Sales & Marketing Europe External Articles

November 10, 2015

Vive Unique rebrands to Veeve as it takes $5.2 million investment | Tnooz.com

London, UK-focused home sharing service Vive Unique will become Veeve following Smedvig Capital injection of $5.2 million. The Series A investment comes 18 months after an initial $5.2 million was put into the high-end business, also from Smedvig Capital. The company says since it launched ahead in 2011, ahead of the London Olympics, over 1,000 property owners have signed up to the service. The total overall portfolio is claimed to be worth of over $1.5 billion.

tnooz.com

United Kingdom

External Article

September 24, 2015

Youth And Student Travelers Age 15 To 29 Represent 23 Percent Of International Tourist Arrivals | eTurboNews.com

WYSE Travel Confederation and the World Tourism Organization announced an updated estimate of the size of the global youth travel market according to which youth and student travelers age 15 to 29 are estimated to represent 23% of international tourist arrivals. The most recent analysis of the size of the youth travel market is based on 2012 from over 20 countries with age breakdowns of international tourist arrivals. The analysis, done in collaboration with UNWTO, estimates the global youth travel segment to represent around 23% of all arrivals.

eTurboNews.com

The Netherlands

External Article

July 17, 2015

Are runways above city streets the future of airports? | telegraph.co.uk

Who needs a third runway at Heathrow when planes can take off and land in city centres? This is the thinking of architecture graduate Alex Sutton who has designed an airport to exist above the streets and canals of Stockholm. The 25 year-old from London’s Bartlett School of Architecture says the proposal would aim to both alleviate the pressure on airport capacity but also challenge how “mundane and ordinary” the aviation industry has become.

telegraph.co.uk

Stockholm, Sweden

External Article

July 14, 2015

New Greek Taxes Will Increase Tourist Burden at Hotels and Restaurants | skift.com

An hour west of Athens, the pebbly beaches by turquoise waters and pine-covered mountains are nearly empty as the Greek sunbathers who normally pack them stay home amid fears their country’s economy could implode. Only a few dozen people sit down for a fresh grilled seafood lunch at the beachside restaurant Mary Cromba has owned for 15 years in the tiny village of Psatha. That’s down from the hundreds she served most days last year in July. Now beachgoers on day trips from the capital find parking spaces easily and haul their own food in coolers.

skift

Greece

External Article

May 19, 2015

Diligence drives revenue management alignment | hotelnewsnow.com

It’s not enough for revenue managers to continue learning in their ever-evolving discipline; they must also teach those (and relentlessly so) who might not be so open to this new world of doing things, said panelists at the Travel Distribution Summit Europe held in London. “Cold blooded” was the term one used to describe a personality trait required to help push top-line growth across the entire asset, chain or group. “At the moment, my colleagues are not aligned,” said Nicolas Alsterdal, total profit manager at Nordic Choice Hotels.

HotelNewsNow

London, United Kingdom

External Article

January 16, 2015

Interview: Small Luxury Hotels CEO on Embracing Competition | skift.com

Small Luxury Hotels of the World is certainly global, as its name would imply, but it’s not really so small. The hotel marketing consortium represents 520 small independent hotels across more than 80 countries. The organization differentiates its inventory by keeping properties to less than 50 rooms, maintaining a strong hold in the Asia market, and consistently tightening its inspection process and qualifications. Skift recently spoke to Small Luxury Hotels of the World CEO Paul Kerr about changes in the independent hotel market and big brands’ entrance into the sector.

skift

London, United Kingdom

External Article

January 13, 2015

Accor Hotels: How it’s adapting to mobile | tnooz.com

Last October, Accor Hotels unveiled its five-year, 225 million euro plan for “reinventing the customer experience through technology.” For an update, Tnooz spoke with a few key officials on its tech side. A focus for the company is mobile, according to Jean Luc Chretien Executive vice president, distribution sales and loyalty, who says: “Today about 35% of the users of Accor’s digital platforms are arriving by mobile devices.

tnooz.com

Paris, France

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Some call it a website with a booking engine built in. Some call it a booking engine with a website built in. We call it One.

Tambourine

External Article

January 8, 2015

Airbnb takes steps in Europe to become official part of the hospitality landscape | tnooz.com

Airbnb will start collecting taxes from property owners in Amsterdam, following complaints from hoteliers in the city. In an agreement signed between the home sharing pioneer and city officials, Airbnb hosts will pay a tourist tax which will then be passed on to the authorities. Local hotels had previously complained how some hosts were not collecting the standard tourist tax from guests, in the same way that hotels, hostels and B&Bs did with their own customers.

tnooz.com

Amsterdam, The Netherlands

External Article

December 16, 2014

Luxury travel conference tackles sharing economy | travelweekly.com

If you can’t buy a palace, at least you can stay in one of them. That’s an encapsulation of one of the topics of discussion (the collaborative economy) that took place during keynote presentations on the first day of the International Luxury Travel Market’s (ILTM) annual flagship event earlier this month. The conference, which was held in Cannes, France, from Dec. 1 to 4, revealed the push-pull nature of the global luxury travel market, in which suppliers continue to try to raise the bar on exclusivity while more people than ever are now able to access a luxury travel experience.

travelweekly.com

Cannes, France

External Article

December 2, 2014

HOTELS Interview: Forte elaborates on new Italian partner | hotelsmag.com

With Rocco Forte Hotels new strategic partner in Fondo Strategico Italiano (FSI), Sir Rocco Forte has been newly emboldened to state he wants to at least double the size of today’s 10-hotel company within five years. An injection of £60 million (US$95 million) from the Italian state-backed sovereign fund 80% controlled by Cassa Depositi e Prestiti (CDP) and 20% by Bank of Italy in exchange for a 23% equity stake would certainly give any European luxury brand renewed stimulus and Sir Rocco is already in discussions concerning a development in Venice and is actively pursuing projects in Milan, Naples and Sicily.

London, United Kingdom

External Article

December 1, 2014

The VIP Treatment: How London Restaurants And Hotels Reward Their Regulars | forbes.com

We asked some of the top hotels and restaurants in London and a bit further afield what lengths they go to to make sure their regular customers feel special: “In Hélène Darroze at the Connaught, when guests visit to celebrate a special event such as a birthday or an anniversary, with their consent, we take an instant picture of them with a Polaroid camera. At the end of their meal, we give them the photograph with a message from the Hélène Darroze team which we hope makes the experience extra special and memorable for our customers.”

Forbes

London, United Kingdom

External Article

August 19, 2014

Supercar parade outside The Dorchester | dailymail.co.uk

With rooms costing up to £5,300 a night, they are not the sort of hotels where you'd expect to find many Ford Fiestas in the guests' car park. And these images show some of the astonishing vehicles parked outside the five-star Dorchester and Wellesley hotels in Mayfair, central London. Among the manufacturers of the impressive cars on display were Lamborghini, Ferrari, Rolls-Royce, BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Bentley. And many numberplates were foreign - with Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait represented on a Lamborghini, Ferrari and Rolls Royce respectively.

dailymail.co.uk

London, United Kingdom

External Article

June 6, 2014

12 content ideas for your hotel's blog | hotelcontractbeds.co.uk

Running a blog isn’t always easy (trust me, I know!), but it is one of the best ways to attract audiences, gain traffic and promote yourself. Most blogs begin well, but then slowly but surely start posting less posts, on repeating subjects, because they simply run out of original ideas. To help out, I’ve put together a list of content ideas for your hotel’s blog.

hotelcontractbeds.co.uk

United Kingdom

External Article

June 2, 2014

Big Interview: Booking.com confident it is on trend and set for further growth | travolution.co.uk

Travolution's Lee Hayhurst spoke to the two men at the helm of Booking.com at its first bloggers summit held at the online travel giant’s Amsterdam headquarters Online hotel retail giant Booking.com is confident the key consumer trends are all moving in its favour despite talk of a return to the package holiday in the UK. Darren Huston, chief executive of the powerhouse behind Priceline’s remarkable rise to prominence, sees ever more transparency and consumer control emerging in travel. And he claims that for hoteliers Booking.com is the cheapest platform out there, with commission between 12% and 15%, and generally towards the lower end of that scale.

Some call it a website with a booking engine built in. Some call it a booking engine with a website built in. We call it One.

Tambourine

External Article

May 19, 2014

A Design Flaw Is Turning the London Shard Hotel Into a Voyeur's Dream | gizmodo.com

You'd think staying in the tallest skyscraper in London would afford you some privacy. But visitors at the newly-opened hotel inside of the Shard are being creeped out by the bizarre effects of a simple design flaw—which reflects the view inside of certain rooms directly onto the windows of nearby guests at night. According to The Guardian, a mistake in architect Renzo Piano's detailing means that visitors to the Shangri-La Hotel are getting a perfect view into other rooms. And this isn't your average Rear Window- type of situation you might find at hotels like the Standard in Manhattan, where guests knowingly show off inside of their glass-walled rooms. Because, in this case, visitors don't realize they're on display.

gizmodo.com

London, United Kingdom

External Article

May 8, 2014

Restaurant Reservation Service LaFourchette Gobbled Up By TripAdvisor For $140M | techcrunch.com

European restaurant reservation service LaFourchette — the so-called OpenTable of France — has entered into agreement to be acquired by NASDAQ-listed travel site TripAdvisor, with whom it already had a partnership. Terms of the deal are not being disclosed. However, sources tell TechCrunch that the price is actually ~$140 million (€100 million) in an all cash deal. The company had previously raised around $15 million in VC.

techcrunch.com

Paris, France

External Article

April 3, 2014

Global Lodging Forum 2014: What is the role of innovation in brand differentiation?

Hotel innovation has been at the core of discussions at the Global Lodging Forum, particularly during the first panel on Tuesday, March 18, entitled "What is the role of innovation in brand differentiation?". Opinions from Bernard BASTIDE Marketing Manager Building Automation System, Legrand, Christoph HOFFMANN, President & CEO, 25Hours Hotel Germany, Geoffray MAUGIN, VP Marketing & Digital, Sofitel Worldwide, Marco FANTON, Global Social Media Director, Melia Hotels International, Olivier HARNISCH, Executive Vice President & Chief Operating Officer, Carlson Rezidor/Rezidor Hotel Group, Serge TRIGANO, Co-Founder, Mama Shelter.

Hospitality ON

Paris, France

External Article

March 27, 2014

In-depth review of travel reviews – gaming the system, popularity and more | tnooz.com

What is the travelling public’s perception of travel reviews? Are they valuable or gamed to death? Or still a vital cog in the machinery of a purchase? The Worms University of Applied Sciences has pulled together research on reliance on review sites, how credible they are considered and what consumers like to see. The study from the institution’s Department of Tourism reveals more than half of hotel customers always consult review site before booking. Of the 1,021 internet users surveyed, about 17% say review sites are essential to booking, 31% say important and 48% say important but recognise the need to handle with care.

tnooz.com

Germany

External Article

February 21, 2014

France: Pricing strategies: What prices are hoteliers practicing? | hospitality-on.com

Pricing is naturally a major concern for hotel customers, and thus hotel professionals. But concretely speaking, what strategies are being implemented? Hospitality On addresses French hoteliers’ current practices in France.

Hospitality ON

Paris, France

External Article

February 19, 2014

5 Hotels in Sochi You'd Actually Want To Stay in | huffingtonpost.com

Sochi has been getting a bad rep when it comes to hotels, particularly since the #sochiproblems twitter madness, revealing yellow hotel water, stray animals occupying hotel rooms, etc., etc. But believe it or not, there are some very exceptional accommodations in Sochi (or to some -- the Russian Riviera), that border the region's stunning mountains and Black Sea waters. Hotel search www.trivago.com has put together a collection of five fine properties in Sochi that you would actually want to stay in.

huffingtonpost.com

Sochi, Russian Federation