Dear Insiders,
Everybody feels the flood of customer cards when holding their own wallet: If the plastic card still fits in, you will likely "score" at this company. And if your wallet is getting too bulky, the card won`t be included. But how to enter the customers' minds? Without reconsidering, the hotel industry has followed the trend believing in the same success as the airlines. Today, experts deny that bonus cards are everything but suitable for all hotel segments - and they are far from being economical. All hotels offer the same, there are no differences. It is the beginning of the end of CRM programmes. Our focus today.
The recently founded "Healing Hotels" are riding the health wave. This supposed cooperative consists of business-eager consultants. The fact that an English term was chosen may emphasise their claim to be an international company. But how to translate "healing" into German? The concept of "to heal" remains a purely medical term in Germany. Moreover, the group's list of criteria gives reason to doubt the truth of it all...
It all depends on differentiation, as becomes obvious in Berlin: The two leading and definitely competing business clubs in the federal capital draw a clear dividing line between themselves as a "business" and "social" club. Neither said anything about their members. Nevertheless: You definitely need small change to be admitted to these circles. We sensed that there are next to no hoteliers among the elite of representatives from the fields of economy, politics and media. Consequently, only the two hotels positioned in the vicinity of the China Club and Berlin Capital Club reap the benefits from them.
Enjoy the coming Christmas parties and "Christmas cookie gossip"! Just make sure that you don't find yourself in the same situation as the General Manager of the Dolder Grand Hotel in Zurich: Santa Claus paid him a visit on St. Nicholas' Day together with Swiss TV camera team. Live on camera - and later broadcast on prime time television - Santa Claus and his little helpers confronted the clearly surprised Thomas Schmid with accusations from the trade union UNIA that Dolder rewards German construction workers with less than the minimum wage! And that, when everyone knows that the restructuring works at Dolder stand at 600 million Swiss Francs! Schmid's excuse that this was a matter for the construction firm, was hardly convincing...
Yours, Maria Puetz-Willems
Editor-in-Chief
Ideas? maria@hospitalityInside.com