''Is it really important where do you go on vacation ?!''

Is it really important where do you go on vacation ?!

A lot of investor’s that wanted to invest in the accommodation industry or to the service's connected with this industry , asked to me a lot of time : where is the '' perfect place'' to invest?! 

Should i build a resort near to the beach , a luxury hotel in the mountain’s , a thermal and spa resort , city hotel, a 400 rooms near to the highway ?! In witch city , location or country ?! 

I always answer , '' Is it really important where people go on vacation ?! ''

Or is more important the price , what do you offer to them , value for money , and how much you are able to fill the needs of the traveler with their budget.

Now day's the star rating of hotels is obsolete, you will never find exact 2 hotel's in the world with the same level of services and comfort, kind of building and cousin. Even in the main Hotel chain like Hilton or Holiday Inn.

I think is more important the location , and the needs of people that have to go and visit this location. We  know that the demand and the offer makes the price of this location. And we can calculate everything if we have a well known location .

The five competitive rules of M.Porter, the breakeven point , the Rev Par the ROI and everything , and then judge if worth to invest in famous one like Venice, Paris, London , Dubai etc. Or in the growing location like , Egypt, Turkey, North Africa, South east Asia etc.

But i think that the most important Businessman have made courageous investment in location that doesn't ever exist. 

I can give you the most important example , like LAS VEGAS a well known Business with the strip boulevard , where from the desert we find a road 6.8 kilometer long with more than 65.000 hotel Rooms.

A bet win, i think the only one bet win at Vegas ;) 

But we have one the latest Big investment’s that start's in the 1991.

 4-5 hours of flight from Europe we have an amazing transformation of a desert.

Ladies and gentleman let me introduce to you the miracle of the Petrodollars.

BEFORE 1991

AFTER 2012

Did you recognize the City i am talking about ???

OF course is Dubai in the UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

In 1993, the city has 167 hotels with 9,383 rooms, while the number shot up to 272 hotels and doubled the number of rooms to 23,170 in 2002. In 2005 it increased to 28,999 rooms. In 2008 the hotel rooms jumped to 43,419 with 6,105,813 hotel guests with 70 percent occupancy rate. In 2009 the hotel rooms increased to 58,188 and in 2010 it jumped to 67,369 rooms an increase of 9,181 rooms in one year due to the massive rise in visitor arrivals. Dubai hosted a record 10 million visitors in 2012, an increase 9.3 % from last year.

So you think that I’m going to talk about DUBAI growth of the tourism ?!

You are WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG

Everybody talk's about this and is not interesting anymore...

At least not for me ;) 

I am going to talk you about a place in BULGARIA

THE NEW (LOW COST)  IBIZA!!!

Guys let's pack the luggage and go to SUNNY BEACH BULGARIA...

And everybody is staring at me... Like they want to say , we confirm that Klement is officially crazy.

Didn’t you heard about Sunny Beach BULGARIA ?! 

OK OK don't worry , now i am going to tell you about it...

6 hours of bus from SOFIA the Bulgarian capital , we find on the Black Sea Sunny Beach the new IBIZA of east Europe. Unfortunately we don't have a direct flight connection to Burgas the nearest airport ( 35 km away) from the location.

But is this going to stop us ?! 

No wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

Just before you see the sea from the road , in the middle of nowhere with abandoned house and fields, you start to see a colorful world, with semi nude girls and boys , and the high music non-stop from the 30 discotheque of the Location.

It's a city that don’t exist , And that you can find life just in the 3 month of summer. In the street's you can see just young people from 15 to 23 year's old.

The tourism is growing year to year, almost all from Western Europe, more and more, the tour operator creates specific tour's to SUNNY BEACH.

No ''rest'' for everybody.

From the beach

To the Happy Hour 

A quick shower ;) 

Nice dressed, Hair Gel , Perfumes , Condoms , and ready for the PARTY!!!

And the main word here is PARTY

Party in the Discotheques that offer special night's with special guest's .

International guest's from the house and electronic music.

Big northern Europe names play at the console like Carl Cox, Loco Dice, Deep Dish, Armin Van Buuren, Tiesto etc.

Now SUNNY BEACH is becoming a usual place where they go and play during the summer tours.

BUT WHY?! 

HOW CAN A DESERT IN A FEW YEARS BECOME LIKE THIS ?! 

WHY EVERY NORTHEN EUROPE YOUNG WANT TO SPEND THEIR HOLIDAYS THERE ?! 

Ladies and gentleman let me introduce to you ''MR. Price''...

Everything there is LOW COST.

In Ibiza a entrance in a discotheque can cost to you 50 € or more, here you pay from 1,5 € to 3€. And 20 € for the Cacao beach the most famous one here...

But a drink cost to you just 3 € , an umbrella and 2 seat's in the beach just 4€ a day , dinner under 15 € .

The safety it's at max, every young it's controlled from the security before entrance in the disco...

Of course we miss the feeling of the Spanish Island the historical center, but here the young go just to have fun ... 

From Italy you can find a Tour Operator holiday for just 500 € for 10 day's in bed and breakfast, with flight included.

Cmon guys , just 50 euro a day , the price of the entrance at the Pacha Ibiza. ( witch is filled now days with plenty rich old-man from Russia ) 

We know that the young from 15 to 25 the budget for holiday is very low, and they don't want any comfort, just to have fun , so this is the perfect combination. 

The low cost of the labor in Bulgaria and the low cost of the Alcool is the perfect combination to build a teenager ''Mecca''.So if you have booked in IBIZA , you can still try Sunny Beach next year :D ...

So just one advice for the perfect Investiment : '' Find what people want , and give it to them '' 

So OPEN YOUR MIND 

See you ;) 

Klement Hasaj 

Mobile travel purchases in UK driven by price and brand

Mobile travel purchases in UK driven 

by price and brand

Today i read this interesting study about the Mobile Travel Purchases in the UK .

Très intéressant ;)

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Tablets are converting better than other mobile devices according to a recent study of UK mobile travel searchers.
The UK Mobile Path to Purchase report from xAd and Telmetrics and conducted by Nielsen, shows 53% of tablet searchers have made a purchase compared to 41% of smartphone searchers.
The study also shows how key pricing is, with price comparison sites coming top in mobile travel activity and a quarter saying they make a purchase based on price.
Brand preference and price were given as the top two reasons for making a purchase with a third saying they already had a brand in mind.
More details are handily displayed in the infographic below but here are a few highlights:

• Almost half of mobile travel searchers make a purchase with about a third completing it on their mobile device
• 31% say they plan to purchase within a day while 60% say within a month or longer
• Most mobile travel searches are conducted for flights (81%) followed by hotels (67%)
• 55% of travel searchers say they are researching a planned purchase
• More mobile travel research is conducted while at home – 83% for tablets and 46% for smartphones

Nielsen surveyed 1,500 smartphone and tablet users for the study as well as drawing intelligence from its Smartphone Analytics Panel of 6000 Apple and   users.

This is a 2012 study so i supose that for the 2013 ( and with the spread of smartphones that now are becoming an object for all) we will have really interesting data. 

See you 

Klement Hasaj

A Tip For The Hotel Industry... How to use Instagram to Increase The Reservations

A Tip For The Hotel Industry... How to use Instagram to Increase The Reservations 

Summer 2013...

A lot of my clients have a smartphone or a tablet that use it all day during their vacations in my Hotel. I have full Wi-Fi coverage in the Hotel and everybody is just texting, checking news, updating their facebook status , or taking pictures to show to their friends or family.

Everybody is taking photos and uploading them to Instagram.

What is Instagram?!

Well, Instagram is an online photo-sharing, video-sharing and social networking service that enables its users to take pictures and videos, apply digital filters to them, and share them on a variety of social networking services, such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Flickr. 

And I was asking myself; how can I use the power of this social network ( wich is connected with other social networks like facebook or twitter ) to advertise my Hotel.

Think Klement, Think Klement Think, think, think...!

A lot of days thinking about this.....finally 'eureka' 

I had an idea : A prize Contest!!!

You read it well; an Instagram Prize contest...

In my hotel, I have about 100 guest a day that have aprox. a 6-7 days holiday in All-inclusive.

So I decided to start a Prize contest...

The ones who take the best picture on instagram of the hotel / food / bar / drinks / beach or the area around win a 50 % discount of their holiday, so aprox. around 350€ -400 € depending on how many guests a room has. 

The guests duty is just to take a nice picture , filter it and post it contemporaneously on instagram and facebook and twitter if they have a twitter account. With a tag of the hotel, of the area , describing their foto .

Simple rules .

What do i earn with a weekly 400 euro cost ?!

I earn the best advertising campain; that is the friends/ familary experience.

Aprox. a guest has 300 to 400 friends on facebook , and 100 followers on twitter.

In 90 % of the cases friends and family have the same wages kind of the same job, and they travel always in the same way . ( nobody is friend with Bill Gates and have a minimum wage ;) :P )

So that is the perfect target of guests , in one week they are going to see at least 10 instagram pics of our guest ( their friend ) 

And we know the human behaviour is very suggestible.

Everytime they see white sand, good food, fresh drinks ( in this hot summer ) ... their necessity to go on holidays and have a couple of cold beers in a beach bar after a beach volley game will increase...

So with 50 guest posting pics on instagram you will reach  50x300= 15.000 possible new clients and circa half of them will check your website and prices.

So 7500 clicks on your website are aprox. 400€ /7500 clicks = 0.05333.... € cost per click.

That is far away from the 1,20 € I pay per click with 'hotel Rimini' on google adwords advertising .

And they can book for the next week or the next month , so I can get some clients without making the old-fashioned way ''last minute discount'' 

And every week you can reach 15.000 or more possible clients , you can have a party too while giving the votes and the prices of the best Instagram Pics, so everybody can have a lot of fun and socialize during the contest...

And the most important thing is that the family/group that wins will for 100 % sure come back the next year. Maybe the second and the third place too , just to try again the fortune.

Thanks for reading , I'm going to find some more time to write other ideas about ''Tourism 2.0''.

Catch the wave guys ;) see you :)

Klement Hasaj

A new idea : How can Hospitability use the full power of social networks ?!

       We all agree that traveling has changed a lot when massive internet access arrived. Random people started planning their own holidays avoiding the old way of booking their trips in Travel Agencies. Just a few clicks, with a drink in their hands , from the living room with the collaboration of the whole family... Everybody can book Airplane tickets , rent a car , book a Hotel , local tours , museum tickets etc. from all around the world, with just a credit card. 

        By consulting Google street maps, online pictures , and above all ''THE NET Reviews & Ratings'', everybody can choose the places to visit , the places to eat, the Hotel , the Airplane company and every single detail that matters. TripAdvisor is the world's largest social-travel network, with over 100 million travelers using it. There are plenty of other websites that are rated as best in different countries and continents; for example Tophotels.ru in Russia and famous Lonely planet worldwide.

The result of all this? Cheaper, 100 % personalized vacations and of course travel experience has become way better than just 20 years before.

                 

                                But are people happier with this new  way of traveling ?! 

I personally think yes, but us humans aren’t satisfied easily, we always want more... 

The first branch that understands the needs of  travelers is always the airplane company.

And just a few years ago they gave the chance to their passengers to choose the seat directly from  online ticket booking procedure. Finally anyone can get the seat in the front of the plane , when you don't hear  the engine rumors a lot, and the taking-off and landing is ''softer''. Or you can get the seat near the emergency exit doors and so a tall 190 cm guy like me has enough room for the legs, next to the window or near the toilette if  you spent all your night clubbing and drinking beer ;) 

Oh what a wonderful thing!  My life has changed,  I am going to travel by airplane more frequently, I’m going to find a couple tickets and take my new girlfriend for a romantic weekend the next month :D ... 

But is that enough ?! Is it all I need ?! Unfortunately no :/ I told you before that us humans always want more... 

Just when the airplane is taking off  you regret your seat choice, because of a child crying , a drunk man and 3 women conversating so loud  that gives you headache...

So Choose your Seats please...

It's OK if you are going to make an hour flight , you can still get alive from all this mess.

But if you are going to make an 8 hours flight or more ?!

How will it be if the person who is sitting next to you is a 60 years old German businessman ?!

You can't understand each-other ( because of the language gap ) and you spend your 8 hours of flight without the possibility of chatting a little bit about the weather, the football or the global economy .

Don't worry ;) 

the KLM airplane company has found a solution!!!

You can choose your seat by checking the facebook profile of the person that is next to you!!! WOW

In the booking process of the ticket you can put your facebook or linkedin account on the website ( not obligatory ) and choose the seat next to a Czech Top Model , away from families with kids , away from an old couple that tells you the entire history of their kids and grandchildren. 

In the first class you can choose the seat next to a big of Wallstreet and show him, after a couple of champagne glasses, your project of growing your own company. 

Isn't this AMAZING!!!

From this idea I realised that the Hotel , Resort and every Hospitality company can use the same kind of process in booking rooms for holidays , business, golf courses and swimming pool seats .

I think that is truly important knowing who you are going to spend your holidays with. People who will surround you at your holidays , can make you have a wonderful vacation , or the worst of your life .

An old couple want a quite hotel , or at least a quite room away from crying kids and parents yelling at them.

A young group of friends want their room to be next to other young people, so they can socialize from a balcony to another, make new friends , learn different cultures , and why not, find their soulmate. Isn't this the right spirit of traveling for the young people?!

A family can choose a room , or a bungalow next to another family , so parents and kids can socialize together and maybe choose to meet each-other again at the same period next year.

So what I suggest is to build a section in the Accommodation websites with the truly Social part , where people can choose the floor of their room , the side with sea or mountain view, near to the elevator or not, and the most important thing, to create a social network that shows twitter/ facebook/linkedin profiles of people that are going to surround you during the holidays. 

I’m quite sure  that the rooms near to the ''Czech Top-model'' are going to be always fully booked  ;) , and the rooms near to the family with 4 small kids always empty :P 

But this is the motto of modern Business : Give to your Costumers what they want!!!

I want to end my article wishing you happy summer holidays! Hope you enjoy them! :D 

Today is 21/06/2013 and officially the first day of SUMMER!!! 

Klement Hasaj