Category: Hotels

High Syndicate: Great Help for Hoteliers such as Jumeirah

Burj Al Arab by Tigger 2008
Burj Al Arab by Tigger 2008

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 :

    the 5 last

  1. Tripadvisor Reviews of your hotel Portfolio, so you don’t have to click through The Tripadvisor site
  2. Items of Industry News, and I know High Syndicate has a good portfolio of industry news
  3. Posts of Travel Bloggers who syndicate their content with WiWiH

    4. and a

  4. Google enabled search function dedicated for the knowledge base of the hotel chain in question

Then you have separate tabs for:

  • “Tripadvisor” with a great submenu per property
  • “In the media”, i.e. what others write about your hotels
  • “News” i.e. Travel and Hospitality Industry News from the High Syndicate news portfolio
  • “Blogs” for Travel and Hospitality blog content
  • “Documents”, mainly Travel and Hospitality Industry studies, like HitWise reports for travel sites
  • “Events” related to Travel and Hospitality that are upcoming

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:

  • BAD

    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.

    .

    Seems like a bogus report to me. The reviewer has no other reviews

  • Awsome, but dissappointing

    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!

  • An outcry about Al Qasr at Madinat Jumeirah Dubai:

    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!

    .

    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 🙂

Blogging Hotel Insiders

Waiter Rant

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.

  1. A Luxury Travel Blog. More or less an insider with a luxury travel blog and with a family background in self catering in the British Lake District, UK. and started his own self catering in 2009.
  2. Blog Mr and Mrs Smith by Tamara, Mrs Smith her good self.
  3. Budget Travel Tips from Eurocheapo. Well, because they asked nicely.
  4. Cool Travel Guide by Lara Dunston in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. A perpetual globetrotter and travel writer who has authored and contributed to over 30 travel guidebooks.
  5. Crazy hotel Workers a community.
  6. Daniel Edward Craig, the former author of the Opus Hotel Blog until he left his position at the Vancouver Opus Hotel to become a full time Hotel Crime Thriller writer. Unfortunately, since he left, the Opus Hotel Blog isn’t anymore what it used to be under the new author Katrina Caroll-Foster. Come on Katrina a soft nudge to continue Daniel’s work, or do as Bill Marriott: Dictate the blog!
  7. Feather or Foam? by a House Keeping Queen of Clean.
  8. Future Blog From Design Hotels [added March 2010].
  9. Gadling A Hotel review site.
  10. Get a Room by Don Meador, director of sales of The Landmark Hotel Group in Virginia Beach, VA, USA.
  11. Hotel Check-In I picked it up when Barbara Delollis was keeping it with a personal touch for jus the business traveler. After she left it gradually evolved in a mainstream hotel blog aiming all hotel guests.
  12. Hotel Chatter. A hotel review blog
  13. Hotel Hallways Mister Arthur who is in advertising shows us the dour hotel hallways.
  14. Hotel i Tour. Claude Benard’s main blog, since he gave up writing for Les Explorers. Claude is probably the only Frenchman in France writing a travel blog in English as Guillaume lives in the UK.
  15. Hotel Manager Talk. Kevin Levine produces his own Hotelier podcast covering topics around N. America.
  16. Hotel Marketing Strategies By Josiah – See my Interview with him.
  17. Hraba Hospitality Consulting Blog
  18. Living with Legends. A diary about Hotel Chelsea in NYC.
  19. Marriott on the Move. The Bill Marriott, who, in my opinion, does a good job with his blog. Even if it is mainly about Marriott, he doesn’t avoid critical sounds in his comments.
  20. My Marrakesh by Maryam who has has been building her own Moroccan Guest-house.
  21. The Barmaid Blog : A Barmaid.
  22. The Informed Traveler: Off course Five Star Alliance focused.
  23. Red Room ChroniclesLong before Marriott entered the blog sphere, Rob Safuto was blogging about Marriott hotels around the world.
  24. Urban Diner. Andrew Morrison is a local food critic who blogs about the Vancouver culinary scene, and he never misses a beat on local hotel happenings.
  25. Vacant Ready by a Canadian hotel professional Chris Clarke, presently based in Dubai, who had set up Bed Jump, Hotel Beds, Hotel Splash and Hotel Throne, Hotel Bathrooms exposed successfully and then sold the concept to Hotels By City.
  26. Views from A Corner Suite
  27. Waiter Rant. Musings of a? Yes, you guessed right: Waiter. His book Waiter Rant is  out and he had to give up his anonimity and I took the liberty of using the nice cover photo to enhance this post.

From time to time you see me doing a bit of updating here

Last edited by gje on December 13, 2016

Paris: The Complete Guide to Paris Style Hotels

Times Logo

Planning a trip to Paris? Don’t plan without reading this Times Online article The Complete Guide to Paris Style Hotels, where Steve Keenan summarizes in a well written and well documented article some of the best hotels in Paris.

I had featured some on the list already. But there are new surprises.

I have avoided Paris for over 35 years after spending my honeymoon there. Maybe, Maybe I’ll reconsider:-)

High Five (3): Back to Hotels, African Cities and Art

Gorilla High Five

My High Five no 2 are for:

  1. 11 Bizarre Hotels That Will Knock Your Socks Off, most of them featured at my Unusual Hotels page or on the site Unusual Hotels of the World One minus in the post: I know that “Amsterdam” always draws visitore to your post, but this time the Dock Crane hotel room is actually situated in Harlingen (about 2 hours driving from Amsterdam and without proper Public Transport and approximately half way between Amsterdam and Hamburg in Germany:-).
  2. 10 Insanely Beautiful Hotels Worth Traveling For
  3. 5 African Capitals You Should See in Your Lifetime.
  4. 7 Bizarre Tours You’d Actually Sign Up For…Maybe.
  5. The efforts of Esmé Vos going into the new Hotel Review Site Mapplr.

For some picks I was inspired by the Travel Subgroup of Reddit.

About Happy Hoteliers High Five

A high five is a celebratory gesture made by two people, each raising one hand to slap the raised hand of the other — usually meant to communicate mutual satisfaction to spectators or to extend congratulations from one person to another. The arms are usually extended into the air to form the “high” part, and the five fingers of each hand meet, making the “five”, thus the name.(High Five on wikipedia)

I will not publish it on a scheduled date. I will publish it each time when I have found five persons or sites or posts that I deem worthy a High Five. It even may imply me echoing old news here.

If you want to draw my attention to a post you may e-mail me at gje[at]hetnet.nl or give me a message at Twitter

About The New High Five Logo
I miss a large part of my right hand thumb. Technically I am not even able to offer a High Five: Its more of a High 4 and a half:-)

The Gorilla hand looks closest to my right hand with the small thumb. The photo is from a sculpture by Lisa Roet, born in Australia and currently living and working in Melbourne. She had a couple of her sculptures exhibited at the annual The Hague Sculpture. One sculpture inspired me for my post The Finger of Suspicion.

Presently The Hague Sculpture is being built up again and so the circle is full again.

I am looking forward to bring you a timely photo tour of the 2008 edition which is interesting again from what I have seen.

Street Art (4): The Berlin Billboard Single Room Pod Hotel Visited

When I wrote about this now closed Berlin object of art/experimental one room billboard hotel in December 2007, I didn’t imagine that people would actually sleep in it. I visited it in March when I was in Berlin for ITB Berlin. Henri Roelings, who is one of the guys behind WiWiH (Who Is Who In Hospitality) had booked it during ITB Berlin and had actually slept in it a during ITB Berlin.

The Berlin Billboard Single Room Pod Hotel Visited By Happy Hotelier

On the corner of Kommandantenstrasse and Neue Gruenstrasse one finds this billboard that hides the hotel room behind it. The room has no windows, so it is definitely a room without a view.

The Berlin Billboard Single Room Pod Hotel Visited By Happy Hotelier 02

Henri commented that when he stayed in the room, he had slept very comfy,but he was a little bit afraid that people could easily fire him up by making a fire under the room. Luckily the giant steel watchdog opposite of the hotel room has been watching over his safety.

Berlin Billboard Single Room Pod Hotel Visited By Happy Hotelier 02

Henri had the ladder to enter the room so that he could advertise WiWiH.

Berlin Billboard Single Room Pod Hotel Visited By Happy Hotelier 03

Once entering the hotel room I was surprised to find a real bathroom. There was water for the wash bin and the shower via a reservoir. There was a chemical toilet and there was electricity.

Berlin Billboard Single Room Pod Hotel Visited By Happy Hotelier 04

Here you can see that you could hang your clothes, had a TV set and a drawer chest and an easy chair. All very doable.

Berlin Billboard Single Room Pod Hotel Visited By Happy Hotelier 05

The Guest Book

Not only the hotel room is artsy. According to the Guest Book its guests are artsy a well and they liked it!

Berlin Billboard Single Room Pod Hotel Visited By Happy Hotelier 06

This Swiss comment reads: “First sushi, then Victoria, thereafter Paul and finally here: Reason: Birthday!”