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The most anticipated hotel opening in London - W hotel London #1

Day -178

I know that maybe I came up with a very catchy headline but I genuinely thinks the W hotel in London is probably the most anticipated hotel opening in the English capital for a long time after the St Martin Lane.

Not only the hotel will be located in a prime location of Leicester Square by the Swiss clock but also would have all the movie premieres nearby.

We are still very far away from the opening which is scheduled to happen in early 2011 (February 14th 2011 says their website). The pictures of the site taken this week say it all.

The exterior seems quite minimalistic for now and reminds me of the W Boston in a way.

If you want to know the starting price, just go to their website as they already accept bookings from February 14th 2011. The king bedroom starts at £309 which seems to me very high for the 1st month of opening.

I have my doubts about whether they can stick to February for the grand opening.

So let's start a countdown and I will keep you updated about the progress of the development.

 

Integration of Social Media on your hotel website with Sorat Hotels

I have recently come across an interesting integration of most social media sites embedded into the main homepage of the German hotel chain Sorat Hotels.

 

This hotel chain has really maximized their homepage to show their audience how many different social media channels they can be found on.

On the right side side, they have integrated the Facebook Like banner and shows about 500 people who like Sorat. Then you have button that take you to their YouTube video account and Xing (business networking site).

See also how they publish their Twitter account with the pink button "Follow us"

On the bottom on the page, Sorat also promotes their presence on social media sites:

Twitter, Facebook, FourSquare, Friendticker (never heard of that one), Qype (the recommendation site).

And they even added the bookmarking button from Google and Yahoo.

I am surprised not to see any mention of leading hotel review sites though.

Do you think it makes sense to promote all these sites? Have you done similar things on your hotel website. Let us know.

If you are a hotel manager, show your property to the world!

It strikes me that hotel managers (GMs as we say in the industry) are still shy by not appearing in front of a camera and exposing to the world - meaning everyone with an Internet access - what their hotel property is about. How come that with an exposure which is far much easy to get today (YouTube, Dailymotion, Vimeo, Metacafe...), marketers in hotel chains or franchisors or owners don't push their managers to be the spokesperson and at least pretend they are proud of the product they are offering.

I know that Sales people in hotels are there to show to agencies/ future customers/corporate how good their rooms are, how great their conference / business centre facilities could fit the bill and so on...but seriously if all that would be filmed with the GM taking us as a tour guide of his or her hotel, that would dramatically make our life easier as a pre-selection of hotels.

Some hotels have definitely understood this by creating great videos which could sound a bit advertising...but hey the GM is here to make sure his or her hotel is filled up everyday with the goal of reaching 100% occupancy...

It is actually very hard to find genuine, self promotion videos about hoteliers on video sharing sites. If you have one that you think should be a good example of how hoteliers can promote themselves, please share it with us by leaving a comment below.

Carlton hotel expansion

Post written by Christina Giliberti

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Carlton hotels Ireland has now taken over Fels Point Hotel in Tralee, Kerry.

For months now, Fels Point's future has hung in the balance after difficulties with the Zoe Group (former owners). Now all staff are breathing easy again and seem quite happy to be part of the established Carlton Hotel Group - The aptly named Carlton Hotel Tralee.

Carlton Hotels owns a further nine properties across Ireland; Dublin Airport, Galway, Kinsale, Limerick, Wexford, Westport, Donegal, Ballinasloe and Kildare. Each, a four star, and boasting conference facilities, leisure Clubs and elegant surroundings.

Radisson Blu Hotel Berlin and its aquarium

Whilst visiting Berlin last week for ITB 2010 edition, I paid a visit to the Radisson Blu Hotel near by AlexanderPlatz where you have a lot og big commercial centres and also the famous needle radio station. The hotel has something particular - so people said to me - as they host the biggest aquarium in the world inside their lobby. So indeed, they have this huge aquarium where you can take inside an elevator from the top floor of the hotel and play up and down to see all the different fishes in this very blue aquarium.

By the way, since when Radisson introduced Blu in their brand name? I totally missed this change in their branding strategy. Any reasons why they added Blu now?

Back to the aquarium, from the reception or the bar, the aquarium is very impressive and you can stare at the whole thing for a while. So well done guys at Rezidor to make this quite unique. Here's a quick video snapshot of the lobby.

Sheraton brings a fresh look to their website

Sheraton has recently redesigned their website to make it even more "social media" friendly and announces straight away from their homepage "Welcome to our community".

Their e-commerce team has also integrated Facebook Connect. Unfortunately, the feature doesn't seeem to work on my Firefox browser. I have tried different ways to connect with my Facebook acccount, without any success.

I very much like the interactivity between reviews posted by members and the Earth globe. If you would like to see stories by genre like weddings, spa or beach, the globe tells you where you can find their latest posted stories.

If you don't have a Facebook account, you can easily post your story with just an email address. The registration form looks very easy.

Holiday Inn warm up your bed in your room with...

According to The Telegraph, the US hotel chain Holiday Inn (part of Intercontinental Hotel Group) is going to warm up your bed in your room with human blankets. Apparently, people sleep sooner if the bed is warm vs. cold. So you don't feel tired in the morning.

Smart or weird?

(Disclosure: it is not 1st April yet)

Holiday Inn Mayfair needs some serious renovation

I was having a drink last Friday with a friend of mine at the Holiday Inn Mayfair after failing to find a quiet corner at the bar of the Radisson The Mayfair.

I was really shocked to see how tired this hotel is from the reception, the elevators, the toilets. And then the bar which smells like an old ashtray with really really tired furniture and fabrics all around. I just can't believe why such a reputable brand like Holiday Inn allows this kind of hotel to be associated with their brand. Some websites classify the hotel as 4 stars. Just by looking at the reception and the bar, it doesn't deserve more than a 2 stars. I was glad to see that TripAdvisor reviews seem to be in line with my findings.

The only goood thing about this hotel is the location. But in London West End, could it be enough to attract customers with so many hotels in the area? I mean this hotel still charges around £180 per night (I have checked the best price you could get for a Saturday night in September).

I hope with the massive re-branding campaign Holiday Inn is conducting, they will also remove this kind of hotels out of their directory unless they decide to do some major renovation.

Analysis on the promo film "Freddy Frees Friday" from Radisson Hotels

Radisson Hotels part of the Rezidor Group and Carlson Hotels are going through a major facelift recently. Not only on the management front (Hubert Joly became CEO of Carlson Hotels, Jacques Dubois is now COO of Rezidor ...) but also on the online experience (their website has changed a lot last time I checked). 

What is more inventive is this short film that was published on different video sharing sites in early June announcing the fantastic promotional campaign "Friday is Freeday". That's right you can stay for free on Friday in Radisson Hotels this summer if you stay Saturday or Thursday as well. 

To promote this campaign, a 7'30 film has been created called "Freddy Frees Friday". A microsite has also been launched for the occasion.

The question is does this activity has been successful in terms of visibility and viewership. 

Did Radisson make some return of investment with the production of the  movies vs. awareness of the promo campaign?

Clearly, Radisson has been advised to distribute the video everywhere. The film and the "behind the scenes" video are available on YouTube, Dailymotion, Vimeo, Viddler and Metacafe (maybe more).

If you cumulate the number of impressions - meaning each time a visitor clicks on the video, not necessarily views the whole movie - the film has received 2,900 impressions within 2 months.

Dailymotion ==> 10 views

YouTube ==> 568 views

Vimeo ==> 2323 views

Viddler ==> 1 view

Metacafe ==> 2 views

Clearly 2 distribution channels are better than others. I am even surprised to see Vimeo clearly a big winner for the promo video. But as a whole, I believe these results are disappointing for the Radisson marketing team. When you are such an International brand, you would expect much more viewership, especially with such a professional film. 

So what did the marketing team miss? Any ideas? (I will try to get Radisson giving their analysis on the comment box)

In the meantime please vote.

Is Accor catching up in the UK?

With Premier Inn and Travelodge in a fierce battle about who will get the most of the recession - meaning filling their rooms with the highest RevPar and not necessarily the lowest average daily rate (besides their advertising campaign), Accor has finally decided to join in and has pulled out this new advertising campaigning reinforcing the spread of their different brands across the UK (mainly Novotel, Mercure, Ibis and Etap).

I must have lost the development of their hotel portfolio in the UK because I was quite shocked when I read they have 130 hotel. So Accor is definitely a strong challenger to compete with Premier Inn and Travelodge. On their campaign, they've also attacking their competitor on pricing with a starting room rate at £32 (£3 more than Premier Inn and Travelodge).

Note that Accor is pointing out potential customers to book on accorhotels.com and not on specific brands.

Finally what can bring better closeness with the Brits if you display green grass and flip flots with the Union Jack on them. Clever, simple and effective message.

I wonder who else could join the economy market in the UK. Campanile does have some properties in the UK but doesn't come even close to Accor in terms of development growth. And I am not sure they would have the budget to promote their brand in national newspapers either.