet, but if you forgot about your own Grand Central account… go ahead and log in, because that is what Google Voice was built on.  Basically, among other things, the real timer saver is voicemail messages that can be both emailed or texted to your phone, and they provide transcripts that are voice to text.  Need to hear the 14th our of 22 voicemails IMMEDIATELY?  Never wait again.  Hell.. just read it.

2)  Flock browser, which I extolled here.  It integrates Digg, Flickr, FB, Youtube, Twitter, Myspace and more into a convenient sidebar… if you like a pic or article,  auto-upload from your sidebar without leaving the webpage.  It has an RSS reader that killed Google reader for me… it has a media bar that is insanely simple to use for download/upload, and I can post blog posts on the fly.  It has saved so much time I cannot even tell you…. it also remembers all accounts, I.E. 6 gmail accounts, 5 flickr, 6 youtube, 3 blog accounts, 2 FB, etc.  Incredible time saving tools there.

3)  As for the managing of multi-twitter accounts, I like twhirl.  I know there are other options, and I am all ears, but for now this provides a simple way to post relevant articles or have conversation thoughout the day from a desktop dashboard environment of multiple accounts.  When they are all grouped, I lose my mind, so I like seperate streams.

4) As for managing twitter accounts, try out TWEEPULAR. Easy bulk follow, bulk unfollow, and more.  Very cool.

Josiah Mackenzie, hotel marketing pro, blew my mind once again with his exhaustive and insightful advice in using Flickr for Hotels.  His social media plan and help is just…. wow.  Thanks sir.  Some of his thoughts will be in the social media bible, whenever someone has enough time to sit down and write one (even though it seems to change second to second).  Whatever the case, his work always gets me thinking.  This time it brought me back to the vague, somewhat uneasy marriage of business and flickr.

Something people don’t seem to want to talk about, or at least isn’t brought up too often in regards to Flickr, is their famously nebulous Flickr TOS & Yahoo Terms of Service.  I have spoken to some industry professionals about it, and am confident these are quiet concerns people keep to themselves and the kitchen table at 3am.  A few have approached it, as well as there being spirited conversations, involving multiple staff, on Flickr itself.  Just like Yelp’s notoriously vague behind the scene manipulations, people have cried foul to the way Flickr chooses to manage/delete accounts, with seemingly random application of it’s TOS.  What’s more, it seems people aren’t confident in how to use it.  Even the staff have varying viewpoints and opinions on the matter.  At least one majour hotel flag and brand that uses Flickr relentlessly (and incredibly effectively) says he goes to bed at night thinking he will wake up and the accounts will be deleted. Other groups, like craft makers, are completely lost as to what “commercial purposes” means, and are getting frustrated with errant deletion of their groups.

The reason this concerns me is because I see the most avid users of flickr talk about it being “spam central”, and people being incredibly aware that brands are *really* starting to penetrate that site.  The above linked article is from a year ago, but the conversation is incredibly relevant.  If you are still unsure, try searching “flickr” and “TOS” on Twitter Search; that is pretty overwhelming that there is a big question looming.  As Flickr hears more from the community about brand spam, when will they take those famously vague words, “Flickr is for personal use only. If we find you selling products, services, or yourself through your photostream, we will terminate your account.” into account?  When might they start looking at a brand and suggesting it is creating less of a “story”,  and creating more of what their users don’t want.

People do not want their photo sharing site to turn into a business marketplace.  It is obvious by the discussions happening about “commerce and flickr”, and most apparent with commentary on flickr group discussions about Etsy, and people using Flickr to catalogue their offerings.  That is an incredible no no, apparently.  But that certainly draws our line a bit closer and more precarious, as we don’t *really* know what hotel’s photo sharing is about.  Can anyone define that?  We do know that “Flickereeno’s” (Flickr Staff) are incredibly helpful and accessible, compared with some other social sites.  They responded inside some of the above linked threads, as well as directly to people’s earnest questions.

These are some important problems to resolve in regards to exactly what space a hotel operates in, on flickr.  Their TOS expressively forbids businesses for using it, in any way, for commercial purposes. This includes etsy people using flickr to host a catalogue, or private, personal businesses owned by individuals who are using flickr in any way for their biz. This is complex, because they are obviously lenient, and cannot possibly have omnipresent control, but they have the right to clamp down any time they wish.

In a recent meeting, we met with Flickr’s GM on an unrelated note but asked him about brands and photos, *SPECIFICALLY* in regards to hotels.  His paraphrased words are as follows:

“We typically are fine with a collection of images that tells a story”, but they are down on direct advertising.

I doubt they will forbid relevant or useful brands from existing, but there is a chance in the future that they will crackdown.  Until the TOS are cleaned up to expressively permit a hotel from existing on Flickr, their right will be to delete your account without warning or justification. As of now, their TOS suggest that they *will* do this at some point in the future, in that a hotel is not a person using it for personal reasons.

I guess the point is that it is a relevant and important aspect of a hotel social media optimizer’s job.  Use it effectively and it can be an incredible tool to help your hotel.  If you aren’t sure how, you can find interesting articles like this about marketing and Flickr, or simply use Josiah’s incredible work.  You will miss out if you aren’t part of this, and it can really help your overall social media program.

At least for now.