You've simply got to love this song...and the flash mob received quite an accolade at the Planet Hollywood Hotel & Casino (a Sheraton branded property at the time) both when this happened and subsequently on YouTube... the video has clocked nearly 2 million views to-date and shows no signs of slowing down.
The song was so popular that the guys who came up with it actually released the official music video recently...watch it below:
Flipboard iPad App making waves - create your own social magazine
A new iPad application called Flipboard has been making waves recently...so much so that the company is struggling to cope with demand for the app. The app allows users to link to their social networks and pull in related content to create a rich visually appealing "social magazine"... watch the video to learn more:
Revisiting Hotel Internet Marketing Predictions for 2013
I came across a piece I’d written about 17-18 months ago on the future of hotel internet marketing. The article talked about 5 broad tech trends that I thought would radically alter the way we approached digital / internet marketing for hotels back at the end of 2008. I thought it’d be fun to take a re-look at the article and see how far we’ve actually come in the last year or more and if those predictions still hold water… here goes:
1. Choice is king.
The clear winners of the online distribution race will be suppliers and 3rd parties that provide the most choice to the customer. “Experience building” will become key to the looking and booking process online. This will mean that successful suppliers (hotels) will have to break down elements of their inventory like rooms, dining, sports, spa and supporting services into individual units that can be booked and packaged both internally and externally. The more elements you provide to what I like to call the “Experience Engine”, the better the choice available to customers to personalize and tailor their experiences. This creation of experience units will also allow tourism industry suppliers to collaborate more effectively online, as well as spur the evolution of 3rd party providers who provide superior experience engines, taking destination marketing to a whole new level.
Take a fresh approach to Hotel Guest Satisfaction and Web Analytics
I want to share two very simple but powerful ideas that could radically transform the way the hotel industry utilizes measures like the hotel guest satisfaction index, web analytics, etc.
1. Taking ‘measurement’ beyond just numbers
We all know that to be truly hospitable, one must go beyond just providing the necessary physical comforts that hotel guests and travellers demand. More often than not, what keeps guests coming back again and again are not the features and amenities…but the relationships and memories (after all, human beings ARE 80% emotion and 20% intellect). So perhaps it is time to step beyond the easily quantifiable attributes of a stay and start measuring actual guest ‘happiness’. When was the last time you asked a hotel guest about what made them really happy? Guest satisfaction scores and indexes often fail to consider the true value that employee-guest relationships bring to the table. Plus, since guest satisfaction depends on your employees being happy…how many hotels do you know that actually go beyond the typical corporate HR mumbo-jumbo and actually understand what makes their people tick? Why do they come to work? What makes them happy? What would they like to achieve…and can we help them get there?
What ties Facebook, Organ Donation and Boiling Frogs together
Now that I have your attention with my intriguing post title, allow me to explain just what I mean… and boiling frogs and organ donation do indeed feature in this little blog post!
All the recent furore over Facebook privacy has shown no signs of abating…and for good reason. Privacy, after all, is a sensitive and important issue. Or is it?
There’s no doubt that Facebook has made a startling entrance in the online world and taken over our browsers and mobile screens rather quickly. Official stats from Facebook claim that 400 million users currently use the service and almost half log on every day. Globally it appears that people now spend over 500 billion minutes per month on Facebook…an enviable record for any platform.
Just in time for summer Westin Hotels & Resorts is introducing a selection of SuperFoods-inspired Mojito cocktails at more than 70 properties across North America. Created exclusively for Westin Hotels by Francesco Lafranconi, Director of Mixology forSouthern Wine & Spirits of America, Inc., each handcrafted cocktail is made with key SuperFoods ingredients including blueberries, ginger, green tea and honey. The brand's new SuperFoods Mojito offering joins a host of other signature Westin offerings specially designed to help preserve wellness on the road.
Each participating property will feature a classic Cuban Mojito made with fresh mint, rum, and fresh lime alongside additional SuperFoods-inspired Mojito creations such as the Blueberry Mojito, Pineapple and Ginger Mojito, Spicy Apple Mojito, Green Tea and Honey Mojito, Strawberry Kiwi Mojito, and the Brazilian Cure Mojito made with Brazilian rum and VeeV Açai Spirit, a powerful superfood liquor.
