Blogging Hotel Insiders
Jun 15th, 2008 by Happy Hotelier
Hotel Front Desk Blog’s post Hotel Bloggers Linky (Not Kinky) Love inspired me to this post. He lists a couple of Hotel Insider Blogs, because:
Unlike most other industries, there’s not a lot of hotel related blogs penned by employees & insiders actually working in the hospitality industry - most seem to be just another marketing or promotional avenue written by hotels themselves as a management/public relations tool. While this is great, and I’m glad that a lot of hotels are catching onto the trend (yay, technology=good!), it leaves a lot to be said. While reading about the latest and greatest in room types and package promotions is always a good thing - more often than not, I’d much rather be reading about what really goes on behind the scenes, from the perspective of the staff that works there.
Although Front Desk Boy doesn’t see it that way:
Happy Hotelier: More focused on industry headlines than anything else, but a few viewpoints along the way from the author. Personally I think I’d like to read some stories from the author, as I like his style.
I strongly believe I am a hotel insider. I am running a small luxury all suites hotel. As the in house jack of all trades one of my functions is that of the Front Desk Manager. He would love to see more personal stories. Well I can’t do that. Insider stories might all too easy include and identify my guests, as the operation is so small that each guest story can be easily connected to a specific guest. Moreover I don’t like to remain incognito as FDB and some other insiders have to for the same obvious reason: keep in house what should be kept in house. Thanks for the nudge anyway FDB.
As Don Meador puts it: FDB’s list is a great beginning of a list. He misses a few. Therefore I have made my own list of hotel insiders.
Hotel insiders usually should have (had) some working experience in a hotel. I don’t mind them working in sales or marketing. I even don’t mind if they don’t work in a hotel anymore, but have some great insights to offer about hotels. And since Food and Beverage are great ingredients for many hotels, I also don’t mind it they are working in Food and Beverage, even without letting rooms.
- A Luxury Travel Blog. A Hotel insider? Yes, with a family background in self catering in the Lake District, UK.
- Albert Barra, who set up the brilliant El Blog de un Hotel, a blog describing the development of a huge Eurostar Development in Madrid next to one of them football stadiums.
- Alex Bainbridge, because he asked:-).
- Budget Travel Tips from Eurocheapo. Well because they asked nicely.
- Chanters Lodge, a Lodge Owner in Zambia, Africa
- Chocolate on the Pillow by Andrew Gindy, a Hotel Management student at Cornell. Not a frequent poster, but has some interesting insight on the biz.
- Cool Hotels
- Cool Travel Guide by Lara Dunston in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. A perpetual globetrotter and travel writer who has authored and contributed to over 30 travel guidebooks.
- Crazy hotel Workers a community.
- Daniel Edward Craig, the former author of the Opus Hotel Blog until he left his position at Vancouver Opus Hotel to become a full time Hotel Crime Thriller writer. Unfortunately, since he left, the Opus Hotel Blog isn’t anymore what it used to be under the new author Katrina Caroll-Foster>. Come on Katrina a soft nudge to continue Daniel’s work, or do as Bill Marriott: Dictate the blog!
- Drop into the Wyland Waikiki, added August 1, 2008.
- Feather or Foam? by a House Keeping Queen of Clean.
- Gadling A Hotel review site.
- Get a Room by Don Meador, director of sales of The Landmark Hotel Group in Virginia Beach, VA, USA.
- Gletcher Blog. A hotelier in the Stubaier Alps in Austria
- Hotel Front Desk Blog by FrontDeskBoi (sic). Musings of a Front Desk Manager.
- Hotel Hallways Mister Arthur who is in advertising shows us the dour hotel hallways.
- Hotel i Tour. Claude Benard’s second Blog
- Hotel Warrior, alas not a frequent poster.
- Hotel Girl
- Hotel Blogs. Guillaume Thevenot is a Frenchman located in London.
- Hotel Hotsheet by Kitty Bean Yancey for USA Today.
- Hotel Manager Talk. Kevin Levine produces his own Hotelier podcast covering topics around N. America.
- Hotel Chatter. A hotel review blog
- Hotel Chick who writes very funny posts about hotel housekeeping
- Hotels of the Rich and Famous.
- Jaunted. Hotel review blog for the young ones
- Les Explorers by Claude Benard, probably the only Frenchman in France writing a trevel blog in English. (Guillaume lives in the UK).
- Living with Legends. A diary about the Hotel Chelsea in NYC.
- Marriott on the Move. The Marriott, Bill, who in my opinion does a good job with his blog. Even if it is mainly about Marriott, he doesn’t avoid critical sounds in his comments.
- My Marrakesh by Maryam who is building a Moroccan Guesthouse.
- Passion of a Zealot by Andrew Calvo from New Jersey who is fascinated by hotel development. He is also a contributing editor on HotelChatter. He started blogging as a means of getting a job with Starwood Capital working for Barry Sternlicht. Blogging for passion…and with a purpose!
- Restaurant Gal by a waitress
- So you wanna be a Banquet Manager…. A Banquet Manager.
- The Barmaid Blog A Barmaid.
- The Informed Traveler: Yes, very Five Star Alliance focused.
- Travel Rants, more a consumer (or prosumer?) blog than a Hotel insider Blog, but Darren is an insider as he operates his own self catering website that he started for the family run business and has closed now as per his comment.
- Blog Mr and Mrs Smith by Tamara, Mrs Smith her good self.
- Red Room Chronicles. Long before Marriott entered the blog sphere, Rob Safuto was blogging about Marriott hotels around the world.
- Urban Diner. Andrew Morrison is a local food critic who blogs about the Vancouver culinary scene, and he never misses a beat on local hotel happenings.
- Vacant Ready by a Canadian hotel professional presently based in Egypt, Chris Clarke, who set up Bed Jump, Hotel Beds, Hotel Splash and Hotel Throne, Hotel Bathrooms exposed successfully and then sold the concept to Hotels By City.
- VibeAgent Blog from the new semantic hotel review site.
- Waiter Rant. Musings of a? Yes, you guessed right: Waiter. His book Waiter Rant is due soon and I took the liberty of using the nice cover photo to enhance this post.
- Well done Fillet: The musings of an Irish restaurant waiter.
Surely I will have missed some. Please correct me!
Update June 27
I have added some text and a few blogs as per the comments. Thank you all for the helpful comments.
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I have worked in hotel web distribution (for hotel chains)…. does that count?
http://www.tourcms.com/blog/alexbainbridge/
Maybe I should try to write more hotel posts!
Actually not!
Assuming you will write a nice rant about guests I have added you:-)
Awesome list HH, you found some great F&B sites too.
I’d like to add a couple of blogs that I believe are highly worthy of being represented. I’ll call this list, the “Three Andrews”, plus Kevin & Rob.
Passions of Zealot
http://passionsofazealot.wordpress.com
Andrew Calvo from New Jersey writes this very engaging development blog (he is also a contributing editor on HotelChatter). Great guy, and he started blogging as a means of getting a job with Starwood Capital working for Barry Sternlicht. Blogging for passion…and with a purpose!
Chocolates on the Pillow
http://www.chocolateonthepillow.com
By Andrew Gindy, Hotel Management student at Cornell. Not a frequent poster, but has some interesting insight on the biz.
Urban Diner, Vancouver
http://www.urbandiner.ca
Andrew Morrison is a local food critic who blogs about the Vancouver culinary scene, and he never misses a beat on local hotel happenings. He’s an irreverant, sometimes arrogant SOB who also has a great personality and an extremely loyal readership. This blog is easily the best F&B blog out there, and I’m still a reader even though I’ve left Vancouver, perhaps never to return.
Hotel Manager Talk
http://www.hotelmanagertalk.com
Kevin Levine produces his own Hotelier podcast covering topics around N. America. I think this is a terrific effort…if blogging is hard, podcasting has to be even harder.
Red Room Chronicles
http://www.redroomchronicles.com/
Long before Marriott entered the blogosphere en force, Rob Safuto was blogging about Marriott hotels around the world. This is a quietly marketed effort, but an excellent, and long-standing effort.
Happy Hotelier, you’ve forgotten us!
http://blog.mrandmrssmith.com
Our blog may be relatively new on the scene, but we’ve been posting our own hotel-insider insights incessantly since we went online and we’re still gathering momentum. We’re hoping that it will become a place where people come to discuss the boutique hotel industry, travel in general, anything they like, really. We’ve covered everything from eco-stays to insider New York tips, and over the course of the next year, we’ll be interviewing tastemakers, hotel reviewers, and any one connected to the hotel industry we can get our hands on. So, do we count? Quite a few of us have worked in hotels in our time…
Thank you for the recognition as a hotel insider. Strangely, some hospitality industry professionals don’t see travel writers as hotel insiders. My 200+ nights spent in hotels nor thousands of reviews don’t always count to some. But I’m glad they do to you! Love your blog! Oh, and the discussion on hotels versus apartments continues over at my place. You know the address. But everybody else is welcome to pop over too: http://cooltravelguide.blogspot.com/
Guido, I’m far from a travel insider, I used to own a website that promoted my dads apartment and a few others, but I closed that down, and my dad sold is apartment.
I think sometimes it has advantages not being involved in the travel industry, to tell it as it really is.
My first comment on Happy Hotelier, shocked, but I hate having to sign up to comment :P
@All
Thank you for your comments.
I am on a hotel inspection tour with very bad internet connections. L8ter more.
Hi Guido -
We’d like to add EuroCheapo’s blog to your list: http://www.eurocheapo.com/blog.
It’s updated daily with tips for finding what we consider the best value budget hotels in Europe, along with other related budget travel advice. Perhaps it’s more consumer than insider, although it is focused on budget hotels at the core and written by the same editors who write our hotel reviews.
“Claude Benard, probably the only Frenchman in France writing a travel blog in English.”
yes, I feel alone in France !
Was a former sales executive (6 years) in hotel group but know in the IT for hotel and travel industry.
The Boot is nice also http://tims-boot.blogspot.com/
Tims work in hotel booking system and electronic hotel network
cheers
Claude