tourism

Hotels court Chinese tourists with tea & special amenities

steaming-cup

For U.S. hotels hoping to attract big-spending Chinese travelers, it may start with learning to say “Nin Hao” but it’s also about knowing the lucky numbers, unlucky colors, and which carafes to order for the coffeemakers.

The staff at the New York Marriott Marquis hotel recently got a crash course in how to welcome some of Amway China’s 1,500 guests who won incentive sales trips to New York City in April.

“We replaced the carafes so these guests could make tea each morning,” said Kathleen Duffy, Marriott International’s Market Director of Public Relations/NYC. “And we brought in Terri Morrison, author of ‘Kiss, Bow, or Shake Hands,’ to give a course for managers to learn all the cultural things we need to be aware of.”

From the days when its only Chinese visitors were high government officials, the Marquis had already assigned names (Royal, Pinnacle, etc.) to presidential suites on the 44th and 45th floors, because the number 4 is considered unlucky in Chinese culture.

But now that many more Chinese citizens are heading to the United States on business and leisure trips, Marriott International hotels, as well as Starwood, Hilton and many other lodging brands, are working harder to boost brand recognition and make the hotel visit a more important part of the Chinese tourist’s visit.

The target market is big – and getting bigger.

In 2013, an estimated 1.8 million Chinese tourists visited the United States. For 2014, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Office of Travel and Tourism Industries expects that number to rise by 21 percent, to more than 2.1 million, with increases of about 20 percent per year through 2018.

Los Angeles and New York City received the most Chinese tourists in 2012, according to the Department of Commerce. And in the New York region alone, Marriott has seen a 17 percent growth in 2013 over 2012 for the Chinese market, according to Robert Ambrozy, Marriott International Sales Director for the New York City region.

On an internal website for its associates, Marriott International provides tips and guidelines for properties to use to “customize, personalize and cater to the Chinese traveler.”

The suggestions are separated into categories that include pre-arrival, food and beverage, guest amenities, concierge, and things to avoid, such as writing a guest’s name in red ink – which signifies death in Chinese culture.

The number eight is considered lucky in Chinese culture, so standing out to a Chinese guest “can be as simple as what the Chicago Marriott Oak Brook did, which was to put eight chocolate coins and candy in a small mesh bag with an attached welcome note,” said Seema Jain, director of Multicultural Markets and Alliances for Marriott International.

In Chicago, tourism growth from Asian markets was up more than 30 percent in 2012; twice the national average, according to Choose Chicago.

That led the Hyatt Regency Chicago to create a “Nin Hao” welcome program which makes sure Chinese guests checking into their room find bathrobes and slippers, tea kettles with special teas and tea cups, a welcome letter, maps and information brochures in Chinese and a Chinese TV channel.

hyatt nin hao menu

 

The hotel also tries to insure a Mandarin-speaking employee is available and, in addition to having translation technology such as iPad and iPhone translation apps handy, maintains a 24-hour hotline to a Mandarin-speaking translator.

Overall, in 2012, Chinese visitors to the U.S. spent $8.8 billion, nearly $6,000 per visit, according to the U.S. Travel Association, an industry trade group.

Nightly room rates in New York City and Los Angeles can be quite pricey, but not all that money was spent at hotels.

Shopping, dining, sightseeing, visiting museums and spending time at amusement and theme parks are among the top activities participated in by Chinese visitors to the U.S., according to the U.S. Department of Commerce.

And while right now only about 4 percent of all outbound Chinese travelers head for the United States, “it’s a burgeoning market and, beyond hotels, there are companies and destination adapting their products and services to these new clients,” said Greg Staley, Vice Presidents of Communications at the U.S. Travel Association.

It’s a new market for many destinations around the country and a vast opportunity to grow the U.S. economy,” he said.

(My story about U.S. Hotels Courting Chinese Tourist first appeared on CNBC Road Warrior)

Women-only floor at Danish airport hotel ruled illegal

Bella Sky Hotel - copenhagen

A ruling by a Danish court has put an end to the women-only floor at the Bella Sky Hotel, located near the Copenhagen Airport.

The rooms will stay, but now men will be allowed to reserve a spot on the hotel’s secure-access Bella Donna floor, where rooms cost about $28 extra and include amenities such as large towels, international women’s magazines, upgraded beauty products and a minibar that the hotel website boasts is stocked “with smoothies and champagne instead of potato chips and beer.”

“We had no idea this product could be remotely illegal,” said Allan Agerholm, CEO of the company that owns Bella Sky Hotel. “It is a business product we created to differentiate our hotel from others. This is a petty case that should have never been brought. It detracts from real discrimination issues happening in our society.”

Last Friday, a court ruled that even though the hotel had two ladies-style rooms elsewhere in the hotel bookable by men, the women’s-only floor was indeed discriminatory.

The hotel has opted to keep the Bella Dona floor intact, but open it to men and women.

“If for some reason a male guest should find it interesting to stay there in the pink environment, they are welcome to do so,” said Agerholm.

When the 812-room, two-tower hotel opened in spring 2011, the 20 upgraded rooms on the secure-access “Bella Donna” floor were set aside for women only, with feminine touches and amenities ranging from large dressing mirrors to a minibar stocked with smoothies, wine and high quality chocolate.

Bella Sky Hotel - Bella Donna Room

But shortly after the hotel opened, two men complained about the women-only floor to the Danish Board of Equal Treatment, which ruled the floor was gender discriminatory and illegal. Because the board had no authority to sanction, Bella Sky kept the Bella Donna floor women-only and appealed to the Eastern High Court in Copenhagen.

While not very common, some hotels in the United States and elsewhere continue to offer women-only floors, including the Hamilton Crowne Plaza in Washington, D.C., and the Crowne Plaza in Bloomington, Minn.

“Our ladies floor, where we charge a $20 premium, is usually 85 percent occupied or sold out Monday through Thursday and is very popular with female corporate travelers,” said Charlie LaMont, general manager of the Crowne Plaza Bloomington. “Some like the amenities, but for most, it’s the security of the secure-access floor,” he said.

The 10 rooms on the 10th floor of the 127-room Ellis Hotel in downtown Atlanta are set aside for women. In addition to private-access entry, the rooms include upgraded amenities, slippers and use of curling iron and a flat iron.

The hotel charges an added fee of $20 for the rooms, “which are most popular with the female corporate traveler,” said Tom LaVaccare, director of sales and marketing. “It’s a privacy issue, not necessarily a security issue,” he said, “but we’re working on adding more amenities.”

LaVacarre said no male customer has ever complained about being excluded but “if they wanted to be on a floor just for men, we could accommodate that.”

For several years, the Georgian Court Hotel in Vancouver, British Columbia, has offered 18 Orchid Rooms on a “women-preferred” floor with amenities such as curling irons, flat irons, high-powered hair driers, upgraded Aveda products, satin-padded hangers, nylons and other items at no extra charge.

The rooms were so popular that the hotel recently added a second floor of rooms with the same amenities, and men aren’t excluded from those floors, they rarely book there, General Manager Lisa Jackson said.

( My story about hotels with women-only floors first appeared on CNBC Road Warrior in a slightly different version.)

Not blah: Dull, Boring & Bland team up for tourism

Defying all odds, Dull and Boring proved to be exciting.

Exciting enough that the town of Bland wanted in on the action.

Boring Sign_courtesy Norm Rice

Boring sign courtesy Norm Rice

In June 2012, Boring, Ore., (population: about 8,000) and Dull (population 80) in the Perthshire area of Scotland became “A Pair for the Ages” in recognition of their humdrum names and shared hopes of increased cultural and commercial attention.

“People were suddenly interested in visiting our communities. They found out that there’s nothing dull and boring about Boring and Dull,” said Norm Rice, a member of the Boring Community Planning Organization.

Since the hookup became public, Boring businesses, such as the Not So Boring Bar & Grill, have seen more out-of-town visitors and sales of Boring and Dull mugs, T-shirts and other merchandise have generated about $5,000 for Boring projects. There’s even a Boring & Dull Day, celebrated on Aug. 9.

In Scotland, “the ‘Dull Paired with Boring’ sign is now a sightseeing activity along with the likes of Edinburgh Castle and Loch Ness,” Dull resident James Pringle said via email.

Dull sign_courtesy Jamie Pringle

Dull sign courtesy Jamie Pringle

Then Bland came courting.

“We heard about it and thought it would be even better if it became Bland, Dull and Boring,” Neil Pokoney, the mayor of Bland Shire (population 6,000) in Australia, told The Scotsman.

Not wanting to mess with what Rice terms “a special relationship,” and suspecting that other civic suitors with unusual names might come calling, Boring decided to stay officially “paired” with Dull and to offer Bland something different: membership in the new League of Extraordinary Communities. The Bland Shire Council said yes.

The mundanely named towns may reap some of the same tourism, trade and business benefits enjoyed by the 522 U.S. communities involved in formal international partnerships as part of Sister Cities International, Sister Cities spokeswoman Megha Swamy said.

The next step: Dull and Boring must figure out how to update their relationship status on Facebook now that they’re in a threesome with Bland.

(My story about Dull, Boring and Bland first appeared on CNBC Road Warrior)

Museums trying to stay nimble

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Courtesy New Museum: The New Museum’s programming will serve as an inspiration and a resource to NEW INC members. “Pawel Althamer’s: The Neighbors” exhibition invites the public to paint the walls and floors in an ongoing community mural.

 

Travel to a new city and it’s a fair bet you’ll end up at a museum – or three.

And while museums are traditionally not known for their nimbleness, many are experimenting with big data, business incubators and some helpful, but potentially creepy surveillance strategies to get visitors in the door.

“Museums have a long view in their DNA,” said Ford Bell, president of the American Alliance of Museums (AAM), but faced with limited funding and staffing “it is possible to get bogged down in the day-to-day.”

Ideas for getting out of the bog are outlined in a new report from the AAM’s Center for the Future of Museums, which encourages museums to learn tricks for increasing foot traffic from the likes Toms Shoes, Ben & Jerry’s and websites that offer free access in exchange for personal data.

“The pace of change is increasing rapidly,” said Elizabeth Merritt, CFM director and the author of the report. “So we’re trying to increase the speed at which museums adopt some of the latest trends.”

The Dallas Museum of Art, for example, has significantly increased memberships—and funding—by making admission free.

In January 2013, the museum scrapped its $10 general admission fee and began offering free entry and memberships in exchange for personal information shared by visitors. Participants can also earn points, badges, credits and discounts by participating in certain activities.

In the first year, 48,000 people enrolled in the program.

“By increasing access and emphasizing participation, we are enhancing the DMA’s role as a cultural convener in our city,” said museum director Maxwell L. Anderson.

The museum has also seen an increase in donations and is building a database that can be mined for valuable information about its audience.

Taking a cue from mission-driven, for-profit companies such as Toms Shoes and Ben & Jerry’s, some museums are getting entrepreneurial about delivering services.

The NEW INC incubator project at the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York City, which will be a shared workspace for those working in art, technology, and design.

“The goal is to generate ideas that create sustainable business models for creators, who pay membership fees to the museum to work in the incubator and gain access to professional development opportunities and mentors,” said NEW INC Director Julia Kaganskiy.

The first deadline for applications is April 1; the space is scheduled to open this summer.

New technology is also transforming the museum visitor experience.

As the technology for capturing and creating sensory experiences becomes better and more effective, museums are moving beyond “lift and sniff” panels and presenting multi-sensory exhibits that incorporate poetry, music, drama, history, dance, performance art and scent.

With their security cameras and guards, museums are already sites of intense surveillance, but “museums can now tap into mobile technology and track a visitor like a blue dot through the galleries,” said Eric Hintz, a historian at the Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation at the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum of American History.

That means visitors looking at a woolly mammoth might get an email message offering them a discount coupon for a woolly mammoth plush toy in the gift shop, said Hintz. “But while it’s good to be creative and find a way to help the bottom line, that may creep some people out.”

(My story about museums trying to stay nimble first appeared on CNBC Road Warrior in a slightly different form.)

 

Daytona International Speedway reaches for the sky

Daytona history photo

Auto-to-plane transfer stunt on Daytona Beach. 1921. State Library and Archives of Florida, via Flickr Commons.

They’ve come a long way in Daytona since the days when stock cars were raced on the beach and catching a plane was this easy.

Now they race the cars at Daytona International Speedway – the site of last Sunday’s Daytona 500 and a slew of other big races.

And now that NASCAR’s biggest and most prestigious race is over, work can resume on the major renovation underway at the Speedway, which first opened in 1959.

“In the sports world, you’re seeing massive investment in infrastructure, specifically new football, baseball and basketball venues,” said Daytona International Speedway President Joie Chitwood. “And if you’ve been to a new arena and then come to a property like ours that’s more than 50 years old, there’s a stark difference.”

“We decided we’d have to make improvements,” said Chitwood. “And instead of Band-aiding this or that, we decided to go all in.”

The $400 million, 2½-year project should be finished in 2016.

DAYTONA Rising, as the upgrade project is called, includes the rebuilding of the front stretch of the grandstand, which seats more than 100,000 and runs for nearly a mile along the 2.5-mile tri-oval track.

New Daytona International Speedway

Source: Daytona International Speedway
Daytona Rising is a complete overhaul of the racetrack facilities to offer more opportunities for both fans and sponsors.

 

When complete, there will be five new entrances leading fans into a taller grandstand with three new concourse levels and football field-sized social areas. New amenities will include the speedway’s first escalators, 14 new elevators, twice as many restrooms, five dozen luxury track-side suites, more than 101,000 wider, more comfortable grandstand seats and technology for watching the action and telling others about it.

“The younger generation, especially, expects all these things in sports arenas now, and they expect to be able to be totally connected,” said Chitwood, “So our goal is to go from being a race track to being a motor sports stadium.”

The upgrades also appear to dovetail with some of NASCAR’s goals, which include expanding beyond the mostly white, male fan base and appealing to the millennial generation and a more diverse fan base.

“We’re investing in a lot of new technology in the sport to attract the new fan and this new facility does that as well with all digital innovations that will be inclusive and encourage more fan engagement,” said Brent Dewar, NASCAR’s chief operating officer.

The upgrades extend beyond the speedway grounds: The Daytona International Speedway Corp. has partnered with Jacoby Development to build ONE DAYTONA, a $1.2 billion, 181-acre, mixed-used entertainment, dining and retail center across from the speedway that will operate year-round.

“ONE DAYTONA is not ‘Speedway Station.’ We won’t have checkerboard sidewalks,” said Brian Leary, managing director of Jacoby Development. “But it will come alive during activities at the track and provide an alternative and option for those attending the events.”

Fans who do attend events at the speedway “are a little different than those that attend other sports events,” said Leary. “They come earlier, stay later and travel farther to do so,” and spend an estimated $1.2 billion in the Daytona community throughout the year.

“I understand there will be a promenade and lots of technological improvements,” said Berry Chatas, 45, of Winter Haven, Fla., who attends several NASCAR events at Daytona International Speedway each year with his wife Carol, 44. “But Daytona will always be Daytona and full of race history. The improvements— especially those wider seats—will just make it cooler.”

NASCAR  Nationwide Quailiyfing session

(My story about upgrades to Daytona International Speedway first appeared on CNBC Road Warrior in a slightly different version.)