Archive for the ‘European Destinations’ Category

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.

B&B Social Networking

Tuesday, July 20th, 2010

As hospitality blazes into social networking, the article in the New York Times last week seems very timely.   Always revolving around cost, the essence of travel and seeking authentic experiences in hotels, B&Bs or even rent-a-bed places remains.

I read with interest the article and agree that social networking provides a healthy alternative to expensive hotels (or expensive cities with hotels), but a traveler must be experienced and really know what they are doing.  Plus, you need to have enough time to research the listings and figure out what accommodation works best for your travel needs.

It’s an awesome niche though for traveling with low cash and an appetite for adventure and it’s fun trying to predict the unpredictable, especially when you show up at a chef’s house for a couple of nights, or the vintage clothing buyer’s house you’ve agreed to rent your room from, as the article discusses. 

This type of B&B networking is not quite competition for hotels as it appeals to a completely seperate market segment of travelers.  But, it’s important to note how the social media savvy of these young (25-35) travelers, and ensure that your hotel’s social networking initiatives are up to par.

Happy Summer!

Wednesday, June 30th, 2010

The trip to my hometown of Kifissia in Greece is about to begin!  Excited and looking forward to enjoying this beautiful sunset again.  Safe travels to all those traveling and happy 4th!  More PR posts coming soon! sunset_kifissia

Keeping up appearances

Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010

I am so pleased to launch a fresh look for my business after four years! It’s so rewarding to see where all this PR work has evolved into and its future potential. I am so happy with this new website that will serve not only as an integrated marketing tool, but also as a place for me to return every so often and reflect on my starting point.

Thank you to a fabulous team of web designers, the clients who I’ve had the pleasure of working with for years, and to my colleagues for their support and advice as we press on exploring the truth in PR.  The blog look will be updated shortly!

Ongoing PR crisis fuels unecessary duel: BP or British Petroleum?

Tuesday, June 15th, 2010

I read an interesting post on PRWeek about the latest and greatest on the worst environmental PR crisis of our time.   The Huffington Post had a much more direct approach to the issue.  The New York Times had a good blog post on this, too.  Great, so now we’re fighting with each other from across the pond instead of trying to work together to fix this. 

It does anger me to see this finger pointing game carry on.  It’s as if we’ve asked incapable people to lead and manage our world, and our environment.  

While I don’t understand fully the politics behind the issue (we’ll probably never know all the facts), I do know that finger pointing is not a healthy PR tactic.  It is a miserable - and very temporary way - to place the blame somewhere else while the crisis continues and evolves.   The fact is that oil keeps spilling…  and spending time and energy assigning blame to politicians, or whoever else, won’t stop its horrific effects.  

If PR is about establishing and maintaining mutually beneficial relationships, containing issues and dealing with them with leadership - then I think the way we are approaching the BP issue is incorrect.  We’re not simply failing the public here.  We’ve failed our environment.  

Far more concerning is the uncertainty of how to resolve the issue.  When leadership is absent, finger pointing and petty talk begins.  How sad is that, especially as our our eco-system is desperately still trying to hold on.

I’m also worried about the effects of this that our children will face in a time when references to BP or British Petroleum won’t matter.   Do we get what we deserve at this point? 

My daughter is too young to understand what the spill is about just yet, but she’s grasping the importance of social responsibility.  I took her to the beach last week and we were having fun splashing around in the shallow water.  She saw a plastic Publix bag floating nearby and said to me firmly, ”Mommy, that’s inconsiderate!”  She’s so right.

Celeb chefs and sommeliers as hotel ambassadors

Friday, June 11th, 2010

I received this topic as a request to write a blog post a few days ago.  Anyone who has some connection or experience at a hotel can become an ambassador.  Employees, for instance, are probably the top ambassadors of the hotel and its brand.  Repeat guests, corporate clients, and community members are also excellent ambassadors.

What happens however when the ambassador is a celebrity chef, or award winning sommelier who works at the hotel?  Obviously, there is much PR value to be had from a celebrity who is sought after to do TV shows, interviews, etc., to promote the hotel.   And this is absolutely fine, as long as the hotel’s message is in line with the PR strategy. 

The fact is that many chef celebrities need media training.  Period.  As PR professionals, we cannot expect a chef, or sommelier, or GM to know all the right answers on camera.  They may be very reserved, or overly enthusiastic, to the extent of blurring the hotel’s message.  It’s clearly the PR team’s responsibility to train and make them understand the message and help them deliver it.  For instance, talking points are great but they must be repeated, especially on camera, where a quick cooking performance could take all day to shoot, but is edited down to a few minutes.

Striking a balance between respecting the celebrity’s value in the hotel, and appreciating their talent is important to do in this process.  Through media training techniques PR pros help the celebrity look good as they plug in the hotel.  Yes, there are exceptions of chef celebs who are great PR ambassadors because they just get it right away.  There are others who require more attention.

Either way, arm yourself with patience and tact when prepping a celeb.

Of course, if you’re in PR and reading this, you already know that it’s one thing to say this and another to actually follow through with it!

O Canada

Thursday, May 27th, 2010

A steadily melting glacier in the Rockies

A steadily melting glacier in the Rockies

 I have always wanted to visit Canada!  While I lived in Boston, I kept trying to plan a quick weekend to Montreal or Toronto, but time came and went, and I never got around to it.

While my Anna Sophia is in Taiwan with her dad visiting the family there, my brother suggested we go to Calgary in Alberta and then onto Banff.  The distraction from working a lot and missing my daughter for another week until she’s back home in Palm Beach sounded like a lot of fun. 

Confronting my acrophobia at the Mistaya Canyon

Confronting my acrophobia at the Mistaya Canyon

We ended up flying first class to Calgary last night, and spent the night at the new Four Points Sheraton near the airport.  This hotel is just two weeks old.  I enjoy exploring new hotels, although we were tired by the time we checked in.  The service is great because the staff is recently trained and goes above and beyond.  The rooms were very nice and quiet. 

The next morning, after seeing and talking to Anna on Skype, and a brief stop at Tim Horton’s (apparently the Dunkin Donuts of Canada) we drove out to Banff National Park.  It was a gorgeous drive with beautiful vistas of the mountains and the forest.  Downtown Banff is quaint and beautiful, with lots of shops and restaurants and all sorts of hiking trails.  It’s unusually cold and rainy here apparently, so our ponchos came in handy.  We went for a two hour hike and took some photos.  The locals are very hospitable, offering suggestions with a smile.

We are staying at the Baker Creek Chalet in a large rustic cabin that has everything from a coffee maker to extra wood for the fireplace.  It’s too rainy to start a campfire outside, but we’re here for three nights, so maybe tomorrow will be better.  Hopefully, I can attempt to roast marshmallows in an open campfire, which would be great.  I am looking forward to our stay here, Baker Creek is a beautiful property near Lake Louise, which looks absolutely breathtaking in the pictures I’ve seen so far.  Depending on how the weather is, we are planning a hike in Lake Louise tomorrow, and I definitely must check out the Fairmont Chateaux, which was in the Plantium list in Celebrated Living. 

The Fairmont Chateaux, Lake Louise

The Fairmont Chateaux, Lake Louise

While I’m taking a break from work emails and such, my love of hotels and travel is always with me!  I hope we will have enough time on the way back to see Calgary, which I hear is a city worth seeing.

Hotels: information overload and reputation management

Tuesday, May 25th, 2010

I was talking to Ann Manion yesterday, a highly regarded hospitality consultant, who focuses on hotel reputation management with her new company Hotel Advantage.  She and I were on the phone for nearly an hour talking about independent hotel trends as it relates to PR, content, messaging and the complex world of maintaining an excellent reputation in a rich media world. 

We both have similar perspectives on hospitality, though practice different areas in communication.  We touched on several topics and found that it isn’t easy to manage a hotel’s reputation, especially when the property is independently owned and managed.  It takes a dedicated effort to respond properly to anything from horrific reviews, poorly positioned articles, and bad blog posts that unfortunately GMs have no control over in a social media environment.  As the old saying goes, when you can’t control what happens around you, you can still control your reactions (or ”freactions” as I like to call them).

Sometimes hotels take poor reviews very personally, and it’s tempting to lash out and become defensive on a response post on TripAdvisor, Yelp, etc.  While a response is the right course of action, it should be well thought out and positioned in a constructive way.  Chances are you may lose the guest who had a negative experience anyway, but the way you respond will speak mountains to those potential guests who read the thread for years to come. 

Ann had some excellent points on hotel reputation management via social media media, and how important it is to train the right staff to guard a hotel’s message.  Keeping things viral isn’t enough, it is about maintaining quality in the overall social media marketing strategy.  Right now, there is still too much information out there on the web that should be shaken out.   

And unfortunately, there are still many independent hotels who don’t feel ready to grasp the opportunities social media can offer in the travel and hospitality world.   However, the more hotels understand the concept of content quality in the social media sphere, the more hotels will be apt to give it a try. 

I believe that the ones who have created a social media strategy (and actually followed through with it), even as a simple means to market their message, have not looked back.

Foursquare and hotels

Monday, May 17th, 2010

We talked about Foursquare a couple of months ago, and since then the app has been more and more popular!  It’s a digital form of crowd sourcing, and the popularity of becoming “Mayor” of a place, shop, store, hotel, restaurant, or any other location is quickly becoming competitive.

What does this new app mean for hotels, and how can they use it as a marketing tool?  Okay, so first it’s probably a little too soon to know exactly who your Foursquare users really are, although you already know that they are tech savvy, have a smart phone, and more than likely are avid Facebook and Twitter users. 

Depending on the social media strategy of the hotel, Foursquare could be an excellent outreach tool, especially when it comes to offering Foursquare “specials.”  For instance, some restaurants are offering free appetizers for those who “checkin” on a certain date and show their phone to the host.  My friend Mark Johnson of HotelChatter posted an article about which hotels are using the app to promote deals and specials. 

The immediacy of Foursquare is very attractive, as well as the potential of guests randomly running into someone they know.  The deals are a good thing, too.  Collecting badges and becoming mayor are a whole other story, though there are multiple marketing opportunities for hotels to capitalize on frequent and loyal Foursquare users.

By the way, from my 3750 approx Gmail contacts 15 are now using Foursquare - nearly twice as many from almost two months ago!!

The PR process differs by hotel type

Wednesday, May 5th, 2010

One of the main reasons I started my own PR practice with a focus on hospitality and travel is that I wanted to communicate messages about the unique, personal, memorable - and sometimes quirky- hotels and destinations in the world to the avid traveler.  I wanted to help small, independent hotels tell their story to travelers who sought a different experience than the mainstream chains.  My philosophy has been that the luxury in travel is not in the money one spends, but in the richness of the experience.

With that in mind, there’s a distinct difference in practicing PR among the types of hotels, and it each type has strengths and weaknesses, as well as opportunities and threats from a PR perspective (indeed, I am referring to a SWOT analysis… it’s important to do before undertaking any major marketing / marcomm initiative).

For example, in my experience I have found that the main challenge of doing PR for independent boutique hotels is that you must create a name that resonates with its brand positioning.  Plus, you really only get one chance to get it right, so your strategy must be studied and executed carefully.  Therefore, the PR process is very different between launching, say, an unknown, 15-room boutique hotel in Easter Island, versus a business Starwood hotel in London. 

The destination of the hotel is also an important ingredient in the PR campaign, regardless of the type of the property, and whether or not it is new to the travel market.   Corporate hotels (chains) may sometimes be less challenging to do PR for because they are already members of an established brand with generally predictable coverage in the pipeline (print/online/social media).

However, independent, boutique properties who invest in PR call for a fresh strategy, that talks about a new experience, a new travel opportunity, and a new perspective to the potential guest.   Sometimes it’s the story behind the owner, or the exclusive travel niche a property has that starts conversations.  It might be about how the owner gives each guest a personal tour, the success of the compost program the hotel implements, or the taste of the organic coconut water at turndown that stands out.  Whatever the angle, the key is to provide quality, interesting and continuous information to the media (and social media) and tailor your PR efforts accordingly. 

Regardless of the property’s size, preference, or type, as PR practitioners specializing in hospitality we must build and maintain great relationships with the appropriate tourism boards, tour operators, as well as press and social media who report on the destination… and then in turn the hotel.  I have found that incorporating holistic, destination-focused PR strategies for the independent hotels I have worked with so far have yielded not only continuous results and success, but also healthy, long term relationships.