Lodge Blog – Chanters Lodge Livingstone

Social Media Minus A Budget!

This from Hotels Mobile by Adam Kirby made me really sit up and take notice!

“Just because an individual hotel lacks a big budget for social media does not mean it cannot compete for followers and fans—even in a hyper-competitive market like Las Vegas. The marketing budget for Las Vegas Hilton is miniscule when compared to multi-property powerhouse rivals like MGM Mirage, Harrah’s Entertainment and Wynn Resorts. And despite being relatively late to the social media party, the hotel has picked up enough incremental business from Twitter and Facebook to convince once-skeptical executive management to fund a full-time social media coordinator position.

The Hilton’s first “tweet-up” last year drew 130 participants to the hotel—the vast majority of them as first-time guests. “It caught the attention of our executives—they said, ‘Wow, you did this with nothing?’” says Peter Arceo, executive director of casino marketing. “These have become loyal customers spending money at the bar, talking about the hotel. That was the buy-in [the executive team] needed to fund this.” Monthly tweet-ups keep growing in size.

In less than a year, @LasVegasHilton has accumulated more than 23,000 Twitter followers. While other properties in Vegas complement social media marketing with heavily promoted contests, viral videos and even digital Twitter billboards, the Hilton has no social media budget, so it instead focuses on building personal relationships with brand advocates that extend beyond the computer screen into real life. “We’re trying to build solid, loyal fans and followers—people who want to come here,” Arceo says.

A shoestring budget is no excuse for a hotel not to jump into social media, Arceo says. Very likely, an existing hotel employee would be willing or even eager to champion the property in the social media realm. “Nine times out of 10, I promise you there is someone on property—it could be a housekeeper, your greenskeeper, your valet—they could be your best voice for your property, and they might not even want to be compensated,” Arceo says. “They might just want to be known as the social media voice on your property.”

Why did it make me sit up and take notice?
– It shows that working with Facebook and Twitter can eventually bring you business.
– We’re a small lodge with no budget for things like social media.
– 23,000 followers on Twitter? And I thought we were doing well with 500+!
– I love the idea of “Tweet-Ups” and have a new goal to host the first one in Livingstone!
– I like the idea of one or two of the Chanters Girls being involved in our social media thing!

The picture?
Alice (centre) Acting Head Cook, Shupiwe (left) her number two, and Sandy (right) a trainee, having fun at Chanters Lodge in Livingstone.

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Chanters, entrepreneurship, facebook, hotels, internet, livingstone, Twitter, victoriafalls, Zambia

Hotel Erwin, Venice Beach

I loved this from Hotel Interactive

“When the time came, in May 2009, for the Hotel Erwin to announce its arrival on the trendy, eclectic shores of California’s Venice Beach, the handwriting was on the wall – in this case, the exterior wall, just outside the entrance. In fact, the handwriting was in glowing, screaming neon colors, splashed there by NORM, a local graffiti artist whose signature work gave the new 119-room hotel immediate street credibility.

The graffiti artist’s interpretation of the hotel’s logo said “welcome to the Erwin,” Venice Beach-style. And that’s just what it was meant to do.

“When we were designing the hotel it was very important that the hotel be a reflection and good partner with the local community,” said Benjamin Malmquist, general manager. “And Venice is renowned, has a worldwide reputation, for some really unique and creative graffiti art. That’s part of the culture at Venice Beach.”

Brilliant!

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art, hotels, usa

Leadership

I liked this article from Inc Magazine on what they call The New Rules of Leadership. I’ve edited a lot of it, left and commented on just seven I feel to be the most relevant for us at Chanters Lodge, Livingstone:

1. Have a Bias Towards Action
Before Josh James founded online analytics company Omniture, he carried around an idea book, and jotted down ideas every day. He ended up with a patent on a product: a hair-in-hairbrush remover he dubbed Brush’s Groom. It never made a cent, but the process taught him about creating a business plan, marketing, and distribution.

Chanters
Where would we be without our ‘to do list’ and handover book?

2. Keep Communications to a Minimum
Joel Spolsky, founder and CEO of Fog Creek Software in New York City, asks: When was the last time you scheduled a meeting and invited eight people instead of the three people who really needed to be there? When did you send a non-consequential company-wide email? These are symptoms of a common ailment that Spolsky dubs too much communication.

Chanters
I realised some time ago the best way to communicate here is to write a few lines about what I think on the bottom of the bi-weekly food percentage calculation placed on a table in the kitchen. Everyone reads it!

3. Motivate Employees Through Volunteerism
When your company is booming, but your employees are service-industry workers who can’t be paid too much in reward, what do you do? Amy Simmons, founder of Amy’s Ice Cream in Austin, Texas, gets her workers involved in the impact her company has on the community. She brings employees to hospital volunteer days and lets them choose which charities Amy’s Ice Cream supports. Pretty sweet.

Chanters
I think this is a cracking idea and feel we should be doing more for the community.

4. Make Customer Service Everyone’s Job
Anytime anyone writes an e-mail to Kayak, the travel search engine Paul English founded with Steve Hafner in 2004, they get a personal response. And a phone call? English will jump over desks to answer it. Indeed every employee, from an office assistant to a web developer, is expected to do the same.

Chanters
Gosh yes! Of course it is!

5. Leave Your Schedule Open Agility is the key to productivity for Scott Lang, the CEO of Silver Spring Network, a Redwood City, California-based developer of smart energy grids. He leaves large blocks of his schedule open, such that on an average day, he’s only 50 percent scheduled. That way, he’s open to impromptu meetings, such as if an important new partner’s CEO drops by (that happened one open afternoon). And, if he winds up with extra time, he fills it with self-education and big-picture, future-oriented thinking.

Chanters
Not always easy, but another goal of mine.

6. Don’t Treat All Employees Equally
Cutrone, founder of Manhattan PR firm People’s Revolution, describes her office as a research and development lab for the “ultimate power chicks.” That said, each employee comes with different skill sets and character defects, she says, so she doesn’t treat any of her employees the same. “We’re talking all day long about our lives, our fears, what’s happening, our clients, it’s a very creative place,” she says.

Chanters
I like this one

7. Work Weekends, and Love It
For Seth Priebatsch, CEO of SCVNGR, a Boston-based start-up that helps organizations engage people through location-based smartphone games, weekends are not only fair game, but also are highly productive. When he has a particularly difficult problem to solve, he likes to come in on the weekend when there’s less going on and spend a day on it. Evenings are for reading up on fresh technology. And he expects the same of his peers and potential hires. “I’ll interview people on Saturdays, late at night, early in the morning. Those are perfectly reasonable times to expect someone who is a rock star to be on top of his or her game and excited.”

Chanters
We have no choice!

The picture? Chanters Lodge team photo with Powey The Clown!

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Africa, Chanters, management, usa, Zambia

Office With A View

Check the view from the window of our new offices at Chanters Lodge, Livingstone, Zambia – looking west up Obote Avenue. Isn’t that nice? Have you moved in? We hear you ask.

Errrmmm, no, not quite, but we will, the moment the curtains are up!

Then we’ll post a view of the interior too – minus the beer crates we might have to be sitting on!

31
MAR

Africa, Chanters, entrepreneurship, extension, infrastructure, innovation, leadership, livingstone, victoriafalls, Zambia

Chris The Taxi

‘Chris The Taxi’ aka Chris Mweetwa as you’ve never seen him before! Clowning around! Chris was invited for a party last Saturday night at Chanters Lodge by John and Peggy Powell. He’d taken them to Chobe National Park in Botswana for their two day two night safari, and generally looked after them while they were in Livingstone. John clowns around as I mentioned yesterday when we posted a photo of him with some of the Chanters Girls, and he was ‘kind’ enough to give Chris (and me for that matter) a clown nose!

On a more serious note, Chris is one of Livingstone’s best known taxi drivers and inordinately helpful to Chanters Lodge in many ways – vehicle maintenance, road traffic issues and local knowledge in particular. He handles all our transport requirements that we can’t handle ourselves. He’s a member of the Seventh Day Adventist Church and takes his worship and preaching very seriously – though I guess he won’t be in church wearing this particular nose on Saturday!

30
MAR

activities, Africa, Botswana, Chanters, entrepreneurship, guests, victoriafalls, Zambia

‘Powey’ and the Chanters Girls!

We’ve been lucky enough to have John and Peggy Powell from Alabama staying with us for the past few days. John and Peggy travel the world bringing joy to others when John dresses as a clown called “Powey”. They’ve recently been in Malawi visiting schools, hospitals and orphanages making people smile.

Here’s a photo of John with three of the Chanters Girls – Aggy, Melinda and Junior, on the terrace on Saturday night!

We’d like to thank John and Peggy for choosing Chanters Lodge, being such wonderful Guests and making us smile!

29
MAR

Africa, Chanters, guests, restaurants, staff, tourism, Zambia

Welcome To The Snake Pit!

The picture is of my sister Ruth in Cape Town on her recent African holiday. If you followed some of the instructions on these signs, you might end up in the snake pit! (Thanks to Louisa – as usual – for these!)

Did I read that sign right?
TOILET OUT OF ORDER. PLEASE USE FLOOR BELOW

In a Laundromat:
AUTOMATIC WASHING MACHINES: PLEASE REMOVE ALL YOUR CLOTHES WHEN THE LIGHT GOES OUT

In a Memphis department store:
BARGAIN BASEMENT UPSTAIRS

In an office:
WOULD THE PERSON WHO TOOK THE STEP LADDER YESTERDAY PLEASE BRING IT BACK OR FURTHER STEPS WILL BE TAKEN

In an office:
AFTER COFFEE BREAK STAFF SHOULD EMPTY THE COFFEE POT AND STAND UPSIDE DOWN ON THE DRAINING BOARD

Outside a second-hand shop:
WE EXCHANGE ANYTHING – BICYCLES, WASHING MACHINES, ETC. WHY NOT BRING YOUR WIFE ALONG AND GET A WONDERFUL BARGAIN?

Notice in health food shop window:
CLOSED DUE TO ILLNESS

Spotted in a safari park:
ELEPHANTS PLEASE STAY IN YOUR CAR

Seen during a conference:
FOR ANYONE WHO HAS CHILDREN AND DOESN’T KNOW IT, THERE IS A DAY CARE ON THE 1ST FLOOR

Notice in a farmer’s field:
THE FARMER ALLOWS WALKERS TO CROSS THE FIELD FOR FREE, BUT THE BULL CHARGES.

Message on a leaflet:
IF YOU CANNOT READ, THIS LEAFLET WILL TELL YOU HOW TO GET LESSONS

On a repair shop door:
WE CAN REPAIR ANYTHING. (PLEASE KNOCK HARD ON THE DOOR – THE BELL DOESN’T WORK)

28
MAR

Africa, joke

Tnooz and Ryanair

I really like Kevin May’s Tnooz and recommend it to anyone in the travel or hospitality industry. Kevin has his finger on the button and tends to just tell it, minus clouding things with too much of his own opinion – on Tnooz anyway, though on Twitter @kevinlukemay he’s pretty vocal! Here’s a piece he posted about Ryanair. I’ve never flown with them, but personally I think they’ve got it wrong. Interaction on social media sites has gone right up our list of priorities in the past year and it’s starting to pay dividends in terms of real business.

“Low-cost carrier Ryanair has put a halt to suggestions it will start reaching out to customers through social media. The airline has had a love-hate (but mostly hate) relationship with the concept of social media for years but expectations were raised earlier this week when it announced it is adding reviews to its website. It was initially thought that Ryanair would also be making tentative forays into social media through the usual networking sites – a suggestion since dismissed emphatically.

What is expected to happen in the coming months is the launch of a series of destination pages hosted on the main Ryanair website where users can post reviews of restaurants, bars and hotels. Ryanair’s often outspoken director of communications Stephen McNamara says: “This will be one way communication – passenger reviews of local hot spots etc, but [we] will not be ‘engaged’ in social media.”

Ryanair has steadfastly refused to be drawn into the online social bubble with its marketing, unlike its European rival EasyJet (which has the @easyjetcare handle for customer relations) or US counterparts such as SouthWest. Allowing almost every piece of customer criticism in the social channels to go unanswered, Ryanair has only once dropped its veil when it infamously told this author that bloggers were “lunatics” – an outburst which was picked up by news organisations around the world.

The interest comes as Ryanair also confirms it is considering some kind of “price comparison” website – a confusing concept for a single carrier to implement unless it is significantly looking to change its web proposition. McNamara says the idea is only in the planning stage and refuses to give any indication what such a site would be used for or its model.”

What do you think? Is interaction important between company and client?

27
MAR

airlines, blog, facebook, tourism, travel, Twitter

Hotel Development – Mana Pools

The Zambezi Society is calling all its members, and concerned members of the public, to help act towards the protection of the Zambezi wilderness. The Zambezi Society is a non-profit, non-governmental, membership organisation working to promote the conservation and environmentally sound management of the Zambezi River and its basin for the benefit of wilderness, wildlife and people.

PROTEA HOTELS DEVELOPMENT PROPOSAL – ZAMBIA

Zambezi Society members need to know about a 144-bed hotel development proposed by the Protea Hotel Group, Zambia to be situated on the banks of the Zambezi River, in communal land in the Chiawa Game Management Area some 500m opposite Vundu Point in the Mana Pools National Park and World Heritage Site.

An advertisement has appeared in the Zambian newspapers asking for public comments and/or objections to on the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) document for this development that has been submitted to the Environment Council of Zambia (ECZ) for approval. Submissions should reach the ECZ (see contact details below) NO LATER THAN 14th APRIL 2010

The Zambezi Society was first alerted to this through concerned Zambian tour operators and conservationists (not through the developers nor the consultant who completed the EIS).

THE ZAMBEZI SOCIETY WILL MAKE A SUBMISSION BASED ON THIS MEMBERS CONSULTATION

We wish to make an informed submission on behalf of our membership by the due date and are therefore asking ALL concerned Zambezi Society members to write to us URGENTLY with your comments on this proposal by the end of March 2010.

26
MAR

Africa, tourism, wildlife, Zambia, Zimbabwe

Losing Andrew Carnegie

I love Seth Godin’s blog – as you must have heard me say before! Usually brief, always to the point and generally right. Here’s a nice one from him:

Losing Andrew Carnegie (pictured above)

“Carnegie apparently said, “Take away my people, but leave my factories and soon grass will grow on the factory floors……Take away my factories, but leave my people and soon we will have a new and better factory.”

Is there a typical large corporation working today that still believes this? Most organizations now have it backwards. The factory, the infrastructure, the systems, the patents, the process, the manual… that’s king. In fact, shareholders demand it.

It turns out that success is coming from the atypical organizations, the ones that can get back to embracing irreplaceable people, the linchpins, the ones that make a difference. Anything else can be replicated cheaper by someone else.”

25
MAR

blog, management, usa

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