今年我获得了一个特别好的机会，在同领域全球规模最大的盛会中担任一线工作：柏林国际旅游博览会（ITB, International Tourism Bourse）。这次活动的举办时间为3月6号到10号，在Messe Berlin巨大的展厅中举行，全世界有超过10万的旅游行业专业人士前来参观。在重要的节日期间，柏林这座城市本身就挤满了游客。被空气中的这种火热的气氛所感染，我一连好几个小时和酒店领导和行业内的重要人物交谈并交流思想观念。很明显，我在格里昂学到的知识让他们都印象深刻。
Hi there! My name is Angelo Tullio, I have been an enthusiastic Glion student and now I am a very proud member of the Glion Alumni Association. Time flies, that’s true, but one of the best lessons I have learned from Glion is that contacts and relationships may last forever, if we all share the same spirit! From now on, I will try to share some of my best experiences with you and, why not, give you some advice for your future careers.
Please, let me start with one point: working in the travel industry is very exciting! Meeting people from other countries, traveling, taking part in events, speaking foreign languages, and so on, are just a few of my favorite aspects related to it. And what about travel fairs and exhibitions? They are amazing events where you can talk to hundreds of people who share your same ideas. It makes you feel part of something really big and important, and I love that.
This year, I got the amazing chance to be on the first row at the world’s largest event of this kind: the International Tourism Bourse (ITB) in Berlin. It took place from March 6th to 10th in the huge “Messe Berlin” exhibition area and was visited by more than 100,000 travel professionals from all around the world. The city of Berlin itself was full of visitors, like during important festivities. Excited by all this electricity in the air, I have spent hours talking and exchanging ideas with hospitality leaders and very important industry people. Obviously, they were all fascinated by my studies at Glion.
I also attended some interesting conferences, where very positive signs of recovery from the global crisis for the whole travel industry were shown. Indeed, 2013 has started well, with a general increase in the number of hotel bookings worldwide (as confirmed by Jürgen Büchy, President of the German Travel Association). The ITB also highlighted a new trend in hospitality, with an incredible number of mobile and social media related events. Moreover, I could not miss the taste of local food provided by the different countries of the world.
If you ever get the chance to participate in such an event, I warmly suggest you grab this opportunity. I promise you will have fun, and your company will also gain something from your experience, as travel fairs are still the most important place to make deals and exchange opinions. According to Márcio Favilla, Executive Director of the World Tourism Organization, in a world that is ruled by the internet and technology, “there is no substitute for face-to-face meetings. Once again, ITB Berlin provided the platform for the global tourism industry to exchange information, conclude deals and cultivate business relations.”
I am not going to miss the ITB next year, what about you? Quotations taken from: ITB Berlin Press release 11/03/2013 (http://www.itb-berlin.de/en/MediaCentre/PressReleasesAndNews/index.jsp?lang=en&id=287104)
最重要的行动是开始执行。一旦公司领导层同意给予环境管理系统（EMS）以支持，下一步就是设定好计划和框架。获全球认可和尊重的全球标准组织（ISO）创立了一个EMS框架 — ISO 14001，还有一些其它框架，但ISO 14001的应用范围最广。全球标准组织为推动企业的可持续发展使用的环境管理系统其循环流程框架如下图所示：
Why not? Environmental Management Systems (EMS) are the framework that help companies improve their energy efficiency and their environmental sustainability. Anybody out there wish to waste energy, money and harm our environment?
What is it? The basic seven elements of a company’s EMS are as follows:
Establishing the company’s environmental goals.
Reviewing the company’s legal requirements and environmental impact.
Establishing measurable objectives and targets to reduce environmental impact and be in legal compliance.
Creating and implementing programs that will meet the established objectives and targets.
Communicating with and involving all the staff by creating environmental awareness and knowledge.
Measuring progress towards achieving the objective and targets.
Reviewing and sharing progress towards meeting EMS goals, and seek ways to keep improving both the process and improvement.
What are the critical success factors?
Gaining the support for an EMS from the company’s leadership.
Creating measurable and achievable goals.
Communicating and sharing the objectives, targets and results with both the internal and external stakeholders.
Celebrate the successes and learn from the errors.
Keep it fresh and make it fun.
Who benefits?
Guests benefit from a cleaner indoor and outdoor environment through the reduced usage of harmful cleaning chemicals and second-hand tobacco smoke.
The staff also benefit from the healthier indoor environment and a team building event that benefits them and their community.
EMS, particularly at resort locations, also benefit the local community by enhancing the destination experience and reducing the needs for additional infrastructure, such as water supplies, energy generation, waste water plants and land fill for waste disposal.
The ownership and management benefit from reduced energy and water costs, additional revenues for being recognized as a Green hotel/resort.
How do we start?
The most important action is to get started. Once the company leadership has agreed to support an EMS, the next step is find an established plan and framework. The globally recognized and respected International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has already created an EMS framework, known as ISO 14001, there are several others available but this is the most widely used. The ISO uses the following circular framework for its EMS that promotes continuous improvement. How do you finish? Hopefully you never finish, you just keep improving.
客户在brand.com上对我们的评论： http://www.ihg.com/holidayinn/hotels/us/en/london/loncl/hoteldetail/hotel-reviews 英国与瑞士格里昂酒店管理高等教育学院 - Glion Institute of Higher Education 中文页面：http://glion.gheac.com/ 咨询电话：010-8447 6928 189 0119 3685 在线ＱＱ：800093391 电子邮件：info@gheac.com 办公地址：北京市 东城区 东直门外大街48号 东方银座 C座16E 邮政编码：100027 TripAdvisor and other reviews, friends or foe?
by Eddy 10 May 2013
What is your opinion? Really, truly, I’d love to read it.
For years and still now, some hoteliers have been fighting the beast. But like the Hydra, you cut the head off and two grow instead. Well, TripAdvisor has never had its head chopped off and it is not showing any signs of going down anytime soon (100 million reviews this year!?). Also now, customers can review us on the like of Holidaycheck, Expedia, Booking or actually, our very own brand.com too since July 2012. Business travelers have also started to review us privately on CarlsonWagonLit ‘Hotel Intel’ (4Hoteliers, 2012), although hoteliers don’t have yet access (I’ve checked for us).
Now what do they say? When you can’t beat it, play along with it (and win). Hotels have the chance to reply to these reviews and yet, how many truly engage and make the most of a formidable (and free) marketing channel? Please consider the work of Bulchand-Gidumal, Melian-Gonzalez and Gonzalez Lopez-Valcarcel (2011a, 2011b), Hsu, Chen and Ting (2012), O’Connor (2010), Parra-Lopez, Bulchand-Gidumal, Gutierrez-Taño and Diaz-Armas (2010) or Smyth, Wu and Greene (2010), they will all tell you the same: go for it and engage! And they will also tell you that sadly, we (hoteliers) are still lagging behind … and I read that some are still tilting at windmills, like Don Quixote.
Thus, shall I give you a peek of how we see it at the hotel? Review platforms may be a necessary evil, but are they truly evils? Probably not. Just as some hoteliers have been taking cash, then waiting for guests to go and be replaced by the next ones. Customers have now been seriously empowered by social media. They now can talk back, and they should! Don’t you think? We’ve deprived them of freely and easily expressing their perceptions and emotions to us, for years. Please, don’t tell me that the good old in-room questionnaire was a nice and user-friendly experience! So now, it is time for a catch-up.
And what is the worst that could happen to you? Receiving a public rant? If deserved, then bite the bullet and grab your chance to improve. Unjustified? Then just say so. In a nice way obviously, although I do use sarcasms when they are mean to us … we’re just human beings right? Just passionate and committed hoteliers, on top of it. Yet, for most of them, they just want to be heard by YOU. So, show them you care. Dead easy. You would be surprised how many listeners you get on TripAdvisor, and how many reviewers read your response to their posting!! I have been studying the matter for my Applied Business Project with Glion these past 9 months, and I still learn more every week. I have just found out that there is indeed a conversation (I had only dreamt about it so far)! Not only with future guests (yes, we get a lot of referrals from Trip), but now from past reviewers who turn back and acknowledge my responses. We also started a conversation with a couple of reviewers on our brand.com recently. One replied online through the ‘comment’ button, the other emailed me straight after the publication of my response, with a screen shot of it!! How nice! Don’t we love conversation?
Now, I am not talking about the unfortunately usual: “Thank you so-and-so (usually with their weird and unreadable log-in names!) for reviewing us … we are (ever) so sorry … will turn the place upside down for you … and change totally. Won’t do it ever again …” and a signature from the property (if you’re lucky)”. That is so-not listening. This is a pure and utter tick-box exercise. And what do readers do? They read one review after the other, and find the exact same template all along. That is if the hotel is listening and responding. If not, they only get one sound of the bell; your customers’. And as Iain Ainsworth (White Line Hotels) said so clearly at a panel discussion organised by HVS (Paris, February 2011): yes, they are already talking about you!
Alternative option. Find a creative and caring member of the team, and empower her / him with writing personal notes back to all the customers who have actually taken some of their time to talk to you. Then, you’ll start receiving many more notes of ‘thank you’, of congratulations for actively listening and caring and more booking referrals … just like we do! You will raise your online profile, your credentials and maybe increase your brand equity.
OK, we take the game a little further by adding references in our responses, the old little joke here and there, a salute to someone through someone else’s review, a bit of a teasing … and even a quiz. But this never went anywhere. I had hidden my messages so well, that nobody found them!
Oh, and before I leave you to your creative and genuine writing skills, don’t forget that you are reviewed in many languages and also scrutinized in all these languages too. So you might need several “creative and caring members” to cover them all and translate. But then, that’s another opportunity for you to engage with your team on social media. Please join the conversation and enjoy!!
And here is the link to our TripAdvisor page, should you fancy a peek: http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Hotel_Review-g186338-d277089-Reviews-Holiday_Inn_London_Camden_Lock-London_England.html
With our brand.com reviews: http://www.ihg.com/holidayinn/hotels/us/en/london/loncl/hoteldetail/hotel-reviews 【原文引自】：http://www.gheac.com/thread-7323-1-1.html 版权与翻译版权所有，转载，复制请注明出自于“GHEAC-环球酒店教育与行业盟”。
这些情景都印在了我的记忆里，就像我的个人简历上印的“格里昂高等教育学院（Glion Institute of Higher Education）”这几个字一样清晰。“格里昂（Glion）”这个教育背景让我在事业中不断取得上升空间，或者说“它是真正通向成功的钥匙”这个说法更准确一些。
你知道大多数的招聘者仅仅看你的简历就完成了第一轮筛选吗？在这个筛选阶段你在简历上证明你的教育背景是世界顶级院校之一这一点当然很有必要。现在越来越多的年轻毕业生们扎堆申请同一份工作，面试的过程被拉的很长并且有时候要求苛刻。我在格里昂布勒校区的职业发展中心（Career Development Center）中学过如何为面试做好准备，我们还有一份清单，上面是常见的面试会问到的问题，我做到了时刻准备好回答这些问题，并且我会随身携带我对这些问题做的笔记。这一切都给了我很大帮助，有时甚至救了我。
My very last day at Glion was a melting pot of feelings: satisfaction, happiness, pride, and a bit of tiredness. Only one emotion was surprisingly missing – for some reason I was not sad. Obviously, I was not happy to leave my friends and the beautiful scenery I was getting used to, but for some reason I knew that my connection with Glion was not over.
Those moments are written in my memory, exactly as the words “Glion Institute of Higher Education” are in my Curriculum Vitae. The name Glion has always helped me in advancing my career, or better it was the real key to success.
Did you know that most of the recruiters actually make a first selection only based on what is written on CVs? At this stage it is of course necessary to prove you have studied in one of the best schools in the world. But that is not enough. Nowadays more and more young graduates apply for the same job, and the interview process is long, and sometimes, demanding. I was taught by the Career Development Center in Bulle how to get ready for an interview and I was given a full list of questions I always have to be ready to answer, and I still carry my notes with me wherever I go. They have always helped, and sometimes saved, me.
Networking is the second most important point. Those people, those friends who were crying on our very last day in Switzerland are in my heart, of course, but I also keep their contacts in my Skype, their numbers in my phone book and their photos and updates on Facebook, and we still talk quite often.
As soon as you start travelling and working in different parts of the world, your classmates will always be so happy to meet you, and even other Glion Alumni you have never seen before are there for you. The Glion spirit, funny to say, is almost “touchable” – it really exists. I do not think I have to mention the other advantages of knowing people that are working for the travel industry…
Two years ago I went to the Fairmont Hotel on Shaykh Zayed Road for the Alumni Gathering in Dubai. Entering the magnificent ballroom I was a bit scared, not sure if I knew anyone. Well, that feeling did not last long – in 10 minutes I was already chatting and laughing with a lot of people. We shared our experiences and talked about passion for hospitality, and we definitely were linked by the School, even if we were there in different times.
Guess what? With those successful, wise hospitality leaders I am still in touch!
Do not forget though, that Glion is a school, and as in every school, you have to prove you are a real future leader by studying hard! But I can guarantee, even the hardest of tasks can be easily completed, if you face it with passion.
Sniff, sniff! Can you smell it? Mhmmm, smells like holidays to me!
Right now, my upcoming holiday still seems ages away, even though we’ll be jetting off to Europe in only 4 days, but until then it’s still work, work, and work.
I’m currently in the final stretches of the Global Strategic Management module of my Glion Online MBA. The online program mirrors the classroom-based program very closely, but is, as the name suggests, delivered 100% online and in the case of my current module, that’s really testing the metals of my study group. Three assignments, plus a group project, which are all due on Sunday and have to be compiled entirely through our “virtual” team-work across 4 countries and as many time-zones. It’s slightly stressful being at the cutting edge of online learning and working…
Anyway, we’re almost there and I intend to make the most of the two weeks break between modules and spend some much needed time with my family during my holidays. We’ll be off to Germany first and then to Spain for some R&R by the beach.
It’s been a wild virtual ride for me during the past year and a half, but the end of my MBA program is now in sight and after the holidays I will only have three modules and my final project left. With this in mind, it’s slowly time to think about the future and decide what I want to do post-MBA. Just imagine – I’ll suddenly have all this free time floating around!
My current plan is to add an element of part-time teaching (either online or offline) to my projects, because it’s interesting, challenging, allows me to give something back to the industry, and can also relatively easily be combined with my work as a hospitality consultant. Then, of course, there’s that illusive “Chief Innovation Officer” position I’m on the lookout for…
I personally think he is right and the way we all work, but also the way people travel and use hotels, will undergo seismic changes in the next decade. Innovation will be tomorrow’s currency and companies had better be prepared.
Aside from work, I’d quite fancy a change of scenery and swapping the sandpits of the Middle East with greener pastures, preferably in Asia. After all, one of the most enjoyable benefits of our industry and also of studying with Glion, is the relative ease you can move around with and experience new countries and cultures.
That’s it from me for today – I’ve still got some assignments to finish and my suitcases to pack! If you’re off on your holidays, too, I wish you happy travels! If you’re stuck at work, make the most of it!
