“How is everything going with your stay?” the doorman asked as I waited for a taxi.
“Oh, fine,” I said automatically. But wait—it wasn’t fine. The hotel had lost my reservation, and my room had been downgraded. Eventually they had sorted things out and had offered to move me, but by then it was too late.
But he asked, so I told him.
“I’m very sorry about that,” he said. “Is there anything we can do to make it up to you?”
“No, no … Actually, yes. I could use a late checkout.”
“Let me see what I can do.” He left to make a call.
A moment later, as I was climbing into a taxi, he hurried over. “Will 2:00 work?”
“That would be perfect.”
As the taxi pulled away I reflected on the interaction. How is everything going with your stay?, he had asked. It’s a question asked all too rarely, and yet it strikes me as one of the most important a hotel can ask its guests these days.
Why? Because if there’s a problem, they can try to fix it before the guest departs. If everything is fine, it’s an opportunity to engage the guest or even to find a way to enhance his or her stay. Yet most hotels wait until checkout—or don’t ask at all.
They say reputation is what people say about you after you leave the room. For hotels, reputation is what guests say after checkout. Increasingly, travelers are voicing—and seeking—opinions on review sites and social networks, propelling reputation to a level of importance that rivals price, location and brand in influencing purchase decisions.
There is much hotels can do online to manage reputation: monitor feedback, share helpful content, respond to reviews. But above all reputation management starts on property. If a hotel isn’t consistently meeting guest expectations, it won’t matter how smart its sales, marketing and revenue management activities are, it will have a difficult time attracting new and repeat guests.
Here’s a look at some of the essentials of offline reputation management. Continue reading →
For many, stepping in front of a crowd to speak is about as appealing as stepping in front of a speeding train. And yet if you can whip those nerves into submission it can be an enjoyable, enriching experience—sometimes even for the audience too.
I have a long history of fear and humiliation when it comes to public speaking. During a play reading in high school, when it came to my part my classmates turned to discover I had fled the room. Ever since, that has seemed like the most sensible option.
And yet in the past year I’ve given over 50 presentations. I still have lots to learn, and the moments of sheer panic haven’t fully gone away. But I’ve learned a few techniques that help give me the confidence to face the crowd.
Cram like it’s exam time and you’ve been partying all semester
The upside of terror is it compels you to prepare fastidiously. Some people think they can wing it, but few can pull it off. Would you “wing” writing a magazine article? A presentation takes a similar amount of thought and preparation. If you don’t inform, entertain or inspire your audience, they’ll want their hour back.
Tell a story
Write the presentation out like a story with a beginning, middle and end, and then build your slide deck. Applications like Prezi can help you make a slick presentation, but flashy graphics can be distracting, and the other presenters might hate you a little bit for showing them up. Focus on delivering great content.
Alexei Kapterev covers form and content brilliantly in Death by PowerPoint (see above), so all I’ll say is this: highlight key points on screen with a few choice words and powerful images, and then narrate the story with a personal anecdote and lots of examples. Practice, a lot—before the mirror, your family, your teddy-bear collection. Continue reading →
For some time now I’ve been citing Nielsen’s 2009 Global Trust in Advertising survey in presentations, so I’m happy that an updated survey has just been released.
It’s rare to see a survey of this magnitude: over 28,000 internet respondents in 56 countries were asked about sources of advertising they trust. At the top of the list came “Recommendations from people I know”, with 92% indicating they trust them “completely” or “somewhat”.
No big surprise there. What’s interesting is that the second most trusted source is “Consumer opinions posted online”, at 70%. That ranks above even editorial content, at 58%—down from 69% in 2009.
It's understandable that consumers have a high trust level for other consumers. They're "people like us", and they aren't trying to sell us anything – well, not usually. But why do we trust the opinions of strangers more than professional journalists? It's quite a statement, especially when it comes to travel.
Meanwhile, trust in traditional advertising has declined. Advertising on TV and in magazines comes in at 47%; newspapers at 46%.
Trust in online and mobile advertising has increased, though it remains comparatively low. Those cleverly crafted email blasts you’re issuing? 50% don’t trust them, even though they opted in. Those tried and true cost-per-click campaigns? 40% trust factor. Ads on social networks? A paltry 36%.
Now who’s to blame for this deplorable lack of trust in advertising? Hmmm …
But this isn’t a blamestorming exercise. The question is, how to adapt? And is advertising a complete waste of time and money? Continue reading →
The secretive Google X lab just released this video introducing Project Glass. Essentially these are glasses with a computer discreetly embedded into them. A stream of information is projected onto the lenses and the user controls what he sees with his voice.
This is just a prototype. There's no word on when they'll be released.
Cool and scary at the same time. I foresee a ban on using them while driving. Even using them while walking might be perilous. But imagine, you could secretly be watching a movie while pretending to be listening to a boring presentation.
And the potential as a tool for travelers is virtually unlimited. Augmented reality applications for smart phones like TripAdvisor's Live View and Yelp's Monocle essentially place local business listings, reviews and a GPS navigator into the palm of your hand. Project Glass places that and more — camera, search engine, video phone etc – a virtual concierge on the bridge of your nose.
And perhaps one day directly into your eyes in the form of a contact lens. Continue reading →
I first noticed something was amiss while planning a trip to Atlanta last week. In a search of hotels on TripAdvisor, the Marriott turned up at the top of results.
Nothing against Marriott hotels, but they rarely appear at the top of TripAdvisor’s Popularity Index. Nor do they want to, I suspect—upholding such high expectations is expensive.
Sure enough, upon closer inspection I saw that the Marriott Downtown is ranked #67 of 197 hotels in Atlanta. So how did it catapult to the top of results, shoving more popular hotels down the list? And, more importantly, can your property do the same?
Recently, TripAdvisor made several significant modifications to the scope, organization and categorization of content on the site. I’ll address other areas in a future post; today I want to focus on its increased integration with Facebook.
Not only has TripAdvisor jumped into bed with Facebook, they’re now spooning and blowing sweet nothings into each other’s ears. Considering TripAdvisor’s 50 million+ unique monthly visitors and Facebook’s soon-to-be 1 billion active users, as marketers we need to get in on the action.
To understand the changes, it’s helpful to explore the site from the traveler’s perspective.
If, like me, you’re one of the 57 million TripAdvisor members who use Instant Personalization to connect to your Facebook profile, you're used to seeing friend activities pop up in searches.
But now you can sort search results by "Friends first" so that hotels your friends have reviewed—or merely liked or checked in to on Facebook—show up first. Regardless of whether reviews are glowing, tepid or blistering, these hotels will occupy the coveted top spots.
The changes are part of a larger trend: the increased socialization and personalization of search. This has been made possible by two factors: 1) the willingness of consumers to share experiences and advice; and 2) the growth of social networks as platforms for exchanging this information. Continue reading →
Thanks to social media, the role of the hotel manager has gotten a lot more complicated. How are they faring so far?
Well, who hasn’t received a friend request in recent months from a sheepish GM who has finally accepted that this Facebook nonsense isn’t going away?
Social media, and review sites in particular, now play such an important role in how travelers make decisions and share experiences it would be negligent for the Fearless Leader not to have a least a basic understanding of how the major channels work. And there’s no better way than to climb into the driver’s seat.
Granted, some hotel staff would prefer their GM stay as far away from the steering wheel as possible. And isn't a GM’s time better spent kowtowing to guests and haranguing employees than crafting cutesy tweets about doggie VIP packages?
No question. But at a minimum he or she should be providing strategic direction and ensuring that guest feedback receives proper attention and social activities are focused, on-brand and, well, not flakey.
This week for the first time I attended Eye for Travel’s Social Media Strategies for Travel conference at Hotel Nikko in San Francisco. I arrived feeling a bit skeptical, fearing I’d be mobbed by fanatics drunk on social media Kool-Aid. But I was very impressed overall by the caliber of speakers, content and attendees.
Here are a few speaker remarks and content that stood out for me, in order of appearance. I’ve included their Twitter feeds—these are good peeps to follow.
·I don’t like the word “trend”. If it’s a trend it’s already too late. I call them “Looming Social Inflection Points”. They include: less social media bragging and more useful insights; less mass publishing and more broadcasting to smaller groups; and more one-on-one sharing and meaningful conversations with customers. [paraphrased] – Geoff Lewis, Switchfly @JustGLew @Switchfly
·You don’t need a Google+ strategy. Don’t waste your time with platforms that don’t have an audience. – Geoff Lewis, Switchfly
·“Marketing is a tax you pay for being unremarkable.”—Robert Stephens, Geek Squad, as quoted by Elizabeth Cecconi, SimpliFlying @SimpliElizabeth @SimpliFlying Continue reading →
When I left my general manager position in 2008, my intention was to return to manage hotels after I had put my third novel to bed. I loved the multifaceted, hyper-social job of the GM, and the transition to the writer’s life wasn’t easy—hours of solitude, my only company a shrill voice inside my head saying, “WHAT were you thinking?”
Since then, hotel management has gotten even more complex—and social. Social media has transformed the industry by providing platforms for travelers to exchange trip information and advice with other travelers. Hotels have been hit with a myriad of guest feedback and are grappling to make sense of the data and to turn it into meaningful action. Continue reading →
Following last week’s interview with Diego Sartori of citizenM, this week I take a closer look at InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG). While the two companies are vastly different in size and structure, they share a common to dedication to social media and to keeping pace with the changing tastes and behavior of travelers.
Like Sartori, Charles Yap’s reputation precedes him. As Director of Global Brand Communications at IHG, he is a serial tweeter who casts his social net far and wide. I met him in London in late November, where we indulged in a bit of old-school social networking (socializing, not working) sipping champagne on a Friday afternoon at the InterContinental Hotel London Park Lane.
Hotel groups tend to be slow to adapt to change. It’s hard to turn a ship around, much less an entire fleet. When it comes to social media, the upscale segment in particular has been resistant, some sniffing that “social media isn’t luxury.” But as more travelers turn to social networks to seek advice and share experiences, hotels have had little choice but to pay attention. Now many of the late adopters talk about social media as though they invented it.
IHG is a notable exception. The company, which manages a diverse portfolio of brands from luxury to economy, was an early adopter of social media. Continue reading →
By now most hotels have found a way to accommodate social media. Some are playing lip service and still praying it will go away, whereas others have embraced it fully and appointed a dedicated employee.
In this three-part series I interview the individuals leading social media efforts with these companies to gain insight into how they’re taming the social media beast and at the same time staying true to brand. Whether you’re a B&B, boutique or big box, there are ideas and inspiration to be drawn from all three models.
Today we kick things off with Diego Sartori of citizenM, a company whose reputation preceded itself thanks to its active social presence. citizenM is a small group of boutique hotels in Glasgow and Amsterdam with reported plans to expand to London, New York and Paris. I stayed at the Glasgow property, and it was one of the freshest hotel concepts I’ve experienced since Ian Schrager and Philippe Starck launched over two decades ago what is known today as Morgans Hotel Group.
Highlights include modern design, free WiFi and movies, small but stylish rooms and great public spaces for socializing or work. There are check-in kiosks and a cafeteria-style restaurant, and yet I experienced better service here than at many full-service hotels. And really, after you’ve lugged your bags halfway across the world do you really need a bellman for that last stretch to your room?
With its quirky, irreverent branding citizenM is a natural fit for social media. Here’s my Q+A session with Sartori, edited and condensed. Continue reading →
A former hotel general manager turned author and hospitality consultant, I help hoteliers and travel marketers across the globe understand and adopt the latest trends, tools and best practices in online marketing, social media and online reputation management. More
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“How is everything going with your stay?” the doorman asked as I waited for a taxi.
