Managing expectations continues to be one of the hardest things we do. Sometimes in this entitlement-prone society guest expectations are simply unreasonable (“I expect unlimited Internet bandwidth, free!”), in which case all we can do is respond as rationally as we can and trust that the wider audience will understand what’s possible and what’s simply impractical to provide.

Sometimes, though, marketing gets ahead of reality, and we have to constantly navigate the fine line between attracting guests with great photography and appealing amenity offers and promising more than we’re prepared to deliver. Guest feedback sites help keep this in check, of course, quickly pointing out transgressions (e.g. on TripAdvisor, Expedia and others) or posting guests’ own photos to show more typical views (Oyster.com). To maintain trust hoteliers must constantly monitor this feedback and respond appropriately, both on-line to the public and internally to correct service deficiencies. To do otherwise is to risk undermining all the marketing and training effort spent on building up a brand and image in the first place.

This is why it’s especially discouraging to find that the mobile site of a particular chain’s technology-focused flag crashes every time a guest tries to book a hotel with it. And that it’s done so for nearly a year without being updated, judging by the comments posted on-line by frustrated users. No, I’m not going to name it; the brand in question is already aware of the situation, and maybe this will encourage others to make sure reality matches their marketing message a little more closely.

Promising something and then failing to deliver on that promise is worse than not offering it at all.

There’s a lot to be said for minimizing the number of different systems that hotels have to deal with on property.  Whenever data has to be transferred between applications (despite the interface flexibility provided by Web-services approaches) there’s always some potential for inaccuracy, given that Read the rest of this entry »

More suggestions for our mythical range of hospitality-focused systems, including some from our readers.

- Inn-Ability and Inn-Competence, two options for staff training

- Inn-Sanity, the interface development module (Doug Rice, from HTNG: are you trying to tell us something, Doug?)

- Inn-Opportune, a business generation tool for marketing (Pete Allen, from hyphen)

- Inn-Famous and Inn-Memoriam, two loyalty program/guest recognition modules (Pete Allen)

- Inn-Security, web based streaming video feeds of all hotel exits not used by thieves (Ron Strecker, AJS Hotels)

- Inn-Cognito, providing such seamless integration you won’t even know it’s there (Ariel Herr, Pegasus)

- Inn-Deep, which has more functionality than you know what to do with.

Spring conference season is in full flow. I attended both HTNG’s North American Conference two weeks ago and Rich’s Vendor Summit last week, and learned much from the principal speakers at each. One theme touched on at both was that we still have trouble getting the value of IT across to hotel owners and management, and that greater cooperation across all disciplines is needed if we’re ever to get out Read the rest of this entry »

Vendors strive to come up with a product name that’s catchy and memorable, and it’s often tempting to help by including a reference to this wonderful industry. Kudos to all the vendors who’ve got it right, but in the spirit of being helpful – and mindful that April 1 is approaching fast – I thought I’d offer the following suggestions to help the marketing departments of any vendors still struggling to find the perfect product name. I wonder if we’ll see any of them at HITEC?

- Inn-Decision, perhaps the best business intelligence tool on the market?
- Inn-Discrete, the most understated system available
- Inn-Case, for 24/7 back-ups
- Inn-Deed, the ultimate tool for hotel owners
- Inn-Explicable, the Help Desk module
- Inn-YourDreams, the perfect product for every property
and, inevitably,
- Inn-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, the system that really rocks.

Send me your suggestions for further additions to the portfolio, and I’ll include them in future newsletters.