This Sunday some great ladies, our selves with Sofia AND our client (and Sofia’s mum) Mama Despoina hit the news stands with an article by Ms. Elli Ismailidou on female entrepreneurship online – you can find the article here in Greek.
Aegean Sky, a hotel that prides itself in high quality personal service in Crete, took first place in the Travel Republic favourite hotel list for 2010 based on guest reviews.
This excellent result rewards Aegean Sky for a long standing belief in meaningful relationships with guests and constant improvement based on face to face and online reviews.
Not long to go till Christmas and it was time to send out our cards.
This year, instead of sending post cards we are sending e-cards and we made a donation to Hospitality Action, which helps hospitality people who have fallen on hard times.
Perhaps you might like to consider donating something too?
See our e-card in English or in Greek.
Note: Our heartfelt thanks to Kevin Dooley who is giving his excellent picture of Santa Wanted under a Creative Commons License
A video from the fourth day with Sofia and Manolis doing the rounds at some meetings and catching up with great companies at the tech section (we blogged about that one)
Stands with lovely people featured:
podsafe track:
One Summer Day – 28
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Read all our blog posts from World Travel Market 2010
It feels like ages since I last updated but I hope you will forgive me. Work has been a bit overwhelming lately.
End of the summer season is a busy time for us. Final policy and performance reports are prepared for our clients in the hospitality sector. Seasonal hotels need this reporting system in order to analyse and balance the season’s performance. It’s a great time for us as well as we get to show in one concise document our activities. From these reports we are able to sit down and discuss the next steps and preparation work that we will need to do with the hotel for the next year. And the next year starts now!
Here is a short video – in Greek – with Panos from Aegean Sky where he explains the value of being online.
We made this video as part of our “I want you… online” campaign. You will recall that the cheekily titled “I want you… online” encourages travellers to leave feedback to hotels regarding their digital needs using a little card we created.
Even though Greece boasts some lovely small and medium sized hotels, the vast majority is not online. Travellers cannot find them and they cannot book online.
Panos is a SoMaFusion client and he recognises the value of being online and understanding his guests’ needs. In this short video he explains that by creating a website, analysing booking trends and his guests feedback he has managed to turn things around.
Here is a little video we put together following our recent interview with the BBC correspondent, Malcolm Brabant about tourism and hospitality in Greece (read the relevant blog post).
We hope you’ll enjoy.
Since we’re on the subject, the Press Release on the BBC report (English and Greek) went out today.
The excellent podsafe track is ‘Your face is not enough’ by 3 Blind Mice.
A few days ago we had a chat with the excellent BBC correspondent, Malcolm Brabant about tourism and hospitality in Greece which was broadcast on BBC World today.
Having read our whitepaper, Malcolm Brabant’s question was simple: What went wrong and how do you fix it. In the subsequent discussion we maintained – as we always do – that the solutions are there, if only hospitality professionals are willing to look deeply into their policies and what travellers actually need – instead of what we may think they do.
For us, it’s all about the long term solutions, the policy, the investment of time and good work that can show travellers, travel agents and the market that the Greek hospitality professionals are in it for the long run.
Take a look at the video which Mr. Brabant has uploaded on his YouTube channel.
Our heartfelt thanks – it is great to be given an opportunity to add a note of optimism in all the doom and gloom.
The Greek campaign is progressing and Theodora is doing her thing these days.
You will recall that we have started an outreach campaign aimed at Greek hoteliers. As part of that campaign Theodora is on the phones talking with small and medium hotel owners and managers up and down the country.
When we approached her to do the work she was a bit worried. “Is this about sales?“, she asked to which we most emphatically answered “No“!
The principles are simple. Introduce us, discuss, connect. The whole point of the campaign is outreach and engagement rather than sales.
| Introducing SoMaFusion |
We are a relatively new company and there is something intrinsically different about us when it comes to hospitality. Our hospitality services are specialised and offer the whole spectrum – from digital communications to pricing policy. Not something you find often.
Έλληνας ξενοδόχος; Περάστε μια βόλτα.
Read the SoMaFusion white paper on Policy and Crisis Communications for the Hospitality Sector 