Is Lisa Lewis our next business woman of the year?

We see that Lisa Lewis has been nominated by popular blogger, Cactus Kate for the 2010 Veuve Clicquot Business Woman Award. There is even a Facebook Group to showcase public support for the nomination.

Lisa Lewis has had a high profile career as a streaker, naked newsreader, model, columnist and a stripper Currently the plucky, hardworking entrepreneur works as a $1,200 an hour prostitute and is vying to appear in Penthouse.

Recently we did a post about the wife of a "high profile sportsman" that wanted Lewis to refund the $3,000 that her hapless husband paid her for interludes in a Hamilton motel. So why did the wife with 6-children go into bat for her husband? Well, apparently the husband claimed that the liaisons in a Hamltion motor inn did not have a "happy ending."

So what is the criteria for the 2010 Veuve Clicquot Business Woman Award?

The applicant has to demonstrate:

• Corporate responsibility
• Entrepreneurial drive and the ability to meet and overcome challenges to achieve success
  
• Leadership skills and the ability to motivate and inspire others
  
• A healthy balance sheet.

Lisa Lewis ticks all boxes and in her own chosen field of self-promotion and as a sex industry worker, so her niche expertise is probably deserving of recognition. 

Is this bold nomination taking the p*ss? Yeah, maybe, however the nomination of Lewis has got people thinking and will be used as a benchmark for all other nominees. It will be interesting to see how other mainstream business woman nominees will compete toe-to-toe with the success of Lewis. 

Hey, anyone that successfully uses free market forces AND regularly uses motels has got our vote!

Is Lisa Lewis our next business woman of the year?

The Mo Has Goooone!

Ahh the relief!


Movember is now behind us and we can now face the busy Summer season fluff-free...

The Mo Has Goooone!

Movember - Last Day!

The month formally known as November has now become "Movember" and it's almost over! 

My wife is looking forward to my newly sprouted growth being unceremoniously removed tomorrow morning. 

The "trucker"and "soul patch" have almost taken on a life of their own. The reaction of our motel guests has been extremely supportive and positive. It's a beautiful man moment when a fellow Mo-bro gives a nod and a wry grin in salute. 

Movember is a great fundraiser. It's about men having fun, celebrating manliness and raising much needed funds and awareness for men’s health – specifically prostate cancer and depression in men. Important when you learn that close to 600 men die of prostate cancer each year in New Zealand and one in ten men will experience depression in their lifetime. 

...So, this is your last chance for Mo-teliers to join "Team Motella" (It's not compulsory to be a motelier - by joining our team we will grant you "honorary-mo-telier" status). 

Click HERE and follow the simple steps.

Movember - Last Day!

Motelier "Going for Gold"

At the height of the Nanny-State era under the previous government, then Minister of Tourism, Damien O’Connor launched a new environmental criteria, Qualmark Green, at a breakfast for delegates at TRENZ that was held in Rotorua in 2008. 

At the time the catchphrase "Going for Gold" was used as a gimmicky way to encourage tourism business owners to strive toward Green-Nirvana and achieve Qualmark Gold Enviro-accreditation. 

O'Connor proudly stated that New Zealand was “the first country in the world to have a fully integrated quality and environmental accreditation system.”

Somewhere along the way, Qualmark forgot to consult with the the largest accommodation sector that included motels about this new centralist directive and unilaterally inserted a fashionable and politically correct environmental criteria into their quality assessment. 

Accommodation businesses are now assessed on their allegiance to environmental and social mantra as part of their quality assessment process. Surprisingly, this contributes towards the property's final quality star grading.

What this means for accommodation providers that wish to protect their star grading is that they are now required to participate in producing a wealth of time wasting greenwash.

A portion of accommodation providers have chosen to ignore this new layer of bureaucracy, while others simply roll-over and accept it. One bemused motelier has written about it.

From time-to-time, we will be faithfully publishing the humorous contribution of a motelier as he grasps the day-to-day realities of conforming to Qualmark's Responsible Tourism rhetoric.

Watch this space...

Motelier "Going for Gold"

Motel Management

We are having one of those perennial quiet weekends and have decided to watch  a few DVDs. 

This has turned into a reasonable successful exercise as we only had to use the pause button less than half-a-dozen times to react to our usually relentless "bell ringers" (valued guests).

I particularly enjoyed  the quirky movie, Management. 

Steve Zahn, plays a sad, irrelevant motelier working at his parents' roadside motel in Arizona. Jennifer Aniston plays a sales rep that stays at the motel and is strangely drawn towards the motelier's innocent (and creepy) charm.

The star for us was, Sonny's Motel, Madras that plays The Kingman Motor Inn, Arizona in the movie. We see that the motel's no-frills website pays simple testimony to its backdrop in the movie and the fact that it has been "proudly serving Madrid guests since 1956." Not surprisingly, the guest testimonials on TripAdvisor gives the motel a mixed review.

OK, I'll admit that this was an awkward American romantic comedy at its cheesiest and the movie's unlikely plot went off the rails a few times....but I liked it.

Maybe I was somewhat biased and titivated by the unlikely scenario of a small-town, 40 something motelier getting to nail Jennifer Aniston in the motel laundry?

Motel Management

Invercargill motels buck trend

We love invervargill! 

It is a special place and we were pleased to read a positive upbeat article that appeared in the Southland Times about motel occupancy. 

We note that this is fairly typical of reporting accommodation trade. A local reporter from her desk does a quick phone around to a handful of accommodation providers to gauge a general "feeling" on how things are going. This methodology can give some dubious results, in particular when investigating longer term trends.

We were amused that one newbie motelier was so keen to assist the local paper that she happily disclosed her occupancy rate for October!

Although statistics never tell the full story we note with interest that the Southland Regional Tourism Region's occupancy rate for motels was in fact 2.3% down for the 12-months ending September 2009 compared to the previous year. 

Southland's motels are performing extremely well however when to compared to national trends that recorded an occupancy rate for all motels 7.2% down for the 12-months ending September 2009.

We will be taking special note on how Invercargill will cope with hosting the Student Games early next year;-)

Invercargill motels buck trend
By ALANA DIXON 
The Southland Times

Moteliers in Invercargill have defied the global economic crisis, with city occupancy rates flourishing.

295 on Tay co-owner Geoff Shepherd said it had been a busy year for motel owners, largely because of the number of events hosted in the city.

Business was booming so much that two additional units had been completed this year, expanding the total number to 30, Mr Shepherd said.

"This is the best year we've had actually. Things seem to be happening down here all the time."

"A lot of people say it's all down to Tim [Shadbolt], but I think it's the Invercargill Licensing Trust really. They funded most of the stadium, the velodrome, the pool.

"They get behind all these events," he said.

The new hockey turf complex at Turnbull Thomson Park had brought both the Chinese and Welsh teams to the motel during the Oceania Cup world qualifier tournament in August, and the velodrome and Tour of Southland had attracted many cyclists. Events such as the annual Burt Munro challenge and the 2010 University Games would also boost occupancy rates, Mr Shepherd said.

Queens Park Motels owner Mark Gane said that occupancy rates were higher than in previous years.

Mr Gane, the Southland branch president of the Motel Association of New Zealand, said most visitors to his motel were not involved with major sporting events because of the motel's location.

However, they're reaping benefits in a roundabout way, he said.

"We seem to get the overflow. Having said that, we still pick up our fair share," he said.

Sue Stewart, who has been co-owner of Birchwood Manor for only 10 weeks, said the number of bookings for the motel's 15 units had been high. Occupancy rates for last month were at the 83 per cent mark, she said.

Bookings for the motel had already been taken for July.

"I'm just amazed how many people are coming through. Anything that's coming up, we just get booked straight away."

Ray Clark, owner of the Tower Lodge Motel, said visitor numbers had increased noticeably in his 2 1/2 years of ownership. There was a combination of reasons for this, he said. "All these events, like the cycling and hockey, help to keep our numbers up," he said. Tower Lodge Motel hosted three teams during the Tour of Southland.

However, there was an unexpected spinoff of the worldwide recession, Mr Clark said.

There had been a noticeable growth in the number of Australian "walk-in" guests. "I think it could be because it's a bit closer to home, rather than going too far away," he said.

"What recession? If this is the recession, keep it coming."

Eleven motels contacted by The Southland Times declined to comment about their occupancy rates.

Source: Click HERE

Invercargill motels buck trend

Off to Wellington

Ahh...I love the smell of aviation fuel in the morning! It's the smell of adventure, travel and money.

I'm off today to Wellington on some important Motella business.

I may tweet some pithy observations while I'm away:

Off to Wellington

Motel Privacy

In the accommodation game, guest privacy is paramount. When staying at a motel or hotel, guests share information for the exclusive use of the accommodation provider on the understanding that this will not be divulged to others.

We have been privy to all sorts of information from guests staying with us that will disclose anything from pending local business closures to the tardy performance of a local chain store manager. We also get to know a guests personal details such as eating and drinking habits or even if they are having an extramarital affair. Some of the information that we are privy to is more mundane such as telephone numbers, address and credit card details however no information about guests, no matter how trivial  should ever be divulged to others.

The only exception is if information is sought by the police. In that instance we will assist all we can as we expect the police to assist us if called upon. 

We are aware that if someone asks us if a particular guest is staying then this can put us as an accommodation provider in a difficult position. By rights an accommodation provider should not divulge up-front that a particular guest may be staying with them, however in the interests of providing customer service a pragmatic approach is usually taken. If a caller wishes to know if someone is staying with us or what a guest's room number is, then those direct questions are diplomatically sidestepped. However, if someone rings and wishes to speak to a named guest then the call is usually transferred through without question.

There has been two very similar apparent slip ups by accommodation providers that have allegedly and unwittingly divulged guest information to others with serious consequences. We have been following the unfolding stories with interest.

The most high profile story concerns a well known ESPN reporter, Erin Andrews that was filmed nude inside her hotel room through the door’s peephole by a stalker. There has also been at least one other copycat incident. A family from Nebraska has claimed that their daughters were filmed from a hole drilled in an adjacent guestroom while staying in a hotel.

In both cases, the culprits approached a hotel and requested that they check-in to rooms that were adjacent to their victims that were identified by them. The hotels obliged without question. This allowed the culprits not only to confirm that their victims were staying at a hotel, but also which room they were staying in.

From a seemingly simple unguarded act, the hotels have exposed themselves to a storm of bad publicity and also face the risk of extreme financial penalty from legal retribution of the victims.

So the blame game is being played out in the American media. 

The American Hotel and Lodging Association (AHLA) has taken an interesting position. President and CEO, Joe McInerney, in commenting about the Erin Andrews case said that the emphasis has been misdirected.

“The whole thing got out of proportion. The question shouldn’t be how did (the stalker) get the room next to (Andrews) but how did the pictures get taken. Being in the next room doesn’t matter. People are missing the point. If a guest notices that someone is harassing or following them, they should report it.”

Reneta McCarthy, lecturer at Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration has also waded in and voiced an opinion on the Erin Andrews case by stating that it is up to the guest to share the responsibility with the hotel of ensuring their own protection.

“I think it’s strange that Andrews didn’t notice that her door had been messed with.”

Hmm ... the personal responsibility rhetoric sounds good, however in this case we feel that the AHLA and Cornell may be running interference.

As an accommodation provider, besides providing guests a place of peaceful enjoyment we also have a duty of care.

It will be interesting to see how the American legal system will determine what the hotels' responsibility should have been.

In the interim it may be a good opportunity for accommodation providers to reflect on their privacy policies and in particular consider how best to deal with adjacent room requests.

Motel Privacy

The race to the bottom

A fellow "Motella" sent me an article (appended to this post) last week that appealed to me. We are not sure where this first appeared, however it was written by Dr Anthony Brien, PhD, MSc Hospitality Mgmt who is Senior Lecturer of Business and Hotel Management in the Department of Business Management, Marketing and Law, Faculty of Commerce at Lincoln University, Christchurch.

So, what is the phrase "The race to the bottom" mean?

Wikipedia states: ...Seeking a more favourable outcome at the expense of others by upsetting an equilibrium to their own favour, only to cause retaliation by the other individuals, resulting in all participants having an overall less favourable outcome.

As an industry we spend a lot of time looking over the fence tut-tutting others and widespread discounting appears to be the hot topic at the moment. 

The race for the bottom has an apeal as a dicussion topic amongst accommodation providers, however I would personally rather focus on "the race for the top" and discuss the importance of offering quality product and service. There are certainly good examples of individual businesses in the accommodation industry that are reaping a very good ROI as they continue to invest in quality.

It could be said that consistancy of "quality" is one of the biggest challanges collectively facing the motel industry at the moment and one of the reasons that hotels have supassed motels as the most popualar accommodation choice. There is a sad irony that those that set off on a discounting pathway to attract occupancy will be unable to reinvest and spiral towards economic oblivian.

We were amused to recieve a wordy industry newsletter from Qualmark NZ Ltd that self-describes itself as "New Zealand tourism's official quality agency." Not once was the word "quality" used in the newsletter, however not suprisingly there was ample space earnestly devoted to environmental mantra as the answer to business salvation.

We can't ignore that many accommodation businesses are being drawn into a cycle of deep-discounting that is confusing the market and restricting reinvestment of existing product. We can appreciate the rhetoric used in Dr Anthony Brien's article, so we have reproduced this below in full:

"The majority of commercial accommodation in New Zealand has recently been participating in, and arguably is still running in, the race to the bottom. The world recession has had a major impact on tourism, and within that, all commercial accmmodation has felt the squeeze – with the result being the down-hill discount race in full swing. While this may be an overarching theme for the industry, it is pleasing to note that in recent weeks some bottoming out or a slower glide path, in rate reduction, but nevertheless, the race appears far from being over and the recovery will take a long time.

As a strategy, discounting (lowering the cost) has its place, but is only one tool in the business strategy tool-box. Some have called for less discounting and more added-value – yes, this is another strategy, but begs the questions: “What value were you adding in the first place that did not attract business”? Do you know what value is and what is more value? And remember, adding-value, when you are already doing it, or more if you are, or not – costs. The underlying theme here is cost. Cost for the purchaser and for the supplier; but cost is only one component of the product/service we are selling. What is your accommodation experience value-proposition? Another, critical component of your selling price strategy.

Someone once said, “Knowing only your product/service cost and not its value as well, will not set you apart from the competition”. Quite true. In the manufacturing economy costs can be driven down with aggressive incorporation of technology, but in the experience-economy, the value proposition is critical as it engages so much human interaction. Yes, the punters want the best deal going, but as an operator you can only go so low with the price (cost) before it’s not worth opening the doors, and/or a significant amount of the whole experience is changed to accommodate the new cost. But are we really telling the punters that the experience will be reduced accordingly – present marketing campaigns suggests not. Frankly, the punter knows that they are getting a damn good deal, but their expectations and demands have not reduced. Playing with price and value is playing with a customers psychological price referencing – this can be a dangerous game.

More questions. While you will know the cost of your product/service, do you know the value – in dollar terms, of your product/service – the experience? When did you last check what the value was? Who did you ask? When did it last change? Why did it change – if it changed? If you can’t answer these questions you are not in the experience economy you are just selling a product and competition will be stiff.

Over 65% of New Zealand hotel accommodation is managed by offshore groups who appear to be using discounting to attract a larger share of a shrinking market. Local groups are also discounting, but will probably have a reduced survival rate against such major competition. At present there are not enough customers for everyone, so let’s accept that and drive for value and the price that this really needs to be to deliver it. This is not a story about collaborating to put prices up, it’s a commercial fact that present practice is unsustainable – for many businesses and for New Zealand. New Zealand is promoted internationally as a 100% pure destination with campaigns of late focusing on some form of experience. It is not promoted as a discount destination but in effect, (with a few exceptions), that is what we have become in terms of price, and eventually so will the experience. The laws of economics prove this point.

At the recent Tourism Leaders Forum Tim Cossar ended one of his presentations with the quote “United we stand – divided we fall”. Again, quite true. It will take courage and strong leadership to drive New Zealand out of its present mindset of a cost-driven approach. As a manager, what do you want your legacy to be? Let’s withdraw from the race to the bottom – there is no real winner in this race, and join (or start) the united race to the top, a race which is value-proposition driven, one where we genuinely, independently compete to enhance the overall accommodation experience and New Zealand’s economy."

The race to the bottom

Have you updated you EFTPOS terminal yet?

We predict that there will be an increrase in the use of the following card over the next few weeks;-)

Hat tip: Crusader Rabbit

Have you updated you EFTPOS terminal yet?

Wotif.com moves into air travel

Cheif executive of wotif.com, Robbie Cooke

It's been no secret that Wotif.com having been planning for some time to expand their online accommodation reselling business into the online air travel market.

Chief executive, Robbie Cooke announced this week that they will be entering the air travel market and going head to head with Australian market leader Webjet.

Initial market penetration will be with the purchase of flight booking website www.travel.com.au.
Further flight booking site acquisitions are planed for the future. It is unclear how flight reservations will be eventually integrated into the Wotif Group and it will be interesting to see if this can be done on Wotif.com without losing the focus and definition of this popular site. Alternatively a separate consumer brand could be developed.

Wotif.com is also planning further development with applications for mobile devices believing that future use of this platform for booking hotel and flight accommodation will continue to grow.

Wotif.com moves into air travel

The Social Media Guru

So how's your social media strategy? You do have one, right? You don't! Oh no, better call the Social Media Guru! 

So how long has the Social Media Guru been doing this for? 

"Six whole months and he has an internet blog and everything."

Show him to your computer and he'll "hook up your Tweeter to your Facebook and plug your blog feed into his Weeder"

Just please don't ask him the question "How will you be able to translate that all into sales and revenue."

Watch the following video and learn (Beware the F-Bomb is fairly prevalent though out): 



Hat Tip: www.twitter.com/xebidy

The Social Media Guru

The "Hamster Hotel"

I come from an old school motelling background that dictates that we cater for a widest possible market demographic possible. This goes against mainstream marketing 101 that tells us that we should narrow our target market and promote a unique point of difference.

The philosophy of being being able to cater for the corporate, family or tourism market has worked well for us. We like to think that we are all things to all people, however we were surprised to learn of another market opportunity that has never occurred to us.

A hotelier in Nantes, France has opened what is believed to be the first hotel catering for folk who wish to experience life as a hamster.

It's true because it is on the internet!

For 99.00 Euro, guests can rent out a room designed as a hamster cage. They are able to dine on bags of seeds, have a workout on an over sized hamster wheel and then climb the ladder to settle down for the night on giant hamster bed stuffed with hay.

The mind boggles as to what type of demographic this will appeal to. Maybe those that are into heavy petting or perhaps those that missed out on having a small furry family pet when they were young?

The "Hamster Hotel"

TripAdvisor to add contact information to listings

We were interested with the recent announcement from TripAdvisor.com that plan to offer links to accommodation business's direct website address, telephone number and email address.

Accommodation providers wishing to add these details will have to pay a yearly subscription ranging from $USD 600 for the smallest properties to $USD15,000 for hotels with up to 1,000 rooms.

This has the potential to be a great money spinner for TripAvisor as accommodation providers take advantage of offering the 25 million people that visit tripadvisor.com each month, one click access to their inventory.

It is difficult to second guess what uptake this may have with New Zealand accommodation providers, in particular smaller motel operations that average 15 rooms. For those accommodation businesses that are looking to redistribute marketing budgets from print to the web, we think it could be worthwhile investigating further.

TripAdvisor to add contact information to listings

Passionate About Bikes, Not Business

ACC Minister, Nick Smith fronted up outside Parliament to an angry mob of 6000 motorcycle enthusiasts incensed by ACC's proposal to hike their levies. 

In response it would appear that the Government has backed off somewhat with Nick Smith reported as saying:  "I've indicated to them that it's unlikely that the Government will agree to the scale of increase that the ACC board has recommended."

Whilst this is great news for middle aged fair weather Harley owners, it is unclear if this will add further to the proposed ACC increases for the productive sector.

Last week, according to the Tourism Industry Association (TIA), the accommodation sector is facing a levy hike of over 80%. Other "tourism operators" will also face substantial levy increases of between 30% and more than 100%.

Instead of rallying against hefty levy increases, questioning the Government's role in ACC and the ROI for its members, the TIA along with other trade associations have accepted that the tourism industry should absorb increases, albeit in a "staged" fashion. 

It is unclear what position The Motel Association of NZ have taken?

It is frustrating and ironic that our industry trade groups that represent private enterprise businesses always seem to default to centralist ideals to solve their members' problems.

It would appear that the motorcycle fraternity have based their protest on the simple fact that it wasn't fair to be hit with such a large increase. Hardly a strong augment, however it is interesting that with some well organised and passionate leadership they have appeared to have had some success.

One is left to wonder what our industry trade associations could have achieved?

Passionate About Bikes, Not Business