Willamette Valley Winery map layers

by -

So, the buzzwords and gossip talk for hotel marketing is that people want authentic, personalized experiences, and itineraries that match their mood or proclivities. It seems the rancor for packages (not from guests, but from PR and Marketing) are falling out of favor for finely tuned itineraries that meet people in their own idiom, style, and preferences. That being said, I am sharing a bunch of Willamette Valley map layers, and I hope this helps in your hunting of the perfect Oregon wine tasting experience! These simply layer onto google maps, and are easy to use on mobile. Enjoy!

Sparkling Wine producers in the Willamette Valley

No appointment needed! Willamette Valley wineries that don’t require appointments, and welcome walk-in / drop-ins!

Boutique, fantastic wineries where appointments are required / suggested

Off the Beaten Path wineries of Willamette Valley… truly some of my favorites!

Willamette Valley Wineries with Caves and Barrel Tours

Biodynamic / Organic Wine Makers in Willamette Valley

Tasting Rooms in urban / downtown Willamette Valley cities, for easy tasting!

A nice place for a picnic in Willamette Valley

Beer Tastings in the Willamette Valley

A simple, complete list of major meetings and events at San Francisco’s remodeled and reopened Moscone Center for 2019.

by -

I had to compile this for budgeting, and it didn’t really exist anywhere, simply. It’s not easy to find, so I’m throwing my hat in the ring, saying… here you go. Happy New Year, in this season of giving. Hope it helps all those sales people and revenue managers out there! =)

 

Jan 4                National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA)

Jan 13              Winter Fancy Food Show

Jan 17              GI Symposium

Jan 24              National Auto Dealers Association

Feb 4               Adobe Tech Summit

Feb 5               SPIE Photonics West 2019

Feb 12             IBM Interconnect 2019

Feb 14             GU Symposium

Feb 22             AAAAI Annual Meeting

Feb 26             MPINCC Meeting Professionals Int’l – NoCal Chapter

Mar 4              RSA Security Conference 2019

Mar 12            Ellie Mae Experience

Mar 12            Molecular Med TRI-CON 2019

Mar 18            GDC19 Game Developer Conference

Mar 26            Strata + Hadoop World

Apr 1               GMSS 2019

Apr 1               Oktane 19 User Conference

Apr 8               LendIt FinTech

Apr 13             NPC19 American Planning Association

Apr 28             Marketing Nation Summit

Apr 30             DockerCon 2019

May 1              California Democratic Party

May 8              Heart Rhythm 2019 40th Annual Scientific Sessions

May 18                        APA Annual Meeting 2019 American Psychiatric Assn.

May 21                        Pulse 2019

May 29                        TraileadX Developer Conference

May 30                        PCBC Pacific Coast Builders’ Conference

Jun 7                American Diabetes Association

Jun 14              Bay Area Women’s Summit

Jun 20              ASM Microbe 2019

Jun 24  9:00 AM          9th Edition of International conference on Environmental Science & Technology

Jul 9                 Semicon West 2019

Jul 24               NSTA National Science Teachers Association

Aug 12             Jenkins World 2019

Aug 13             League of California Cities

Aug 26             VM World 2019

Sep 4               ADA American Dental Association

Sep 16             OracleWorld 2019

Sep 24             Cardiovascular Research Foundation

Oct 2                Boxworks

Oct 2                Disrupt San Francisco

Oct 12              American Academy of Opthalmology

Oct 19              Congress of Neurological Surgeons

Oct 26              American College of Surgeons

Nov 8               National Association of Realtors

Millennial Traveler Data from the last 12 months

by -

I had compiled this for our marketing plan. The data is a few months old, but still relevant. I’m sharing it, because our industry should probably lay off the stereotypes, and misunderstandings, of what is soon going to be the largest market for business.

This Millennial Traveler data is vital to informing us about our future audience, and understanding how to reach them.  We are watching for better segmentation on trends to denote which audience is reaching affluence, but it seems the typical millennial traveler uses most discretionary funds for both travel and experience.  Instead of considering the millennial generation as a younger group, the data shows they are both maturing, settling down with families, and becoming a large market share of the business travel that supports part of our business.  They will make up 75% of the work force by 2025, and currently account for approximately 45%.  Millennials plan to travel more, compared to baby boomers (52.8% vs 32.1%), and they also plan to increase their travel spending vs boomers, as well (58% vs 41.3%). 

This is due in large part to their inability or lack of desire to buy material items like houses or cars (and 44% of millennials go so far to suggest owning a car is a “hassle”.  They are a sophisticated and cynical group of people who desire genuine and authentic experiences, exploring and discovery, and like some adventure, and fun, even when at work.  In this, they like new moments, and experiences, versus typical brand loyalty and points programs.  They will even invest in themselves to be healthier, as there is an understanding that it reduces long term personal costs, so wellbeing, fitness, health related wellness programs will make inroads with their interests.  They eschew traditional advertising, and are more skeptical of anything that isn’t authentic, genuine, or transparent.  They want to be able to share and tell the story of the brand, so cultivating the strength of our hospitality’s core amenities and offerings will help make the story diverse, and layered, so that they continually engage with the hotel and the idea of the brand, and its hospitality.

Millennials are spending, annually, more than $200 Billion dollars on travel experiences, and the data suggests future increased frequency correlating to their professional security.  They are motivated by interesting destinations and authentic experiences.  It is true that data suggests 44% of millennials prefer rentals to hotels, but that means 56% prefer hotels.  What’s more, the striation of classes of service mean we can already exist as a special occasion event for a millennial, *during* a typical “rental” vacation.  There’s growth in vacations where guests stay in multiple properties or units, and we can be tied to much of those road trip travels.  However, the rental agencies like AirBnB seem to understand the millennial drivers better than our industry, and therefore lower to mid-range hotels have felt a pinch, while upper segment properties have not seen rental groups eating into revenues.  There’re still economic struggles for millennials, from student loans, to making less than their parents.  This, coupled with a thrifty mindset, has 1 in 3 millennials still living with their parents.  These people born between 1982 and 2004, 18-35 years old are the future leisure and business, and it will be extremely important to note the affluence and rise of the affluent millennial traveler in the next 1-3 years. 

There is a profoundly simple approach to planning for the new millennial traveler, which will simply become “our traveler”.  They want a personalized journey, considering each individual’s unique preferences. Personalization will be vital in tailoring experiences based off of budgets and interests.  Part of the personalization will be understanding the traveler, and guiding that guest to hidden gems, bustling neighborhoods, and interesting attractions.  Eventually, we’ll want to cater to their desire for trip planning technologies to engineer a more seamless itinerary, and have our digital platforms engage and find value in each stage of the booking cycle.  It is also important to note, currently, millennials have a far shorter booking pace than typical, general audiences.  We can help plant the seed of longer booking windows by integrating with trip-planning platforms, or social sites that let them “carry” our brand around with them digitally until the moment they want to interact with, and book, the property, at their leisure.  Part of delivering that authentic experience is understanding personalization, and available data, such that we can constantly deliver tailored experiences that maximize their perceived value.  One of the reasons that millennials gravitate away from vacation rentals is the consistency of branded items and experiences, which positions authentic experiences and experiences like [our hotel] extremely well for the future.

How do you talk to Google and Tripadvisor about a mistake they may be making: Google search is directing people to one town, instead of all of them.

by -

In short, “Napa Valley” is being hidden by Tripadvisor, and almost all searches end up in Napa, the city.  This means 30 hotels are being listed, when there’s 65 options throughout the Valley, and the searching consumer may not be savvy enough to understand “Napa” isn’t the region, but just the city (as proven by search terms and keywords).
 
Pardon the lengthy data filled email, but it’s likely quite important. Let me know your thoughts, and happy to e-meet you, with a deluge of information. =)  Some of the data was sent to a rep at Tripadvisor, but I never got an answer. Maybe you’ll have better luck!
 
–——–> Here we go more in depth, in the hopes of being able to gain a dialogue with Google or Tripadvisor in some manner:———————–———————————>
 
“Napa” is the town. To the uneducated world, it’s the region, and likely used interchangeably with “Napa Valley”. People booking probably don’t realize when they are searching “napa hotels” that they are only seeing a limited option for the valley, as they look solely at the city alone.
 
 
The Napa city listings: Page one is 30 Napa City hotels, Page 2 is B&B and VRBO/AirBnB type Napa City (NOT VALLEY) listings. —> https://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotels-g32766-Napa_Napa_Valley_California-Hotels.html
 
 
St. Helena’s Wine Country Inn doesn’t (obviously) show up in Napa city listings.  But it does show up in the listings for **NAPA VALLEY** hotels, not St. Helena. WCI is the #14 hotel out of 65 in *NAPA VALLEY*. But this page of listings is nearly impossible to find in google search or on the website –> https://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotels-g580460-Napa_Valley_California-Hotels.html
 
 
Not knowing how normal people use TA, how the heck does a user end up on Napa Valley vs “Napa”??  If one was to ignorantly search for “Napa hotels” in google, the 1st Tripadvisor link that comes up is for the 30 hotels in Napa, and bypasses completely the “Napa Valley” region page (see image below).  I can’t imagine how many people are shocked by how big the region is when they finally arrive.
 
 
You also have the data, but in looking at search terms, Napa far outweighs people being educated enough to use “Valley” in their search term, unless they are from the Bay Area.  So Napa City taking all the searches is limiting the exposure of the entire Valley to first time or uneducated searchers/consumers.
 
Data is here, but pics below:
 
 

Most people aren’t aware of the difference between Napa Valley and Napa the city. It’s interchangeable, and consumers are missing out b/c of this.

 
The below page (#1) is when you look at California on TA. link: https://www.tripadvisor.com/Tourism-g28926-California-Vacations.html
 
I get it is “cities”. But Napa is 30 hotels.  Shouldn’t this page lead to Napa Valley hotels, and not just Napa city hotels?  It’s losing the consumer a lot of options.
 
 

#1

 
 
 
 
 
Then, If you are on the Tripadvisor California “popular destinations” (screenshot #2), to confirm that people think “napa” and “napa valley” are the same, an engineer or someone who doesn’t get the area has the listing as “Napa” and it leads to the Napa City page of 30 hotels. That misses out on 35 other world class, far better properties in the Napa Valley page. And Napa Valley is the destination.  Very few people want downtown Napa…. but you’re site doesn’t give any inkling or info that they are looking at the city vs the larget community they definitely want.
 
 
#2
 
 
Then (screenshot #3), when you search google for “Napa Valley Hotels”, the link that pops up is Napa city hotels, just 30 vs the Napa Valley page with 65 hotels. This is likely my biggest issue.
 
So, the question… when and how would someone *EVER* be able to find that Napa Valley hotel page with 65 hotels?
 
It’s not from organic search. It’s not from drilling down from California, either via city links or popular destinations… TA search seems to take you there, but with so much info on the pages, I am sure people get lost quickly, and don’t search.
 
The main issue is education: people use napa to mean napa valley, so it’s not likely they find it there too often.  So if nothing else, tell me how a user would find that Napa Valley Hotel page?
 
 
#3
 
 
 
 
I’ve spent quite a bit of time trying to find it normally through all sorts of search, and it’s a mystery to me. I can only find it by backing out of one of our hotels on the hyperlinked and tiny menus (screenshot #4), or if I am a savvy in the know traveler, through your little search bar, when I know to use the term “Valley”.
 
Where and how would someone ever come across the “Napa Valley Hotel” page???
I’ve got to assume your data shows the traffic to Napa vs Napa Valley is far greater, while Napa Valley has more selection and better hotels.
 
Just curious if this was a UI decision, or it’s a mistake that can be fixed. THANK YOU FOR LISTENING!
#4

Giant tech and their “hacker”-solutions to everything, without actually consulting businesses. Being upset isn’t the right move.

by -

So we know there’s “Hacker-Fares” on Kayak. Not too big a deal, considering that airlines are a commodity, and they don’t care if you book one way, round trip, etc.  They’ve got their game, and you can play by it, or fly another airline.  Kayak realized that, and created a service for users that further plies away loyalty from airlines, and gives it to Kayak for doing the “heavy-lifting” in finding the most convenient flight path, rate, and times, for a consumer.  But that’s why airlines are commodified.  You’ve heard my concern over hospitality ending up in the same boat, uhhh… err.. plane.

A revenue manager friend recently brought up the advent of “Hacker Rates” on Kayak. It’s smart.

“If there isn’t a room with a stay through, the site books whatever is available at the same hotel but different rooms types to create a consecutive stay.”

This is one of those moments where technology is answering a question no one asked, because no one thought our service industry was up to the task.  A lot of the time, tech is answering questions no one asked because they are irrelevant and needless.  However, this one has merit, and from an operators perspective, we are missing the boat on this one.  The amount of revenue lost because a consumer can’t book multiple night stays at a hotel that has availability both nights, is worrying.  Yes, room moves are annoying to the guest, as they are operationally costly.  But what if you had a guest, on the front end of the experience, that was able to be educated about their room move, to the point of making it operationally expedient and simply to move them, because they were prepared?  Well, Kayak’s Hacker Rates are attempting to do that.

There *is* one single booking engine that I have ever come across that can book a stay (say three nights), that will convincly educate the online booking guest that “you are switching rooms” and makes it VERY clear the there is a room move after the first night.  At the same time, it easily books the room across multiple nights in various room types.  If your hotel has inventory across multiple nights, why should different inventory be a road block to completing a reservation?  No guest is going to search so they find they can book 3 different reservations in a 3 night stay, as if this was some bespoke reservation opportunity. This small, limited service hotel in Oregon Wine Country is the only time I’ve been hand held through a booking engine that made it clear I was switching rooms due to availability.  But that may be the issue with independent boutique properties…. they don’t have a voice in the greater industry.  But I sit here, and I am trying.

This variability concept reminds me of what might be my favorite website in history, called “hackertable”.
 
Simply:
 
The guy who made it listed all his favorite high end Bay Area and Wine Country restaurants on Opentable.
 
Whenever you load his site, it would “scrape” opentable” for those restaurants’ open/available reservations.  Even the most popular spots in the city, whether hip or high end, have last minute cancellations.  Those cancellations get immediately relisted on Opentable.  So while you may never think to look for a Friday night reservation at Flour and Water or Al’s, or State Bird, or Sons & Daughters…. one of those might have one that came up last minute.  Obviously…. if you wanted to go to a specific restaurant at 7pm, of course you can’t. It’s booked.
 
But if you didn’t mind going to one of the 20 best restaurants in the city, within a few hours, it would return a huge host of options.  Basically because it was scraping those opentable reservations that appeared at the last second due to cancellations.  From 2009 through 2016 I looked like a FREAKING WIZARD.  Any of the most popular and tasty spots would have last second rez, as long as I didn’t care if it was in the Mission or the Marina, at 6pm or 8pm.
 
In the end, the guy who made the site got some big job, there was some “stack overflow” that crushed his site, and he decided he didn’t have time to rebuild it. He never even monetized it. It was just there for friends and in the know people.  I’ve tried to ask him to rebuild it, and never got a response. I’ve even thought of learning, but I don’t have time.  I miss it so much.
 
Anyhoo…. our industry’s inability to pioneer and innovate, with scale, means we are now losing revenue and opportunity to yet another tech company.  There are “hackerfares” on kayak for airlines, so I am not surprised they figured this out.  It’s smart, but it’s yet another way we don’t even know how to control our inventory.  It’s frustrating and disappointing.
 
For example, even from a customer service and human perspective, booking a 3 night stay across multiple room types, with room moves, is relatively complex, and labor intensive, that is prone to error.  Now we’ve an algorithm doing it for us, without the opportunity to educate the guest, or allow us to be accountable to the process.  That’s a problem.  IE, are those multiple reservations from Kayak, while Kayak sends a single confirmation along to the guest? Because a PMS, and almost every booking engine, won’t know how to make one reservation with multiple room types  & moves. So……..
 
…….that’s going to be yet another operational issue at hotels.  We don’t even get the chance for customer service, nor hospitality, nor educating, nor warning our guests.  We’ve lost control, again, to another tech company who doesn’t really care about the business so much as taking our revenues.  There’s the joke about hotels not being tech people, but we’re at the point that reservation managers became revenue managers who are now basically data scientists.  Whether we like to think of ourselves as hotel people, we’re going to be forced into being tech experts, whether we like ti or not.  Those who prefer not to understand this? They will be vestigial, antiquated, forgotten aspects to what is an already ancient business.
 
 
HOW AWFUL IS THAT FOR OPS?
 
Could you imagine a restaurant not being able to manage their floor? Jeez.  But here we are, watching technology write checks that operations has to cash.  It’s not going to stop, so I suggest we stop chasing these giant companies, and fall in line with figuring out the most successful and convenient ways to service our future guests and make them happy.