Mice at the Intercontinental Hotel Paris - how can you cope with this?
One of the most famous video blogger Loren Feldman from 1938media was participating at Le Web08 in Paris last week and found some mice running free in the bar of the luxury Intercontinental Hotel Paris where he was staying. He shot that video and hours later Google listed his website and finding on the 3rd position when you search "Intercontinental Grand Hotel Paris". I wonder how you can cope with this problem and bad advertising. Can the hotel management fix this?
Ouch. The IC employee they speak to doesn't come out of it too well either.
They need to get a camera and a pest control expert and make a film showing what the problem was and how they're fixing it. Post it as a reply on Youtube and see if they can get Feldman to carry it too. Not very sexy, but the, er, mouse is out of the bag...
Posted by: Nathan Midgley | Wednesday, December 17, 2008 at 09:36 AM
This is just a five minute problem, the news picks it up and exploits it. I believe the Hotel needs to just do their job, solve the problem and go on with business. Mice are normal on the planet, not a catastrophe. It would not help to promote a problem by showing how you solved a problem. The less you say the better.
Posted by: Andy of HoboHideOut.com HoboTraveler.com | Wednesday, December 17, 2008 at 01:15 PM
I agree. Mice outnumber humans in Paris anyway. See a mouse in an old building like the Intercontinental is not a big surprise. Having said that, this is embarrassing for the restaurant and the hotel though. I believe a quick apology should be enough with maybe a little sense of humor (after all Paris is the hometown of Ratatouille)
Posted by: Guillaume Thevenot | Wednesday, December 17, 2008 at 07:46 PM
Andy - I disagree. It isn't a question of 'solving' the problem by showing the solution, it's a question of doing targeted reputation management *on top of* the solution. Rightly or wrongly, an influential person - someone who is clearly an IC customer, and would probably be a desirable advocate - has put this in the public domain. As G points out, it is coming up third on ICG Paris searches. Are you suggesting that's just going to go away if they ignore it?
As for the argument that mice aren't really a problem, that's fine in your own home - but I dare you to use it on some big-spending luxury hotel guests who have just seen several in a public room. They won't be back...
Posted by: Nathan Midgley | Wednesday, December 17, 2008 at 08:06 PM
In a couple weeks, the blog should normally disappear from Google and get on 2nd or 3rd page. Blogs tend to appear rapidely on first page and then go back to lower rankings.
Anyway, IHG should definitely do something about it (or we might also ask Loren to add it onto Vinivi... ;-) )
Best idea would be to react on the YouTube video... BTW love your Ratatouille example.
Posted by: Gilles | Thursday, December 18, 2008 at 11:08 AM
Gilles what absolute rubbish - sorry, but blogs do not appear and then disappear in the search results. You can bet that there will be loads of links fired at that post, so if anything it'll only get better, or stay there on the 1st page for a long time.
Great post Guillaume! :)
Posted by: Gilles | Friday, December 19, 2008 at 12:40 PM
Gilles,
I have to agree with Darren.
I think this post will be there for a while.
Should we try a bet.
I think the link will stay there on the 1st page until end of January...
Any one wants to play the game?
Posted by: Guillaume Thevenot | Friday, December 19, 2008 at 06:56 PM
Whilst I have absolutely no problem with a mouse or even a rat, if you are staying at the intercontinental, you can expect more. Heck, if there was a parade of mice down the street, you'd still be expecting the 5 doormen they have standing out front to be holding back the mice. It doesn't seem like there was just one either, but several. And that is usually a signal that there are hundreds more that can't be seen (in the building). I used to live in the Solomon islands and we'd have rats from time to time because they were just everywhere. But you never ever saw them out in the open. You only start seeing mice and rats in the open when there are hundreds or thousands. So this is not something that can just be brushed aside, regardless of what I think of how it was pushed to the top of google serps or not. It's not even about public appearance, it's about making sure your hotel doesn't have a mouse plague hiding in it's walls :)
Depending on how many links that post of Loren's has, I guess it could be there for at least a few years depending on what the IC does about it. Even with just 2 or 3 links to the post he'd be good to go.
Posted by: Sam Daams | Friday, December 19, 2008 at 08:37 PM
If I was at Interconti now, I would publish a couple of nice PRs about best hotel for MICE events and put all my MICE pages linked from my home pages, it's a once in a lifetime opportunity.
Posted by: Daniele Beccari | Friday, December 19, 2008 at 10:42 PM
To Daren and Guillaume : if a lot of blogs post on this and link to 1938media, then I agree with you.
Many times, you see blogs coming up on a special keyword and then go down after a while, let's see...
Posted by: Gilles | Tuesday, December 23, 2008 at 11:35 AM
Daniele, I had exactly the same thought coming to my mind and was surprised they weren't doing any MICE prior... :)
Posted by: Martin Rusteberg | Sunday, January 11, 2009 at 01:17 PM
Good call Martin & Daniele - it looks like Interconti would rather stay quiet on this non event of late 2008...
Posted by: Guillaume Thevenot | Monday, January 12, 2009 at 09:55 PM
Very informative blog, thank you!
Posted by: ninora | Wednesday, April 22, 2009 at 09:29 AM