Undergoing MyBlogLog Verification
I don’t know what is happening….
The Happier the Hotelier, The Happier the Guest
Undergoing MyBlogLog Verification
I don’t know what is happening….
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
The Event
I am looking forward to the opportunity: On March 5 and 6, 2008 I will be meeting a couple of fellow Travel Bloggers (T-Listers) at a Travel bloggers Summit at ITB Berlin (International Travel Boerse (or Fair), Berlin.
More about the Summit itself later. For now a link to the Blog that has been launched to keep the community informed: ITB 2008 Tips From The T-List
Nothing Zen
In December 2006 I started my Zen series as a sort of status report about how the Internet is developing to help you with planning and booking a trip. Nothing better than to report about your own travel preparations to see how advanced or not the Internet is with respect to DIY Travel.
My 5 Areas of Interest
As I said earlier traveling is about 4 distinctive areas of interest, but actually there are 5 (I now have added as nr 2: “Where to stay in B?”, because that is also the main focus of this blog). Here is the list:
1) How to travel from The Hague to Berlin?
Well this one is simple this time. First, as a hotelier, it is always difficult to plan well ahead of time as there are always last minute guests and/or last minute changes of guests. I have a decent car. The trip to Berlin is 703 km according to my Tom Tom. Main part of the trip is over German motorways without speed limits, so I can burn the rubber a bit. I also like to tour around a bit by car at destinations, because it gives me a better feel of the geography. I have a laptop and some camera gear to take with me which would be a lot of weight for an airplane and last, but not least I like to smoke which is not allowed anymore in planes and trains. Finally, with the very low level of service at airports (I always feel like being in a lorry of pigs heading to the slaughterhouse) and in airplanes and all the delays, there is not so much time to gain when you travel up to 700/800 km. So I decided to go by car.
More to follow, because I hit the “Publish Button” far too early this time:-)
And p.s.: Happy Leap Day!
Benji Lanyado, writing for the Guardian and bragging that he is the author of the web’s only regular column on travel blogs has come up with a great Idea: Travel Bloggers Hopping. He himself calls it Meet the Bloggers. The idea is that he visits a different city each month and gets off the beaten track with local bloggers. If you are a travel blogger and fancy showing him around your own back yard… get in touch with him at benji.lanyado{at}guardian.co.uk.
For his inaugural Meet the Bloggers column he hopped on the Eurostar to Paris, and got something of a scoop from Clotilde Dusoulier, food royalty, attracting over 15,000 visits a day to her five-year-old blog Chocolate & Zucchini (already a long time on my sidebar see my post Food blogs: Chocolate and Zucchini), and she agreed to take lunch with him.
Further he visited: Rebecca Perry-Maignant of Chic Shopping Paris, a blog and shopping tour company and
Finally he visited I V Y Paris News a blog that
started life as 5 artists getting together to hold an exhibiton in late 2004 (a painter, sculptor, jewelry designer, photographer and Founder of I V Y paris, Susie Hollands, conceptual artist). Within 2 weeks of deciding we were holding a show we’d found a gallery space, rented it, painted and scrubbed it and sent out a quick email blast to those we’d hoped would come to the vernissage. We split the costs 5 ways to make things affordable. A few finishing touches to the work to be exposed and we were ready. Everyone did something; donated a sound system, brought the wine in a friend’s car, painted, mopped, spoke the necessary French……..et voila! It was great success. The space was packed on the opening night and first night sales covered over and above the cost of hiring the space. This proves that if you are motivated it’s possible to hold an exhibition, even in Central Paris. It doesn’t have to be a traditional white-cube type thing either – it can be in someone’s home, under one of the bridges of the Seine, in a Park, or parking lot if you like.
Their idea is
To serve as a comprehensive hub for visual arts information and resources in Paris, nurturing their creative community through a series of art exhibitions and events. For those artists or art-curious already living in Paris, just passing through the “moveable feast,†as so many have done before them or dreaming about doing so one day, they hope I V Y Paris will be an invaluable point of reference.
About Benji Lanyado
Benji Lanyado is the Guardian’s budget travel columnist, a role he first undertook during his final year at Manchester University in 2005. He is also guardian.co.uk’s resident travel blogaholic. He spends his spare time running YounginEurope.com, obsessing about West Ham, and waiting for an Acid Jazz revival. Benji has double-jointed shoulders.
Thumbs up for the Idea, Benji!
Captain Ian Wilkinson astonished passengers and onlookers by taking a Cathay Pacific Boeing 77-300ER low over the landing strip shortly after take-off for its maiden trip to Hong Kong from Boeing’s US manufacturing plant. The plane was loaded with VIPS including the CP Chairman.
The captain is said to be one of the most senior aviators with the airline, and it is even reported he got a champagne toast upon arrival in Hong Kong.
However footage of the stunt on January 30 was posted on YouTube and Mr Wilkinson was first suspended and later dismissed after a disciplinary hearing. Cathay Pacific executives took a dim view of his stunt without proper authorization by the Airline.
Another senior pilot with the airline is quoted:
Wilkinson was very much one of the elite in Cathay Pacific and would have been very chummy with the airline executives he was flying that day.
If no one else had found out about it, the incident would probably have gone no further. But once it began circulating on the internet and Hong Kong’s Civil Aviation Department got wind of it, that was the end of him.
Maiden flights are treated as a bit of a jolly for executives with lots of champagne flowing and these fly-bys used to be done for a wheeze in the old days.
But they are dangerous because however good the pilot thinks he is, he isn’t trained for it and the planes aren’t designed for it.
Wilkinson was showing off, and most of the pilots might be sympathetic but they feel he got what he deserved when he was sacked.
Someone else commented that if not for the Youtube publication, nothing would have happened.
More reading:
Gridskipper
UK Daily Mail and
Times Online
Post Alia
It reminds me of the story of ad guru Neil French who lost his position at WWP after a slip of the tongue that was followed by a Bloggers War back in 2005…hm Time Flies !