The dangers of Groupon promotions for hotels

Many industry commentators write that the hotel business is returning to a period of increasing occupancy, rate and yield. That may be the case for honeypot locations such as London, Paris, Rome, Stockholm, Venice or New York but many hotels in principal, and certainly secondary locations, have still to experience this uplift. For the majority of hotels, business is still very tough, and getting tougher by the month. For this group of hotels, creative ways of attracting business is a daily struggle. What place do widely distributed discounts have in this promotional activity and do these discounts result in the acquisition of loyal customers?

Easy reputation management

So you’ve got your morning coffee, you’ve logged onto your PC and the first task of the day is to review and monitor any online reviews from your customers. If this is the start to your typical day then you are probably way ahead of the majority of hoteliers. To some, monitoring your online reputation is considered the most important part of the daily routine in the hospitality sector but to others it’s either not important or is carried out infrequently.

La Dolce Vita...in the restaurant business

The achievement of first class, memorable customer service is a target for all service businesses, especially restaurants. Achieve it and you can set yourself apart from the competition. Miss it and you just become another business in the market segment that you operate in; not memorable, not different and not successful. We’re in the midst of what many commentators say is the worst economic crisis since the 1930s. Consumer spending is under stress and unnecessary or non-essential spending is being reduced or cut out completely. Restaurants everywhere are struggling and it’s not uncommon to find empty tables in restaurants where reservations many days in advance were required to secure a table not so long ago.

UK VAT rate limits tourism growth

The British Hospitality Association (BHA) stated in its recent Annual Report that the current high level of Value Added Tax (VAT) at 20% in the UK was clearly a deterrent to visitors and discourages British guests from holidaying in the UK.

Are hotel star ratings important?

This month the UK Department for Culture, Media and Sport, questioned the necessity of public funds to support VisitBritain’s national star grading system for hotels in Britain (or more accurately in England, as Scotland and Wales have their own national tourist body star grading systems). John Penrose, the Tourism minister, said: "The official ratings systems are too often unreliable and unfair not only for the industry but for the consumer." Just how important is a star rating system to hotels in today’s fragmented and information rich marketplace? How sensible is it that hotels in Great Britain can choose to be graded for stars by both their national tourist body and a motoring organisation?

A sale starts with a conversation

The best hotel sales people know the importance of avoiding the immediate hard sell and instead build a relationship with the potential customer through a series of conversations. The aim is to get to know each other, to get to know what each party wants (or needs) from any transaction, to build trust and then to move towards the selling negotiation and eventual sale. It was much simpler when the main sales channel used by hotel sales people was personal contact, letter, telephone or even email. However we now have the social media channel as part of the sales mix.

Green conventions in Vancouver

Best Western International’s 2010 annual convention is being held in the city of Vancouver, BC. Over 2000 delegates have descended on the city and have filled hotels and the Vancouver Convention Centre. 2000 delegates travelling from across the US, Canada and Europe certainly results in a significant use of resources and carbon however the city of Vancouver and the convention centre have built environmental sustainability into their business and created targets to become the greenest city in the world by 2020.

Brand without being bland

The growth of branding in the hotel industry through either franchising or the application of a global brand identity to independent hotels gathers pace year by year. It’s accepted that a brand gives you the advantage of a strong international identity and sales, marketing and distribution scale which is unachievable to a single, independent hotel. However, the adoption of a brand by owners requires the discipline of applying brand standards to the hotel’s operation and design and with that comes the risk of losing the hotel’s individual identity. There is a paradox here because it’s the independent hotel’s individual identity and personality which is its main proposition however a brand’s sales, marketing and distribution services cannot be achieved by independent hotels.

We're all critics now

I noticed a post on TripAdvisor which said that our breakfast buffet was not as extensive as the hot items which were cooked to order from our kitchen. This prompted an immediate review of our breakfast buffet as we’ve always operated on the principal that breakfast should be memorable as it’s the last food & beverage experience at our hotel before check-out. We want to be remembered as offering a memorable breakfast experience.

Foursquare - we know where you are

On a personal level, we’ve all become used to posting status updates on Facebook to let our friends know how we’re doing or what’s on our minds. Most businesses, especially in the hotel & restaurant sector, also have a Facebook page and wait eagerly for people to “like” them before trying to engage with this group of customers or potential customers. There are more than 500m Facebook users and hotels and restaurants probably do not see any identifiable benefit from engagement with the people who “like” them. If it’s difficult to measure the benefit of using Facebook as part of your marketing mix, what success does the new kid on the block…..Foursquare….have?

Edinburgh tourist tax

There are serious proposals in the city of Edinburgh for a tax to be levied on tourists staying in hotels to raise funds for the city’s investment in tourism promotion. A city is no different to a company or a country; in these difficult economic conditions, finances are stretched and imaginative ways of raising additional funds and augmenting normal sources of city funding are being sought. However an Edinburgh tourist tax, a bed tax, or whatever name the concept is called is not the solution for the city of Edinburgh.

Can your customers find you on the web?

I cannot take credit for writing this article as it comes from Seamoz.org which claims to offer the world's best web resources. Whether you're a hotel or a restaurant, your web site will normally be the first source of information that your potential customers will research before deciding whether to buy from you. But are your customers able to find you amongst the numerous other businesses which are optimising or bidding for popular search terms? To get high enough rankings in search results for your potential customers to click-through to you requires effective search engine optimisation of your web site. Here is a great guide on how to achieve great search engine optimisation results.

http://guides.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-search-engine-optimization