HOSPITALITY BRAND

Oyster.com has launched Oyster Shots , with the ability to browse hotels by their pictures and not based on where they are geographically (ie their city).   Instead, the user is invited to scroll through hotels grouped in photo categories such as:  beaches, balconies, kid friendly hotels, luxury bathrooms, cabanas, etc.  Even better, you can see the hotel's average rate (not sure how they are calculating this) and click to book right from the page.   This is getting advertised as an in-picture booking engine, which is not.  You cannot input your dates and see rates right from the picture, but its very close to being one; however, it is a very well positioned call to action.  More importantly, it highlights the importance placed by customers and retailers on getting the call to action in as many places and as easily accessible as possible.   If you are a hotelier and your website does not have a booking engine, which is prominent,  on...

I never thought it would happen, but it did.  United and Continental Airlines have officially completed their merger, in twitter at least.  Merging airline systems is a complicated, long, and tactical task.  According to a recent New York Times article , Delta and Northwest had to swiftly integrate 1,200 separate systems while going through their own merger. One would think that, at the very least, merging twitter accounts would be one easy integration to get right.  But it didn't turn out that way for Continental/United.  In the process of merging handles they have lost the over 337 thousand followers the old individual accounts had.  The new account @united only had around 6,000 followers today.  Starting from scratch on twitter would seem like the right thing to do if they were trying to set up a new brand identity, but that can't be the case when you keep the United name and the Continental livery. The photograph after the jump ...

Photo:    Some rights reserved  by  Sean Durham Why must we forget all Marketing Principles and our Brand Voice when it comes to Social Media?  My lady was stuck at an airport during a snow storm on her way home last December with minimum information.  I quickly turned to twitter to find out more; what I found was a picture of the plane she was supposed to be in, snowed in at the tarmac.  She had been at the airport for over 8 hours by that point.  I wanted information on how many planes where landing/taking off, etc. as the airport's flight status web page was not being updated.   Turns out, sometimes too much information is not necessarily a good thing when it comes to social media, you never know who might be watching.   Full screen caps from twitter at the bottom--her plane actually took off about 4 hours after the time mentioned below:

Photo:    Some rights reserved  by  Dustin Diaz When do you tell him?  A couple months after he opens his account, the "cool" wears off as he stops logging on, and not answering messages from customers.   A couple months ago I had an issue with a certain low-cost, SE Asian, hotel chain that will remain nameless.  I had emailed one of their customer service managers, and it was taking upwards of 10 days to get an answer.  I did the next logical thing, got on twitter and sent a public tweet asking if I could get a response.  Ta-Da, like magic, I got an email within a few hours, my question was not answered, so I emailed back, waited another 3 days, no reply, got back on twitter.  I waited another 3 days and nothing. Looking through the company's old updates, I noticed they had linked to their CEO's twitter account.  So again, I did the most logical thing and sent him a public tweet.   It took me 3 days to get a reply from ...

A recent study by The Center for Hospitality Research at Cornell University constitutes one of the first pieces of empirical research on the effect social media has on hotel purchasing decisions by different market segments. The report titled How Travelers use Online and Social Media Channels to Make Hotel-choice Decisions   takes a snapshot of the rapidly changing field of how consumers gather information and make their decisions regarding travel purchases, based on responses of 2,830 recent travelers.   This report is particularly helpful in that it gathered findings based on the guest's market segment and reports how a channels importance varies according to the stage in the decision process.   "Business travelers often use the hotel recommended by their company, although many of them use search engines or online travel agents for their hotel search. Recommendations of friends and colleagues are less important to business travelers than they are ...

Photo by ronocdh   Some rights reserved How much time and money do hotels spend on unnecessary services/amenities that add NO value to a guest experience and produce so much waste? VIP fruit platters / wine that no one eats Printed collateral that no one looks at Corporate contracts that include added benefits that don't get used Keeping outlets open when they are empty Unrequested turn-down treats Flowers that die A welcome gift or souvenir that stays in the room after check-out >>How can we add value and reduce waste? 

After a 3 year hiatus from the blog, I have finally done away with a"conflict-of-interest" and am back to publicly exploring the world of hospitality branding! I've spent the last couple years working in New York City as Marketing Manager at the Jumeirah Essex House , hence the conflict, but I have packed my bags and will be soon--as in 2 days from now--be moving to Siem Reap, Cambodia. So I can now focus back to my blog. In the next couple weeks I will be doing a good amount of updating to the site and its content. Stay Checked-in. The Jumeirah years were an amazing expedition into the world of international branding, of bringing a brand across geographic boundaries while maintaining and honoring local sensibilities . Most importatly I was working on-property; constant market research came from walking down to the lobby and talking directly to the costumer, or from tweeting directly to anyone who dared to mention the Jumeirah Essex House or the restaurant South G...