Hotel Bozica Pre-empts Secret Escapes' Deadline

Hotel Bozica Dubrovnik - Secret Escapes Sale

I received a promotional e-mail this morning from Secret Escapes. Amongst the offers was an attractive 31% off promotion for Hotel Bozica in Dubrovnik. According to the e-mail, there was still 5 days to go of the sale. I clicked the e-mail link only to get a message that said the Secret Escapes website was temporarily down. I tried the link again a few minutes later and was directed to a page with a message that said,"Unfortunately the Croatia holiday summer sale has now finished".

Obviously Hotel Bozica only has a strictly limited allocation for such deeply discounted special offers. It would rather sell its holidays via its own distribution or via tour operators that guarantee a better rate.

Croatia, and Dubrovnik in particular, is obviously proving an increasingly popular holiday destination for UK holidaymakers. This year the ABTA Travel Convention will be held in Dubrovnik. The ABTA convention is the largest annual event in the UK travel industry's calendar, attended by thousands of delegates. This is the final seal of approval from Europe's second most important (after Germany) outbound tourism market.

Its Winter - Head to Morzine for Skiing

Its now January and we are in deep mid-winter. In the UK temperatures have fallen and so has snow. Well a smattering anyway. Its definitely time to head to the slopes. And there appears to be plenty of ski bargains. Certainly for January departures.

The problem in recent years has been the relative weakness of the pound against the Euro. Combined with the continuously rising prices for ski passes, ski lessons and ski equipment has meant that skiing is a sport that has become the preserve of the rich. However, there is a chink of light. When it comes to prices ski accommodation has broken the trend experienced by the other components of a ski holiday. Hotels, chalets and apartments have all been reducing their prices in periods of under occupancy.

Ski accommodation is defined by the accommodation type - hotel, chalet and apartment - and by the level of board - self-catered, bed and breakfast or full board. Distinguishing which is which is becoming increasingly difficult. Some hotels are looking more like apartment blocks. And some apartment blocks are looking more like hotels. Chalets also come in catered and self-catered varieties. Giving you the option of cooking for yourself or being waited on for your every need.

Chalets are typically smaller than hotels or apartments. In the busier resorts this gives chalets the edge because they can be located closer to the slopes. A location even 50 metres or so close to a piste means you have the benefit or being able to ski in and ski out of your accommodation.

Chalet Cordee From Morzine Town

Bargains abound. A suggestion of you are a serious skier and find travelling in a large party to your liking is to try the catered chalets in Morzine offered by Adventure Base. Adventure Base is a British-owned chalet company based in Chamonix in the heart of the French Alps.

The above image shows Chalet Cordee viewed from Morzine town. Chalet Cordee is a luxury catered chalet that includes a hot tub and sauna. Even in January they should both warm you up after a hard day's skiing!

Sourcing Services within the Hotel Industry

From small guest houses to internationally branded chains, hotels spend a lot of money ensuring the expectations of their guests are met. However, the boom of last minute and discount websites in the last decade has meant that margins within the industry are even tighter effecting every department.

As a result of the spending power offered by the Hotel industry there are more and more specialist sourcing consultants appearing claiming to reduce your spending, whilst maintaining the quality of the products and services supplied. Unlike many other businesses, Hotels have a large and varied supply chain that covers many areas such as:

• Laundry Cleaning & Supply
• Food & Beverage
• Crockery & Cutlery
• Furniture
• Stationary
• Printed Products
• Maintenance

If you are considering using a procurement consultant, what should you be looking for and what questions should you be asking? Here are a few I found when recently researching some of the cases of other purchasers:-

Can your sourcing consultant guarantee a reduction in your running costs?

Sometimes a procurement consultant will be able to give you a forecast of expected return on investment (ROI) in order to give you a feel for the savings you will make. Like so many other things, the more buying power you have, the more money you are likely to save.
But even if you are a small chain or just an individual hotel, don’t let this discourage you. Smaller local companies and competitors of your current supplier may well fight for your business too – it is the job of the Sourcing Consultant to make that happen!

Will the sourcing consultant assist during any supplier transitions and what guarantees are there surrounding service disruptions as a result of any changes?

Let’s face it, if you have any long term supplier relationships in place then implementing a system like this could potentially make maintaining these relationships more difficult and could break down your supply chain temporarily. Making sure that your sourcing consultant has a plan in place in preparation for any disruption is crucial, especially during busy periods.

How soon will you start to see savings in your purchases?

Are the savings instantaneous or do you have an initial outlay to consider? Some companies offer their services free of charge if you don’t see a reduction in costs, but what if that takes months? Will you be paying the consultant in the meantime?

Of course, before you do anything it is important to make sure you don’t have any service agreements in place that can’t be broken. But in the long term, finding a sourcing consultant might save your business some crucial pounds. As a result, I am certain that the consultants trying to save money in the industry are going to be around for years to come and judging by the savings they could make, we should probably welcome that.

Hotels need to promote despite the Olympics

Are hotels in the UK and especially in London relying too much on the Olympics to deliver their next year's business?

There are those concerned that people will not want to come to London before or during the Olympics for fears of over-crowded transport, a lack of - or too high - prices for hotel rooms and the he capital resembling a building site for most of the year.

The official agency London & Partners that are behind promoting tourism for London has admitted that the 2012 Olympic Games could lead to a lull in visitors to the capital next year, which may have a damaging impact on the UK's weak economic recovery.

According to a recent study by the accountancy firm PwC, London's hotels will deliver growth in revenue per available room – which is a key measure for the hotel industry – of 4.3 per cent in 2012. But supporting the impact of the Olympics, PwC forecasts only "slight growth" in the first quarter and a dip in the second and fourth quarters. However, there is a projection for a 20 % growth in the three months covering the Olympics.

There is also a worry about the level of uptake of the 40,000 rooms - or 40 % of capacity - allocated to the London organising committee as part of the winning bid in 2005. To find out what the uptake will be is not going to be clear until February 2012.

Only then will London hotels know how much work they have got left to do for making sure the 20 % growth will actually materialise. But also, more importantly - is's still not too late to work hard on promotional activity to avoid the dips predicted in the other quarters of the year.

Trip Advisor Faces Legal Action from Hoteliers

Trip Advisor the leading hotel review website faces possible legal action from a group of hoteliers. The hoteliers have been brought together by KwikChex.com and may launch a group defamation action regarding the critical content on Trip Advisors website.

Kwikchex.com alleges that many of the critical reviews on Trip Advisor are falsely planted by rival hotels or agents working for them. Trip Advisor's results are also fed to a rank of booking and comparison websites. This included Google Maps and Google Place pages. A negative review can have a serious impact on booking levels and popularity.

Trip Advisor publishes 35 million reviews per year and would find it difficult to screen all reviews for accuracy.

Hotel Conference Business

Times are tough in the hotel market. One area of the hotel business that seems to have weathered the recession quite well is the conference and meetings market.

This is a mainstay of hotel revenue and if managed well can create higher margin business. The boom times of corporate excess and major set piece conferences and exhibitions are long past. However, a regular stream of small scale conference business is extremely welcome. It is easier to manage, less likely to be cancelled and less disruptive for running the rest of the hotel operation.

My recommended approach is to target local small and medium sized enterprises. This type of business may well exist without a formal marketing budget but has a demand for meeting and training facilities and the occasional piece of low level client entertaining. This type of operation requires straight forward technology, the odd banner stand and flexible catering arrangements.

A favourite target is the organisation which is of sufficient scale that it can employ 3 or 4 directors with their own expense accounts and the ability to put company incurred expenditure on their personal credit cards.

Hotel Promotion

This is a new blog about hotel marketing and promotion. It will cover all aspects of hotel marketing, both offline and online. This will include online marketing activities such as hotel SEO, hotel pay per click advertising and offline marketing activities such as public relations and advertising.

Hotel Internet Marketing works in both B2C and B2B environments for hotel companies wishing to promote their accommodation, restaurant, meetings and conference and leisure business streams.

The hotel and leisure industry is increasingly fast moving and sophisticated. It is no longer than just about filling rooms and yield management. A successful hotel is a complex business operation with a wide range of interdependent revenue streams. A successful hotel requires a community of regular and ad hoc customers. Building this community requires ambition, a clear business plan and an acute attention to detail. This blog aims to rise to the marketing challenge.