Think Tank

The Think Tank topics gave me the opportunity to realize and confirm how important is nowadays technology and how important it is to the hospitality sector in order to keep being competitive in the market.
Actually we could say that it is essential to every sector of the economic life such as Luxury for example.
What sounds quite strange is that both Hospitality and, above all, Luxury do not really take advantages from using the last useful technology as they should.
Luxury hotel sites do not even use enough videos in order to better promote their room while, as Google said, millionaires prefer shopping on line.
On the other side I gained that a brand gets exclusivity by having different tech from their competitors.
What about the use of the Hotel Reputation Management?
Well I discovered that according to Google 50% of customer book 13 days after their first visit on a travel website because they take the time to get the most information they can from review site (such as Tripadvisor for example) in order to make the best choice and avoid bad surprises.
I always wonder if third site could get involved into conflict of interests but analyzing the working process of review site I discovered how useful and important is for hoteliers to rely their reputation management to well prepared and specialized expert such as review PRO.
Hoteliers need to understand how important review site are and they have to better realize that they cannot manage reputation manually because every additional review increases a lot the booking potential for a hotel.
I actually wondered about transparency and about fake reviews which can modify the final results and the way review sites manage them but I have to notify that they are smaller and smaller so In my personal opinion review site are enough reliable to attempt to their function.
The Augmented Reality is the session which had the greatest impact on me because of the utility that this location based service application may have in our daily life.
In fact, the expansion of the real world may, for example, change the interest that customers may have on new augmented reality books.
In the sector of the Mobile Outlook, Jean Robberecht, VP Marketing – Strategic Accounts of Fastbooking remind us the importance of 3 essential characteristics of any mobile application:

• Secure
• Easy
• Fast

In my personal opinion I think that this is the future which will replace the function of the concierge for example.

I think that technologic conferences such as the Think Tank are essential to hoteliers in order to save money and at the same time improve their productivity and competition.

hotels app

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Top 10 Best Luxury Hotels in Asia

On TweetDeck I discovered BenHoffman a professional blogger from Sydney who blogged about Top 10 Best Luxury Hotels in Asia.

All of these top ten hotels offer outstanding services which are much more personalized than the US and EU ones.

Why this hotels target so high?

• Of course they can learn from the Western’s hotel mistakes,
• They target both US and EU customers which come to Asia for business,
• In addition, Asian employees are kinder, and able to adapt them-self to any situation and client expectation,
• Prices are much more competitive relating to the top 10 of the Western countries while operating cost are lower that the US and EUs’ hotel.
  

Nowadays, it also happens that Chinese clients come to Paris for vacation and after just one day to the “Crillon” (one of the best 6 Parisian Palace) they decided to move to the George V because the hotel was crumbling and with a bad service.

At the end, my question is: are they doing too good or are we doing too bad?

Ignazio SUTERA
MBA 2
IEMI

Crowdsourcing

Classwork on 04/13/2010 with Macha, Raphaelle and Caroline

Switch to Twitter

Using TweetDeck I discovered the Twitter’s page of Julia Roy, Senior Manager of New Media at Coach, Inc., she is a digital influencer and internet lover.
I love her when playing in TWEET WEEK where she gives information about the latest Twitter’s news like:

· University of Wisconsin where a Brain Computer Technology has been used in order to post on Twitter by using human thoughts.
· How normal people feel happy about writing at celebrities that on the contrary side don’t read Twitter posts
· The Twitter guy
· The fact that 60 percent of Twitter users failed to come back to the service in the next months
· How to build better Twitter user loyalty,
· Etc.

Moreover, what interested me the most is that her love for Twitter shows how she is branding herself in the best possible way.
We can see the wide use of social networks she does: in each means of communication she uses (Youtube, Twitter, etc.) she talks about many other social networks which are very well connected.
I think it is a very good example of convergence and optimization of the new media.

Classwork on 01/04 with Gabrielle and Saluquia

The post to my blog from Ping.FM
http://screencast.com/t/MTNiYTBmMDkt

Classwork on 02/17/2010 with Mathieu and Caroline

Booking Engine

AVAILPRO is a tool that hoteliers can use in order to have control over rooms sales via internet. It allows to build online its a distribution system.

The advantage is that it has no set-up fee, no monthly minimum and the cost of each reservation can even be partially or completely paid by the hotelier's distributors or partners.

It has the following characteristics:

You can build up the online distribution system, rates structure, rate plans, sales conditions etc. Manage online reservation on your own website: reservation interface and dynamic rates page. Customers can make a reservation request, reserve online, pay all or a part of their stay, receive booking confirmation, etc.
You can collect all or part of the reservation amount and receive these sums directly on your bank account.
Commissions can be paid directly to your distributors directly manage and synchronise rates and availability with the distributors in real-time
Manage all your distributors Special reservation interface on your site

More information about the company that develop the software AVAILPRO by clicking here

Classwork on 02/17/2010

Here is my work with Mathieu and Caroline

Hotel Direct Website

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Hotel Direct Website

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http://screencast.com/t/MjViODAyNDY

Luxury Hotelier Interviews ~ Rocco Forte.

First of all I would like to precise that I have chosen this article because it talk about my own hometown: Sciacca the city where the Verdura Golf & Spa Resort has been set.
Of course the place presents all the touristic characteristics hoteliers may desire: rugged coast, suggested countryside, Mediterranean climate, clean water, vivid setting, etc.

But what went wrong?

· First of all, a local community that did not quickly understand the importance of the project.
· A populist politic which tried to restrain the development of the project
· A criminal association which tried to threaten the Rocco Forte group through intimidating acts
· A climatic change, which reduce the sunny days

In a good negotiation process the parts try to find a WIN – WIN situation but the local politic did not understand that so quickly.
Sciacca is a city with a huge touristic potential, which still remain unused, but it is not enough to play its role in a pretentious way.

Next to these cons I feel to underline a lot of pros like:

· The mayor’s support to the project
·The regional’s deployment of a specific legislation concerning the development of the golf resort.
· And a niche of the working union which saw a great opportunity for the local worker.

Marriot showed a certain interest for the area but it is not easy to manage a project like the Verdura one in a bureaucratic environment.

The final question is does it worth to invest in this piece of earthly paradise (http://screencast.com/t/NjFmZTc3)? Sir Rocco Forte, Chairman of “The Rocco Forte Collection” would better answer to my question. In any case, the future will answers us.

Ignazio SUTERA

MBA 2

IEMI - CMH

Metrosexual Hotels.

Metrosexual hotel? What does it means?

We could say that it is a more fashionable kind of new Boutique hotel. I would like to precise that in a general sense a metrosexual person is a metropolitan and heterosexual man that has a strong concern for his appearance and lifestyle that displays attributes stereotypically associated with homosexual men.

Metrosexual hotel is actually a new generation of hotel targeting a stylish, successful and heterosexual male but increasingly gender-neutral, which is highly selective about how, whom and where to spend their money.

In this way, the Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide’s W Hotels is stylizing the service delivery and designing facilities component in order to attract the metrosexual customer
The means are simple: hiring the stylist Amanda Ross, the music director, Michaelangelo L'Acqua, etc.

Of course it is a good point for hoteliers to have a precise and innovative target but in my personal opinion I do not think that it is a good marketing strategy calling this new “gender” of hotel the Metrosexual one because of a masculinity concern of the metrosexual person. Moreover it would exclude the female gender and it could involve an unnecessary polemic around that.

3. My best Slideshares linked within my 'center'

5. Screenshot of my ACTIVE Twitter reader (TweetDeck)

6. Screenshot of my ACTIVE Google Alerts

China records growth in tourism income for 2009.

According to the China National Tourism Administration, China recorded a growth of 9% from 2008 while domestic tourism income grew from 15% from the previous year.

Moreover, both the inbound and outbound tourism markets are expected to continue their up-trends in the next few years.

It doesn't amaze me so much since China is the 4th touristic destination in the world!

Actually, I believe that the most of the inbound market comes from business segment and not from leisure or cultural ones (Even though the Great Wall is one of the most visited monuments all around the world).

In addition Shanghai is going to host the World Expo 2010 with its 70 million potential visitors. Of course all the biggest European groups, such as Accor, are trying to get a lot of advantages of this event.

I think that Europeans are not doing their best in attracting Chinese visitors. A lot of money should be invested in marketing from the European Union in order to attract the most of the new riches of China.

In my personal opinion Europeans should do the same the Chinese have done before, which means attracting foreign capitals from abroad. Chinese are getting richer and richer that’s why we should focus much more attention to them by enhancing the study of the Chinese language or adapting the offer to the Chinese market.

Ignazio SUTERA

MBA 2

Dubai to open new Cruise Terminal next month

Dubai is going to open on February a new cruise terminal which can handle four ships simultaneously.

What impressed me the most is that next to the most advanced and modern facilities (money exchange, ATMs, post office, duty free shop, souvenir shops, gift shops, business centre with internet access and Wi-Fi) this cruise terminal associate the tradition and the heritage of this country as a maritime center.

In fact, the major architectural elements of the exterior facades show traditional domes, arches and carvings, which best represent the Oriental culture.

I like the way this new modern countries are able to develop an equilibrium point between Western modernity and Oriental heritage.

We can see this kind of loyalty and pride in all the new masterpieces of the Eastern countries like the Petronas twin tower in Malaysia and many others.

In my personal opinion Europeans have a lot to learn from this culture, which try to keep their real originality and diversity. I think that we have too easily abandoned our personal style because we think that to be modern you need to use iron, glass, unusual forms and colors.

Travelocity launches Deals Toolkit

Travelocity announced a Deals Toolkit that makes it easier for consumers to find the best travel deals based on their preferences and flexibility.

Victoria Treyger, chief marketing officer of Travelocity said: “Travelers are telling us they want to be able to more quickly identify and select deals based on what matters most to them. Our deals toolkit answers their calling with a totally new framework for shopping that helps them filter through thousands of options to hone in on only the best, most customized results without spending a ton of time.”

What does it means?
In my personal opinion, it means of course a better customization which really worth the traveller both in an economic sense and in an applicative one.
Moreover, it means that all these providers are doing a technological war between them.
To achieve the best result they are investing a lot of money in successful proprietary algorithm.
All this aspect are positive but if the providers business is so profitable who is paying the price for that?

In my opinion, in an indirect way, hoteliers are losing a lot of money, which means a weakness in their own offer’s power and on the competition sector.

Ignazio SUTERA

'Aggregator' Travel Sites

- Definition of an aggregator travel site (http://www.independenttraveler.com/resources/article.cfm?AID=536&category=13)

- The benefits of using an aggregator site( http://studenttravel.about.com/od/discounts/qt/bookingbuddy.htm )

2 aggregator sites comparison:

1 Orbitz

2 BookingBuddy

- How do travel experts feel about meta search travel sites ( http://www.etravelsuccess.info/2009/11/metasearch-sites-travel-conversion.html )

- MY perspective on the contribution of meta search sites to the travel experience

The worlds' tallest opens and renamed - Aramai hotel for later.

On March 18 Giorgio Armani is going to open a luxury hotel in the spectacular Burj Dubai tower. In fact, it is the first in the series of hotels, resorts and residences designed by Armani. Moreover, the group is going to open the Armani Hotel Milano and at least ten hotels and resorts in next ten years.

It is not the first time that a fashion designer takes care of the interior of a hotel: in 2005 Christian Lacroix designed the Hotel du Petit Moulin in Paris.

In my personal opinion it represents a unique marketing strategy: it matchs the tallest tower all around the world and the ace fashion designer

Does it mean that Giorgio Armani could do a better work than an interior designer? Of course, the interior design is a sector which is quite different from the fashion one but this marriage can satisfy the need of a customer which is looking for a luxury style of life

Does it mean that a fashion designer could sign cars or airplans? Yes, from an economic point of view, not all the time, from an artistic one.

Harvard Business Review article post

- The skills needed for contemporary career success are: The ability of managing self-organized human networks, the ability of succeed in the relationships seeking process which is useful to connect people between groups.

- Today human networks give power to people; on the contrary, in the past, the formal hierarchies gave people their own power.

- You can learn managing human networks by a strong willingness of making relationships, passing on information and communicate across groups.

- The relationship is that nowadays it is not enough to succeed in the formal assignments to make career, you have to be a real "connector" to have success.