The Happier the Hotelier, The Happier the Guest
Discovered recently started Drop In To The Wyland Waikiki, written by the hotel’s GM, Robin Graf, pictured here below (left) together with artist and self proclaimed celebrity Wyland (right) after whom the hotel is named. Am curious whether Robin will keep up with the usual Blogging requirements. Success!
Update: Oops…since publishing this post the owner of the blog has put the blog on private…you have to be invited and I’m not (-:
Last edited by GJE on January 30, 2011 at 3:37 pm
Just by coincidence I noticed someone landing here via Jumeira Knowledge base
I already knew a lot is going on at High Syndicate, sister of WiWiH: Many Hoteliers use it as as a closed group repository. I assumed access only for the insiders of the big hotel chain in question and I had never imagined the wealth of knowledge available for the hotelier and how easy it is to navigate:
On the landing page you get :
and a
Then you have separate tabs for:
Knowing the two sites High Syndicate and WiWiH, I knew about all those functions and possibilities, but I had never seen them grouped together in such clever and easily navigable way.
It is not a loud screaming design.
I wonder how the hoteliers would do themselves, if they would apply the same simple principles for their own websites instead of those bleary screens with pop ups and a lot of clutter.
Guest Reviews do not only tell you something about the hotel, but also about the reviewer:
Apart from all, I was very interested to be able to quickly flip through their Tripadvisor guest reviews, because Jumeirah is the operator of the famous Dubai flagship hotel (7* they claim) Burj Al Arab. They get good reviews but amazingly also some very negative reviews and some that say more about the guest than about the Hotel. For Example:
i thought that one’s stay at the burj al arab would be rather splendid and i was extremely foolish to think so. as i arrived at the airport on first class from emirates we were taken by helicopter to the hotel. My gucci gown was ruined on the arrival and the sun was to bright so i had to close one’s eyes for much time when we arrived we were handed oil in our hands that wouldn’t come off for a while and our butler got in the way. the room was poor and the building and rooms bog standard. One would never go there again and would compare it to the dorchester hotel in london which is utterly ridiculous.never shall i set foot here again.
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Seems like a bogus report to me. The reviewer has no other reviews
I’ll start by saying the room and building itself are just an awesome site – don’t get me wrong. And just to say that I’ve stayed at the Burj Al Arab will be something that I really don’t ever anticipate knowing anyone else will be able to match in my group of friends. However, I was disappointed by some of the service provided. For the money paid – I was expecting to be wowed! The check-in was a bit of a cluster and the check-out was as well. In fact, the entire stay went to h#$% once we recieved our checkout bill. They have no real organized way to control the madness down at the entrance and they are trying to get people onto shuttles/taxi’s/incoming passengers/etc and you are in the middle of the maddness. The fitness center was lacking as well for such a nice place! It was nothing better than a hilton fitness center. All in all we don’t regret staying there – but we will never do it again – merely for the price.
An Hilton Aficionado who wanted to buy bragging rights, but found out he paid dearly. Which makes me think that this is an example of the Long Tail effect of a really loyal guest. If they stay somewhere else they will thumb it down!
My husband and I arrived at Al Qasr on 7th June and were to check-out and depart on 9 June from Al Qasr at Madinat Jumeirah, Dubai on an Emirates flight to Paris scheduled for 08:20hrs. In order to save time in the early morning before our scheduled departure from the hotel, we completed check-out formalities and settled our hotel bill just before midnight on 8 June 2008. We also requested a wake-up call at 05:00am the following morning as we had an Emirates limousine scheduled to pick us up from Al Qasr at 06:00am for our 08:20am flight (as we had already completed the online check-in procedure, we were required to arrive at the airport 90 mins before departure).
We promptly received our wake-up call from the hotel staff at 05:00am as requested and waited patiently in our room till 06:15am for a call from the hotel staff to announce the arrival of our pick-up and finally called Emirates to find out why the car had not yet arrived. We waited another 5 mins on the phone till the Emirates representative made inquiries about our scheduled pick-up and came back on the line to inform us that the limousine had in fact arrived at the hotel as scheduled at 06:00am and that the driver had also requested the concierge on duty to inform us of the arrival of our Emirates pick-up. Unfortunately, the concierge a gentleman by the name of Mr. Rauf refused to inform us about the arrival of the car and told the driver that he was not allowed to disturb his guests at that hour and therefore sent the driver away! The driver left the premises and reported the incident to Emirates airline, making sure to mention the name of Mr. Rauf for the record.
We immediately called Service One from our room to inform them of the incident and asked for Mr. Rauf to ask him why he had done such a ridiculous thing! As we were already late for our flight, I told Mr. Rauf to meet me downstairs. Upon meeting Mr. Rauf at the entrance of the hotel and demanding an explanation for his actions, we were treated with complete indifference and not even given an apology! We also asked how he could do such a thing when we had asked for a wake-up call from the hotel at 05:00am, to which he shrugged and mumbled something about not being able to trace the wake-up call. To make things worse, he did not even have the courtesy to arrange for a complementary airport transfer for us considering it was clearly his fault that the limousine had left without us. He asked the doorman to get us a taxi for the airport for which we ended up paying Dhs 95 upon reaching the airport.
Needless to say, the experience has been shocking and pathetic coming from a hotel of it’s repute and will prevent us from ever returning at any of the Jumeirah properties. The unprofessional behavior of Mr. Rauf indicates a serious deficiency in the training of the hotel personnel and even a lack of common-sense amongst it’s employees. I believe that if a prestigious hotel like Al Qasr is unable to meet such basic expectations of it’s guests (that even a 3-star property would definitely see to) it is simply not worthy of it’s reputation and definitely not worth paying big buck for!
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Poor Mr Rauf was a bit sleepy and didn’t want to disturb his guests. I have the feeling the guest in question is to blame as well. If time is of essence, I would check and double check and would certainly not wait as a lamb in my room, but at the front desk to wait for my driver. Secondly I wouldn’t waste time by telling Mr Rauf he was such a dumbass. I rather would request an immediate solution…..I believe the Hotel should politely but resolutely point that out. Probably the lady is still simply mad about her own mistakes.
Worth a closer look! I am wondering whether they will make it password protected after this post.
Update
And Yes! Soon after publication of this post, they put a relocation to Jumeirah’s main site in the High Syndicate landing page: Henri Roelings was watching me 🙂
He looks a bit tired, but here is Rattan Chadha, the founder of CitizenM and former owner of the Mexx fashion company who opened the press conference.
Some quotes as a starter:
Michael Eman, the F and B manager who developed the F and B concept from the beginning adds: “We have two very important moments here: The coffee moment and the cocktail moment: All our ambassadors are first class barristas and cocktail makers”
Update
As usual I have been wrestling with both my old heavy laptop and the Wifi system in the Citizen M hotel room. The Blue Tooth connection of the
interfered with the remote control’s other functions and was not stable at all. After wrestling for an hour and a half I gave it up.
Rattan Chadha may not like this photo, but I caught him with one of the Citizen M signs above the cold section of the self service food and beverage wall: “Citizen M Says: I’m Cold”. Well I felt left a bit in the cold with the non functioning of the remote control/Wifi combination. BTW here at home I rechecked and the old and heavy laptop does function perfectly with my own Wifi.
As a final observation I wonder why they didn’t let it read “Citizen M Says: I’m Cool“
Hotel Front Desk Blog’s post Hotel Bloggers Linky (Not Kinky) Love inspired me to this post. [had to eliminate the links as the blog has become defunct since]
He lists a couple of Hotel Insider Blogs, because:
Unlike most other industries, there is not a lot of hotel related blogs penned by employees & insiders actually working in the hospitality industry – most seem to be just another marketing or promotional avenue written by hotels themselves as a management/public relations tool. While this is great, and I’m glad that a lot of hotels are catching onto the trend (yay, technology=good!), it leaves a lot to be said. While reading about the latest and greatest in room types and package promotions is always a good thing – more often than not, I’d much rather be reading about what really goes on behind the scenes, from the perspective of the staff that works there.
Although Front Desk Boy doesn’t see it that way:
Happy Hotelier: More focused on industry headlines than anything else, but a few viewpoints along the way from the author. Personally I think I’d like to read some stories from the author, as I like his style.
I strongly believe I am a hotel insider. I am running a small luxury all suites hotel. As the in house jack of all trades one of my functions is that of the Front Desk Manager. He would love to see more personal stories. Well I can’t do that. Insider stories might all too easy include and identify my guests, as the operation is so small that each guest story can be easily connected to a specific guest. Moreover I don’t like to remain incognito as FDB and some other insiders have to for the same obvious reason: keep in house what should be kept in house. Thanks for the nudge anyway FDB.
As Don Meador puts it: FDB’s list is a great beginning of a list. He misses a few. Therefore I have made my own list of hotel insiders.
Hotel insiders usually should have (had) some working experience in a hotel. I don’t mind them working in sales or marketing. I even don’t mind if they don’t work in a hotel anymore, but have some great insights to offer about hotels. And since Food and Beverage are great ingredients for many hotels, I also don’t mind it they are working in Food and Beverage, even without letting rooms.
From time to time you see me doing a bit of updating here
Last edited by gje on December 13, 2016
Where to stay in Berlin?
General
So I will be meeting a couple of fellow Travel Bloggers (T-Listers) at the PhoCusWright Travel bloggers Summit.
As a hotelier, my primary focus is Luxury Hotels, although I must admit that anyone who sees the various subjects covered here, might doubt that.
I use the tag Nothing Zen, because when you want to find a real gem, something special, something that doesn’t appear so easy on one of the big sites like Booking or Expedia or so, you have to spend still an enormous amount of time.
When I started this Zen Series I reached as conclusion:
My first conclusion is: Look at various dedicated hotel sites, be it luxury, design, romance or whatever you have in mind and then check back with the bigger sites as Booking, Expedia and the like.
And that still is basically my approach. Cumbersome? Yes! Time consuming? Yes! Stupid? No! The main reason for this approach is to see whether the search possibilities for the real small real luxury hotels (maybe B&B’s) are getting better on the Internet.
For the question “Where to stay in Berlin?” I did even more research than for the same question in prior posts of my Zen Series because there are a lot of hotels in Berlin and there is a bit of progress online:
Some Finds collected in Tumblr that have my attention:
While Tumblring around I found out that Hotel Chatter is easy navigable and quick and to the point (easy to Tumblr, Gridskipper is also good navigable, but has clustered 10 hotel suggestions around themes like Cheap, Historic, Pensions and so on. The creative Bloggers sites like Les Explorers and Wandalust are unsearchable. The International Herald Tribune Travel blog has hardly anything worthy to say about Berlin Hotels. The Guardian Site is very good navigable and searchable.
The “Classic” approach as per my earlier Zen Series posts:
Style 8, Atmosphere 7, Location 8
Arcotel Velvet
Smart but simple, this design-friendly hotel has a great location in the heart of Mitte…
From EUR 138
I skipped the really expensive ones here
Style 7, Atmosphere 7, Location 8
Westin Grand
Luxurious, classically designed five star hotel in Mitte – perfect for shoppers and gourmands…
From EUR 390
One of the latest boutique hotels in Berlin. After reunification, the Dorint chain carefully converted the structure into an upscale hotel of artfully simple, Zen-like minimalism.
Enjoy the opulent splendour of a castle full of history and charm. Now a luxury hotel, the Schlosshotel is an oasis of calm within easy reach of Berlin’s city centre.
Known for its personal service and classic elegance, The Regent Berlin is one of the most prominent hotels in the capital city.
A holistic atmosphere, where spaciousness, brightness and outstanding service combine to create an exceptionally personal ambience as tranquil as the countryside, all in the very heart of Berlin…Welcome to the Mandala Hotel!
Like its famous predecessor, the Hotel Adlon Kempinski which was reopened in 1997, is a symbol of luxury. Modern upgrades and uncompromising service standards have kept it a premier location in Berlin for either the business or leisure traveler.
Hotel de Rome, originally an old bank, was converted to make use of the buildings full architectural splendor, thereby offering guests an authentic Berlin experience.
Amid the energy of the city, The Ritz-Carlton, Berlin welcomes guests with a gracious atmosphere, exquisite amenities and impeccable service.
The OTA Sites
Haha I spent so much time on the research for this post that I almost forgot to make a reservation. Berlin is quickly selling out…
Updated Monday March 3, 18.00 hr
Finale Verdict
Finally I found a moderately priced place to stay in Pension Elite through Booking.com. I have not looked into Priceline.
My conclusion is that the aggregators like Hoteltip. Hotels Combined.Com and VibeAgent are becoming stronger and offer some help, but you need the reliability of a real OTA and you cannot book something without having checked out the property on Tripadvisor.
To to my view it is still much more of a hassle than would be necessary to DIY hotel bookings if you want something special, especially when you have time constraints or are a notorious late booker like myself.
Updated March 4, 2008 14.00 hr
