This caught my eye today:
Banish the Boring Banquet Room.
As hotels compete with increasingly novel offsite venues like galleries, pop up stores, and unconventional public spaces for events, traditional meeting rooms are being designed with flexibility and flair. Cool amenities like open kitchen bars, living room-style set-ups, and more residential and intimate settings are paving the way to bespoke events.
Interesting because for years and years the traditional banquet room has been a ‘set piece’ and precisely for that reason something one tried to avoid for anything remotely creative..
Read more trends from the article: Hotel Trends Driven by China’s Next Generation of Travellers
Mobile ready websites are no longer emerging trends in the travel industry. They are now a force to stay and have forever changed the way travel shoppers search, book and interact with properties. With millions of travelers connected to the Internet via smartphones, your hotel needs to consider how to reach potential guests at each phase of the buying cycle via the mobile web.
Ensure your property can be reached in the fastest growing sales channel, with a revenue-driving mobile website. With more than 15 million people projected to book hotel rooms on their mobile devices in 2012, the time is now.
Read the full article on Hospitalitynet
From : The Future of Tourism | Envisaging a 2011 scenario | By Chris Luebkeman
Read the full post here
While the fundamentals of hospitality remain steadfast, the
context wrapping around the offer of hospitality services has
changed tremendously, and it will continue to change. In looking
to the year ahead, there are any number of possible, and even
a few probable, futures that we should consider. As we do this,
it is vital that we do not ignore the forces of change around us
that are constantly molding our story of tomorrow as we write it.
In the article Chris Luebkeman asks some poignant questions that are suitable for your next future scenarios planning session :
• What if energy were free ? What if it were rationed ? Or each
individual had a personal resource account ?
• What would happen if oil hit US$ 200 per barrel ? What will
happen when carbon is taxed ?
• What if wealth continues to flow East and South ? What if
disposable income continues to disappear in the US
and Europe ?
• What will the new wave of tourists bring ? What will the
growing middle-class Indians or Chinese expect in a hotel ?
• What does a property look like that is fit for Korean
teenagers ?
• What if the « staycation » replaces the global grand tour ?
As you answer each of these questions, consider how our industry will not just survive, but thrive
About The Hotel Yearbook: The Hotel Yearbook is a uniquely forward-looking annual publication. Each year, dozens of CEOs and other senior executives from the hotel industry worldwide, as well as leading analysts and observers, use this platform to share their expectations for the coming twelve months. Each of the 70+ contributors looks specifically at his or her area of expertise, describing the likely developments for the year ahead. As a whole, The Hotel Yearbook thus offers readers a comprehensive overview of the trends and factors that will have an impact on the performance of the hotel business in the year to come – as perceived by the industry’s leaders themselves. For more information visit www.hotel-yearbook.com.
If not you should maybe consider it. Because the feed back you are getting from you customer surveys is not giving you the info that you need to make serious product developments that will set you apart from the competition.
In today’s world of networked individuals, new behaviors are emerging. Some are creating new rules and systems of behavior, even within face-to-face experiences. Some are defying old patterns of beliefs.
Here are some of the questions you should be asking our house anthropologist to consider:
* What patterns of attendee behavior are you observing?
* Where are attendees congregating?
* Where are they not congregating?
* What venue and environmental pressures are shaping the attendee experience?
* What parts of your venue are attendees avoiding?
* What are attendees carrying with them to sessions?
* How are attendees communicating with each other?
* How are attendees reacting to the flow of the conference experience?
* What are attendees feeling about this experience?
* How are attendees behaving in education sessions?
This idea is further elaborated in a great post from Velvet Chainsaw Consulting here
In creating its corporate university in 1985, Accor was the first service company in Europe to set up an integrated training center.
Twenty-five years later, Accor Academy locally trains 135,000 students a year through a catalogue of 120 different courses delivered in 16 Academies around the world.
However – you don’t need to be a giant like Accor to have your own corporate University!
If you belong to a smaller chain or association of independent hotels you can partner with us. We deliver custom made service management training at university level. This is what the association of Danish Conference Centers has done with result of now having educated more than 150 managers since 2004
Courses can be designed according to student levels on bachelor or masters level and with or without official accreditation. Also students can get certificates at both levels or go for full degrees. Programmes are accredited by the University of Chester(UK).
All GROW programmes are based on action learning. This means that students stay on their job while studying and have as their main focus to add value to their organisation and work towards solutions to real worklife challenges.
For more information drop me a note.
