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Hotels with world-beating views
By Jim ByersTravel Editor

Luscious St. Lucia. Enchanted Arizona. And superb Slovenia.
The folks at forbes.com came up with a nice list the other day; a look at the hotels of the world with the best views. It’s completely subjective, of course, but it’s a pretty good list, and not at all USA-centric, as many travel lists tend to be. Here’s a look at what they came up with, along with a few thoughts of my own.
•Jade Mountain, St. Lucia - luscious hotel with incredible views of the Pitons; green-clad rock formations that jut out of the blue Caribbean. Often listed on lists such as these.
•Shangri-La, Paris - A relative newcomer, it’s said to have stunning views of the Eiffel Tower, the Seine and Les Invalides.
•Le Sirenuse, Positano, Italy - Another spot often found atop world’s best hotel lists. A beautiful part of the world, for sure.
•Machu Picchu Sanctuary Lodge, Peru. Great views of, um, Machu Picchu.
•Salto Chico Lodge, Patagona, Chile. Another one I don’t know, but the view of a nearby lake and incredibly jagged mountain-tops look tremendous.
•Enchantment Resort, Sedona, Arizona. A lovely hotel in an area known for dramatic rock formations and, allegedly, one of those geo-magnetic places that bestow healing powers. Or something like that.
•Ritz-Carlton, Hong Kong. A recent, towering addition to the Kowloon skyline with remarkable views over to the main island and the bustling harbour.
•Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise, Alberta. Enough said.
•One and Only Cape Town. Pretentious name, but nothing lame about the views of the city’s waterfront and picturesque Table Mountain.
•Blanket Bay Lodge, Glenorchy, New Zealand. Great views of Lake Wakatipu and The Remarkables mountain range (which are featured on in Saturday’s Travel section in a story I wrote about Queenstown).
Like I said, it’s a good list, with representation from all over the world. I was surprised to see they didn’t have anything in the South Pacific, particularly Bora Bora or Moorea. But Tahiti does just fine in these lists most of the time, so what the hey.
The Park Hyatt in Sydney offers stunning views of the Sydney Opera House and the Harbour Bridge, and that’s a tough combination to beat. It’s also hard to top the views of Waikiki Beach and the Diamond Head volcano crater from the Royal Hawaiian Hotel in Honolulu and the views of Rome from the Hassler Hotel, high atop the Spanish Steps. I guess you could make a point in favour of any of the hotels with great views of Niagara Falls, as well.
Personally, my favourite unsung view would have to be from the Park Bled Hotel on Lake Bled in Slovenia. It’s not a fancy place, but the views out over a crazy-blue-green lake to the castle on the north shore and the small church, with towering, snow-clad alpine mountains in the distance, is one of the great delights of the world. I probably took 100 photos from my balcony in 10 minutes when I checked in a couple years ago.
They also make a great Bled cream cake, which has custard-like cream and vanilla and powdered sugar. Tremendous stuff and a legend in Slovenia.
Got any personal faves? Drop me a line at travel@thestar.ca and maybe pass along one of your own photos...

Four Quick Tips For Improving Customer Feedback

Oct 14, 11 | 12:04 am

By Andy Beal

I just returned from staying at a fabulous hotel in Hawaii. While I was there, I was impressed that just about every employee made eye contact with me, said hello (more aften "Aloha") and, given the chance, would ask me how my stay was going.

I must have been asked that question at least a couple dozen times over my five night stay, and it got me thinking about how awesome of a feedback loop that creates for a hotel. Think about it. Most hotels don't know about your grievance or dissatisfaction until you get home and open up TripAdvisor.com. It's only then that they read that the food was too chewy, towels too scratchy, or bed too uncomfortable. This hotel was different. They weren't prepared to take any chances. Whether or not the staff were actually interested in my satisfaction, they at least asked. If I had not been having a great time, I suspect that information would have made it back to someone that could have rectified the situation in a hurry.

That leads me to today's question. Are you asking your customers how well they are enjoying their experience with your company? Waiting for them to post a review on Yelp, Amazon.com, eBay, Trip Advisor, etc., is like rolling the dice on your online reputation and hoping for two sixes. More often you'll get just a two and a one. So, here are some ideas for creating a feedback loop so you can grab any praise, or fix any issues, before your customer gets to their web browser.

1. Ask them!

If you do business with your customers face-to-face, please make sure you are asking them how you are doing. Customers don't always feel like they can complain without being prompted. I don't know about you, but I have had plenty of mediocre experiences that I would have told someone about, if they had simply asked.

2. E-mail them

Do all of your follow up e-mails have a "P.S. Please let us know how we can make our company better?" at the bottom of them? That's a missed opportunity to collect immediate feedback. Take it one step further and send your customers a survey, but don't make it too complex or they will not find the time to complete it. Simply ask, "Would you recommend us to your friends? Please explain your answer." It's that simple!

3. Show them you care

A hairdresser once told me that she wished more people would simply tell her that they didn't like their new cut and color (instead of going home and stewing on it and never returning). She wanted to fix it. I suggested that she should have signs everywhere that encouraged immediate feedback. "Don't like your haircut? Don't leave the salon without telling us. We want to fix it!" Let your customers know where they can provide feedback and they'll feel more confident in doing so, and less likely to do it anonymously on a website.

4. Create a feedback loop

Like I mentioned above, I had a fantastic stay at the hotel, but if that had not been the case, I hope they had a system in place to escalate any complaints to someone that could not only fix my situation, but could also assess whether it warranted further investigation. Sure, your customers want to be heard, but they also want to know that any issues will be fixed so they can feel confident in returning to you-and recommending you to their friends.

Remember, most customers only complain when they are having a truly horrible experience. There are many more that don't speak up, despite their experience with your business being merely "meh." Those are the ones you need to encourage to provide feedback. By doing so, you'll also likely hear from all those customers that think you are simply great.

Next week, I'll share some tips on how to turn positive feedback into tangible revenue!

Redesigning Your Hotel Website for the Social Media Revolution

Sep 29, 11 | 12:03 am

A case study from Thailand Faasai Resort and Spa

Despite their critical business importance, most hotel websites fail to take advantage of the social media revolution or meet the needs of modern wired travelers. Today more than 80 percent of travelers rely on the internet for their travel research and want a fast, multimedia, interactive experience including advice from other travelers.

The owner-manager of Faasai Resort and Spa, a small eco-resort in Southeast Thailand, Bronwen Evans recognized this need but struggled to find local designers and developers who could develop her site in the way she wanted. She therefore turned for assistance to a New Zealand website business Core Development, that produced beautiful, innovative and clean designs and between them they redesigned the new website www.faasai.com.

Bronwen's vision was to redesign the website along the lines of a news magazine so that travelers could have a rich experience of discovery before they even arrived. In line with best practices, they decided the hotel website should have these features:

• Fully integrated with social media - reviews from TripAdvisor, interactive Google Map, Facebook comments, YouTube videos, plus a host of other social media sharing buttons.

• Optimised for search engines - simple navigation, dynamic and rich content, internal and external links, image-rich, with embedded captions, a Google site map, meta tag page descriptions

• Call to action - a link to the booking engine prominently displayed on the home page and room pages

• Mobile-friendly - displaying well on any kind of mobile device or any kind of browser with simple navigation

• Rich multi-media experience - prominently displayed videos, 360 virtual tour plus extensive gallery of high quality photos

• Calendar of events and local highlights - up-to-date information about the local area and upcoming events

• Blog and photo gallery - shared stories about the activities at the resort and guests continually updated through the content management system

• Brand values - care for nature, responsible tourism and friendliness and warmth

The independent resort is owned and managed by a Thai New Zealand couple, Surin Laopha and Bronwen Evans. Surin had a traditional country childhood in a village in the Northeast of Thailand and studied and practiced traditional Thai massage and healing at Wat Po, the elite school of Thai massage in Bangkok. Bronwen is a former Radio New Zealand broadcaster who also works as an advisor to a major Thai corporation.  The resort reflects New Zealand tourism standards such as a high level of environmental protection, participation and learning activities for guests and interactive experience of nature. On the Thai side there is a chance to experience the real Thailand in an unspoiled fishing village community, fun, a genuine love for guests and Buddhist tolerance and patience.

"Since we built our old website there have been many important changes at the resort including buying and preserving a nearby wetlands nature sanctuary and developing our integrated edible forest garden," said Bronwen. "The website now reflects these things, our love of nature and some of the character of our staff and guests."

Bronwen's tips for other hoteliers planning to update their website is they should not to try to do everything on their own site but integrate them with specialist sites and social media - for example the Faasai website outsources the map to Google, the videos to YouTube, the interactive comments to Facebook and the booking engine to FastBooking.

About Faasai Resort and Spa

Faasai Resort and Spa is a 14 room eco-resort at Kung Wiman, Chanthaburi, Thailand about 200 kilometres southeast of Bangkok. The resort is nestled into a forest covered hill amidst three acres of tropical gardens, overlooking the mangrove-fringed Kung Kraben Bay. Faasai is a ten minute walk from Kung Wiman beach. www.faasai.com. Tel:            +66813426234      . Email: bronwenannevans@faasai.com

Awards won by Faasai Resort and Spa

•Outstanding service to the environment and nature in the Eastern region - Thailand Boutique Awards 2010

•Best Small Hotel in Thailand  - TAT Green Awards 2009. "The Green Awards are a symbol of TAT's thanks to outstanding quality and reliable tourism products offered by hoteliers and tour operators" - Joanna Cooke, Marketing Manager for TAT UK.

•Responsible Tourism award - Faasai Resort & Spa was runner-up in the budget category in the 2008 Wild Asia Responsible Tourism Awards. The judges awarded the resort a score of 96% for its sustainable practices.

About Core Development

Core Development is a Dunedin based business offering website design, e- commerce development, web hosting services. To see their portfolio visit www.coredev.co.nz

Use a sales action plan to boost room rates in 2012

By: Howard FeiertagHotel and Motel Management

 It is time to do our marketing plans again, with sales and marketing directors dusting off last year’s plan to figure out what needs to be done to improve business next year. It seems that the top priority may be gathering the information to help determine what could be done, and what will be the strategies to improve average daily rate.

According to TravelClick’s July 2011 North American Hospitality Review, ADR, rather than occupancy, will be the key driver in increasing revenue per available room for hotels in the upcoming year. This is ultimately fueling growth in the industry because the review shows RevPAR has consistently improved for the past 18 months. Additionally, demand for the midscale hotel market is beginning to return. Since the luxury market has seen the most growth since the recession “ended,” the uptick in the midscale market is a very positive sign.

The job that needs to be done is in the hands of the properties’ sales departments. A big part of the marketing plan for next year could be the sales action plan. When putting together this plan, sales staffers need to take a look at the appropriate figures to determine which markets have been the best based on their ADR and how much dollar business was generated from each of these markets against total dollar room sales for the property. The idea, of course, is to consider the best markets (based on ADR) to go after. A goal of increased dollar revenue for each market segment selected must be set. Once the goals are set, the sales staffers need to come up with various strategies to reach the goal within the year. The next step would be to document the strategies with a listing of who will do what in performance of the strategies.

One thing to consider is the cost of performing the activities. Set a percentage of the goal that could be allotted as expense for activities. For example, if participating in certain, appropriate, trade shows is a strategy to get more business from a selected market segment, then the cost for this activity probably should not be more than 10 percent of the expected revenue generated in business from that segment.

A form for each strategy should cover each activity and list who will do what, when it will be done, expected revenue generated and cost. For a sample form, send an email to howardf@vt.edu.