Archive for October, 2008
read comments (0)
Despite the economy crisis, the hotel chain Travelodge is due to open 22 new hotels in the UK before Christmas. Their development managing director Paul Harvey has announced that the credit crunch has forced corporations to change their hotel habits for their employees and there is a rising demand for budget hotel accommodations. These 22 new hotels will create around 400 new jobs. The story doesn’t say if hotel employees who used to work for luxury hotels will move to economy brands overnight. I would guess redundancies will take place in upscale hotels if occupancy keeps going South.
Source: Guillaume Thevenot
After 2 fantastic weeks in Singapore, Lombok and Bali, I have returned to London with this cold weather that we are going to face in the next 6 months.
I have very much enjoyed this break where I have discovered a fantastic country and beautiful islands of Lombok and Bali. Not only people are very friendly and welcoming but I can see genuinely they wish we could come back every year.
Me and my wife have discovered a true sense of hospitality in different hotels from Lombok at the Oberoi or in Bali at the Kayana Villas or at the Scarlet Hotel in Singapore. Bali is becoming a fantastic place where you can accommodate yourself in different kind of hotels with all budgets. We have opted for the high end but you can enjoy great hotels with moderate budget as well. I was disappointed by the Alila hotel in UBud (in Bali) where lack of recognition was clearly visible in this hotel. This hotel was formerly part of the Chedi Hotels chain but now is part of Alila. Unfortunately, they have decided to mix groups and couples (mostly on honeymoons)…and I believe this is a mistake they are making. There are hotels for groups and hotels for individuals. Not both.
Lombok is another place where the island is still unspoiled with very few hotels and has beautiful islands called the Gili Islands. I have heard that luxury hotel projects are under way and that pieces of land have been acquired by foreign investors. I hope Lombok will not become the Phuket of today. Again, we can’t make this mistake twice of over-exploiting beautiful nature and alienating native population with mass tourism. We have to avoid this.
I have shot more than 500 pictures and has a 40 minutes film. As usual, I will share with you my hotel reviews with mini films of visited hotels.
I don’t know what I have missed in the last 2 weeks in the travel and hospitality worlds. Not much I am sure. Today, we are living a crisis and we need to get through it…The world is beautiful and this trip has opened up my eyes a bit more. Can’t wait to go back…maybe next year.
Source: Guillaume Thevenot
Hotel Blogs on holidays
Author:
I am off on holidays for the next 2 weeks. I can’t wait.
See you at the end of October.
Guillaume
Source: Guillaume Thevenot
When Eurostar fails us
Author:
I am sure you’ve all tried heard of being upgraded from economy class to business class or 1st class in airlines where overbooking occurs when you check-in. Same applies to hotels (It happens to me twice this year). Well…last week-end I have experienced for the first time the opposite with Eurostar. On my way back to London on Sunday evening - after a beautiful week-end in Paris - I was told I was downgraded…
Let me take a step back on this extraordinary story.
Sunday 1830, Paris Gare Du Nord:
After the incident occurs in the channel tunnel, Eurostar still hasn’t resumed all their trains between Paris and London. However, the service is nearly back to normal (apparently…). We were told in London that we would need to present ourselves at Gare du Nord 2 hours before departure and that staff will exchange and allocate seats on the next available train. We go upstairs and discover the longest queue I have ever come across at this station. There 2 queues with signage pointing out at Standard and Leisure Select and another at Business. We take the left queue. We wait and walk up slowly to the entrance door of the Eurostar terminal.
1930, Paris Gare du Nord
We arrive at the desk where staff allocate seats. They say you are on the wrong queue, you should have taken the other queue for first class tickets. Indeed, I remember a guy walking up and down the queue saying "any 1st class ticket holders, follow me". We check our tickets, it says "Leisure Select", so I thought Leisure Select wasn’t 1st class, so we can’t benefit of skipping the queue. Eurostar staff doesn’t use the terminology used on the tickets and their website !!! There is no 1st class on Eurostar.
So we follow our guy who allocate 2 seats on 1st class Leisure Select.
2020, Gare du Nord - waiting room
We finally get called to embark on the Eurostar and walk up to the coach 09 to find out that we have been allocated 2 seats in a 4 seats table and not in "Duo" as mentioned on our ticket originally. Because the train is fully booked, we think this is ok, we could live 2h20 min like this. So we enjoy our big and comfy seat waiting patiently for our first drink. On Leisure Select, you get "Onboard indulgence" meaning free drinks and full meal during the trip.
2115, on board of Eurostar on our way to London
The train is full and so our carriage. After 30 mins, still not a sign of a trolley service and not staff coming to us taking drink orders. I see the train manager and ask him "what’s going on?" He looks at me not sure what I mean. I explain to him when we could expect to have a drink. Other travelers in the carriage also get interested in my question…The train manager says "But this carriage has been downgraded to 2nd class, didn’t they tell you in Paris?". Well, not really. Nobody told us in Paris Gare du Nord, neither the welcoming staff outside the train when they check your tickets before you board the carriage. The manager is a bit annoyed…especially when our neighbours travellers also have the same problem. Nobody told anybody and we " the consumer" feel cheated and angry on a Sunday evening. The train manager even tells us they can’t provide food on this carriage as they haven’t got enough ready meals for everybody. So the only way to get a meal is to go the bar and that we will have to pay for it. He doesn’t even suggest that we will get maybe a drink free of charge.
21.30
After a little while, another train manager passed by our carriage and I explain to her the situation. She’s also annoyed and don’t understand how this could have happened (neither I and other customers). After some conversation, she says that we need to make a claim via the website and we will be compensated with a £25 voucher from Marks & Spencer per person.
22.00
A trolley service comes our carriage and offers us - free of charge - drinks. At last, some recognition here.
22.30
Our train arrives in London St Pancras and we are heading to the Taxi station.
Conclusion:
Communication has again failed us…somewhere in the middle something has broken. Eurostar has to deal with a major crisis since the fire incident. Consumers are more or less accepting this and follow instructions from Eurostar. But for some reasons, you don’t get what you paid for…As of the compensation, I would have liked to get a full refund of both tickets or a free return ticket for the future. M&S vouchers..Give me a break…
Source: Guillaume Thevenot
Discover the Emperor in Beijing
Author:
On the latest issue of Sleeper, I have discovered The Emperor in Beijing. This hotel looks like they’ve taken a step forward in terms of room design and space optimization. This is a newly open hotel and currently sits on TripAdvisor at the position of #129 out 1095 hotels in the city Beijing (with only 2 reviews though). The hotel is affiliated with Design Hotels, a representation company who carefully select hotels around the world based on innovation, modernism, location and originality.
However, the hotel still doesn’t have any dedicated website (I didn’t it find on search engines results). Again, how can you miss this online opportunity?
Source: Guillaume Thevenot
We all know how expensive PPC campaigns could be on search engines, knowing that the travel industry is one of the biggest advertising revenue generator for Google or Yahoo.
An independant hotel - the Fenbridge Hotel in Gatwick Airport - has decided to bid on the simple word "hotels" on Google. I can’t imagine how much this is going to cost him. Also why would you click on the link? If people just type "hotels" on search engines, they probably want to find more than one hotel.
I remember that the cost per click on "hotels" is around £1.5 these days
. Ouch !!!
Source: Guillaume Thevenot
Venice, minutes from St Marks Square or a 15th Century
Villa with swimming pool in Castelnuovo Gafagnana, Tuscany or a cowboy ranch
over looking the sea in Civitavecchia, Lazio. They currently do a November promotion for Sharm El Sheikh hotels. The company is based in Birmigham with a dedicated agent call centre and they are ABTA bonded. (Association of British Travel Agents).
Source: Guillaume Thevenot
I have read a really good post from Darren at Travel-Rants.com here and this is my video comment on the subject "Holidaymakers do not trust user generated content". The post on Darren’s blog has driven a very interesting conversation from different people. This is my 2 pence…
Source: Guillaume Thevenot
I have read a really good post from Darren at Travel-Rants.com here and this is my video comment on the subject "Holidaymakers do not trust user generated content". The post on Darren’s blog has driven a very interesting conversation from different people. This is my 2 pence…
Source: Guillaume Thevenot