Hraba Hospitality Consulting

Unfortunately, Twitter and user generated review sites seem to have a lot more ROI, interaction, and traction than Facebook — which is only unfortunate because it seems they get less attention than Facebook.  Unlucky FB users, on the other hand, are stuck in the loop of hating Facebook, while being completely incapable of escaping it. People are already asking if Facebook actually has a monopoly, and whether it should be managed as a utility.  I don’t like that conversation, because it’s like we are giving up on the obvious fact – there could be something better.  Until then, we need to stay on top of this poorly conceived, and inherently damaged, network.

There is a big discussion going on about the equity of attention in social media, and that curating attention is more important than posting information.  Curation is a fine line, and studies have (more…)

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 (more…)

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 (more…)

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 (more…)

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 (more…)