I haven't stumbled upon anything new by bringing up the notion of hotels offering in-house cooking classes, courses or an entire culinary teaching school. It's a well-established facet of our industry, but one that is mostly in the realm of esteemed five-star jaunts or bucolic inns with Michelin-rated restaurants. So, what I ponder is why more hotels don't engage in this practice. Is it exclusive to luxury providers, or is it something that any hotel could get up and running, even...

This really appealed to me. A blog by Greg Savage:

I have employed thousands of people over the years. And every time one resigned, a little part of me died. (Okay, I lie. I have actually danced a celebratory jig around my desk on the odd occasion, but that's another post!)

Mostly, my natural reaction has always been a human one I suppose. "What possible reason would they have to do that?" or, "What's wrong with them?" or even, "She must be leaving for money. The fo...

We are a society that puts a huge emphasis on rewards, and a school of psychology is based on it. In behavioral psychology, an American invention, there are two ways to stimulate a response from someone, either reward them or punish them. This two-way mechanism works with lower animals - dog and horse trainers, for example, use food treats to reinforce the behavior they want - so it should work with humans, or so the logic goes. If you want a certain behavior out of prisoners, for example, be...

A new survey by Skyscanner has revealed the various techniques adopted by Australian travellers in the bid to combat jetlag. 94% of those surveyed said they had taken a long haul flight in the last year and on average it took them 2.3 days to recover from jetlag.

51% said that stretching and exercising on the plane had helped them deal with j...

It seems that every time a survey hits the hotel news magazines, we are still in the same mess we were last year. In some segments there have been improvements, however most have just stagnated and seem to be content with the results. J.D. powers releases the numbers and it seems that out of a score based on 1,000 score the industry seem to settle for 76% return. It is not an acceptable number, we should be able to do better, a lot better. Now ask how the industry can do better.

After a record number of 47 entrants into the 2013 Air New Zealand Cook Islands Tourism Awards this year, the confidential New Zealand based awards assessors have completed their evaluations and 21 hopeful businesses have been named as finalists.

While the Cook Islands Tourism Awards committee themselves are not aware of every entrant they are happy...

Former Air New Zealand CEO Rob Fyfe talks about ways to foster a customer-centric culture - from answering the most difficult customer complaints, to working the night shift to get first-hand account of what is happening in the organisation.

In his nearly seven years as CEO of Air New Zealand, Rob Fyfe made sure he answered each email personally, even the most difficult customer complaints.

This is interesting in the context that a Mystery Guest programme would help make this easier.

You have hired a few new employees; whether they were a waiter, bartender, front desk agent, cook, etc., so what is next?  You put them through your usual training program and now they are "on the floor" working on their own.  A few weeks go by and your new recruit has been doing a decent job and you know that their speed & efficiency will only get better.  You t...

The owner of a resort in the Tongan island of Vava’u says the ongoing saga over a Chinese plane gifted to Tonga is hurting the tourism industry.

New Zealand’s foreign minister Murray McCully is continuing to withhold tourism funding to Tonga until it can prove the proper accreditation of the MA-60, despite the aircraft being used in 20 other countries.

He has also maintained a travel advisory, despite the United States Federal Aviation Administration sayin...

Well well well - whats going on here?

Five of CP Group’s Mercure hotels in New Zealand are set to leave the Accor network on December 1, 2013.

The properties – Mercure Auckland Windsor, Mercure Rotorua, Mercure Wellington Willis Street, Mercure Picton Marlborough Sounds and Mercure Dunedin – are set to join the StayWell Hospitality Group in a boost to the increasingly popular operator.

Accor’s Vice President for...

A damning report issued by respected market research group Forrester has concluded that “Facebook is failing marketers.”

In an open letter to Mark Zuckerberg, Forrester vice president and principal analyst Nate Elliott says that ”while lots of marketers spend lots of money on Facebook today, relatively few find success.”

The executives we surveyed said Facebook’s display ads were significantly less effective than the display ads they buy elsew...

By Barbel Pfeiffer

Do You Seriously Think Your Hotel Website Stands out?

For decades now, hotel marketing online and off follows the same pattern and approach: To attract prospective hotel guests, it presents glamorous images of accommodations and locations, supported by more or less creative content, clever pricing and occasionally a really unique service offer. "A picture is worth a thousand words" is indeed a strategy that works but, does on...

21 October, 2013: 

Results from this year’s Air New Zealand Cook Island Tourism Awards have proven that events such as the tourism awards can help improve business performance and drive innovation. The Awards, held every two years since being introduced in 2009, have helped raise the bar in the overall performance of the Cook Islands tourism sector.   These  improvements show through in the entries submitted, in sections such as; marketing, operations and p...

http://www.theage.com.au/travel/everyone-asks-what-can-you-take-from-a-hotel-room-20131016-2vmn6.html

This is from Peter Hook ex Accor PR Manager who got caught fudging Tripadvisor reports!

Is this for real? We need some way of getting 100% verified reviews for it to be 100% believable!

Dennis Schaal, Skift
Oct 17, 2013 9:20 am

On the surface — at least to an outsider — TripAdvisor CEO Stephen Kaufer is a mild-mannered guy. The online travel review brand’s leader is methodic...

Adopting a ‘lead by example’ approach to the role, which he took up in September, new CEO of Fiji Airways Stefan Pichler, outlined the three to five year plan for the airline, incorporating what he described as the four key strategic pillars – brand positioning, management structures, customer service and providing career opportunities within the airline – that will develop the consumer brand.

When it comes to creating a memorable guest experience, what has the ability to achieve a high level of customer loyalty conversion?

The Check-In

As we pulled into the resort property, we had a hard time finding the check-in area.  There wasn't any clearly defined signage for where to check-in to the resort. It had been a little while since my wife and I had visited this property, and they had expanded. Throughout our stay, I noticed a lot of guests expe...

Making big money is often less important to employees than satisfying these basic needs.

Contrary to popular belief, employees value many things more than the amount of money they're being paid.  If they're treated right, employees will not only work for less, they'll be happier and more productive as they do so.

Based upon hundreds of conversations I've had about bosses and jobs, here's what employees really want:

1. To feel proud.

The legions of hotel mystery shoppers around the world are just that: a mystery. And, they’d like to keep it that way, thank you.

Try finding a hotel mystery shopper willing to dish on one of their stays. Ask them to reveal the dirt on the unkempt suite, the coquette of a concierge, or the wilted flower that sullied the room ser...

By feature writer Larry Mogelonsky, MBA, P. Eng

I’ve emphasized in the past and I’ll emphasize again now: your restaurant’s menu cannot simply be satisfactory. Not anymore at least. It has to be outstanding to the point where guests will remember what they ate two, three or seven days later. You have to ‘wow’ guests with bold choices, unique combinations and fresh ingredients in order for your restaurant to count as a worthy selling point and word...