My Life in Hotels Part 2

Some of you may remember I commented previously that I only get decent hotel rooms when I am on my own and whenever my wife Judith comes along I get a diabolical one. It has become a bit of a standing joke between us though I am not convinced she sees the funny side of it. One particular example of this was when we both ended up staying at the Cumberland Hotel London many years ago.

It is quite an upmarket place now with statues, bright marble and bohemian looking reception staff but then it was a tired, enormous monolith of a place. In those days the numerous rooms housed mass tourists from every part of the world plus guests using their banqueting facility. It was for the latter that we were there for.

The evening started badly. At literally the last moment I managed to scrounge a second place for Judith who quickly climbed into her finery and jumped into the car which promptly would not start. I frantically called the local garage who came round, scratched their heads tut-tutted a lot and said “This car is going nowhere mate”. However they did agree to lend us their young mechanics car for the night. This was an ancient Ford Escort with lots of stickers and a giant whip aerial. We looked rather special in it seeing as we were wearing full evening dress.

We arrived at the hotel late and rather bedraggled as we had soon found out that although you could wind the window down you could not then wind them up again. As we could not find anywhere near Marble Arch to park and as I was not aware the hotel had a car park I decided to pull in front of the main entrance and give the keys to the doorman. It was amusing to see his face as he tried to climb in top hat and all while the next car (a Porsche Carrera) waited.

There was no time to spare so, instead of checking in we dashed (via the ladies loo) to the banqueting suite. It turned out to be a bland affair. I could hear nothing because of the big band next to my right ear and Judith had a monosyllabic man with halitosis next to her. Thankfully the formalities ended before midnight and off we went to check in. Unfortunately they said they had no rooms left except for one single they kept for ‘emergencies’.

It was the worst single I have ever had the misfortune to be put in as it was tiny, next to the lift and contained little more than a small bed and a basin. Needless to say Judith loved it. “This is lovely” she said over and over again as she tried to take her make-up off without tripping up over her very expensive dress that was precariously balanced over the single wooden chair.

Actually it wasn’t the absolutely worse single but I was on my own that time. I was at the old Heathrow Park Hotel. I had a room next to reception and I first identified something was wrong when I noticed all the locks were on the outside. I then spotted the barred windows and realised it was a room usually kept to detain deportees overnight before expulsion. “Don’t worry” the receptionist said. Just ring us in the morning and we will let you out “You are after all on an agent’s discount”. That does not make me a bad person” I replied. Anyway, I digress.

We went to bed and I now know how sardines must feel. It was hell but somehow we both fell into an exhausted sleep...until the door was knocked on for the first of a number of times. Having slithered out of my side of the bed I opened the door to find this middle aged lady with lots of lipstick and few clothes who asked me if I ‘fancied a push’. It took a moment for my sleep addled brain to realise what she was saying. It did not take her as long to understand what my wife was yelling from the bed. This happened three further times before we got up at about three in the morning to drive home for some rest.

When we went to check out we found we were in a queue of ladies. All of them were trying to exchange the foreign currency they had been earning upstairs. These included our first lady who had obviously persuaded a yen paying Japanese person to have ‘a push’. It seems they had a special method of business in such hotels where they obtain a list of all the numbers of single rooms and work their way around them in the hopes of finding lone and lonely men. We fled into the night in our whip aerialled chariot and vowed never to return.

The Cumberland is an amazing old structure. What many people don’t know is that it has as many floors under the ground as above. They are all low ceilinged and very much how I assume the catacombs look. They are deserted except for old furniture and I think they may have been used in the Second World War

In the end I did actually go back. It was when the hotel changed ownership and had been given a total revamp. It really is quite gorgeous and not a lady of the night in sight. I had a great room too…as Judith was not with me!

Anybody Understand the Corporate Hotel Market?

I spoke to somebody last week about the problems they were having whilst trying to organise a managed hotel programme for their company. He is new to this side of the business and could not comprehend the basic issues he was facing. All he was certain of was that nobody really knew what the company spent and whether they were getting good value. Ok they had a corporate card that most travellers used but nobody seemed to be able to tell him any useful spend detail.

He was also concerned that there seemed no simple, coordinated and efficient way of making, changing or cancelling bookings. There were so many different ways and each with varying processes. Some you could book online and some you couldn’t. Some on the GDS but most not. The majority necessitated a call to an agency which cost too much for such a transaction. He correctly identified that these variations contributed greatly to the lack of proper MI. What he wanted to know from me was what the problem is? Why is it so hard to book hotels in a way that gives him as a buyer what he absolutely needs to do his job? I gave him the basics as I saw them and thought you might like to read them too.

The hotel market is hugely fragmented. There are thousands upon thousands of hotel and most of them act individually. Yes there are major hotel chains and yes there are consortiums but even here a large amount are privately owned. Consolidating a programme becomes very difficult when there are so many different players with different systems and different communications methods and language. This differs hugely from airlines which are not only far smaller in numbers but use the same GDS booking platforms and share similar systems and codes however I did warn him that this may be changing soon!

So how should one make a reservation? It would be good to combine it with the air or rail booking but unfortunately the range of hotels in the airline booking systems (GDS) is tiny compared with the market. Add to that the difficulty of being able to use your own negotiated fares or room allocations and it becomes not a very feasible option.
You could connect to the numerous hotel booking web sites but again can you be sure you will be booking your deal and capturing sufficient detail. You might get one-off savings using their buying power but creating a nightmare in payment, reporting and control terms.

Out of frustration and a desire to save fees charged by agencies many travellers book direct with the hotel but is that what you really want them to spend time doing? And then again you could miss out on consolidated MI for policy measurement, security and negotiating purposes. I can understand why travellers or their administrators want to make hotel bookings personally but in my view you can forget about control if you let them do it. It is also very vexing when they find out the hotel GM is spot selling rates cheaper than your centrally negotiated deal. This is another thing that regularly happens in this industry.

I advised him that I can only see one logical way of consolidating all ones spend items together and that is through a Travel Management Company (TMC). There are not that many yet who can provide a true solution and it does not come for nothing so buyers need to be absolutely committed in order to reap full benefit

You basically need to find a TMC that can deliver a system that seamlessly links the GDS booking system to their own separate hotel booking and management platform. This platform needs to directly connect with the main hotel chains and have the ability to store and manage your negotiated rates and room allocations with them and the others. All this, and other services need to be on one customer friendly booking screen. It would also be valuable to have this screen branded to your company not the TMC.

Taking pre booked room allocations at key locations is essential in order to allow the system to confirm rooms to travellers straight away and avoid unnecessary costly and time consuming middle-man phone calls. These allocations when combined with those negotiated by the TMC themselves often mean that hotels that seem full can still be bookable to you. It also results in your travellers have their own company one stop shop that pulls together their whole journey along with bolt on services such as policy compliance authorisation system and communication opportunities.

To me his choice is relatively straightforward. He either does what 90% plus of corporations do which is keep their hotel programme separate from air or go the whole hog and combine the two in an online total travel solution which is only now beginning to become a viable solution. I wished him luck and went back to my hotel room…which I booked myself!

My life in hotels Part 1

I’ve been in some strange rooms in some strange places in my time. I suppose it is hardly surprising considering my career as an airline and travel agency man. They have ranged from a shed like structure in Kenya to an unintentional baroque style brothel in Columbia. The latter tried to deliver to me a whole new concept in bed turnover service that included two French maids and their ‘apparatus’...

I have stayed in some pretty opulent rooms too and one I still remember today for a number of reasons. It was at the Mayfair in London. It is a grand old hotel with mainly huge rooms and a justified 5 star rating. Part of my job at the time was buying hotel rooms for my agency so they obviously decided to impress me by an upgrade to one of their best rooms called the ‘Maharaja Suite’.

I always find it ironic that whenever alone and on business I get great rooms but when travelling with my wife they are invariable tiny and above the hotel kitchen. As I found my suite which topically had a picture of an Indian elephant on the door I reminded myself to say nothing to Judith when I got home as, for some reason, she never seems terribly pleased for me! However, after what I experienced, I could not resist.

The Maharaja suite was vast and bigger than my home at that time. It had a lounge with a huge balcony, two bathrooms and two big bedrooms. In the lounge there was a beautiful, and very expensive black shiny Steinway grand piano and I could not resist the urge to play something. I was half way through the one fingered version of ‘Michael Row the Boat Ashore’ when I could not help but notice some nasty deep scratches above the keyboard and on the top.

My first thought was ‘Oh no, they might think it was me, I better call the manager immediately’. I rang a very calm man who said he would be right up to explain. When he arrived he reassured me the scratches were not only known about but preserved for posterity. It seemed that in the early seventies the Rolling Stones had rented the suite and one of them had ‘entertained’ a certain famous lady singing artist across the piano to amuse his friends. Unfortunately for the piano he did not take the time to remove his belt first. Nasty things buckles.

He then apologised for the second bedroom which I had yet to see. We looked inside and the whole room had been stripped. Also a new wood floor had been laid over the carpet. This had been done for the next guest who was to arrive late the following day. That guest was Michael Jackson who apparentlydemanded a dance floor in every suite for him to practise his moves. After the manager left I could not resist and did a moon-walk across the floor and scribbled in a corner ‘Hello Michael’underneath a Kilroy sketch.

Finally I got tired of sitting all alone in the vast lounge morosely reading about business travel and decide to have a bath. This was when the suite yielded up its most surreal secret. The room had a 6 foot square bath and everything else was mirrors. Mirrored walls, mirrored tiles and even a mirrored ceiling and it was most disconcerting.

As I sat in the middle of that bath I felt like a sardine in the Pacific All I could see was me. I saw bits of me that I have never seen before and never wish to see again. Where did that mole, that roll of fat, those hairs come from I pondered. In fact I finished washing with my eyes shut. Cleaning my teeth was no better as I got about 18 views of my bum and none of them were flattering.

I went to bed and lay there thinking. What on earth had gone on in that bath and this bed before me? A blooming sight more interesting than a travel agent writing his presentation I thought and a damn sight more successful I suspected. Finally I ordered room service breakfast and went to sleep. When it arrived in the morning the maid told me that she had never brought breakfast for only one and so early to the Maharajah suite before. Oh great I thought, a fantastic record to hold.

Getting back to basics with business travellers

How much does the average business traveller know about travel programme management? I would argue strongly that the answer is very little which is a problem. How much does the average travel buyer know about the practicalities of using travel to meet individual traveller’s needs? Again I would argue very little except for their own particular experiences. Is this a healthy state of affairs? No.

It has always vexed me how little time and effort is spent educating, briefing and convincing business travellers of the rationale used when creating a travel policy. How can a company expect their travellers who obviously know their budgetary and practical travel needs better than anyone else to follow a policy that seems diametrically opposed to their objectives. Should they be told simply to do what they are told? Or should they have the company policy fully explained and justified.

I am not talking rocket science here. To start with one could get down to basics. Key travellers and budget holders should be approached and asked to explain any reasons why they have issues with the policy and invited to ask specific questions to illustrate these concerns. This will bring out the usual range of arguments about why certain airlines are used, why prices vary so dramatically and why can they not simply go out and choose the best fare for their own budgetary and travel needs.

These arguments are the underlying reasons why most corporations have significant known (and unknown) travel compliance issues yet very little is done about it. The average company seems keener to go out and negotiate prices with suppliers than undertake possibly more productive internal ‘housekeeping’ through communication and collaboration.

Here are a few basic example answers to basic questions that might provide surprising results if travellers understood why certain things are done that way:

Q: Why do I have to use agent X when if I book direct with an airline or use another agent I might get better?
A: The company as a whole needs a total picture of its spending and location of travellers for safety, security, financial and procurement reasons. Part of our contract with agent X ensures we get all this information and support in order to maintain control and drive improvement. Any bookings made outside the programme are lost to the company and weaken its ability to support the individual and corporate needs of all stakeholders.

Q: Why am I made to use certain airlines and certain fares when I can possibly go out on my own and find something better?
A: When the company negotiates these deals with airlines it looks at the total annual requirement of the group. It agrees fares that will be available throughout the period which represent significant discounts and other benefits. There will be occasions when lower fares will be possible but availability will be strictly limited and restrictions will apply. By going outside the programme and taking these one off individual discounts it will weaken the company’s ability to get greater benefits for all over a longer period resulting in higher cost. The overall benefit to the company of a negotiated deal is far higher than the occasional individual saving
Q: I went to an overseas conference and found other delegates who travelled on the same plane but paid less for their ticket than me. What’s going on!
A: The likelihood in today’s market of any person on a plane paying the same as another is very small unless they were booked together at the same time or booked on a fixed price. Airlines shift their prices constantly linked to time before travel, numbers booked and historic data. For example there is no such thing as a standard price on a low cost airline. That is why it is best to book early when fares are historically cheaper.

Q: Why should I pay fees to agent X? I could do it myself much cheaper.
A: The fee to Agent X is not just for making your booking but for a vast range of services provided by them to you and the company. These include back up, management information, billing, account management and a raft of others. All this is lost to you and the company if you book outside the programme to everyone’s detriment.


These roughly drawn up examples hopefully illustrate the need to communicate with
travellers to explain that the company is not totally mad and has valid reasons for
requiring their compliance. I bet that if you asked your travellers these questions they
would not give the same answers! After all, how can you expect people to do what
you ask when you don’t explain why? Surely a better way than introducing a mandate
and trying to enforce it on an incredulous traveller.

What happens when TMCs become GDS?

It must happen to a greater or lesser extent if American Airlines create a model that succeeds and then gets rolled out across the industry. The only way that TMCs will be able to give their customers what they want will be to direct connect with every key supplier and, as such, become mini specialist GDS in their own right. It will cost them a lot in time, resource and money despite what some AA loyalists say and you can bet your bottom dollar they will want it back with interest.

So how will such an event impact the balance of power in the travel supply chain? I think it will affect it significantly. Obviously the GDS will not simply sit back and let it happen and I am sure there is intense discussion and negotiation going on as I write.
However let us just pause for a minute and reflect on the following statements:

1) Despite airlines best efforts the TMC world still has considerable value to their corporate clients and will be hard to dislodge unless they do all the things TMCs do.
2) TMCs have been preparing their own strategies by building their own booking platforms that can be directed to be very specific on what choices they offer.
3) If airlines direct connect to these platforms they may be stepping out of the frying pan and into the fire as far as power balance is concerned.

The GDS are too darn expensive and working with a defunct, unjustifiable pricing model. I think many of us believe that and I can see why airlines are getting sick of paying sector fees even for cancellations and suchlike. The only thing is that GDS have a value to them and this value may be provided by TMCs in future. If you receive a value you can expect it to cost you as the TMCs will not give such distribution capability away for nothing. On top of that they will have their own platforms overlaying it which will allow dynamic pricing and availability control.

My message to airlines is to look at the broader implications of their actions. Remember how some thought GDS were great to own once. And how ownership, encouragement and support of OTAs were expected to reduce not increase cost. Not a great track record so far so look at your next step very carefully!

My Life in Bars – Part 2

Picture this. You are a young single guy and you have been sent abroad. Your job is to spend anywhere between 2 and 4 weeks in somebody else’s house and look after their office whilst they are back in the UK on annual leave. Money is not too much of a problem because you inherit their food and entertainment budget for the month in question as well as temporary membership to various sporting and social clubs.

Your usual lifestyle is built around the local pub, your shared flat or bed-sit and any party you can con your way into. You are not the tidiest person in the world and your culinary skills extend to spaghetti on toast. All in all not much use to man nor beast except you get transported to far off places where you have cooks, cleaners and lots of spending money. It was rather like sending a voracious fox into a large hen house full of chickens and saying ‘Behave yourself’. A warning that all too often fell on deaf ears.

I went on quite a few of these assignments and they took a bit of getting used to. Instead of wondering where your next takeaway was coming from you would be sitting in some comparably palatial lounge with a large drink and the smell of cooking food wafting from the kitchen every time the servant came through with a refill. Everything you dropped got picked up and your ashtray was emptied about every 20 minutes. I used to feel quite disorientated. And ultimately bored to tears.

There was only so much splendid isolation one could stand. At least if you were staying in a hotel there were other like minded people about and you might even get lucky and pick up an air hostess. If that failed you could maybe take in a club or hit the residents bar. In your house somewhere in the outskirts all you had was your own company and the nagging thought you could be ruining someone else’s house.

I was in this kind of dilemma on my first relief posting to Nairobi. Fortunately this place came with a car and chauffeur so I decided to spend most of my evenings out.
Nairobi in the early 70s was a pretty wild and potentially dangerous place to be and for all I know it maybe still is. I decided to make a tour of the hotels and see what was going on.

Most airline crews stayed at the Panafric Hotel and that was my first port of call. Sure enough a group of cabin staff were propping up the bar and I attached myself to them.
Terry was their chief and, clearly smelling an expense account, he became my new best pal. I am not sure how it happened but the bar eventually closed and I found me, Terry and another guy called Ken being ushered out the door. Strangely all the hostesses had disappeared and my thoughts of skinny-dipping back at the house pool went with them.

Terry said he knew of a ‘night spot’ across the road which would be lively and we decided to go there. It was called the Starlight Club and I quiver as I remind myself of it even now. The place was frankly sordid and little more than a bordello with a large patio and a frantic band playing insanely in the background. It was a place full of furtive foreigners and friendly girls. A place you would definitely not take your granny to.

Like most Nairobi bars of that kind you had to run the gauntlet to get in. This comprised of a group of ‘dusky maidens’ who would stand either side of the entrance corridor and grab at you vital areas as you walked past. This could be some kind of local ethnic greeting but, as once they grabbed you they wouldn’t let go, I doubted it. Terry, Kevin and I were forewarned so we had already pushed some ’borrowed’ hotel menus down the front of our trousers. By the time we got inside they were like origami.

Once inside it went further downhill. It was a wall of sweat, smell and sound. Full of svelte gyrating women and balding clumsy men in loud shirts and louder voices. Maybe a quiet night in was not such a bad thing I thought as I paid a small fortune for three Tusker beers while fending off two of the door-keepers who had followed us to our table. One of them disappeared under it and Ken started shifting guiltily and uncomfortably in his seat. “What is going on under there” I demanded? Can’t say” said Ken “But I’m frightened to move”.

That was it for me and I got up to leave. Another girl threw herself at me but got intercepted by door keeper number two who said she was my girl. An enormous fight started between the two of them with wigs and bits of clothing flying everywhere. I fled while everyone watched them, except for Ken who was still sitting bolt upright with a bemused look on his face. I need to find new friends and a new bar I thought.

I eventually found a new bar to spend my evenings in. It was called The Sombrero club and the only difference to The Starlight was once they knew you and you got chummy with the owner/barman they would leave you alone. Many the evening I sat talking to Moses (the barman) and watching these incredible events going on around me.

I came unstuck at the end of my stay. Our regional director came to Nairobi to do a spot check on our operation. He was staying at the Norfolk Hotel just a short distance from The Sombrero. When evening came he said he wanted to go out for a drink and suggested trying “that bar down the road”. I said that although I had never ever been there I had heard it was a really dangerous and rude place. He could not be dissuaded so off we went.

Needless to say he got the ethnic Nairobi handshake at the door…at least four times. “Ah Mikey” one of the girls said but I ignored her. By the time we got to the bar I had two more “Hi Mikeys”, two hugs and a kiss. I shielded my boss as best I could so he could get a bar stool and before I could order Moses leaned over and said “Hi Mikey. You are late tonight. You want your usual”?

“Never been here before Michael” my new boss probed? Maybe once or twice I admitted. “We expect our relief staff to be perfect ambassadors for the company so we will need to talk more of this tomorrow” he said. He kept me waiting all the next day.

“We will go back there tonight” he said as we closed the office. “OK “I replied “but may I suggest you pick up a hotel menu before you come?”

Better to never have something than see it taken away?

I wrote a few comments in my blog not that long ago about corporate entertaining. I tried to both entertain and inform but there was one particular argument I tried to put across. It was ‘never give someone something and then take it away’ i.e. once you invite someone somewhere regularly and then stop the reaction is worse than the initial benefit. This is exactly what is going on in travel at the moment but in a much broader sense.

Have you wondered why ‘low cost’ airlines like Ryanair manage to sell tickets much cheaper than say British Airways? Simple you might say, Ryanair is much more restrictive in timetable, booking conditions, departure airports etc. Plus they do not have the enormous cost infrastructure the big global giants have. Of course you would be right but it is far more than that, which brings me back to my entertaining analogy.

Nobody gets anything from a low cost carrier unless they pay for it. They never have and never will. What you get is a low cost and a menu of add on prices for everything from bags to card payment to seat reservations. That is the key reason for the low lead price and they absolutely depend on income from ancillary costs.

The big airlines are the complete opposite to this. Their prices are historically all inclusive but now they have to change rapidly to stem the flow of lost revenue to their new ‘low cost’ competition. So what do they do? They start looking at every distribution cost they incur and try to eradicate them. Things like free card usage, credit periods, use of agents and access to special fares. They will in fact ultimately end up pretty close to becoming low cost carriers themselves which is, to me, as worrying as it is welcome, in fact more so.

So the national airlines are starting to take away things they used to give away. Well actually they never gave them away. Instead they built the costs into those high prices they cannot compete with these days. As I implied in my heading, taking away something people are used to breeds discontent and intransigents. Pity the poor big airline, they are getting attacked for taking things away that their low cost competition never gave in the first place and get kudos for not doing so!

The travel world can be a cruel place sometimes!