BRAZIL HOTELS

24 dezembro 2011

Lançamento na Livraria Argumento - 19/12/11

Clipping Lançamento Brazil Hotels

31 outubro 2011

Aí está a capa da edição brasileira do meu livro BRAZIL HOTELS.
A foto é da Fazenda da Lagoa e foi tirada pelo Romulo Fialdini.
O livro será distribuído no Brasil pela Paisagem Distribuidora.
Espero fazer o lançamento antes do Natal.
Obrigado por tudo e abs,

02 setembro 2011

KIAROA - Barra Grande - Maraú - Bahia

Kiaroa
Barra Grande - BA
http://www.kiaroa.com.br/

Ways Hotels Can Increase Their Social Media Presence

Ways Hotels Can Increase Their Social Media Presence

Posted: 01 Sep 2011 03:00 PM PDT

Hotels have made great strides in social media over the past few years; from Twitter to Facebook, and Foursquare and YouTube, there is no limit to how hotels can boost their online presence and increase their customer base.
As a hotels reporter, I’m constantly engaging, communicating and assessing the social media efforts of hotels around the world. I’m consistently intrigued by they way hotels communicate with their guests and share their knowledge of their destinations (see: InterContinental Group, Ritz-Carlton and Mandarin Oriental).
More boutique hotels have jumped on the social media bandwagon to introduce ‘brand name consumers’ with a new type of hotel, and the results are impressive. Now, with the year off to a booming start in the hotel industry, here are five tips worth considering for taking your hotel’s social media presence to the next level.
1. Use Your Staff.
Your employees are the eyes, ears and experts of your hotel. Use them to engage your social media presence. Whether you designate a day to a particular theme or allow specific staff members to reply to questions asked from guests via social media, the personalization will make all the difference when communicating online.
“At InterContinental, our Concierge teams share their local knowledge with guests from around the world on a daily basis,” said Charles Yap, Director, Global Brand Communications, InterContinental Hotels Group. “We take this personal interaction one step further by sharing useful destination tips and recommendations (via @WorldConcierge), and launching a free iPad app anyone can download (not just our guests).”
2. Create Social Media Specials.
Some of the best responses I’ve seen in average daily room rates from hotels so far this year have come by way of “social media specials.”
Offering Twitter-only specials or Facebook contests that result in free dinners at the hotel or discounted room rates resonate with travelers who, despite their discretionary income for travel, are always on the hunt for a deal.
3. It’s Not All About You.
While the hotel is obviously the focus of your social media campaign, remember that there is more to the traveler’s eye than what’s inside your four walls.
Spend some time tweeting about local destination events, share some interesting historical aspects and ask your concierge for some ‘tips of the day’ to share. “we believe that when it comes to social media, discussion topics should not be restricted to immediate hotel features. We go one step further by offering destination advice, travel tips, food for thought, retweets from travel and subject matter experts,” said Yap.
Guests will likely know the top tourist attractions, but the hotel can offer insider ideas and off-the-beaten-path things to see and do, including the best local restaurants, fun festivals or family-friendly activities. Mandarin Oriental, Hong Kong, did a great job of sharing the historical and interesting facts relating to Chinese New Year.
While the hotel hosted plenty of Chinese New Year activities, which they tweeted about, they also shared quirky and unknown facts about Chinese New Year that kept guests intrigued and involved in the festivities.
4. Keep It Real.
We all know it’s sunny on the beach in Bali and the Bund is beautiful at night, but what about the ‘real’ aspects of the destination?
Posting a quick weather update first thing in the morning is a worthy way to start the day on Twitter or Facebook, but keep it real by posting about things to do – especially on bad weather days – or offering tips on managing jetlag or mentioning a employee contribution or celebrated day.
For example, if your chef was just given his first Michelin star, share the news! If your hotel recently underwent a renovation, share the photos — before and after — and keep your potential guests in the loop. Show your followers and fans that the hotel is more than just deals and good food, and that they are part of the foundation that makes up the success of the hotel.
5. Communicate.
Cliche as it may seem, keeping up the lines of communication with your fans and followers via Twitter and Facebook is an essential piece to managing a successful social media campaign.
Social media has become the new ‘customer service’ line, and hotels should take seriously the comments and questions they receive online. Granted, not all tweets and Facebook comments will be valid, but treating social media as if it were a hotline to your consumers is the best way to solve last-minute problems, answer immediate questions and offer advice to guests and travelers.
The above tips are not the end all and be all to a successful social media campaign, but they can help present your hotel in a worthy light to guests who, whether they are new or repeat, will always be looking for something special from the hotel.
Source: 4hotelier
Anna Pham

01 setembro 2011

QUOTES

“Some beauties should be appreciated from far away; some others need to be closely seen.”

José de Alencar (Brazilian writer, 1829 – 1877)

“Há belezas para serem admiradas de longe; outras se querem vistas de perto.”

31 agosto 2011

Hotels offer services through tablet PCs

For a night of clubbing in Manhattan on a recent weekend, Seunghee Thomson turned to the iPad in her room at the Mondrian SoHo to ask the hotel’s concierge for a recommendation.

The concierge desk, which received her iPad message, soon called with a name and directions. “While I was waiting, I was thinking maybe I should call back to see if they got my message, but they called me back right away,” says the fashion stylist from McLean, Va. “It’s the first time I’ve had that experience in a hotel.”

Mondrian is one of several hotels — and airlines, too — that are distributing iPads and similar devices to customers in an effort to tap the buzz surrounding tablet computers. The effort is the latest by the travel industry to digitize a range of services that once required picking up the phone.

Using third-party software developers, hotels are introducing apps to order food, browse hotel amenities and local attractions, request wake-up calls, schedule housekeeping, message other guests and arrange car service. The apps are available for iPhone, iPad, BlackBerry and phones and tablets using Android and other operating systems.

“It’s a self-service vehicle,” says David Adelson of Intelity, which developed Mondrian’s app and has about 380 hotels using the software. “Most travelers are used to self-service solutions in their daily lives and would rather prefer it.”

The hotel industry has been trying to automate guest-service transactions, particularly room service orders, for several years, but has been held back by technological limitations. The surging popularity of apps and smartphones may provide the increased operational efficiency and generate the additional room revenue they’re seeking.

Instead of hotel staffers answering guests’ calls and rerouting requests, orders placed in the software are sent directly to the department handling the service: room service orders to the kitchen, requests for toothpaste to housekeeping.

“For a lot of hotels, it’s an extension of the kiosk mentality,” says Michael Planey, a travel technology analyst. “The app economy is about giving people control of their own environment.”

Executives at Intelity and its competitors — including Ascension Software and Runtriz — say their apps can generate more sales for hotels as other revenue sources, such as phone and movie charges, are dwindling.

Seeing food photos and other buying options presented in a non-intrusive way often leads to more orders, says Joe Adkisson of Ascension, adding that room service orders at his hotels have increased 15% to 20% with the apps.

Make changes quickly, easily

In embracing the digital format, hotels can also quickly update menu changes and deliver up-to-the-minute information about facilities and deals. The Phoenician in Scottsdale, Ariz., for example, sells a “Dinner on the 9th green” package through its app.

“You have our own little Groupon targeted at your guests,” says Matthew Allard, CEO of Runtriz, whose guest-service software is available for about 40 hotels, including the St. Regis in New York, the Beverly Wilshire Four Seasons in Beverly Hills and the Hard Rock Hotel in San Diego.

Several upscale hotels, including the Plaza and Royalton hotels in New York and the Hilton Inn at Penn in Philadelphia, are touting the technology and inviting guests to try it by providing iPads in rooms.

The iPads are “locked” for the hotel services only, and guests aren’t allowed to modify or download other apps, says Adelson of Intelity, which works with the hotels. Guests are charged for the device if they forget to return it.

The Beverly Wilshire offers iPads only for suites. The iPod Touch in all guest rooms at the Conrad hotel in the Maldives makes updating the hotel’s 50-page menus and information about its inventory of wines easier, says Allard of Runtriz, which developed the app.

“We can … save a ton of money in printing and shipping,” he says.

Distributing iPads is too expensive and cumbersome for most hotels, says Adkisson of Ascension, which has developed guest-services apps for about 100 properties, including W and Omni hotels. “It sounds cool, but there seem to be issues with cost and keeping them clean from both software and physical standpoints,” he says.

Avaya, an Internet telephone technology developer, is also eyeing the market, introducing its own tablet-size device that’s connected to the hotel room phone and allows guests to order food or request services using touch-screen icons. The device has been installed recently at all rooms in its trial customer, Hotel Ignacio in St. Louis.

Most hotels will ease into the technology with phone apps, while others, such as Wyndham Hotels, have installed the PC-version as the welcome page of their Wi-Fi service.

Source: travel.usatoday.com

30 agosto 2011

POUSADA PATACHO

Pousada Patacho
Porto de Pedras - AL
http://www.pousadapatacho.com.br/

25 agosto 2011

TOCA DA CORUJA

Toca da Coruja
Praia da Pipa - RN
http://www.tocadacoruja.com.br/

24 agosto 2011

QUOTES

"Beauty is but the sensible image of the Infinite. Like truth and justice it lives within us; like virtue and the moral law it is a companion of the soul."

George Bancroft (American historian, 1800 - 1891)

23 agosto 2011

TXAI

Txai Resort
Itacaré - Bahia
http://www.txai.com.br/

22 agosto 2011

QUOTES

“Beauty is the promise of happiness.”

Edmund Burke (Irish philosopher, 1729 – 1797)

Tutorial Foursquare for Hotelier

Posted by Alain Classe on 2011, August 22 ·

Foursquare is one of the names talked about and yet which few people know what is going on. Foursquare is the first fully mobile application that works on all smartphones using geolocation: to make his “checkin” your customer must be there.
Designed as a game, Foursquare is very entertaining for its members, with notions of steps climbed as and when it is used and evidenced by badges. These badges are earned primarily through “checkins” arriving at the restaurant or hotel, a quick search on Foursquare brings up a list of places to register.
Foursquare, today more than 10 million members worldwide, 3 million of checkins per day, 500,000 businesses using Foursquare professionally.
To be part of those companies using Foursquare professionally, this is what is needed:
1. Claim his place or attraction
• Connect to Foursquare or create a personal profile if necessary
• Search the name of the hotel
• Once on the hotel card, click on “Do you manage this venue ? Claim here “
• Monitor the process and select the preferred method of verification by phone, mail …
2. Dclare its employees “manager” or “employee”
The person who claimed the place is automatically “manager”. To be declared a “manager” or “employee” by the first manager, it is imperative to have a user profile. Rights are different:
• “employees” can only edit
• Te content of the page
• View statistics
• Enable and disable special
• “managers” can also add special offers •
• Add new “employee” or “manager”
3. Create special types of Event
These special offers are visible not only to users who have produced their checkin, but also those nearby but have not made their checkin to push them to do so.
• Provides for friends only
• Offers reserved for a number of simultaneous visitors (15 people on a period of 2 hours)
• Provides flash
• Provides accessible only when a user first checkin
• Provides access on terms that you have pre-defined
• Offer reserved for frequent visitors
• -* offers reserved for “mayor” (self-employed person who made the most checkins in the last 60 days)
• Among the offers put up by hotels for users Foursquare:
• Upgrade available (depending on availability)
• A complimentary breakfast
• Free wifi
• Offered a drink at the bar
• Late checkout offered
• Generate incremental incomes with specials deals for an updgrade ( for 50 CHF you get a Junior Suite )
4. Foursquare check-in here
By putting a sticker or placard “on the door or at the reception, bar, restaurant …, Foursquare users are informed that the hotel is within their reach and they can probably receive a special offer
Foursquare push users present in the hotel to do their “checkin” increases awareness of its establishment on the Internet, “checkin” being relayed to the user’s choice by email or Foursquare on social networks:
• Foursquare: his friends are informed
• Facebook: information is shared, with or without commentary on the Facebook wall user Foursquare
• Twitter: information is shared on the user’s Twitter page Foursquare
• Foursquare on the page of the establishment
• On the page of Foursquare’s user
5. Train your Staff
Explain to your Staff what is Foursquare. If your staff is not aware you risk to get some complains.
Create Special Code and communicaeing this simple code to its staff, so staff know what it can offer to benefit the customer who shows him his smartphone.
You need to be aware regarding the mode of spread :
With one one offer, you reach hundreds or potentially thousands of potential customers.
6. See its statistics
The statistics are accessible in real time and allow to know, especially after the posting of a special offer:
• The number of checkins per day
• Recent visitors
• The gender
• The most frequent visitors
• Hours the most popular
• The amount of checkins relayed on Facebook or Twitter
Chains & brands
Chains with multiple institutions can benefit from their own brand of Foursquare.
By creating a page “brand” is an opportunity to
• Actively communicate with visitors,
• Share information, tips and tricks,
• To have “followers”
• Create custom buttons,
• Benefit from a specific url foursquare.com type / brand
• To increase brand awareness, providing each institution promote its brand and vice versa
Major brands have already taken advantage of this feature.
• The New York Times
• Louis Vuitton
• Algonquin Hotel
• Four Points by Sheraton
Conclusion
Foursquare can reach a customer “connected” and who also has a social life outside his own home.
The fact to manage his page Foursquare professionally is free and takes only a few minutes. As for offers, they only apply to customers consuming.
Althought if you want to use Foursquare like any other Socia Media Networks, your Hotel Management need to be sure you get Human Ressources to manage this account.
Do it professionally or don’t do it,