Occupancy is 9/10 of the Law

As the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy continues, the chaos as it relates to hotel rooms will not quickly go away. The decision to cancel the NY Marathon was 100% correct, just 2 days late. Even when the electricity returns and residents return to their homes, a new influx of FEMA, contractors and insurance adjusters will gobble up hotel rooms just before the big Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade and holiday season in NYC. Bands, tour groups and individual guests will all be pushed out of the big city as long term hotel guests occupy rooms. No hotelier in their right mind can force a guest to leave once they have occupied a room and have not broken the law and have means of payment. Get ready for an increase in customer complaints and disappointed travelers as they find their well laid plans messed up by Sandy's aftermath. My suggestion for all those planning to travel into New York City is to call the hotel, speak to a Sr. Manager and get verbal confirmation at least three times that your room will be there when you arrive. If you have booked via an online travel agent plan on some type of hiccup. With 25% less profit in these reservations, the hotel will be less likely to honor the reservation. I also recommend arriving early and before dark. No one wants to make their way around NYC in the dark looking for a hotel room, if theirs is somehow not available when they arrive. Groups that find themselves displaced can look to the Lehigh Valley at www.discoverlehighvalley.com for availability, great rates an only a 90 minute highway commute into the city.

10 Tips For Getting The Most Out Of Your CVB Partnership

10 Tips For GettingThe Most Out Of Your CVB Partnership

As hotel operators it easy to get caught up in deliveringexceptional customer service to our guests, offering job counseling to ouremployees or hustling our sales team to close the next big piece of business. Thefrenetic pace of the hospitality business can often lead to overlookedopportunities. A key opportunity that often gets taken for granted andunfortunately underutilized is the local convention and visitors bureau. Thesedestination marketing organizations exist for the benefit of their partners andto deliver increased visitor stays to a region. A hotel operator would makeexcellent use of their time if they followed these simple tips when leveragingtheir CVB partnerships.

1. Maximize your exposure on your local and state CVB web sites. These sites often attract thousands of visitors per day to their sites and having your hotel visible in multiple locations will help to increase bookings. The more direct links to your hotel’s booking engine the more likely your hotel will be sold. When participating in a special package, make sure the link to that package page is displayed and do not make the customer have to search for the package on your website. Take advantage of the maximum number of photos and word descriptions offered.

2. Participate in programs. The CVB has many marketing programs to consider. Understanding your market niche and promoting your hotel along side the CVB adds credibility to your offering. 

3. Get involved. Sitting on a committee or volunteering for a board of director position can be very helpful to getting your property noticed.  Offer to host events and board meetings at your hotel. Have your “A” game ready and wow those tourism partners who attend the meeting. Most likely they are the most connected in the region and word will get around about your hotel’s hospitality.

4. Don’t forget about the direct sales staff at the CVB. These sales people are trying to attract business to the area for the benefit of all the partners. They are an extension of your sales office. Make sure the sales managers at the CVB are up to date on your property’s goals and target markets. If you need midweek business in the summer, don’t assume the CVB sales managers are aware of that unless you tell them. If you have special promotions and offers make sure they are armed with the same tools.

5. Public Relations. Remember that your CVB has specialists in this field. They are often fielding calls for information on what is happening in the region. They can deliver your press release to the correct media with more authority. Few hotels have the luxury of a PR staff and the CVB can help fill this role for your hotel.

6. Social Media. In most tourism regions the CVB has taken a proactive role in Social media and has gained more fans, followers and links than your individual property. Including the CVB in any social media campaign will assist in the offer gaining attention.

7. Free Stuff. Make sure your CVB knows you are open to helping out when they are in need of accommodations for writers or meeting planners scouting the area for their next story or corporate event. A bottle of wine and a welcome note, compliments of the CVB will go a long way to winning over the hearts of the visitor and your CVB staff.  

8. Extend employee rates to your CVB staff. Treat them like your own employees.  They will be more likely to remember your hotel if they or a family member has experienced your hospitality first hand.

9. Establish direct billing for your CVB. Treat them similar to a corporate account and establish a business rate for them or honor the government rate. Offer VIP status to any of their guests and communicate the rate and benefits to all reservation and front office staff. This will allow others to handle the special requests when you are not available. 

10. Answer the phone. Make sure your CVB has quick and easy way to contact the decision maker. Often they are working on short deadlines and contacting multiple hotels and attractions. Give them one main contact with authority to make decisions.

Pet Friendly Hotels. Do They Make Sense?

Just got a tweet from Poconos Visitors Bureau announcing that another hotel/resort, The Inn at Pocono Manor, had gone "Pet Friendly!" An exclamation point at the end of the sentence indicates that they think this is a good idea. I on the other hand, not so much. Look, pets are great and I agree that leaving them in a kennel is hardly a vacation for your "best friend" or in some cases, your "baby", but think of all the other people in the hotel who have not signed on, to spend their vacation, business meeting, or romantic getaway in a hotel that accommodates pets. These are tough times for hotels as the recession continues to drag on and every market is being looked at very closely to find new business. I get that, but at the end of the day/night is the ROI really there. And if it is not, why do it? I guess my big objection is that most hotels/resorts are still struggling with being guest friendly so how can they go ahead and tackle being pet friendly. Custom room service menus for gourmet dog food with a hotel logo dog bowl, would be cute, if I knew my room service order was going to be perfect and the trays not left in the hallway till noon the next morning. The assurance that the room was deep cleaned after the guests with pets left would be comforting, if I was not routinely picking up pen caps, mint wrappers, etc, form under the bed when I go to make sure I left nothing behind. If a hotel wants to be pet friendly, here are two suggestions:
Put a kennel on the property with an activities director and vet on call.
Have a patio for outside dining for the pet and their family to visit and dine.
I find it interesting that 20 years ago when I sold for hotels that regularly had dog and cat shows, the hotel was looked down on by upscale customers, now the upscale customers are the ones that are suppose to pay for the $100 cleaning fee, gourmet dog food and custom logo dog bowl.

A subsciber's advice to the Morning Call newspaper

I have been a subscriber/reader of the Morning Call since taking my first job in the Lehigh Valley in 1989 at the old George Washington Lodge on McArthur Rd. The paper does a better job than anyone turning over leads for sales professionals in the tourism business. They get all the news and PR releases before anyone else and their stories in the morning paper are a great source. Often the fact that I have read the paper by 7AM allows my first sales call at 8:30AM to be the one early bird that catches the worm.. With that said, one of my recent pet peeves with the paper is their decision not to send a reporter on the road with the Phillies Major League Baseball team. As much as I am sure there are fiscal concerns, I also understand that every decision has a financial impact and one is chosen over another for many reasons. I must say, reading an AP report on the Phillies is painful. Odds are if someone is reading the paper in this day and age, they are looking for insight and content not how the runs were scored. Mandy Housenick has done an exceptional job in her short couple of years covering the team and making the hard task of getting something out of the players and coaches that we didn't learn on tv or on the internet. Having Mandy at only the home games, probably makes the Morning Call a second class citizen when it comes to getting the behind the scenes news. I hope you will give some thought to this idea of sending Mandy on the road. Also, I have a few thoughts on the real estate section, but will leave that for another day....

28% of Group Sales Inquiries are Lost, Ignored or Abandoned

28% of Group Sales Inquiries Are Lost, Ignored or Abandoned

The same could be said about Group Sales Managers. In today's tough business climate do you find your sales ppl Lost, Ignored or Abandoned? Just popped into my head after reading this alarming statistic on group sales lost.
Might want to shop your phone inquiry, electronic rfp systems etc.

Enjoy -



Ft. Lauderdale – May 12, 2009: An independent test conducted on 750 hotels found that even in this time of declining hotel revenues, 28% of new group sales inquiries are lost, ignored or abandoned. The test was conducted by Quality Track International in April 2009.
Don Bundock, CEO of Quality Track International, says “This result was surprising when you consider the revenue challenges hotels are currently facing. These results did not vary significantly from the first time we conducted this test in 2007 even though the economy is much more difficult now.”
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“Frankly, under the current conditions, we expected to see an increase in effective and efficient inquiry handling. These results reflect the national average. There are many properties that are missing out on as much as 50% of their demand” continued Bundock.
All properties tested were from major brands. Each of the 750 properties tested received four individual group sales inquiry calls. The immediate availability of a Sales Manager was documented but if no one was available, a message was left and the time lapsed to the return call was calculated.
The test was conducted using the Quality Track SMART Call program. Sales Manager Access and Response Time (SMART) Calls maximize the effectiveness and responsiveness of a sales team. Quality Track clients on the SMART Call program are proven to respond to 95% of all sales inquiries in 4 hours or less.

Hotels representing 15 brands from all tiers were included in the current test. Quality Track does not publish individual brand results publicly. Brand and property reports are available to verifiable brand managers on request.

About Quality Track International, Inc.: Quality Track International is an innovative provider of a full range of mystery shopping and performance development tools to the hospitality industry.

For more information or to request brand reports contact: Mr. Donald Bundock, CEO, Quality Track International, Inc., at (416) 693-5426 or by e-mail at Don.Bundock@QualityTrack.com

Ten Strangest Jobs in the Travel Industry

The Ten Strangest Jobs in the Travel Industry
By Ann Tatko-Peterson, Contra Costa Times, Walnut Creek, Calif.McClatchy-Tribune Regional News
January 30, 2009 -
Not your everyday job
Top 10 Strangest Jobs in the Travel Industry, according to Travel + Leisure.
--Hotel Falconer, Biltmore Four Seasons, Santa Barbara -- walks falcon around pool to shoo away seagulls.
--Airport Hunters, Zurich Airport, Switzerland -- chase off wild animals near runways.
--Coconut Safety Engineer, Ritz-Carlton, St. Thomas -- picks ripened coconuts before they fall.
--Karaoke Taxi Drivers, Helsinki, Finland -- drive karaoke-singing riders.
--Duckmaster, Peabody Hotel, Memphis -- cares for five mallard ducks who live and perform at hotel.
--Tourism Ambassador, Japan -- role currently held by anime character Hello Kitty (pictured).
--Sewer Guide, Paris -- boat tourists through Museum of the Sewer under Paris' streets.
--Lego Professional Gluer, Legoland California, Carlsbad -- glues toy bricks based on designers' plans.
--Monkey Men, Amanbagh Resort, Rajasthan, India -- keep native monkeys from stealing guests' cookies.
--Manners Police, Venice, Italy -- keep unruly tourists in check.