What Road-Warriors want in hotels?

The article of today talks about the businessmen stays, and the features they may want. The author talks about road warriors, representing the always-on-the-road businessmen. 
the article states what this specific segment is really looking for when they arrive for a week night in the Hotel. And we can read that many hoteliers think that a bed and a bathroom are enough.
But we must not underestimate their needs, it is not because they arrive late, and leave early that they don't want to have special features!
A representative of Best Western Hotels has well understood the stakes. And I agree with what she says.
It is normal and obvious today to provide automatically a High-Speed Wifi access, breakfasts facilities, but also a Parking, a TV channels program, the seep timer on the remote..
There is an other thing that will seduce businessmen, that almost spend 300 nights per year in hotels : is to have a microwave, cutlery, a plate and a glass.. without being an apart-hotel, provide their business guests these things can change their life because they will feel like doing something normal, something they would do in a normal life!


I think that businessmen take what they are given without always shilly-shallying, but that Hoteliers should be more comprehensive, and provide them tho more amenities they can in order to reduce the prejudice of "not being at home".

OpinionWell, another free resource for tracking your hotel’s reputation online

I have just read about that new tool, OpinionWell, which is a very interesting tool to observe your online reputation as a Hotel, or a customer.
Since we are studying digital marketing in hospitality, I though that it was appropriate to share with you reader my founding.
So Opinionwell is a specific search engine that uses semantic analysis and opinion mining technologies to extract consumer preference data from hotel reviews. It is more targeted than a regular reviews website.
It aggregates and analyzes hotel reviews from across the Web to give in-depth and unbiased hotel recommendations.
OpinionWell is the first travel website to provide a hotel review keyword cloud, which highlights what people are talking about - good features, problem areas, and common complaints.
It also allows users to ask questions and post comments for each of the 40,000 hotels in its database. So far it is only accurate for Hotels in the USA, but I am certain that such a website will be soon existing in Europe.
The main advantage for hoteliers is that for a fee, they can check exactly what is mainly said about them, so they can monitor their online reputation. So now I am just hoping that Hoteliers will use these new tools wittingly!


Thank you for your time,


Alia

Almighty Tripadvisor

I want to show you today what Tripadvisor has done to be even more efficient and reliable. 
Tripadvisor has added in its website a flight ratting system, when looking for a flight.
It is based on the following criteria:

• Baggage Handling - do the luggages get often lost in the shuffle, or will they arrive smoothly at their destination?
• Check-in Experience - Is check-in a 2minutes dill or a daunting experience?
• In-Flight Amenities - Can travellers expect seatback entertainment and in-flight Wi-Fi or hours of checking their watch?
• In-Flight Service - Is flight staff friendly and attentive or rude and neglectful?
• Punctuality - Are flights often on time or delayed?
• Reasonableness of Fees - Does the airline make fees clear and reasonable or do they add a though hidden cost to the price of a ticket, as 10 bucks for a small bottle of water?
• Seat Comfort - Can travellers expect a comfy ride or will they arrive with aches and pains everywhere?
• Value - Is the total flight cost worth the value of this?

Each one of these criteria is rated by travelers themselves, on a scale from one to five.

It is an great tool in terms of customer relationship management, and it offers transparency because there is apart from the rating system, the possibility to add regular comments.

I think that Tripadvisor strives to give customers and advisors for their site, as much information as possible, so they can do their choice avoiding disappointment or mistake.

The other effect of this is that major airline companies will feel watched, so it reenforce again the customers' rights. If a company has a very bad rating, it will give her the opportunity to progress.

I hope that you find this article as interesting as me, thank you for reading it!

creation of an affiliate program

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Affiliate programs comparison

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A new application with a huge potential: Hotel-Tonight

The article of today explains a new application for iPhones (and soon for Androids), that allows people to book a "hotel for tonight". That's the name of the App, and so far, it is only available for New York, San Fransisco, and Los Angeles, and it offers only 3 categories of Hotels in these towns: Hip, elegant or basic.

But can you imagine if this app is more developed?People who don't have the time or patience to comparison shop but still want a deal on their room will use it. The best target market might be businessmen, often in business trips for instance.

The way the service works is you are only able to book a hotel the same night, and for that reason, their prices seem to be better than many travel sites, and its much more hassle free to book.

Personally, I think that this kind of App will totally change a certain way of consumption people have today. If you try a booking for tonight in popular websites,  most of them could not offer you that, and it is a shame! 

Hotel Tonight sell hotel ONLY for the same night, and ONLY trough its iPhone app. Don't try to book a hotel on their website, it doesn't work!

Moreover, the app is very clever and fast to use, because it assumes that the reservation name is the iPhone's owner's one, so it permits to skip all the tedious steps of a regular booking.

Here's a video link for the readers who wants to see how it works.

I really hope that Hotel-Tonight will be extended to more cities in the world because it does sound promising!

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The new luxury landscape

The article I have chosen this week is about the impact of the Crisis on the Luxury business, and its way to be purchased and consumed.

Before that terrible economic crisis that has hit the hospitality industry these 2 years, the luxury consumtion was quite showy, and purchasing an expensive good was seen as valuable.

Nowadays, consumers seek more significance on what they purchase, than a certain standing of wealthiness. They think differently!

I can understand what the author of this article wants to explain: 2 years of crisis and economic decline have rang everybody's bell about value of thing, the meaning of "affordable" has been redefined, and even rich people think more and buy with conscientiousness.

The moral of this is that every Cloud has a silver lining: even if the crisis was terrible, it helped to keep some consumer's feet on the ground!