Hotel Blogs

“Why do hospitality employers not respond to job applications?” – This is a question that I often get asked by young hospitality students and alumni. A fair question if this is indeed the case, and seemingly it is. Just this month I visited 3 hot...

If you are a home-based travel agent with an interest in ecotourism, you might want to take a look at the (mercifully short) Statement on Ecotourism released by The International Ecotourism Society (TIES).

The global ecotourism community has experienced significant growth since 2002, and is continuously evolving. In light of the various changes in the tourism industry in recent years, ecotourism today faces many new opportunities and challenges.

Ecotourism is, indeed, a rapidly expanding niche and overlaps with a number of other tourism specialties including soft adventure travel, cultural tourism, and nature travel. While ecotoruism emphasizes low impact on the environment, travel agents who seek to capitalize on this trend can see significant impact on their bottom lines.

When I was young, "The People's Guide To Mexico" was my favorite book about Mexico. Now that I am (ahem) older, "Gringos in Paradise" is pushing it aside on my shelf of favorites.

This is a supremely engaging account that succeeds on two levels. First, it will satisfy the armchair traveler's desire for vicarious pleasure. I was reminded more than once of "A Year in Provence" and, indeed, Golson's book has some of the same sure-fire elements -- "colorful" locals and quirky tradesmen, shrewdly observed and nicely evoked takes on the local folkways and manners, and an engaging cast of supporting expats.

But is also works as a good hands-on guide for people who might actually decide to follow in Golson's footsteps. He stops short of giving us access to his bank records, but there's enough information there to enable the alert reader to guage how easily (or not) Golson's experience can translate to one's own retirement dreams.

I'd highly recommend it to anyone who is even remotely thinking of retiring to South of the Border.

"Wait a second," I thought, "That can't be real." And yet . . . it sure looked real. An opulent hotel floating down a European river.

A closer look at the fine print (barely visible above in the lower left corner) revealed the truth. "Vessel depicted is fictional."

But it sure made me look, and look closely, and then read the ad. And I guess that's what good advertising is all about.

In this case, the ad is for Peter Dielmann Cruises and their 2008 offerings. Dielmann does high-end river cruises, mostly in Mittel Europa, and equally upscale ocean cruises to destinations as diverse as the Baltic and Southeast Asia. You can get more info here.

Well, I've signed up for the Home-Based Travel Agent Expo in Las Vegas (Dec. 4 to 6 at the Mandalay Bay). I hope to see you there, especially those who've taken my course.

I'll also probably sign up for the Travel Institute Conference also from the 4th to the 6th, also in Vegas, also at the Mandalay.

And just to complicate matters, there's the Luxury Travel Expo, same dates, same city, same hotel!

I suppose you could sign up for all three of them. Now that the "Early Bird" discounts have expired, the cost is $55 for the Luxury Expo, $95 for the Travel Institute ($55 for members), and just $20 for the Home-Based conference. Then you can juggle the schedules for all three and dash madly from place to place to catch the sessions that appeal to you.

Yikes! Why do they do this to us?

If you follow the links above, you can find complete schedules for all of them. Print them out and see if it's possible to stitch together one mega-conference from the sessions on offer. I'm too busy getting ready to go to Venice to do it myself right now.

"Scene @ Sheraton" to Provide Guests with Unique Access to Highly Acclaimed Content Through Partnerships with Coveted Entertainment Brands, Including Showtime and Sony BMG Music Entertainment Sheraton Hotels & Resorts is announcing a new in-room ent...

(Image Travelpromotions.com)

There's a site that lets you order supplier brochures by the dozen.

It offers a grab bag of suppliers, pretty much covering the globe, some well known, others less so. You can browse the available brochures by destination and order single copies or small quantities, which vary by supplier. There are two "Easy-Order" options that let you get a single copy of every brochure (30 total) or a box with the maximum number of each brochure.

I'm not sure how useful this service is, other than to give the participating suppliers the feeling that their message is getting out there. I suspect the system results in a lot of wasted brochures going out to the travel agent version of tirekickers.

Still, if they have what you're looking for or need, it might be something worth looking at. It's also, I suppose, one way to do some scatter shot research into what's available if you're a beginning home-based travel agent.

As far as I could tell, there are no strings attached and the service is free. I placed an order to test it out and will report back

As cell phone technology becomes ever more ubiquitous and more travelers are seeking the convenience of ready communication even when far from home, home-based travel agents should try to get a little more conversant with the technology.

For the technically impaired (myself included!) this online cell phone glossary should prove helpful.

It is also possible to sell telecommunications services for zero investment, something home-based agents should consider as an easy way to increase sales profits.

And you wonder why I don't sell air!

(Photo:: Turtle Island)

I try to remind would-be home-based travel agents that getting into the business doesn't mean your whole life is going to be just like those pretty pictures in the brochures. And yet . . .

The simple fact of the matter is that, when I am giving seminars and I ask how many people got into the business because they love to travel, every hand in the room shoots up. And when you look at pictures like the one above, is it any wonder?

This lovely little bit of paradise comes to us courtesy of Turtle Island a luxury resort in Fiji. They contacted me to remind me that a 7-day booking there can put $1,200 to $1,900 commission dollars in my pocket. Yours, too, for that matter, if you book luxury resorts.

Needless to say, I immediately wasted invested a half hour clicking around their web site.

It's nicely done. There's a great photo gallery and the resort has an intriguing history. All in all, it looks like the kind of place I'd love to visit. And if I have to send a few of my clients before I can afford to go myself, well that's just how the business works.

The point of this little digression is to point out that it doesn't hurt to dream. My guess is that for most of us, the list of "places to see before I die" is longer than the time alloted to us and the old bank account will allow us to experience. No matter. The striving is all. If sites like Turtle Island fuel your desire to sell more travel, there's no real harm in goofing off a bit.

After a year of successful operations in India, Dynamic Vertical Software Pvt Ltd is all set to strategically expand internationally, and has come up with its new office in Dubai to service the Gulf, Middle East and North African regions.

The next time you walk into a hotel, close your eyes, listen and inhale. There may even be a water fountain you can run your fingers through or a treat you can taste.

That is because the latest trend in hotel design is to appeal to all five of a guest’s senses, offering what may be described as a “sensory stay.”

From infusing the lobby with a light fragrance to playing a customized soundtrack that changes throughout the day, the goal is to create a memorable experience that guests can smell, hear and feel — not just bombard them with visual stimulation.

“The future of hotel branding is when there are no logos, no advertisements blasting, but I can just feel I’m there, which explores the notion of sensory branding.

Retailers were among the first to use music and scent to influence customer behavior — diffusing a chocolate smell, for instance, to entice customers to buy candy — but the hospitality industry is pursuing a more subtle agenda.

“They want to create a point of difference,” “If you had that shampoo at home, it would release the whole emotional feeling you had during your journey.” Some of the hotel chains that have created signature scents are Westin Hotels and Resorts, whose white tea aroma spawned a line of retail products and appeared in fragrance strips as part of an advertising campaign; Omni Hotels, which infuses its lobbies with a lemongrass and green tea scent; and the Morgans Hotel Group, owner of boutique hotels, like the Royalton in New York City, each with a unique fragrance.

These scents can be delivered through heating and cooling systems or toaster-size devices provided by companies like ScentAir, which works with a number of hotels. A fan blows air over a cartridge holding custom-scented oil. Most hotels are careful not to overpower guests.

“The scent is subtle, the guest might notice the lobby smells great or it smells fresh.”

Hotels have also taken pains to avoid fragrances that may provoke an allergic reaction, which is why Westin stayed away from florals or citrus. Omni has taken its sensory branding initiative beyond the lobby, adding blueberry-scented stickers to newspapers distributed to guests and outfitting some hotels with in-room “sensation bars” stocked with items like eucalyptus bath salts.

Like many hotels, Omni is also paying more attention to the music played in public spaces, developing playlists that are customized for each property, as well as the time of day.

“We realized that when business travelers are getting out the door in the morning, we need to be putting a little bit of beat in their step, at night, then go into something that’s a little bit softer and slower, a little more mellow.”

In fact, some hotels do offer in-room audio channels that play soothing sounds like ocean waves as well as music, and more are giving guests ways to listen to their own tunes.

I had a great chat with Gary Fee of the Outside Sales Support Network (OSSN) during my most recent hour-long Teleseminar. OSSN is the oldest and largest professional association devoted exclusively to the interests of home-based travel agents.

We touched on many topics, but I was especially grateful to Gary for giving me yet another derogatory nickname for home-based agents to add to my collection -- kitchen table Mabel! You can best believe I'll be adding that to the Travel Industry Dictionary first chance I get.

I'm sure a lot of those who listened in jumped at the chance to join OSSN at a discount.

If you missed it, all is not lost because it is archived on the Internet.

We're in the wonder business, not the travel business. We want to expose people to nature, we want to expose poeple to culture, we want to expose people to history, and we want to engage people in good conversation.

Those words of wisdom come from travel industry giant Sven-Olaf Lindblad, founder of Special Expeditions.

You can watch National Geographic Traveler's interview with Lindblad here. It's about 14 minutes long and worth the watch. There's a lot more take-home information there.

Kinda says it all, doesn't it?

Of course, when a home-based travel agent tries to be all things to all people, it's impossible to know everything about everywhere. That's why my home study course harps on specialization so much.