Hotel Blogs by Guillaume Thevenot

A corporate blog without writers

You hardly hear when web 2.0 initiatives didn't work for a company. Well, I might have found one.

The tour operator Thomson, part of the TUI group, did launch its blog Thomson Holidays Blog a while ago (probably in 2006 if I remember) but I haven't seen any new post since 2007.

The blog still exists but you can't find any old posts apart from some rather strange dull posts about the movie Ratatouille.

I would be interested to understand why this didn't work for the operator.

John Kent (Founder of YouTravel) and his blog

I was glad to discover that another key executive figure in the online travel space has opened his blog.

John Kent - former founder of MedHotels acquired by Lastminute in 2004 for £22.6M - has decided in 2006 to develop another "bedbank" called YouTravel with the help of VC funds from Barclays Ventures.

John has set up his blog around the time of the WTM last year in November. Interesting to see his background and how well he's been succeccful in his previous businesses. He also has a website about him here.

Last post he wrote was about the appointment of Graham Nichols at the position of Group Managing Director for YouTravel (Graham is ex Worldspan VP EMEA).

- For bloggers - BlogIt

I have just read that Blog It is a new free application available on Facebook who let you update your blog via the social networking site environment.

Blog It supports TypePad, Twitter, Blogger, Livejournal, Movable Type, Wordpress.com, Wordpress.org, and more.

The Prem Group's Managing Director writes his blog

The Prem Group - an Irish company who owns hotels in Ireland like Days Inn or Premier Suites or other franchises hotels in Europe like the Holiday Inn in Calais - has embraced Web 2.0 by getting their Managing Director Jim Murphy writting a blog. Jim Murphy's Blog covers topics such as updates about his hotel  and real estate company but also gives some insights about hotel and tourism trends (check out the controversial post "Antwerp is the new Paris"...).

Jim, welcome to my list of Hoteliers' Blogs.

A new blog for Marriott

After launching sucessfully last year Bill Marriott' s blog "On The Move", Marriott Hotels has decided to expend this initiative with Brad Nelson, their  vice president culinary and corporate chef. Since January 08, Brad has been sharing his observation around the food industry and what he does for Marriott on his blog Marriott in the Kitchen. The blog structure works well with RSS feeds, comments box, search engine, "email me" post notification and different tags filters. A good job from Marriott again.

Hotel Murano & Hotel Murano

I have talked about the Murano hotels in Paris and Marrakesh on these pages exactly a year ago.

I have discoved that the United States also have their Murano hotel property which doesn't seem to have any link with the others. The Murano hotel in Tacoma (a former Sheraton hotel) in Washington state, is part of the group Provenance Hotels and features a modernist boutique style property.

The property even has its blog "The Looking Glass" written by James and Dale.

I guess that the "Murano" brand / name cannot be protected of copyrighted...

A new hotelier's blog - Grand Hotel in Torquay

I am always in search for new hoteliers' blogs. Not many hoteliers have embraced this social media phenomenon.

But the Grand Hotel in Torquay definitely did. You can spot their blog from the homepage of their website. Last post is about "the day in the life of the Manager at the Grand".

Blogs Ranking - another view at it

Inspired by the Long Tail concept from Chris Anderson...

Unofficial Travel / Hospitality Blogs ranking - Nov 07

As promised, find below the updated ranking of Travel / Hospitality blog ranking according to Technorati criteria. This ranking was made of data taken from Friday 23rd Nov 07.

You can see the symbol H in pink on the left side to feature blogs which are mainly Hospitality related. The country flag represents the language mainly used by the blogger(s). And the arrow - up or down - to follow the ranking compared to last month according to the Technorati Authority. I have also added the last ranking of July 07 so you can follow if your blog has gone up or down and who has taken your place.

8 blogs have been added to the ranking (thanks to your submissions in July):

ADV Italia
El Blog de Juan Sobejano
Todo Sobre Safaris
Intermundial
Locura Viajes
Top Rural
Dimitrios Journeys
Hotel Warrior

To our disappointment ( and I can't really explain this) most of our blogs have been down in the ranking. Only 7 blogs have improved their ranking. Not sure what's going on at Technorati. I still wonder the validity of the results. But to my knowledge, there is no other way to rank blogs (or is it?).

Top 10 blogs are mainly collaborative blogs with exceptions like Les Explorers written by Claude Benard, UpgradeTravelBetter by Mark Ashley or Blog de Viajes by Jorge Gobbi.

Finally, I am still surprised to see corporate blogs way way down the ranking like Window Seat or Thomson Blog. Does that mean these blogs don't get traffic? I am sure they are getting some good traffic if they are linked correctly on companies main websites. Again Technorati doesn't measure traffic but how blogs are linked to each other.

If you have comments on how to improve this ranking, let me know. Again, if i have missed your blog, submit it on the comments box.

Click on the picture to make it bigger and more readable.

 
Technorati Tags: travel blogs ranking, technorati, travel, hotel, hotels, hospitality

The Unofficial Travel Blogs ranking coming out tonight!

I haven't worked on the Technorati travel blogs ranking since July. Tonight, I will disclose the latest results.

You'll some big difference compared to this summer.

Update: will publish the ranking tomorrow morning. Still some work to do regarding new blogs I need to add on the list.