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Hello Ladies and Gentlemen

Once you have your internet strategy for your website being well managed, and are using the tools for maximum utility, these additional media are the next horizon of opportunity. They need constant and consistent time and resources dedicated to manage and maintain. If you are ready and can support that investment, then and only then, does it make sense to move with these emerging opportunities. We are close to the point where these will become the standard in your marketing mix, just as websites were several years ago. Websites are now indispensible in your current distribution strategy – so will social media marketing become a part of the staple.

Below are some interesting examples of how you can promote your hotel – can you see hotel openings, corporate parties, etc., being promoted in this manner? Lots of fun!!

Take care and have a wonderful weekend!

‘Twend’: Social Media Evolving Into Social Marketing

– Hotels, 12/1/2009

In 2009, social media Web sites completed the transition from being a source of procrastination for young adults to a mainstream cultural phenomenon. With Twitter—and to a slightly lesser extent, Facebook—leading the way, 2010 will see social media become firmly entrenched as a powerhouse marketing platform. At both the brand and property levels, even the most conservative of hotel companies are dipping their proverbial toes into the social media waters.

As social media becomes more and more commonplace, expect companies and consumers alike to continue exploring interactivity in greater depth. Social media gives hoteliers an incredibly inexpensive way to build brand awareness, while doing it in a way that makes the brands seem simultaneously hip, down-to-earth and fun.

A great example is Caesars Palace Las Vegas’ Trick or Tweet promotion in October. Using its @CaesarsPalace Twitter account, Caesars Palace tweeted locations on property for followers to visit within a certain time frame. For guests who played along with the real-time, real-life social media scavenger hunt, the hotel gave away prizes.

Savvy hoteliers are increasingly using social media to let guests sell the hotel to other guests, which is authentic marketing at its best. For instance, Dolce Hotels and Resorts held a Facebook contest in November that invited fans to propose dream vacations at its Dolce Hayes Mansion, California. The best of the submissions were then posted on Dolce’s Facebook page for fans to vote on a winner. The prize: the very dream vacation proposed by the winner.

In a slightly edgier version of the same coin, MGM Grand Las Vegas in November asked followers of its @mgmgrand Twitter account to tweet their “sins,” using the #mgmsin hashtag, with one participant selected at random each day of the month to win a free room night.

What a brilliant promotional premise: Get the public thinking and talking about your brand, your destination and all the fun (and scandalous) things they could do while there, then just sit back and watch the conversation mushroom organically.

Nagib Lakhani

RevMax Hospitality Consulting Services
O: (425)677-7866          C: (425)445-7750        F: (866)508-7866
nagib@RevenueMaxConsulting.com
4313 245th Avenue SE, Issaquah, WA 98029

Confidentiality Implied

The medical sector remains one of the few industries that is still showing strong demand for the lodging industry. If you are tracking and data-mining your in-house guests, you may already have much of this information at your fingertips:

Opportunities within the medical segment:
·         Hospitals and clinics employ IT personnel to convert their records to digital formats. Much of this demand is extended stay or comprises of significant repeating stays.
·         Medical equipment training – installation and training generates extended stay traffic. Check with your local hospital or clinic – if they’re planning on installing new equipment, there may be opportunity.
·         Pharmaceutical reps coming to your area (some of these positions have been consolidated so smaller centers are seeing more visits from out-of-town reps making sales calls) and other related demand.
·         Training, training, training – a significant portion of the medical industry traffic.
·         Nurses – many hospitals bring in contract nursing to meet demand or move staff from other hospitals and clinics within their system to meet specialty needs. This also includes specialty physicians. Marketing to this segment should focus on safety and convenience – shuttle services, accommodating shift schedules, light and healthy snacks, welcome amenity, etc.
·         Patients, friends and family – if your area hospital has a specialty they are known for, you will likely see patient traffic related to this specialty. Or if your area hospital acts as a regional facility, you’ll see traffic from patients and family. Again, probably multi-night stays. How do you attract? Shuttle, refrigerators, microwaves, direct bill (very important in some cases), a landing page on your website and sensitivity to their reason for the visit, for a start.

If you have comments on how you have marketed to this segment, please let me know.

David Brudney, a HotelNewsNow.com columists offers more thoughts

Much has been written and discussed about the restrictions placed on physicians attending pharmaceutical and other life-science industry corporation training and educational programs, in particular, at high-end resorts throughout North America. It’s no wonder then that many resort operators have limited drastically or even abandoned altogether pursing this lucrative and highly coveted business.

That’s why I was nearly blown away at what I discovered recently at a very much “non-resort” hotel here in San Diego. Old habits are hard to break for us hotel sales guys, and, of course, I checked the reader board first before meeting my out-of-town breakfast guest.

I found a medical technology company’s name listed with a full day and evening agenda of meetings. One that really caught my eye was a meeting or event scheduled in the hotel’s outdoor parking lot.

Curiosity got the better of me. I wandered out to the large outdoor parking area, and there I found in a corner of the lot connected end-to-end, two oversized mobile homes—too huge and too long to be called truck and trailers.

I walked inside the tented reception and refreshment center in front and then up the steps into the first unit. What I found was a complete mobile operating room. (I recognized my surroundings right away having personally experienced hip replacement surgery.) In the room were two orthopedic surgeons—both employed, I learned later, by the host medical technology company—in full scrubs maneuvering a cadaver leg under a sheet on one of several operating tables. My tour guide explained the two surgeons would be demonstrating new procedures and techniques for large joint implants for the hip and knee and, later on, extremity implants for the hand, elbow, shoulder, foot and ankle.
Upon returning to my office, I logged onto the medical technology company’s Web site and learned they’ve been a certified designer, manufacturer and worldwide distributor of orthopedic implants and instrumentation for more than 50 years. Drilling further, I found they produce a number of educational programs for health care professionals at various regional locations.

These programs are designed to educate the seasoned veteran surgeon interested in expanding his/her scope of practice in the foot and ankle. The program aims to “facilitate higher levels of physician competencies, improve health care delivery and subsequent outcomes of patient care . . . to promote the highest level of patient safety, and further advance the specialty of orthopedic surgery (of the foot and ankle).”

Physicians and other health care professionals attending—as many as 100 over the two-day event—received hands-on training sessions, cadaver workshops, lectures and presentations.

I wanted to be sure the company was compliant with all current rules and regulations, so I navigated my way to the site’s “Customer Relationship Policy” definitions where I found the following information:

(Company authorized) use of “appropriate” off-site venues including hotel or other commercially available meeting facilities conducive to the effective transmission of information.
Health care professional attendees may be provided with modest meals and refreshments in connection with these programs. Any such meals and refreshments must be modest in value and subordinate in time and focus to the educational or training purpose of the meeting.
(The company) may pay for reasonable travel and modest lodging costs incurred by attending health care professionals where there are objective reasons to support the need for out-of-town travel to efficiently deliver training and education on products and/or medical technologies.
They do, in fact, state that “resort locations are not acceptable locations” for the company’s training and/or education events, adding resorts “are generally not deemed conducive to training, education, or the effective transmission of knowledge and should be avoided as venues for programs and events.” I can’t think of a single resort I know that would not take issue with that statement—but let’s save that for one of my future columns or articles.

No doubt there must be countless other medical technology companies booking similar training and education events at hotels just like the one here in San Diego. Where resorts have lost, maybe well-located, full-service commercial hotels will benefit—especially those with large, accommodating outdoor parking areas. The San Diego hotel in question was a large, well-respected branded, full-service commercial hotel with 350 guestrooms, less than 25,000 square feet of indoor function space, shopping close by, freeways accessible, located only eight miles away from San Diego’s downtown and airport.

Events just like the one described in this column will be held at various regional locations throughout 2010.  Should they continue to avoid booking resorts, for whatever reason or reasons, this creates some terrific business opportunities for full-service commercial hotels. (Especially those with large outdoor parking.)

Happy marketing!

Nagib Lakhani
RevMax Hospitality Consulting Services
O: (425)677-7866               C: (425)445-7750                F: (866)508-7866
nagib@RevenueMaxConsulting.com

Hello Ladies and Gentlemen,

Here’s an interesting list of value added benefits to add to build excitement and distinction!

The pressure is certainly high to drive traffic into your hotels. However, while price is the easiest and quickest approach, it has no sticky factor or distinction that will give you any form of real or lingering impact.

Now VALUE is where it’s at. I’ve sent many articles on this topic and you’ve, no doubt, read much more.

Imagine:

·         Corp Guest: Complimentary ironing services! Now that is such a great idea! If you’ve had to do this every time you check in, you know what a drag this is!

.         Imagine if you could offer this service with one of your room attendants. Low cost, high value and you’d only have to do this for a select period in the day for basic clothing. WOW!

·         Families: “Wii Are Family Package” – can you imagine using one of your meeting rooms with an LCD and large screen projecting a couple of Wii games for kids to play?? Again, WOW! What a great marketing opportunity to bring in families! Offer it for a set period every weekend or some other periodic session, include popcorn, some lemonade and you’ve got yourself a fabulous feature for families!

Some repeat ideas from my email of May 13^th – they’re just as valid now:

Happiness and Smiles:

-  Value offerings for families – include

• Receptions (partner with restaurants to offer some sample foods and coupons, you provide the drinks)
• Certainly breakfast for families
• WiFi if not already in your offering
• Attraction related coupons or deals
• Area retailer coupons and sale information
• Car wash or interior car vacuum (you know how messy cars get when you have kids in tow!). Include service (or at least provide for access to hose and vacuum cleaners).

-Packages, Packages, Packages

• Family movie with pop & popcorn - package
• Attraction entry passes, where possible
• F&B related deals with neighboring restaurants or your own outlets

-Note the sweet spot of $300-$400 over the two – three night stay

• Package full deals so families can budget for meals and known cost
  §  You have at least $150+ per day, total for, say 4 people.
  §  Room, breakfast, WiFi – typically included in limited service hotels
  §  Lunch: fast food coupons @ average $20 per family (they can use these coupons anytime)
  §  Dinner: in house restaurant values can be strong. In absence of that option, include a certificate, preferably from a chain they can recognize the value with.
• Depending on your market, and the demand over the weekend, you can price your rooms with a more comprehensive package that covers the basics – that makes you more attractive than others.

-Provide a reason for travelers to be at your location:

• Use your websites: 80%+ of the traveling public starts their search on line.
• Tell them why they should be at your hotel and your location: remember, people can easily drive around 2-3 hours in a radius from their home. You want to offer excitement that makes your location stand out.
• Consider Pay Per Click to get higher exposure – feature your attractions in metatags and in paid search key phrases.
• Newsletters – if you have a database, now’s the time to send out offers, if you haven’t already.

If any of you have ideas that have worked, please do share!

Nagib

Nagib Lakhani- RevMax Hospitality Consulting Services
O: (425)677-7866     C: (425)445-7750      F: (866)508-7866

nagib@RevenueMaxConsulting.com
4313 245th Avenue SE
Issaquah, WA 98029

Hello Ladies and Gentlemen,

Below is an interesting study from Cornell. It has, essentially, the same results as a study they conducted earlier showing that maintaining rates resulted in higher RevPAR performance levels.

Whilst this is obviously the case based on a very large sample, the challenge is that it does go counter to intuition. However, a critically important component, in my opinion, is to be very acutely aware of your immediate surroundings and the response that your comp set has chosen to take. That, coupled with knowing who your guest is, will always allow you to make a highly informed decision about the responses that work in your location.

· A corporate client, for the limited service segment, is likely to respond more favorably to the added service levels and familiarity you can offer rather than sacrifice that for a minor differential in rate. That means knowing them to deliver on this promise.

· A leisure client, in a similar segment, will likely be more swayed by a package that makes the experience more meaningful and memorable than a slight differential in rate (which is less apparent when bundled anyway).

Thank you.

Nagib.

Cornell Study Finds that Lower Hotel Prices Cost Hotels Money in Good Times and Bad

Contact:  Glenn Withiam, 607.255.3025, grw4@cornell.edu

Ithaca, NY, June 24, 2009 – When close competitors cut their prices, the temptation for hotel operators is to follow with reductions of their own. While that strategy may increase occupancy, it reduces revenue per average room (RevPAR), when compared to a hotel’s competitive group. This is the key finding of a new study from Cornell’s Center for Hospitality Research, “Competitive Pricing in Uncertain Times,” by Cathy A. Enz, Linda Canina, and Mark Lomanno. The study is available at no charge from the center at http://www.hotelschool.cornell.edu/research/chr/pubs/reports/2009.html.

“Our goal was to compare the effects of pricing strategies among close competitors, first during a weak economy and then during boom times,” said Enz, who is the Louis G. Schaeneman, Jr. Professor of Innovation and Dynamic Management at the School of Hotel Administration. “Using the database provided by STR, we were able to analyze relative pricing, occupancy, and RevPAR in over 67,000 hotel observations, from 2001 through 2007.”

“Our findings were consistent, despite the economic situation,” explained Canina, an associate professor at Cornell. “Hotels that maintained average daily rates above those of their direct competitors experienced lower occupancies compared to those other hotels, but they recorded higher relative RevPARs. This was true in all market segments.”

Added Lomanno, who is president of STR: “Our overall results suggest that the best way to have better revenue performance than your competitors is to maintain higher average rates.” Lomanno pointed out that the researchers were careful to analyze only comparable hotels in each competitive group. Most hotels that charged relatively lower rates than their competitors had relatively higher occupancy, but that did not mean stronger RevPARs.

Thanks to the support of the Center for Hospitality Research partners listed below, all publications posted on the center’s website are available free of charge, atwww.chr.cornell.edu.

About The Center for Hospitality Research
A unit of the Cornell School of Hotel Administration, The Center for Hospitality Research (CHR) sponsors research designed to improve practices in the hospitality industry. Under the lead of the center’s 77 corporate affiliates, experienced scholars work closely with business executives to discover new insights into strategic, managerial and operating practices. The center also publishes the award-winning hospitality journal, the Cornell Hospitality Quarterly. To learn more about the center and its projects, visit www.chr.cornell.edu.

Nagib Lakhani     RevMax Hospitality Consulting Services
O: (425)677-7866       C: (425)445-7750      F: (866)508-7866

nagib@RevenueMaxConsulting.com
4313 245th Avenue SE

Issaquah, WA 98029