The UK based bedbank Alpha Rooms - founded by Jason Fry, a talented entrepreneur - is looking urgently to fill the position of Head of Purchasing Eastern Med. This is a position available for a 6 month
consultancy project, or a full time permanent role.
Ideally, AlphaRooms need someone who has Greece, Cyprus and Turkey experience in hotel contracting.
If interested send me an email at guillaume@hotel-blogs.com.
I wrote about Vinivi on these pages before. The hotel review site based in beautiful Mauritius has started to add new features on their site and a major one is the eco-friendly stamp "Green Hotel" on more than 600 hotel properties in 55 countries.
The initiative is co-partnered with different certification bodies: The Green Key, The European EcoLabel or The GreenGlobe.
This is the first initiative of its kind in the online travel space. Having said that, I already start to see an issue about how many bodies that are or will be created to certify hotels. You can already see 3 bodies at this stage. Does a hotel needs to get certified with the 3 bodies to be fully 100% eco friendly? How do you choose between th 3? How much does it cost?
Another initiative I have been aware of is the creation of CarePar aiming to calculate the CO2 emissions in a hotel. The project is led by Peter Ducker, Executive Director of the Hotel Booking Agents Association.
Without any particular order, these are some information I have found on the web...
HSMAI and PhocusWright Sustainable
Dubai Hotels double CO2 emisssions compared to Europe see article
The Carbon Neutral Company assumption on Co2 emission per night
The Greenest hotel of all on Times
Accor Accor Group's Earth Guest programme commits to Green Globe conf
On one side, you have WAYN (Where Are You Now), a leading travel social networking site founded by 2 friends Peter Ward and Jérome Touze in Spring 2003.
In 2003, WAYN received a first financial backing from the business angel Stephen Pankhurst (founder of the UK school reunion site Friends Reunited).
In November 2006, WAYN founders secured a first round of financing of $11M from ECP (Esprit Capital Partners), Brent Hoberman (ex CEO and Founder of Lastminute.com
and now Managing Director of MyDeco) and other key UK entrepreneurs in online businesses (David Soskin and Hugo Burge of Cheapflights and HOWZAT media LLP;
Adrian Critchlow and Andy Phillips of Active Hotels (bought by Priceline in
2004 for £90M), and Constant Tedder ( ex CEO of Jagex, an online gaming company).
WAYN has attracted 12M registered users (45,000 members in 2005)
Different revenue models have been implemented on the site:
==> if you want to get rid of the ads, you can be a VIP and pay WAYN a monthly fee. Several options are available from £3.99/month with a 12 month minimum contract to £5.99/month with no restrictions when you want to stop your subcription renewal
==> Sponsored Ads managed by AdRevolver, part of BlueLithium (a company acquired by Yahoo in 2007) and/or DoubleClick (acquired by Google in 2007)
On the other side, you have TravBuddy, another online travel social networking site created by the two Bjorndahl brothers back in 2005. The company is privately owned and has attracted:
1.4M registered users
75,000 blogs
20,000 travel reviews
and almost 1M pictures loaded on the platform
The business model besides the social element of the website is driven by 3 revenue models:
==> TravBuddy has taken an API from the hotel meta search engine HotelsCombined.com (one of Hotel Blogs sponsors, please visit their site) where I believe TravBuddy has negotiated some PayPerClick shared revenue
==> Sponsored links managed by the site representation company TribalFusion who publish targeted ad placement with their customers. For example, the pictures tab reveals an ad from Westin.
==> Sponsored links from Google AdSense
These 2 ventures are not the only social networking sites in travel but they both have created some nice functionalities and some decent traffic instead of being a "me too" of Facebook in the travel space. My best guess would be that TripAdvisor galaxy is far from being complete and I am sure their management team with the support of Expedia Inc. is looking for other ventures to acquire like these two. My other guess would be TUI.
After my horrible experience to book this hotel...
It's been a while I have stayed in a Malmaison hotel. Oxford was a quick destination of choice for going away from London during the weekend. Malmaison again didn't fail me with the quality of their bedrooms, lounge, restaurant and originality. Even though I have struggled to make an online booking on their website, I have managed to get a god deal with a double room from the centre of the converted prison priced at £109 per night and also a twin spacious room priced at £139. Rooms are very well decorated with good taste and they kept some features from the old prison like the door of the room. You could spot that our room was in fact 3 cells in the past. The shower room with powerful shower was very nice coming up with fantastic amenities. Also each room is with a lcd screen and a dvd player playing divx (if you bored with tv channels). The restaurant is typical of other restaurants I have tried from the Malmaison brand. A mix of French / Italian / English food with good quality ingredients. I was a bit disappointed by the breakfast buffet. I didn't found it exceptional and was lacking of croissants and pains au chocolat. £15 for a breakfast, you expect a lot usually. Finally don't forget to pay a visit to the "Visitors Room" in the evening. The room is gigantic all painted in black from top to bottom.
Definitely a hotel to recommend for your next Oxford weekend breakaway with friends or with your partner.
I have found recently that the UK leading online hotel booking engine LateRooms has constructed a special site for mobile users. Easier to read with a cell phone screen and straight to the point. Problem is how do you find the url mobile.laterooms.com ? Is there a way when you browse the site from your mobile phone that LateRooms configures it automatically to the mobile site (meaning it recognizes the site is viewed from a cell phone).
Their direct competitor Lastminute.com has closed down the service for the time being. Was it a failure? Not enough traffic?
Then, the leader in online hotel bookings, Booking.com has made it very simple. You can't certainly beat that (destination, check in date, nb nights)
15/20
Tas
33 The Cut, Waterloo, London, SE1 8LF
Tas is one of these places that you hear from word of mouth and rightly so because a friend of mine took us there last Wednesday.
The evening was quite warm and thunderstorms were coming our way. The restaurant located not far away from Waterloo and minutes away from the famous Old Vicar theater, was almost packed with people inside and outside on the terrace.
The place looked very lively and you could feel a strong team spirit behind the operations. Open kitchen, many waiters and nice food coming in and out around you. The food takes its origin from Turkey. Starters vary from Humus, Aubergine Puree, Smoked Salmon with Parsley (Tutsulu Samon) and more. I took for a main course a delicious steak of lamb with hot couscous. The lamb was cooked to perfection and the meat was really tender and nicely flavored with oregano. For drinks, we experienced a new world Malbec wine from Argentina priced at £25 a bottle. The staff is quick and very helpful when you ask questions regarding the menu. After two hours, our party of four was very satisfied with a bill of £25 per head. Definitely a restaurant to try if you are around Waterloo.
I have found out a cool blog called Office Snapshots where you can see pictures of companies offices taken by employees or visitors. There is also a ranking of the most popular offices and yes Google is among the top offices in the world.
I was also looking at the list to see if there was any travel / hospitality office and i have only found one, Orbitz. Not inspiring though.
Would be nice to see Lastminute, Expedia, TUI, TravelSupermarket and more...easy to do and it doesn't cost anything.
Interested to submit? Supply your info here.
Dunne Group
Hotels, based in Limerick,is one of the first
to suffer the recent economic distress. The entire chain of five hotels has
been petitioned to the High Court for examiner ship.
And they’re not alone…!
The new
Watermarque Boutique Hotel & Spa, Cahersiveen, Co Kerry, The Wooden House
Lodge Hotel and Holiday Complex, Co Wexford, Racket Hall Country House Hotel,
Co Tipperary and the La Touche Hotel, Co Wicklow are all currently for sale.
It seems
that competition for a slice of accommodation pie is too high and many hotels
are crumbling.
By Christina Giliberti
The Intercontinental Hotel Group (we say IHG in the hotel industry), proud owner of the most famous hotel brands in the world, announced a while ago a major facelift to their brand image. The most noticable change has been on the Express by Holiday Inn that is now known as Holiday Inn Express. We start to see more and more of the new logo with the new name on the front of hotels across the UK and I believe this was a wise move.
I have never quite understood this Express by Holiday Inn name. Neither my friends and family who are not necessary from the hotel business. They all remember they stayed in a Holiday Inn but never mentionned correctly the brand "Express by". Therefore the new brand Holiday Inn Express makes total sense. Easier to remember and it's more appealing to the consumer. Stay in a Holiday Inn but with less formal attributes and less expensive.
The logo also has changed dramatically from this
to this
I believe the new logo is refreshing and more closer to today's big brands identities. I notice it more and more when I take the train and see hotels on my journey. Is that the same for you?
Having said that, the corporate website of IHG still refers back to the old logo. I am sure it will take a while to transition to the new brand and the new name across all their properties throughout the world.
Since the opening of this blog in 2006, managing my email in box is becoming more and more challenging. On average, I may receive about 30 emails per day. Don't get me wrong, I like reading and responding to emails. After all, this is also part of the conversation. Some people wouldn't leave a comment on the site but will exchange with us via email. Which is perfectly fine.
But - there is always a "but" - there is unfortunately a lot of junk mail that succeed to pass by my spam filter. I couldn't believe when I saw all the crap I get on my gmail spam folder. Most of it is irrelevant to hotels and a majority of it is not personalised.
Above all, I receive all press releases of this world that most other bloggers probably get as well (ie. Travolution, Travel Rants, Les Explorers, Happy Hotelier or Alex Bainbridge and more). I am sure PR companies and Communication departments at companies must share some bloggers email list somewhere on their PC.
Interesting enough, Travolution is trying out for 2 weeks the publication of plain and simple - copy paste - of all relevant press releases they receive. They just mention "press release" on the headline. We all could do the same and take the risk of being spammers or sploggers by Google God because content is duplicated on too many sites and their search engine mysterious X files algorithm would declassify our blog. So I don't believe the practise would do us any favour.
Some PR companies use another tool in their box. They write to blog editors and ask them if they can pay them to publish articles about their client. Proposition like the one below sounds like a good deal but ethically, is it what a blog is about? I have heard before (mostly from traditional media) that bloggers have limited integrity and code of conduct and therefore cannot be associated with journalists.
Well, let me shout this to you once again: I would not publish an article that is paid and pushed by a PR company (or by companies directly) like PR Precision. Note that the company says "you would have a say in what content is placed on your site...". I bet I have a say because this is my website so I do what I want with it.
That being said, I am offering sponsorship opportunities like banners and direct links (please visit my sponsors on the upper right hand side of the site).
I believe in human curiosity and this is what drives me to write with passion more and more posts on Hotel Blogs. I discover new ventures, new products, new hotels, new people by exchanging with people. I also have to make a choice about what's interesting or not in these pages. For example, writing about the fact the 5* XXX hotel in London has refurbished their rooms by providing 30inch plasma screen in each room seems to me artificial and uninspiring. But writing about Travelodge UK decision to remove adult TV channels in their rooms is much more refreshing and an interesting story to develop.
There is a lot of ranking in the blogosphere (Technorati, Wikio...) that classify blogs. I am the first culprit when I was doing the travel blogosphere ranking every month. Maybe I should create a ranking of PR companies who send me the most emails in the last 12 months.
#1 M Silver Associates (44 emails...I couldn't believe that one!)
#2 Flagship Consulting (8)
#3 Formula PR (5)
#4 Allison Taylor (4)
#5 McNeil Wilson Communications (3 4...just received another PR while I was posting this article)
#6 Fleishman (3)
#7 Networks Frontiers (3)
and more companies that I can't be bothered to mention
Mr PR (wo)man, please consider what you need to communicate to us before you press the "Send" button. If the subject of your press release is not relevant to the content of the blog, you know what to do...send your PR elsewhere.
Mille mercis!
For those of you who have problems to read correctly Hotel Blogs on Internet Explorer, this is due to the SiteMeter application. This is has created a lot of noise in the blogosphere as many of us use this little widget. Things should be running correctly now. Please let us know if you are still facing the same problem.
Hats off to Thomas from Hotel Le Blason who raised the issue with me last week.
As a hotelier, would you work more in favor of:
- commissionable model, ie. the online players invoice you a commission (between 8 and 15%) after the stay of the guest (example: booking.com, venere.com, HRS.com, Hotel.de)
or
- merchant model, ie. you negotiate a net rate and some room allotment with the online player and you receive the payment of your net rates after the guest stay (example: hotels.com, octopustravel, hotelclub, hotels4u)
Please send your comments with you reasons. Thanks for your contribution.
After launching the online business portal Axiom, American Express is introducing soon
a Busines to Business community site for corporate travellers. This new concept is simply called BusinessTravelConnexions.com.
The travel management companies hopes to get some attention from decision makers, suppliers and travellers to share ideas, exchange tips.
The site is not fully functional but you can register already and you will get the news when it's open to the public.
From what I could see, let me give 5 remarks:
1. The URL is long, way too long. How busy corporate travellers will remember that name (vs Facebook, LinkedIn)
2. The website is not working properly with Mozilla Firefox (none of the hyperlinks work for the moment)
3. If my company uses HRG as a travel management company, will I be entitled to participate in the conversation in this community? Does that mean I could potentially drive away some existing business from Amex?
4. Will business travellers have the time to socialize on a specialised corporate travel community? When they will do that in their daily working life?
5. Amex has also created a Facebook page dedicated for this new online venture. 2 fans have joined so far...
AirBed & Breakfast is maybe the site you are looking for.
Created in October 2007 by three friends in San Francisco, California, AirBed & Breakfast allows consumers to search for beds available in private homes in more than 100 cities in the world. It allows you as a tenant or a flat owner to also let this spare room to earn extra revenue and please the traveller who can't find the right hotel or cannot afford to stay in a hotel.
The idea is simple and convenient but for some reasons I woudn't try it myself. It's true I am not a backpacker but the idea of sleeping in somebody' else house without knowing the people first is a No Go for me. Same applies if I would let my spare bedroom in my flat. I wouldn't do it unless I know very well the people. Having said that, I can understand that some people don't bother at all and will be happy to connect and enjoy this way of travelling.
The founders also launched their facebook page with a community of 73 fans. A good way to get to know the people before you stay at their home! Check out testimonials videos.
In terms of revenue model, I haven't worked out how the founding team makes money.
Since the failure of a merger between the # 1 UK hotel brand Premier Inn (owned by Whitbread) and # 2 Travelodge (owned by Dubai International Capital), Travelodge has decided to reinforce their management team by appointing Guy Parsons as Managing Director UK and Paul Harvey as Managing Director - International and Development. Paul will overlook the expension of the brand internationally.
Probably a wise move since Premier Inn already has put a foot in Middle East with their first hotel in Dubai.
I start a new serie of start up companies with "trip" in the brandname. See my past article.
First company to be reviewed : TripKick.
TripKick founded by Bryan Waters, Daniel Dobrott and Bob S. Turner have launched a new tool in the
travel industry that empowers hotel guests with specific room
information.
No two rooms in a hotel are the same and TripKick tells travelers which rooms fit their needs.
Want a great view of the cityscape? Want the room with a bigger shower?
Want to avoid the rooms that are right above the busy city street?
TripKick provides all of this information - never seen by the average
traveler. Tripkick also helps travelers find a hotel given a wide
range of preferences and features. Going to
New York and want a Trendy Boutique with great views, that is pet friendly? Yes, they have that detailed.
This company reminds me of SeatGuru that gives you an idea which seats you must avoid in a commercial flight This makes so much sense. From small family hotel to luxury branded hotels, it's difficult to get a sense of which room you will get based on marketing pictures. So to give more details about each room is very valuable for the guest. I remember at my time at ESSEC business school, a couple of students got the opportunity to present their venture to potential investors (that was back in 2000) and the idea was to give the ability for a hotel to display rates and availability per room. So that the traveller woudn't be disappointed by his choice. Unfortunately, this concept was too soon to be understood by the jury.
At this stage, TripKick launched in May 2008, focus on 300 hotels in 13 US destinations like Miami or New York. It would take a while to come to Europe at the level of details they are digging through but I am sure it's worth the effort. The new venture has been selected by TIME among the top 50 Best Websites 2008. The company is privately funded and bet of revenue streams coming from ad placement and reservations fees.
So one day my post on Venere acquisition by Expedia becomes 1st on Google search "Expedia acquires Venere" ...then a week later, the post is on page 3 of results. What did I do differently to be delisted from the first page? Or what others did do to become more relevant than my post?
Thanks in advance for your comments.
BBC has made this little interview with the guy behind the first hotel made out of sand. The hotel is located is Dorset and has beds, a concierge, some decoration and of course a receptionist who will ask you for £10 entrance fee (cash only). The video clearly shows one sponsor that is LateRooms - the late availibility hotel booking engine.
Is it good publicity for LateRooms? How much traffic will they get from it? Not sure. But surely, this doesn't cost much to do.
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