Posts Tagged ‘belgium’

Hotels: destination PR boosts strategy

Friday, August 27th, 2010

Strategize PR efforts to include the destination to cast a wider net of opportunities for the hotel

Strategize PR efforts to include the destination to cast a wider net of opportunities for the hotel

Happy Friday!  Today, I am in a great mood.  It’s been a whirlwind of a summer with almost too much travel, so coming back and settling into a routine has been a great way to end the summer on a soft note. 

I’ve been thinking a lot about destinations this week… as we’ve explored on this blog, if you are working with a hotel, aligning your PR efforts to include the destination can pay plenty of dividends in the long term.

It has indeed become more difficult to obtain prime and strategic placements with the publishing shakeout, but when an article finally does come out, somehow it’s all worth it again!

I was so pleased with this USA Today Travel Tips article  that talks about the Hotel Heritage Relais Chateaux in Bruges.  I like this article especially because it only lists one hotel for each destination.  The fact that the article was published as online content makes it easy to share it with others on Twitter and Facebook.   In the past, a print article would have been more exciting, but that has completely changed in the last two years.

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Posted in European Destinations, Hospitality, Integrated Marketing Communications, Media Relations, PR, Top Accommodations, social media | No Comments »

Hotels Embrace Earth Hour 2009!

Thursday, March 26th, 2009

This Saturday,on March 28, 2009, from 6pm-midnight, the four star boutique Hotel Heritage in Bruges will turn off the lights in the public areas of the property for six hours instead of the customary one hour (8:30p-9:30p). The hotel strives to be sustainable and is introducing several green initiatives through its scheduled renovations.  www.hotel-heritage.com 

Unfortunately, events like Earth hour are not realized as much as they should.  The lack of awareness around this global WWF annual event ties into the continuous conversation of sustaining resources to take action on climate change.  

Some hotels are following the ritual from 8:30-9:30 this Saturday, according to my dear friend Mark Johnson’s award winning travel blog, HotelChatter, http://www.hotelchatter.com/tag/Earth%20Hour%20Hotels.  I think more hotels should follow suit, create PR around them, and why not go the extra step like the Hotel Heritage will be doing to conserve energy. 

It happens to be my birthday on Saturday, so I’ll be sure to help however little I can to prevent global warming.

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Posted in European Destinations, Hospitality, PR, Top Accommodations | 2 Comments »

Make It Viral!

Friday, March 6th, 2009

Since messages are everywhere we look nowadays, it’s easy to read an article and forward it to ten people who we think will find it interesting.  Everyday, we share information, news stories, funny anectodes, events we would like to attend, video streams, and photos.  Each time we forward a message through email, or social networks, it is because we want to create a chain reaction from people we trust.  We want to start conversations on topics we find interesting.  Recently, we created a Facebook page for the four star Hotel Heritage in Bruges, www.hotel-heritage.com, where we are working on creating a fan base of people interested in traveling to that destination.  When the hotel won the 2009 TripAdvisor Award for Best Luxury Accommodation earlier this year, we sent an update to fans to let them know.  We opened the topic for discussion and paired it with traditional media relations.  Spreading a strong, well-tailored, yet simple message strategically to its audience, helped the hotel with outreach, awareness, exposure and branding.

Consistently examining and re-examining your message will help you determine if it is newsworthy enough to have a viral component.

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Posted in European Destinations, Hospitality, PR, Top Accommodations | 1 Comment »