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How hoteliers & restaurants can start using Foursquare

This year, Social Media is all about localization and relevancy. Believe it or not, people are willing to share their whereabouts and happy to tell their friends and family where they are almost instantly thanks to applications available on smart phones like Android phones (I use a Nexus One myself for 2 weeks now), iPhone, Blackberry and others.

The concept is simple. Your mobile device can tell the world where you are located and you can "check in" in places you are right now. Usually people are willing to share interesting places like restaurants, bars, hotels, attractions but also less interesting places at first like airports or train stations. Eventually you might find that another friend of yours is also at Heathrow Terminal 5 so why not having a cup of coffee rather than being on your own waiting for the boarding gate.

Today, there are 2 clear players in the localization based online services: Gowalla and Foursquare. Both companies almost started around the same time. If you want to have some background about how these two companies were created and how their founders Josh Williams and Dennis Crowley found the idea, I would advise to read the story on the tech magazine Wired in here.

I have been experiencing myself Foursquare for more than 2 weeks since my acquisition of a Nexus One which runs on Android, the mobile phone operating system engineered by Google.

And I have to say I got used to the application very quickly and "checking in" seems natural to me now. But my wife keeps telling that I am a geek so maybe Foursquare is not for everyone for sure.

It doesn't mean that you - hoteliers, restaurant owners, bar owners - shouldn't pay attention to this new social networking site (remember how we didn't pay attention to Twitter before).

The reason: a phenomenal growth in the last 12 months that doesn't seem to slow down (2 million users this month). See stats from Compete.com below.

But also Foursquare (and probably Gowalla) brings greater proximity with your customers and has this megaphone effect which leads for the operator to offer these guys something special if they keep coming back to your property.

Also bear in mind that Foursquare is also a bit of game for users to keep checking in. You can collect badges and become a Mayor of a specific place if you checking in often in those places.

So while studying a bit more what Foursquare could really do to hotels, restaurants, I have discovered that Foursquare allows business owners to register themselves. This is how it works.

#1 Find your property

 

 

#2 Have a look at how many people checked in and what they say about your property (see the little note about blueberry muffin from Dj J.)

#3 Register your property on the right side that says "Do you manage this venue? Claim here"

You would need to register first on Foursquare.

First what are the benefits fort the hotel, restaurant, bar owners?

 

#4 Follow the steps to register your owner property and make sure you use a professional account and not your personal Foursquare account. Otherwise all your colleagues or your customers would know what you do on the weekends and so on.

So in no more than 15 minutes, I would believe you can create your account, register your property and start creating offers and all this for free.

Feel free to share your experience with Foursquare. I am looking forward to hearing your feedback and be patient as this company is still young and the audience is relatively small for now.

If your hotel are in places where Foursquare is used quite extensively like London, New York, San Francisco...give it a try now. Don't wait until your competitor does it.

Disclaimer: I don't work for Foursquare neither have shares in the company even though I am happy to receive some (Dennis, are you listening?)

My top 10 web companies of the moment (in terms of usage)

I have shared with you in the past what were my top 10 websites / web applications that I used the most without even noticing. Meaning there is almost no day where I don't have / want / need to use these sites.

I thought I should ask myself this same question today and see whether that list has changed since last year.

Let's see. Fee free to share you 2010 list on the comment box below.

In no particular order:

1. Seesmic: I use this brillant Twitter application on my Mac and use occasionally the Seesmic Desktop from public computers. Tweets and knowleged about who is talking about your brand never been so easy thanks to Seesmic

2. Google: even if I get to use Bing more often that I was expecting (pictures, videos results are awesome), the Internet giant Google is still my favorite search engine and I can't even count how many times I use it in a day

3. Gmail: it's true that my blog email address is linked to Gmail account so this explains why. I still love the fact you don't need to delete emails and the search facility is so useful

4. Spotify: whether it is morning, evening or during the day when I want to isolate myself from the open space noise level, Spotify is really the killing music application on my Mac. The quality of audio is brilliant even on the free version. The advertising cuts are annoying but it is free so i get use to it (actually I am lying as I seriously consider moving to the £4.99 monthly payment model to avoid the ads). To me, iTunes is gone long time ago (don't even think asking me for some update)

5. Typepad: this the blogging platform I use to write these lines. There is no way around it. I have considered to maybe move to Wordpress. But to be fair, I am happy with Typepad and the great service they deliver for 15$ a month.

6. LinkedIN: the King of professional social networking sites with a growth that doesn't seem to slow down. I am also very happy to see that the Hospitality industry has really embraced this site to connect to each other. LinkedIN is where I make contact, retrieve contact (emails, career progression), and even direct messages. But there is so much more you can do with it.

7. Skype: besides the fact the audio seems sometimes a bit of a let down, this video audio communication tool is so useful and easy to use that even my mum got it on her computer to talk to us and my son. The telephone is rarely used these days at home. Only for those who haven't got a computer at home (or when the Internet is down)

8. YouTube: another company with a phenomenal growth in terms of visits and yes this is the 3rd Google company I am quoting here but hey, these guys were clever enough to bet on the long term future of online videos. And they are bang on the money. One day YouTube will be profitable.

9. Wikipedia: when I have doubts about something, this is the site you find on search engines results, so I am always curious about what Wikipedia says to check my facts right (or not)

10. Amazon: I buy books from there quite often and even electronics. I even bought a magic cooking mixer for a wedding gift that was much cheaper there than retailers like Peter Jones or Dixons. Always a great service with a delivery time that is usually better than expectations.

So the question remains whether my list has changed. Dont know. I can't find the post on my archives :-(

Could hotels be greener?

I have recently received a press release from the company Clorox who claim they have greener natural cleaning products that hotels can use. The full press release is available here.

The company also says that according to recent surveys, satisfaction is higher among guests who are aware of their hotel’s green programs, while 70% of consumers prefer to patronize a business that demonstrates a commitment to the environment.

 

While some hotel environmental efforts require a lot of time and money, hotels can make small and easy eco-friendly efforts that will satisfy guests, like using green cleaning products. Clorox just introduced new all-natural, plant-based hotel cleaning products called Green Works® Concentrates that can help hotels go green.

 

A recent survey reveals that consumer prefer hotels that use green cleaners:

 

• 84% of travelers agree it would be better if hotels used green cleaners instead of harsh chemicals
• 57% say they prefer to stay in a hotel that uses green cleaners over ones that do not
• 71% of hotel guests would prefer to stay in a hotel cleaned with Green Works versus conventional cleaners

We all agree by now that we should all make big efforts to save our planet - not for us but for the next generations to come. It's come clear to me that hotels have progressed in some way with the awareness of recycling, waste usage, water usage and more.

In my last 2 weeks in Boston, all 4 hotels I have stayed in were having some form of eco-friendly signs. All of them did mention in the bathroom that if you want to keep your towel, make sure you don't leave it on the floor. One hotel (the Westin Boston Waterfront) did mention the water usage caution when using their double shower head. One hotel (the Lenox) has a 4 part bin that let you throw away plastic/paper/recycle/other. Only one hotel has the central electricity managed by the key card so basically if you're not in, not light is switch on. 2 hotels left evening light when doing the bed before I came to sleep.

Something I seriously doubt about these surveys is whether people will make a change in a hotel booking if they see "eco friendly" hotels. Today, very little information is available to the corporate or leisure traveller about the "green" thing whether you book on OTAs, TMCs, agencies and so on.

I am still waiting the time where hotels will show up their "green" certification on a self booking engine or on the GDS and you will add this additional component in your decision making process.

How long do we have ahead of us to know this before we book hotels?   

Goodbye Amadeus...Bonjour TripAdvisor

This is no secret that I don't only work as a blogger on Hotel Blogs for more than 4 years but I have also been a full time employee at Amadeus working for the UK office in Crawley (South London if you've never heard about the place before). For the last 3 years and a half, I was fulfilling the challenging role of business development manager for UK and Ireland working alongside travel management companies, business and leisure agents making sure Amadeus was not only used for Air bookings but also for Hotels.

 

When I moved from Active Hotels / Booking.com to join Amadeus in 2006, it was an interesting career move as I was a total stranger to the GDS world. I have learnt a lot in recent years. The acronyms, the pressure on TMCs to compete with HBAs more effectively when making corporate hotel bookings, the complexity of the electronic distribution channels... I have also met great people inside and outside Amadeus. Too many to mention but you know who you are. One of my last assignments was to organize and moderate a roundtable about the issues that corporate and hoteliers will face in 2010 regarding RFP, rates, billback, reviews.

It's now time to move on to another challenge and to join a company that I have admired for many years: TripAdvisor.

I heard about the company the first time back in my Active Hotels days where we were trying things out with their affiliate programme. Very quickly, I was seduced by the voice of people that this company was translating into hotel reviews. Today, TripAdvisor - part of Expedia Inc - is without a doubt a success story where consumers go and check reviews to find the best hotels for their next trip.

So you might ask me why this long to join such a respectable and innovative company. I was waiting for the right role...More importantly the right mission to be part of the ongoing growth of TripAdvisor.

With the Business Listings new initiative launched earlier this year, I thought I could be part of the launching team and therefore I am very excited to join Nathan Clapton's team in London to cover the EMEA region and to lead different areas such as Business Development, Marketing and Communication.

For those of you who have never heard about the Business Listings, TripAdvisor allows hoteliers to feature their phone number, URL of their website and email address on the dedicated hotel page like this one so that potential customers can click and book directly with the hotel. TripAdvisor in return asks for an annual fee starting at £360 per year if you have less than 10 rooms. Until the 28th February, you can benefit from an introduction offer of 50% of the normal yearly rate. If you want to join the Business Listings, find more information here. If you have any questions, please feel free to email me or leave a comment below this post.

 

 

eBay gives another try to Travel with Octopus Travel

According to Travolution, the famous auction site eBay has reached an agreement with Octopus Travel, a hotel consolidator who works with more than 50,000 hotels. 

Back in the 2006, eBay attempted to break into the travel market by partnering with Cultuzz. There is even a website called Cultbay which aggregates about 2000 offers right now. At least this is what I discovered at Eye for Travel at that time.

For some reasons, the travel category never took off with eBay. I have never ever come across anyone who purchased travel on eBay until today. Why?

I believe eBay is famous for tangible goods. Travel is not really tangible until you get to the hotel or you take the train. And therefore I would rather use Priceline to bid on a hotel room in New York than going on eBay. But that's another debate.

But let's take a look at what eBay Travel has to offer on the hotel side today.

To promote the newly signed partnersip with the Travelport company Octopus Travel, eBay offers you the chance to bid for Presidential Suites with Intercontinental Hotels. The sales revenue made will go to charity.

For instance, bidders can get a Presidential Suite in Mauritius for more than £500 at the moment (only 2 night stay though) or the Presidential Suite at the Grand in Paris for £1,200.

 
Besides, this promotional offer with a cause to support behind it, I am still unsure about the offers posted by hotels and operators on eBay. Have a look at this hotel listing and you will see a lot of offers expire today with no bids whatsoever.

Where is the Music gone in hotels?

There was a time where Music was sometimes associated with Hotels. And I am not talking about the spiritless elevator music we are used to in supermarkets, waiting halls and so on.

But too often, Music was a bit boring and all sounded the same. Until one hotel brand came out with the perfect association. Hotel Costes (with a terrible website in my opinion) is probably one of the fewest hotel brands that got recognised by its CDs more than by his rooms. The label behind the Costes collection CDs is still releasing one new CD every year and promotes successfully DJs like Pompougnac.




Back in 1999, Costes obviously was making a bet but it worked. The same applied for the famous Buddha Bar and its huge collection of CDs compilations and mixes.

Today with the right set up, you can have music in the lobby, in the bar, in the restaurant and in the rooms (remember that music played on the welcoming message on the TV set in your room).

But how come no other hotel chains or independant hotels followed up this initiative. I can see Music being one more personal touch about how your hotel brand is represented. And it doesn't have to be about selling CDs.

In 2010, you can simply register to different online music services like Last.fm or Deezer and make up your own playlist that most represent your hotel "audio" DNA.




For instance imagine I run this 30 room hotel in Florence. I come up with my playlist and export it to my website. If people want to play the playlist while browsing my site (and eventually book) they already know a bit more about my hotel.

 Text + Visuals + Sounds brings closeness to potential customers.

And then you can even sell the playlist thanks to Amazon.co.uk Associates services or iTunes.

Four Seasons recently have used a lot of YouTube to promote their hotels and they associated the video with some music background. But does the Music background is recognizable enough to relate to Four Seasons (Vivaldi anyone?).

I know there is the problem with royalties but there is music catalogue available  as well that woudn't cost you much http://www.royaltyfreemusic.com/hotel-music.htm. Besides,  have always heard that licences to play music in your hotel/ bar was not a big cost on your annual budget anyway.

HipHotels who is more famous for publishing hotel books (I own most of them) have released 2 CDs. As you can see the compilation is very diverse.http://www.hiphotels.com/music.php?cc=69.

W Hotels also attempted to create a CD collection as well. But they seem to have discontinued the collection.

But in today's digital world, you don't need to have physical support. Just create a playlist, share it with your customers in different areas of your hotel and why not have them contributing to a larger playlist.

Feel free to share your playlist on the comment box.

London Hotels get a nice Xmas gift before the end of the year

It's not even Christmas yet but London feels definitely Christmas with all decorations in the West End and also families picking up their Christmas trees to take them home.

Hotels can feel also very much the festive season and they have received a very welcome gift before everyone else for Christmas.

The hotel market place in London is fully booked for this weekend. Spanish people are on a bank holiday, the Dutch as well and many foreigners want to take the buying power they currently have with the Pound Sterling / Euro exchange rate.

Only a few rooms are available on hoteliers websites if you look very carefully.

What about the OTAs? Ae they any better to get you some rooms available tomorrow evening?

Expedia can fetch you double rooms in so called "Greater London" like Croydon, Sussex, Heathrow. Check out the results. Otherwise, you still can pay a £289 a night a modest room at the Holiday Inn Express in Hammersmith or try a £723.35 king double room at the Jumeirah Carlton Tower.

Available hotels are so rare in the city that the mapping facility gets you a very wide look at Greater London.

What about Booking.com (sister company of Priceline)? Well they show 24 hotels available in  London. You can find the most expensive (for that night) B&B Edward House selling their family room at £199 or you can find yourself a luxury 1 bedroom appartment from the Presidential Kensington at £450. In terms of what you can see on the map, hotels seem more central than their direct competitor but notice that they still show hotels in grey even though they are not available.

 

So from what I can gather, Central London will have to be avoided all weekend especially if you plan to do your Christmas shopping. The whole place will be packed. But you can maybe try the biggest shopping mall in Europe nearby Sheperd's Bush, the famous Westfield London. Happy Xmas shopping.

WTM - just like an ordinary edition

After 9 consecutive years visiting the World Travel Market - "WTM" for regular visitors - you can probably imagine that you can get a bit blase and bored by the same old stands and the lack of changes in the massive exhibition that is Excel at Custom House in East London.

The WTM is still divided in regions like Europe, Asia, Africa, America and so on without forgetting the Global Village where I have spent most of the time discussing with hotel providers, technology companies or third parties. The Monday and Tuesday are crowded days when you can't barely find a seat at lunch time to eat your £6 burger from Gourmet Burger Kitchen with your £2 crap coffee from the clueless barista in the middle of the main central alley.

On Thursday, you are fine though. Exhibitors are gone for the day probably doing some shopping in Central London whilst taking advantage of the low Pound / Euro conversion leaving other clueless people looking after late visitors trying to fill their bags with as many brochures as possible. Oh and Thursday is also "Students Day" highly recognizable with their green badge (nothing to do with environmental friendly) and their number one goal: get as many freebies from exhibitors in less than 2 hours. After 2 hours, these students start to feel exhausted and would rather go back to their computer at home and logging in on their Facebook account to tell their peers how not exciting fantastic the day was. What strikes me is to see that the number of kids who want to be a travel agent doesn't seem to be diminishing year after year. In fact, it looks like the number is increasing. Is that a good sign of how school are promoting a certain industry vs. others?

Back to the exhibitors. 2009 vintage is the year where you could really notice big brands skipping this year WTM edition.

Examples: Hilton, Starwood, Accor, Pegasus, Utell Hotels...

I believe there were more hotel representation companies or franchisers than integrated hotel chains. Apparently, they are here to make sure their hotel properties customers feel they could help them to bring more business for next year. But there is a lot of debate these days about how expensive these representative companies can be for independent properties. Some have already planned to pull out from luxury rep companies because they don't see the value they use to get in the good old days of traditional distribution channels.

What was different this year - for me at least - was the Get Funded Show organized by Eye for Travel on the 1st floor in one of those seminar rooms. 18 travel startups were invited to pitch (actually they paid to pitch) in front of angels, VCs and entretpreneurs on the Wednesday and Thursday morning, a group of people voted the best startup in terms of investment, best idea and growth perspectives. But let me write a quick summary of this specific event in a separate post...

So the question remains, will I go to WTM in 2010?  Probably yes as long as I see opportunities going there.

Oh did I forget to mention that Danni Minogue was attending WTM 2009 as well. I have missed her actually since she was late on Tuesday coming to Etihad stand...

The easy life of being Director of Public Relations at a hotel chain - part.1

I don't think we recognize enough how easier the job of Public Relations is in the 21st century.

Before the emergence of blogs, video sharing sites and other social media sites, you either had to rely on a 3rd party PR company to bring journalists to write and talk about your brand or you had to fight on your own to make sure every press release get read and covered by the same journalists.

These days, you have other options to get public attention.

Let's say you are a Director of Public Relations of a new hotel chain, you want to make sure you reach an audience very quickly and that people start to engage with your brand from the moment the hotel is opened.

How to do this:

1. You create a blog where you share how the brand was created and how you build a team at a hotel and how the development is going

2. You create a Twitter account related to your brand to make sure it is easy to remember and also SEO friendly

3. You create a YouTube, Dailymotion, Vimeo, Blip.tv, MetaCafe accounts with your brand as a username (don't forget to use TubeMogul to upload your videos in one go across all these video sharing sites)

4. You create a Facebook account where customers can become fans of your brand and share their experience

5. You create a Deezer and Last.fm account and share the relevant tunes related musically to your brand

Last but not least, you engage with all these above by being active and not passively throwing information to your audience. And then your brand is recognized and you haven't started to get recognition from traditional media.

So when you do start?

Social Networking and Travel Agents: a winning combination

In the last ten years, we have seen the emergence of low cost airlines, online travel agents and the globalization of content offering. All of these makes the work of an offline travel agent much harder that what it used to be. Can the agent on the streets survive?

The 20th century traveller has progressed into the 21st century to search information on the web in real time and is able to converse with his peers with different communities available to him like TripAdvisor, Vinivi or blogs like TravellersPoint. The behavior of the traveller has changed dramatically. She can make her mind quickly and cannot be predictable anymore. Access to exotic destinations is greater with competitive airlines fares available and no more does she have second thoughts about staying in cheap accommodation as long as she  has checked recently the latest reviews of the hotel thanks to travellers like her.

Even better, the words do not dominate the content she's after. She can preview a video of the room she will stay at, thanks to different sites like TvTrip.com, Trivop,  YouTube or Dailymotion. She can view the pictures on Flickr or Picassa that other travellers have taken at her next holiday destination. So she knows that this is the right destination for her. She can't wait to see for herself what it's like to be in front of the Great Pyramid of Giza. She can also download free audio guides from iAudioguides in her own language so she won't be lost whilst visiting cultural sites.

So professional agents almost compete with these Internet information savvy travellers. How can he re-gain trust from them?

A common thought is that short haul city breaks (below 3 days) are no longer in the hands of offline travel agents. Travellers can make their mind up and book on online travel agents like Expedia or Lastminute without spending too much time on the decision making process.

Long haul and long stays are still better to be booked with offline travel agents. Especially if you have a complex itinerary in your head. And this is where offline travel agent can add value and innovate.

They have access to real time fares, hotel rates and can generate in minutes different itineraries for you with different pricing options. Try to do this yourself online and you will see how painful the process is. Travel Agents also have their own online community thanks to sites like Vinivi customized portal GalileoOpinions or AgentStream where agents can report problems at properties, flights, transfers. They can also exchange tips about destinations thanks to TripShake and asks the question "What is the faster route to go from Bangkok to Chang Rai" and so on. The offline agent has also a name, a face and a personal experience that you can read by yourself. You can relate to this person and even contact him or her during your trip. In fact, you should be able to email him or her and if the offine agent is innovative enough, you can correspond with him via Skype or Facebook or Twitter.

The reach of travellers is 100% easier for offline agents. You just need to be geared up with the right tools and be keen to be adventurous. When I hear offlline agents in their office can't access these social networking tools because their IT director decided to, I feel sorry for them. Why take away the places where travellers exchange? Ok I hear the reason. It is to control work productivity. Really? What about phones, mobile phones where you can download Facebook applications, emails.

So here's the innovation. An offline agent can engage online with travellers and offer advice on their next trip and guess what, I am sure some will probably pay a visit to this travel agent who took the initiative to help him. And if the traveler is happy, he would probably tells his friends and family about this travel agent and why not sharing this on Twitter or Facebook. The benefit is free publicity for an offline agency employee who dared to interact online by using 21st century communication tools.

Happy agents! Happy customers!