Category: Holidays

  • Staying in a boutique hotel

    A boutique hotel is one of which usually offers less than 100 rooms and is not owned by a large chain. These types of establishments often offer rooms at extremely reasonable prices compared to that of a chain hotel. Recent studies have shown that on average, a boutique hotel will be typically 20 percent less expensive than staying in a comparable larger chain hotel. Price is just one of the many benefits that boutique hotels boost.

    The service you receive and the warm friendly atmosphere is hard to put a price on as it can really make or break a holiday. These establishments are often run by families or close friends and this really shines through when arriving at the hotel. You can expect a very warm welcome and all too often are they happy to try and accommodate your requests.

    If you have always stuck to hotels that are part of a group, then why not try a boutique one. Always be sure to read plenty of reviews before choosing a suitable one.

  • Ritz-Carlton in digital focus at ATM

    The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company is launching a completely-integrated social media campaign which will offer visitors a singular interactive experience. at ATM The move is per The Ritz-Carlton commitment to deepen connections with existing and prospective guests in an atmosphere where they spend increasing amounts of time.

    As component of the posh hotel company’s social media outreach in the course of the Middle East’s largest travel trade event, The Ritz-Carlton has members in their social media engagement team present on their stand at ATM.  Throughout the @RitzCarlton twitter handle, the team will provide live content and updates from the development. With a sizeable choice of The Ritz-Carlton Twitter followers comprising of trade partners, customers and the media, this can be a perfect platform to initiate and build brand conversation relevant to the fair.

    The introduction of a dedicated ‘Tweet Bar’ at the Ritz-Carlton stand HC5240 located within the Arena Hall, will give the brand’s global Twitter following access to news from the development because it unfolds in Dubai, including highlights from exclusive talks and seminars. Further, visitors checking in at ATM on Foursquare will receive pointers on one of the best things to determine and do in Dubai, as recommended by The Ritz-Carlton concierges from both hotels within the city. The Ritz-Carlton also uses Foursquare and The Ritz-Carlton Mobile App to tailor local content and supply engaging information relevant to their guests. This may be dropped at life at ATM where a sequence of QR codes can be utilized to download property insights, including recipes from chefs and guided tours of hotels.

    “Our social media interactions at Arabian Travel Market are a natural extension of our ‘Let Us Stick with You’ brand philosophy. We wish to enrich the experience on the show for visitors, as well as being an awesome luxury travel information resource for our Twitter followers by providing news because it is occurring from the show,” said Chris Gabaldon, Chief Sales and Marketing Officer for The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company. “Each of The Ritz-Carlton social media channels grow in importance to us year-over-year as our guests live increasingly in their lives within the digital space. Use of Facebook alone already stands at 40% of time spent online inside the UAE, 30% in Kuwait and 21% in Saudi Arabia making Facebook an increasingly important channel for us to converse with our Middle East guests.”

    The Ritz-Carlton has a proven track record of using social networking platforms to construct and enhance the logo and produce people together inside the same physical space or event. It successfully used Twitter to underscore its central role at global events corresponding to Toronto International Film Festival and IMEX America, whilst broadcasting and conversing in regards to the brand’s messages on a big scale and likewise drawing foot traffic to physical spaces by engaging with other attendees.

    The effectiveness of The Ritz-Carlton social media direction and content has resulted in significant year-on-year increases across all leading platforms, including Facebook which has jumped 118 percent to a couple of million fans around the company’s brand page and 48 hotel Facebook pages. To boot, the emblem Facebook Page’s year-over-year growth in “People Talking About This” went up 746%.

    “The Ritz-Carlton philosophy is built round the concept of providing unique experiences for our guests on the way to leave indelible memories they put off from every visit to 1 of our hotels.  With the ongoing growth and influence of social media – on both a neighborhood and global scale – we’re seeing this amplified online greater than ever before,” continued Gabaldon.

    “It is therefore essential for us to stay relevant to the patron and be strategic and sensitive in regards to the ways that we engage within the space. The Ritz-Carlton brand carries expectations of excellence, and that i can proudly say that while each of our social channels perform in several ways, all of them convey a truth and authenticity that may only be conveyed by us. We reap great have the benefit of being part of the web conversation and learn much by being attentive to guest feedback. The following portion of our continued strategy makes a speciality of developing additional global social media assets and online engagement channels to succeed in a broader audience of geographies and demographics, incorporate more video, and play host to user generated content for our guests who would like to share their Ritz-Carlton experiences inside the digital space.”

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  • Saudi hotel brands to make ATM debut

    Saudi Arabia’s Frontel for Hospitality is making its Arabian Travel Market (ATM) this week because the group looks to take its growing portfolio of properties beyond the Kingdom’s borders, with a strategic development plan for the center East.

    Owner-operator of the recently renovated five-star Western Alharithia Hotel in Madina, the corporate is raring to become the “Operator of choice” for hotel owners and developers around the region, in step with Rushdi Sherwani, Director Brand Development, Frontel for Hospitality Inc. With three new group hotels set to open within the Kingdom within the next two years, we’re also accelerating our development agenda for the region, and also are seeing growing interest from established markets which includes the UAE, in addition from Iran and Yemen – either one of that are searching for professional operators to come back in and help grow their hospitality base.”

    Frontel for Hospitality Inc. also is near to signing for 3 properties in Pakistan because the branded operator or on a franchise basis, having unfolded negotiations for 2 of most vital hospitality landmarks. The 1st is Karachi’s tallest tower, which currently combines a hotel with a shopping center. The second one is Karachi’s largest hotel when it comes to room inventory and the third property is within the industrial city Sialkot Pakistan.

    “Showcasing our portfolio of properties at Arabian Travel Market presents us with a possibility to fulfill existing partners in addition to new potential partners. ATM will even provide a platform for us to create awareness of the Frontel brand and our deal with quality. Moving forward, our strategy is to become a prime hospitality player not just inside the Kingdom but in the course of the region,” said Sherwani.

    Frontel for Hospitality Inc. is already actively growing brand presence on its home turf, where it could launch its first Frontel property, the 1,350-key Frontel Village Hotel, Madina, in 2014. Located only one kilometre from the city’s key religious sites, and offering a call of 5-star accommodation and facilities housed in five individual seven-storey towers, this may increasingly be followed in 2015 by the debut of a second Madina property.

    The luxurious 650-room Frontel Hotel Al Baiya would be situated within the heart of town, and comprises two 10-storey towers, with a footprint of 6,500 square metres, but affording 65,000 square metres of hotel space.

    Expansion into the burgeoning mid-market hotel sector could also be portion of the company’s development vision, and it’ll launch its first three-star property in Jeddah in 2016, with the outlet of the Frontel Business Hotel under the branding of ‘Frontel Eco’.

    Infrastructure growth throughout the Kingdom has created a wave of interest and investment into new tourism and business travel facilities, and through the ATM week we’re going to be meeting with Hajj and Umrah travel companies and other tour operators from the UAE, Malaysia, Indonesia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, to sow the seeds for future partnerships to support forecasted demand.

    Sherwani noted that some 381,000 new hotels rooms are expected to be added to Saudi Arabia’s existing inventory by 2015, representing a 63% increase on 2010 figures. Inbound visitor arrivals also are forecast to grow from 13 million in 2010 to fifteen.8 million by 2014, with the dominion focusing its efforts on providing the mandatory travel infrastructure to spice up domestic, Hajj and Umrah, and the fledgling inbound tourism sector, because it allocates $500m to airport expansion and $7bn investment into the brand new Jeddah airport.

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  • Dubai opens tourism office in South America

    Dubai’s Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (DTCM) is planning to open an office in Brazil in a bid to draw visitors from the growing South American tourism market.

    The announcement was made on the World Travel Market Latin America in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

    Hilal Saeed Al Merri, director general of the DTCM and CEO of Dubai World Trade Centre, said: “Brazil is Dubai’s primary business partner in Latin America. So, in delivering our approach to increase visitor numbers from the region, it was the natural location of choice for our first South American representative office.

    “Trade between Brazil and the UAE is increasing exponentially and with the connectivity Emirates provides, there’s significant potential to grow this market. By opening this office, we are hoping to double the choice of visitors from Brazil from 40,000 in 2012 to 80,000 in 2014.” He added.

    Dubai welcomed approximately 40,000 visitors from Brazil last year.

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  • AHIF organiser welcomes pro-tourism government in Kenya

    Organisers of the Africa Hotel Investment Forum and other leaders of the hotel investment community have welcomed the recent pro-tourism administration in Kenya, hot at the heels of the announcement by the president of several ministerial candidates.

    The new government stood for election with tourism highlighted in its manifesto and because Uhuru Kenyatta’s inauguration, commitments has been made to extend the intensity of Kenya’s tourism marketing activity, to double the variety of tourists to 3 million a year and to supply incentives to encourage investment in tourist accommodation.

    According to the realm Travel & Tourism Council, the entire contribution of tourism to Kenya’s GDP in 2012 was KES448.4bn, 12.5 per cent of the whole.

    The figure is forecast to rise by 2.2 per cent in 2013 and to rise by 4.5 per cent every year over a better decade to KES714.8bn in 2023.

    Phyllis Jepkosgei Kandie have been nominated because the new cabinet secretary for commerce and tourism, with useful experience to attract on from a career that has embraced banking and enterprise promotion.

    She also has academic qualifications in business and economics.

    Improved transport infrastructure can also be high at the new government’s agenda.

    Michael Kamau, a prominent civil engineer and a key architect of the infrastructure upgrade within the last ten years, have been proposed because the cabinet secretary accountable for constructing a sequence of commuter railway networks in Nairobi, Mombasa and Kisumu, including a link to Nairobi’s Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.

    One gathering with a view to have a touching on the velocity of tourism growth might be AHIF 2013, which happens in Nairobi on September 24th-25th.

    It brings together the leading international hotel investors in Africa with local operators, ministers, government officials and industry experts, who will discuss all aspects of hotel investment and operation in Africa.

    In 2012, the development attracted 426 delegates from 38 countries who represented 310 organisations. Several networking contacts made at AHIF have since led to promising new business relationships and the development attracted considerable media attention, with around 100 reports appearing inside the Kenyan media and world wide.

    Jonathan Worsley, chairman of AHIF organiser Bench Events, said: “The pro-tourism stance of the recent Kenyan government is evidently increasing the country’s investment appeal and the proactive nature of the Kenya Tourist Development Corporation is an element too.

    “Even though there has been pressure to stage AHIF 2013 in another African city this year, it made a powerful and successful case to maintain the development in Nairobi.”

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