Hotel WarriorHotel WarriorStories from inside the sales department of a five star hotel. The blog follows one person's career pursuit in the hotel industry. Articles
International Sommelier Guild Level 1 achieved!
2008-02-11 16:10:00 I firmly believe that education is an important part in the development of ones career. I also hope that future employers hold the same belief system. As one runs up against obstacles in the work place, it shows you areas that you can improve. As I stated in a previous post “Take charge of the Wine” I mentioned that I would be enrolling in a sommelier course. Well, I have just completed it! Yay! I must say, I have certainly improved my confidence when speaking about wine. The course was both comprehensive and intensive. The International Sommelier Guild has a total of four levels- An overview of major grape varieties, regions, tasting & serving with bits here and there on cellaring. A much deeper look into those issues above but with a stronger emphasis on tasting. This is the diploma level- It’s a tough program delving deep into wine evaluating and wine menu building using and building on everything learned in level 1 & 2. When you...
Holiday Inn Express brings out an interesting Marketing Twist
2008-02-02 01:40:00 I just received an interesting an email outlining an interesting marketing scheme by Holiday Inn. Here’s the email I received. Jetting around the country and calling hotels home is a way of life for presidential candidates. But are they making smart travel choices? Holiday Inn Express has set out to explore how thrifty candidates are being when it comes to basic campaign needs, such as hotel lodging on the campaign trail. The “Stay Smart, America” Web site tallies the amount spent on lodging by presidential candidates during this election and compares it with how much they could have saved by staying at a Holiday Inn Express. Users can view the cumulative lodging expenses for each individual candidate on the “smart-o-meter” as well as total expenses by each party as a whole. The “smart-o-meter” factors in all four quarterly lodging expenditures released to date by the Federal Election Commission (FEC) and reveals the estimated percent lost in savings on lodgi... More About: Marketing , Interesting
PCMA Conference Outcomes
2008-01-30 00:42:00 A colleague just came back from the PCMA conference in Seattle. From what I understand, Seattle did an outstanding job. Tourism Seattle, Hotels and the other suppliers did a bang up job. Way to go Seattle. Some interesting things came out of some of the sessions that I think would be worth sharing here. Here’s a sample: Trends in the Industry: 1/3 of travelers use Trip Adviser 39% read visitor critiques 31% read other journalistic critiques (blogs and travel mags). The #1 dream destination that came out of a survey from across the US– Las Vegas (I wonder who the surveyed) Y & Z generation travelers view travel as a right not a priviledge. This will require different marketing strategies. Groups are seeing less time for ‘add on’ activities- People don’t want to be on the road for very long. A lot more creative incentive travels- mountain climbing, volunteer activities in another country etc. There are some other things that were brou... More About: Conference
HW Visits the Marriott Nagoya Associa
2008-01-21 06:45:00 OK, to be quite frank, HW is not a particular fan of the cookie cutter Marriott brand. However, the other day I had the distinct pleasure of having a toured site inspection around the Marriott Nagoya Associa Hotel (Nagoya, Japan) and was extremley impressed. 780 beautiful rooms on 30 floors (floors 23-53 are the bedrooms). The hotel can boast as having the highest bedrooms in the city. Indeed from what I’ve heard and now seen, it can boast as having the finest bedrooms in the city. This hotel is not from the cookie cutter! Certainly the hotel can claim a great deal more than just nice rooms. 8 fantastic places to have a meal and a lounge (Sky Lounge) that overlooks the major core of Nagoya from the 53rd floor. I wish I had been visiting during their cocktail hours. Meeting space is out of this world. As one often expects from Asian hotels, the service is unbelievable. Of course, I wasn’t visiting as a guest, but just the same, I was greeted absolutely...
Japanese Inn
2007-12-27 06:09:00 HW is in Japan! I’m here with family for New Years. It`s tons of fun and yesterday we just got back from spending a couple of days at a Japanese Inn (Ryoukan). I couldn’t let this chance go by so I took out my hotel business card and asked for a site inspection. They seemed ... More About: Random Thoughts
Going Green
2007-12-19 08:33:00 Well, I have now included in my roll at the hotel- Environmental Committee Chair! I’m actually quite proud of the fact that my GM has the foresight to make this an important part of our operations. Don’t get me wrong, this is not something that is just beginning. The hotel has been working hard on what we do for a number of years, but the Environmental Committee fizzled out and died sometime before I arrived at the hotel. So, I was asked to step up… I did it in a heartbeat! On so many levels, working on improving how our operations affect the environment is just smart. On a purely altruistic level- we are helping the globe. Use less energy, recycle more, use less water, reduce the amount of garbabe. My children, your children, we all benifit. On an operations level- A short time ago, we began changing the hundreds of incandescent bulbs around the hotel to low energy consumption bulbs. The cost of the bulbs was somewhere in the neighbourhood o... More About: Green , Goin
Christmas Cards
2007-12-17 02:03:00 The hotel follows a practice that is falling out of popularity but is something that will follow me where ever I go. It’s something that issimple but meaningful. Yes, I’m talking about Christmas cards but not just sending them, writing in them. Let me repeat.. WRITING in them. It seems so simple yet done so ... More About: Random Thoughts , Cards , Christmas card
Take Charge of the Wine!
2007-11-24 01:51:00 I’m sure every sales professional has a story like this. I guess it’s my turn. I was on a trip visiting clients on the other side of the country. At an event that I was attending I unexpectedly ran into a client that I had already met earlier that week. She is an important client (all clients are important) to the hotel, so when the opportunity came up to invite her to dinner I jumped at it. “Great!” she said, and off we went. The restaurant district was only a few short blocks so we walked over and decided on a nice little bistro. Despite being Canadian, and despite having a fairly large client base of French speaking groups (actually bilingual), I am not very conversant in the language. So… when we were presented with the wine list by the French speaking waiter, my French speaking client kindly took over and chose what I naturally assumed would be reasonably priced wine. You can probably guess where this is going…. It was a... More About: Wine , Charge
Opera and Sales
2007-11-22 01:39:00 One of the seemingly largest recent trends for Hotel Reservations Systems is to move to Micros Opera . It seems that everywhere I look, there it is. It’s a fantastic tool integrating our reservations and catering/conference deparments into one almost seemless entity. The success of Opera in no doubt a tribute to a fantastic development team and sales department. Yeah sales. However (there is always a “however”), BEWARE. Opera should not and can not be billed as a Sales Tool. Our GM, DOS and Rooms Manager were convinced at some point by a Sales Team that Opera would be able to take the place of ACT! the sales database tool we use here. Granted, ACT! is not a perfect tool. I’ve heard it compared to Maximizer and Delphi and a few others, but none the less it worked well for how we were using it (Just don’t get me started with the lack of support from ACT!). Then along came Opera…. Anyone speaking with the f...
Hotel Industry Magazines
2007-09-19 01:54:00 Nothing makes you feel like you are part of the industry than when you get your first copy of an industry magazine. There are many out there like myself that have subscribed to a few of them in the hope that in some small way we will be inspired. Perhaps a bit of the success that we read about will leap out of the pages and grab us by the heart enabeling us to continue on towards our respective goals. Today my copy of HOTELS arrived. Its a free publication that is delivered to me once in a while and I truly get pleasure in receiving it. If only for the fact that less than 1/2 of the pages actually contain content (of the 72 pages in the September 2007 issue, there were only about 32 pages of content) the rest is made up of advertisement. Don’t get me wrong I completely understand the necessity of ads. Without them, there is no magazine. With only a few of them the publication would not be available for free. But it sure seems excessive… (I know... More About: Industry , Magazines , Hotel
Hotel Sales Training
2007-09-01 00:06:00 I’ve found a site that (granted, is not new by any sense of the imagination) shares with the industry a fantastic resource. There are many retired (or semi-retired) sales people out there that are offering consulting services to hotel sales departments across North America. They all seem to have their pluses, but there seems to be a scarcity of resources for those of us just looking to read about our chosen industry. I’m not talking about the hotel industry magazines that act more like catalogues for f&b directors (this is a different blog). I’m talking about resources specificly for us sales people. Well, I’ve found an interesting site. Carol Verret, another consultant, has contributed significant content to www.hotel-online.com . Albeit the site looks like it has been put together by a class of kindergarten students armed with a brand new pack of html Crayons, there is a lot of great information. As far as I can tell, http://www.hot... More About: Hotel , Sales , Training , TRAI , Raining
Sales People…. Listen to the Audience!
2007-08-01 00:35:00 A short while ago I was doing calls in and around Montreal with a group of other sales people from properties from the US and Canada. We were all representing our own properties. The focus on this trip was the leisure and corporate transient market. This means that we would visit travel agencies and each hotel would take turns giving a spiel. All the properties would talk about their beautiful buildings, great rates, friendly staff along with information about recent renovations and upgrades to the rooms. This would include information about the colour schemes, new furniture, new amenities and even new linen. One of the sales professionals, obviously very proud of their hotel’s new linen, would speak of it in terms of it’s very high “thread count”. Normally, after all the hotels finish, the agents in the audience would come up and ask further questions directly to the individual representatives. On one occasion an agent came up and mentioned something interesting. He said, q... More About: People , Sales , Listen , The A , Audience
How lucky I am!
2007-07-29 19:59:00 Its 10:30 in the morning on a Sunday. I’m at home relaxed. I just had a big breakfast that my lovely wife made and the only thing disturbing this absolutely perfect day is the kids arguing in the background. I begin to feel very fortunate… Every once and a while I realize how ... More About: Random Thoughts , Lucky , Luck
A Sudden Increase in Room Inventory?
2007-07-28 09:10:00 Strange things that happen in hotels… We found out last Sunday that our room inventory of 304 had been increased to 305, unknown to anyone. A guest on the 9th floor was complaining about a funny sounding fan near to their room. Our Maintenance supervisor on duty went to investigate. After a little thinking, he guessed at ... More About: Inventory , Room , Vent , Ease , Tory
A Sudden Increase in Room Inventory?
2007-07-28 09:10:00 Strange things that happen in hotels… We found out last Sunday that our room inventory of 304 had been increased to 305, unknown to anyone. A guest on the 9th floor was complaining about a funny sounding fan near to their room. Our Maintenance supervisor on duty went to investigate. After a little thinking, he guessed at ... More About: Inventory , Room , Vent , Ease , Tory
Two Hotel Quotes
2007-07-20 09:06:00 It’s the Friday before a long weekend. I’ve just a couple of things today. Both are quoted from other people. Both are common expressions used in the hotel industry but It’s been a while since I have heard them. 1) …we are not just in the accommodation business or food and beverage business but we are in ... More About: Hotel , Random Thoughts , Quotes , Quote
Two Hotel Quotes
2007-07-20 09:06:00 t’s the Friday before a long weekend. I’ve just a couple of things today. Both are quoted from other people. Both are common expressions used in the hotel industry but It’s been a while since I have heard them. 1) …we are not just in the accommodation business or food and beverage business but we are in ... More About: Hotel , Random Thoughts , Quotes , Quote
A Great Day!
2007-07-14 09:01:00 A rather uneventful day. However, a couple of things did happen that made me smile. #1: I was having a breakfast meeting with an associate (from another organization), when a client that was scheduled to depart this afternoon called me over. I excused myself and went to his table. He wanted to thank me for all ... More About: Great , Clients
A Great Day!
2007-07-14 09:01:00 A rather uneventful day. However, a couple of things did happen that made me smile. #1: I was having a breakfast meeting with an associate (from another organization), when a client that was scheduled to depart this afternoon called me over. I excused myself and went to his table. He wanted to thank me for all ... More About: Great , Clients
Gelato Delivery Boy
2007-07-08 08:58:00 Aaah. Another day done and gone. I spent the day doing a couple of things. One was delivering Gelato and the other speaking with clients and writing proposals. Deli vering Gelato? “I thought you were a sales manager at a hotel?” you may ask. You are correct. Around Christmas time most companies spend a great deal ... More About: Sales , Elive , Liver
Gelato Delivery Boy
2007-07-08 08:58:00 Aaah. Another day done and gone. I spent the day doing a couple of things. One was delivering Gelato and the other speaking with clients and writing proposals. Deli vering Gelato? “I thought you were a sales manager at a hotel?” you may ask. You are correct. Around Christmas time most companies spend a great deal ... More About: Sales , Elive , Liver
My first blog!
2007-07-02 07:55:00 This is my first attempt at writing a Blog and I am truly interested in hearing what people think. Tho’ I can’t imagine who would be interested in reading this, I’ve been encouraged to write a little. Do contact me and tell me what you think: Allow me to introduce myself. My name is HW and ... More About: Random Thoughts
My first blog!
2007-07-02 07:55:00 This is my first attempt at writing a Blog and I am truly interested in hearing what people think. Tho’ I can’t imagine who would be interested in reading this, I’ve been encouraged to write a little. Do contact me and tell me what you think: Allow me to introduce myself. My name is HW and ... More About: Random Thoughts |
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