360DigitalInfluence

It is no secret that air lines, in an effort to keep the cost of flights low, began adding a-la-carte fees to previously free services. Want to bring luggage to your destination? That’s an extra $25.00. Want a seat someone larger than midget stature can fit in? Well, that could be an extra $100.00 each way – depending on your distance. Want something to eat or drink on your flight? That is an extra $6.00 for the beer and who knows how much they will price-gauge you for the bag of chips or sub-par sandwich. There is almost no service most of the regional air lines won’t give you for an additional price including a day in their red-carpet lounge. While this has become common practice for air lines, it appears that hotels are trying to jump on this a-la-carte fee bandwagon. Does this mean it is good for business, probably not!

According to the Wall Street Journal, there have been reports of hotels adding surcharges for safes in room, minibar restocking fees, baggage holding fees for guests leaving luggage with bell staff after checking out, and a “tray charge” on room-service bills on top of a service charge and an automatic gratuity. Facility use? Shouldn’t the pool and the fitness center be included in the price of the hotel room? Imagine showing up to a hotel to find out the room rate you negotiated does not include the safe in the room, or the TV they provided, and they are charging you $5.00 a day for toilet access. Even worse, you don’t find most of this out until check out.

The main reason this is a bad idea for hotels is because adding a-la-carte fees for services people may not want, or use, to begin with is a sure-fire way to lose customers. The airlines have a completely different business model that allows them to charge additional fees based on right-of-use. If you don’t want luggage handlers, who could possible lose your luggage, food or drinks on the plane or don’t mind sitting in a seat with less leg-room you have every right to opt-out of these services. However, providing you a service or amenity and then later coming to you with a hefty bill for it is certainly no way to win repeat business – particularly in a recession and especially when charging for services or amenities that guests may not have even taken advantage of.
 
I think businesses of all-types should be up front about costs. Don’t get me in the door by offering me a room at one price and then add a plethora of fees for things regardless if I use them or not. If I want to add in a massage, that’s fine, but don’t charge me $5.00 at check-out because the hotel decided to install safes, mini-fridges or TV’s in all the rooms. What do you think about hotels adding on hidden fees to their offered room rate?

I love free things, and I’m not ashamed to admit it. Last week, I saw a free theater performance in Chicago, got a certificate for a free haircut from the salon in our building, ate two free muffins from a local restaurant and a got a free burrito from Chipotle. Free is very satisfying – it makes you feel like you won something – even if it’s something small.

In the travel industry, now is probably the best time ever for incentives encouraging people to travel…discounts are almost necessary these days to get business, and free things are everywhere you look. The travel industry is doing everything it can right now to get people to spend money, and one of the most prominent ways is FREE STUFF.

Hotels across the country (and across the world!) are throwing in extras like free breakfasts, free nights, free side trips to area attractions and more. For example, the Joie de Vivre hotels in California are offering a third night free, hotels in Vegas are offering extras like passes to shows and VIP admission and the Rosewood Mayakobá in Playa Del Carmen even offers a free shot of tequila along with a free night.

There is a method to this madness, though. Extra days spent at the hotel not only mean travelers are more likely to book their vacation today, but also ensure more money spent at the hotel restaurant and local attractions, thereby benefiting the entire community.

Extras like free drinks at the hotel bar and free valet parking can upgrade a normal vacation to something a little more special – at no cost, and make travelers feel like they got something for nothing.

Does the “free” tactic work for you? And would it provide that extra incentive to make you book a vacation today, if you were hesitating…? In an industry of bargains, how do travel providers stand out above the rest of the deals?

The seventh annual Fall Travel Trends Survey conducted by Travel Leaders was released this week. The survey was conducted with information from 452 Travel leaders agents, managers and owners from August 4-28.

So what are the favorite destinations for fall? Las Vegas and Caribbean cruising – again. They are continuously ranked number one in the survey and this year is no different. They are warm (something us northern dwellers look for in fall vacations), fairly easy to get to, provide a myriad of things to do for people from every walk of life, and have a seemingly endless supply of rooms that are discounted this year like you would never believe. New York knocked the revolving Hawaiian destinations off their #3 spot as travelers look to take advantage of the Big Apple’s rock bottom prices, which are certainly not going to be around forever.

Other good news to come from the survey is that many more Travel Leaders are more optimistic about their business then they were last year and there is even speculation from Piper Jaffray at Citibank the travel industry may have already bottomed out. Nearly 60% of Travel Leader respondents were optimistic about their business in the upcoming year. Maybe because, according to Christopher Elliott, 2010 is supposed to be the year of travel deals .

What are leisure travelers doing to take full advantage of the good deals? According to the survey they are staying at all-inclusives (69.9 percent), using frequent-flyer miles (64.1 percent), being flexible with dates (62 percent), booking only if there is a promotion/deal (54.9 percent), shortening trips or vacations (traveling fewer days) (51.5 percent). With all the fun things to do and see out there and the amazing prices things are being offered at, it’s worth shopping around, and then taking advantage, of the best deals.

How many times have you arrived at your hotel to find that you didn’t need to squeeze all those bathroom essentials into your luggage after all as everything that you need is already provided by your hotel.  Or, have you relied on your hotel to provide a good selection of grooming products only to find that something significant is not supplied?

With the rise of cheap flights and the need to keep costs down by just taking carry-on luggage, many of us spend a long time considering which bathroom items we will take to fit within the 10 x 100ml fluid allowance.

What if you knew exactly what you were going to find in your hotel bathroom before you left home?  Problem is, you never can predict what you are going to find; there simply seems to be no logic.  Sometimes the most desirable four star hotel in Italy might not provide body lotion or hair conditioner, whereas a bargain 40 Euros a night Spanish hotel might provide enough items to make you not want to leave your hotel bathroom at all.

What if there was a website which held exactly this kind of information?  Content could be posted by both consumers and hoteliers stating what to expect when you visit.  Comments can be made on the standard of toiletries (Ritz Carlton, Santiago Chile – more top quality Bulgari toiletries than you can imagine) and how often they are replenished (Hotel Scribe, Paris - three times a day). 

This site would be great for hoteliers; they could see how they fare against their competitors and guests would be happier as they’ve enabled them to be more clued up about the facilities before travel.

Maybe this site already exists.  If it does please do let me know!  If not, perhaps I’ve found something to do with my evenings.

In today’s economy hotels and resorts have to come up with clever ways to get your attention and differentiate themselves from the competition. That is just what the Rancho Bernardo Inn in San Francisco is trying to do. Traditionally a luxury resort with three beautiful pools, an upscale spa, and a golf course where an overnight stay can easily run you over $200.00 a night, The San Bernardo is offering it all to you for $19.00 a night.

In a brilliant, or not-so-brilliant, marketing move, the Rancho Bernardo has just introduced a ‘Survivor Package’ where customers can whittle their room amenities down to nothing. For the deepest discount, $19.00 a night, you not only forgo breakfast but air conditioning, power, TV, pillows, sheets and a bed - all the luxuries of staying in a hotel. The staff will kindly pitch a tent for you in the middle of your dark, bed-less, towel-less, air-conditioning-less room.

While I like the idea of a-la-carting hotel amenities, do you think this goes too far or is this a brilliant way to differentiate themselves from their competition?

What’s with these new restaurants and hotels opening up in old airplanes? During a time when customer frustrations with air travel are at an all time high, people still seem willing to put down good money to sleep in a grounded aircraft or eat on a fake plane. Daring “air”trepreneurs are opening up dining and lodging outposts and customers are following.

In Amsterdam, a 5-star hotel opens next week in a 1960s Soviet aircraft parked at Teuge Aiport, complete with whirlpool, infrared sauna and three flat-screen TVs. One night stay at Hotel Honecker can cost $500, but that includes breakfast for two . Check it out at ABC-TV.com.

Around the world in Taipei, restaurant A380 is located in a commercial building but looks like the interior of an Airbus plane.  Some of the waitresses are even former flight attendants. If your table is in the first-class cabin you can push the flight attendant button to summon the waitress. Read about it in this month’s issue of Conde Nast Traveler.

Time to board!

I recently read on Springwise about a nice promotion from Omni Hotels called Omni Flips for Summer.   From Springwise …

… families staying at any of the chain’s hotels and resorts in North America can borrow a pocket-sized video camcorder for free and use it to record their most memorable moments. The camcorder provided is the new Flip Ultra video camcorder, launched this spring by Pure Digital, and it’s available to guests who purchase any “Omni Flips for Summer” weekend package … When their weekend filming is complete, guests can upload their video memories to their own laptop or use the Omni Hotels Business Center at no charge to transfer the footage to a thumb drive to take home. Guests are also encouraged to upload a three-minute video to Omni’s Local Scoop social networking website as part of the Omni Flips for Summer Video Contest, the winner of which—announced in September—will get a free trip for four to the Omni Bedford Springs Resort in Pennsylvania.

In the last few years hotels have become a very attractive environment for brands to reach their targets.  In my experience, here are a few things brands should keep in mind when partnering with hotels:

1. Simplicity. Hotel brands are usually governed by a centralized brand team, but operations are very much determined property-by-property.   And these days, operations teams are stretched thin.  The more you - the brand - can do to create a truly turnkey promotion, the better your chances for success.
2. Beta. Rolling a promotion out to an entire chain of hotels is risky, expensive, and will require logistics coordination you never imagined.  Instead, pilot the promotion in one or two markets - validate guests interest and take the opportunity to tweak the operational aspects to make it easier on a grander scale.
3. Localize. If possible, try to localize the promotion to make it more interesting to the guests in a particular market.
4. Delight. Travel - particularly business travel - can be grueling.  When possible, delight guests with something unexpected and fun.  At the very least, don’t make them jump through hoops.
5. Talkability. Don’t think me too.  Think me first.  The latter will generate much more word-of-mouth.

So what else should go on this list?

Iceland's Blue Lagoon

While in Iceland on vacation last month, I specifically looked for signs of prosperity after the “kreppa” , the Icelandic term for the 2008 and 2009 financial crisis that took hold of the country late last year and has not let go. But my anxiety was not relieved until the second day of my vacation when I visited my favorite Reykjavik bakery, Bernhöftsbakarí, which was celebrating its 175^th anniversary. As I congratulated the clerk, she proudly boasted to me in her Polish-accented English, “This bakery is the oldest business in Iceland!”

Later, as I sat in the corner reading the English publication, the Reykjavik Grapevine, I noticed a few more immigrants wander in: a security guard from Ghana picking up breakfast, an American jeweler buying coffee, and a middle Eastern gentleman perusing Icelandic delicacies.

I, as one of many avid Icelandic fans, took this as a fortuitous sign. As well, driving into the city, I noticed other signs of economic life in Iceland: rush hour, lines outside of the 3 Frakkar restaurant that still included a number of Icelanders looking for a good place to have a meal, and caravans of camping vans dotting the country roads with Icelanders taking their summer holidays, even though, similar to many Americans, most vacationers are choosing spots much closer to home.

And tourists abound in Iceland at the moment.  The Icelandic Krona (ISK) has dropped 50%. For Icelanders, that has been catastrophic.  For tourists, what was once unthinkably expensive, is now mildly affordable.  A night at a 3 star hotel that would have cost upwards of  $250 a night two years ago now costs $120.  Having visited the not-to-be-missed Kolaportið Flea Market, I will say items have not dropped off into the cheap category.  A half a loaf of “geyser bread” , the delectable daily-made bread served with fresh trout, will cost you upwards of 700 ISK or $5.  Still compared to New York prices, there are deals to be had.   

 For more information on visiting Iceland, go to www.icelandnaturally.org, or www.icelandair.com.      

I just had one of the greatest business travel experiences of my 20+ year career.  After a bumpy West to East Coast flight, a somewhat strained check-in process (the hotel quoted me a different rate at reception than our travel agency gave me, but that’s another story), I walked into a very nice room at a hip New York hotel and found nirvana.  When I sat down to set up my computer, there were four (FOUR!) electrical outlets, neatly lined up next to the Ethernet cable for my computer as well as the A/V plugs that would allow me to hook up my computer to the flat screen TV.  I didn’t have to hunt for additional plugs to charge my phone or my Blackberry.  I didn’t have to crawl underneath a desk.  I didn’t have to bring my own Ethernet cable from the office.  Everything was all in one place and it was very easy to use.  I finally found a hotel that understands the needs of a business traveler!

From free newspapers to coupons for local store discounts to preferred status for restaurant reservations, more and more hotels are looking for ways to build and maintain their relationships with business travelers.  All of these things are great, but what really matters to this business traveler is being able to do complete my work in the comfort of my room without having to hunt for electrical outlets and have my personal work devices scattered all over the room.  The entire technical experience was worth the price of the $5 bottle of water from the mini-bar.  Hallelujah!

For all the fancy amenities hotels offer, they shouldn’t forget about the little (and inexpensive) things that make the business travel experience…an easy-to-use computer set-up, a comfortable bed and lots of candy in the mini-bar.

Came across this on SpringWise.  It’s a self-cooling canopy bed called Evening Breeze, “a canopy bed with built-in air conditioner that uses only a fraction of that energy.”

We find no shortage of green and eco-related online content when it comes to tourism.  It no longer seems to be a differentiator, but rather the cost of entry.  Would love for you to share some of the eco-friendly products you’ve come across.

Full post on SpringWise here.  Excerpt below:

In the Evening Breeze bed, air is filtered and cooled to a set temperature and humidity level and then gently directed over the sleeper via an upholstered canopy ceiling. A built-in mosquito net protects the sleeper from uninvited visitors while also helping to contain the cooled air, meaning that no airtight insulation is necessary—rather, the room can be left to its natural state, with windows open for fresh air. The eco-minded bed is crafted from FSC-approved wood, and it uses only environmentally friendly R410A coolant. Perhaps best of all, however, is that whereas conventional air conditioners use between 1,200 and 2,000 Watts, the average energy use for the Evening Breeze bed is only 400 Watts, creating a reduction in energy use of 60 percent per room.