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Top 10 of unusal Hotels (according to trivago.de)

Interesting list of 10 really special Hotels.

10. Ariau Amazon Towers (Manaus, Brasilien)
9. Hotel Jumbo Stay Hostel (Stockholm, Schweden)
8. Hotel Igloo Village (Kakslauttanen, Finnland)
7.Hotel Luna Salada (Uyuni,Bolivien)
6. Hotel The Queen Mary (Kalifornien, USA)
5. Hotel Crowne Plaza (Indianapolis, USA)
4.Hotel Malmaison Oxford (Oxford, Großbritannien)
3. Martin’s Patershof (Mechelen, Belgien)
2. Hotel Cappadocia Cave Suites (Göreme, Türkei)
1. Hotel Quinta Real Zacatecas (Mexiko)

The article is in German but your browser will translate it into English :)

http://checkin.trivago.de/2013/03/20/die-top-10-der-ungewohnlichen-hotels/

Event App Research

63% of planners are currently using mobile apps at events.

Meeting Planners International (MPI) and DoubleDutch teamed up to conduct a study on the adoption of mobile technology at events.

The full report covers the data included in a survey of event professionals, answers questions around why some planners don't adopt mobile, and exposes the value that users and non-users alike can gain from deeper use of event apps.
http://info.doubledutch.me/content-mpi-event-app-research-report.html

Wearable/Ultra-portable Computers for Events

This article comes from my friend Corbin Ball.

A new category of computers, wearable computers, are miniature electronic devices that are worn under, with or on top of clothing. …and they may be coming to an event near you!

Technology has developed in ten-year cycles: 1960s: mainframe computing, 1970s: mini-computing, 1980s: personal computing, 1990s: desktop internet computing, 2000s: mobile internet computing. This decade may turn out to be the decade of wearable/everywhere computing. Computers are popping up in our cars, our home appliances, and soon on our bodies. Most of us are already carrying around powerful computers in our pockets (smart phones), but this is just the first step.

Google Glass, smart watches, NFC rings, smart bracelets, and smart clothing are just some of the options becoming available. This will impact events and tradeshows in the next few years as attendees literally embody these devices to assist them at events.

Consider the possibilities as these technologies evolve:

Google Glass is a wearable computer with and optical head-mounted display. Light (about 1/10 of a pound) and sleek, it is worn like glasses and will become available to the public this coming year. The extremely small display, through very clever optics, appears like a 20 inch screen floating about 6 feet away. Sound is provided through bone conduction, so no ear phones are needed.  It is essentially a voice and touch activated multi-media computer, GPS system, still camera, video camera, and like much more as developers continue to evolve it.

Here are some of the future possibilities for GoogleGlass for events:

• Step-by-step navigation throughout a meeting venue or an exhibit hall with visual and/or audio directions.
• Real-time video conferencing.
• Note taking (video with sound and still picture recording on voice or touch demand).
• Displaying speaker presentation notes and slides.
• Networking facilitation through taking a picture of who you meet or face recognition reminders the next time you meet them.
• Gaming applications
• Mini-teleprompters for speakers
• Sight inspection facilitation to easily record meeting spaces
• Social media interaction using video, geo-location and networking apps

For those that my think wearing a computer on your face is too geeky, no matter how sleek it may be, smart watches and bracelets also hold promise. Today, most smart watches are smart phone interfaces, and most smart bracelets/bands such as Jawbone or Fitbit are activity trackers. However, as computer processors continue to get smaller, cheaper and more powerful, these devices have the potential to have a big impact on events.

Some future options include:

• Instant business contact exchange (just tap your watches, band or NFC ring together)
• Continuing education tracking (just tap your watch, band or ring to a tag outside the room).
• Information collection at exhibit booths.
• Couse notes distribution
• Navigational assistance (indoor GPS on your watch)
• Networking (your watch or band will light up or vibrate when people of like interest come into range)
• Appointment reminder notices
• Photos, video and still of event activities and education
• Note taking

Although still in its infancy, the rapid rate of development holds the promise to make wearable computers indispensable personal assistants in multiple was as people navigate and make the most of attending events.

Corbin Ball, CMP, CSP is a speaker and independent third-party consultant focusing on meetings technology. With 20 years of experience running international citywide technology meetings, he now helps clients worldwide use technology to save time and improve productivity He can be contacted at his extensive web site: Corbin Ball Associates – Meetings Technology Headquarters and followed at www.twitter.com/corbinball

How to Boost Traffic at Your Trade Show Booth

Want to stand out? Plan ahead and skip the tchotchkes and gimmicks.

Clowns, costumes, caricaturists: they're staples of nearly every trade show, attempting to bring an audience to an otherwise lackluster booth. And don't forget the beguiling ladies, handing out fliers with a side of flirtation. Does any of the showiness of the showroom floor actually work to draw in attendees that become reliable leads?

"Don't get me started on booth babes," said Susan Friedmann, an industry consultant who goes by "The Tradeshow Coach." "People really have had to get more serious about exhibiting. When you're investing often several hundred thousand dollars going to a trade show, you have to get a return on your investment."

Whether your desired outcome is to fill a spreadsheet with sales leads, generate buzz for a new product, or just increase brand awareness, relying on random booth traffic isn't usually the wisest strategy, experts tell Inc. Plan early for not just creating an inventive and effective booth, but also for getting the right people to seek you out.

"A lot of show marketers leave it to the show organizer to drive traffic on the show floor," said Ruth P. Stevens, a consultant on business-to-business marketing and president of eMarketing Strategy. "You cannot cede responsibility to the show organizer to get all the traffic you want to get – you need to take aggressive action."

Drawing Traffic to Your Trade Show Booth: Plan Ahead

Trade show consultants and experts cite a statistic illustrative of the risk of leaving convention or show traffic to chance: Roughly 70 percent of show attendees plan a list of whom they're going to visit before ever entering the convention center doors. They say that number makes plain the power – and necessity – of pre-show outreach.

Stevens advocates taking a two-pronged approach. The first would be to contact your in-house file – that's your regular customers, local contacts, and solid prospects. The other? Registered attendees of the show. "Most organizers, if you are buying a booth, will give you access to this list," Stevens says. "You should conduct some outreach to them - or a segment of attendees that might be interested in you - either through direct mail, e-mail, or even phone."

While e-mailing a contact list is by far the most cost-effective way to spread information about an upcoming trade show or conference appearance, David Brull, the vice president of marketing and membership for the Trade Show Exhibitors Association, says snail mail not only still works, but might be the best means of communicating an upcoming event. "A postcard is pretty much the most effective – and odd sized is even better so that it doesn't just blend in and end up in the trash. I know one person that shaped theirs like a fish once, and that really brought people in."

While you're at it, make a substantial effort to contact and make appointments with your local clients, suppliers, or anyone you do business with in the geographic area of your show. It's a simple way to get face-time with folks you might not otherwise be able to sit down with – and a way to make sure you or your employees aren't wasting time standing around in an empty booth.

Drawing Traffic to Your Trade Show Booth: Offer an Incentive, But Be Selective

Getting a piece of mail into a potential client's hand isn't enough, though, Stevens says. They'll also need a solid reason to show up. If you have a new product launching – especially if there's at least an aspect of it that will be completely fresh to consumers – promote that.

"Or, if you don't have something new, you might want to make a special offer," Stevens says. "It might be a price promotion, or a show discount, or you might want to give them a special gift for coming by."

But, there's a big difference in having special gifts for the people you've contacted before the show and doing a random promotion to draw foot traffic into your booth, Friedmann says. "You have to give your target audience a reason to come and see you, based on your goals and objective," she says. "I'm not an advocate of just giving away an iPad or a camcorder, because you're not attracting someone in your target audience."

That's because the old put-your-business-card-in-a-fishbowl-and-win-a-prize ruse to generate leads has proven itself stale.

"Putting a bowl out and asking people to drop in a business card is a waste of energy," Stevens says. "The real way to generate good leads is to have a conversation and kick off a business relationship. You can rent cold names for 15 cents each, so why would you spend hundreds at a trade show to get cold names?"

And the value of pricey giveaways can be lost if your company doesn't get quality warm leads out of the very thing that's supposed to draw people to your booth.

"You have to know your attendees," Stevens says. "If there are going to be a lot of unqualified people, like students or spouses, know that. If it's going to be prowled by a lot of tchotchke grabbers, you might want to keep the gift under the table."

There are other ways to bond with your target audience at a trade show. Friedmann suggests hosting events away from the trade show floor, in more private conference rooms. Reserve space ahead of time, she suggests, and use it for special product demos that you might not want your competition to be privy to – but that you do want your best customers to see.

Another option is to speak on a panel. Talk early on with the conference or trade show's organizers about possible topics that you and your company are experts in – or even a niche of a current industry trend. Being in the middle of the debate or on the edge of innovation, explaining it as you go, is a great place to be. The bonus: You'll be sure to attract those most interested in your work. Offer them additional conversation, a free book, or something else useful, if they'll stop by your booth later.

Be sure to let your clients – and future customers – know where you are speaking and what special events your company is participating in over social media. Increasingly, conferences create their own Twitter hash-tag, so participants can communicate with one another from the showroom floor.

"Individual show exhibitors are using twitter too – saying, hey, I just sold my first widget, or I just attended a great talk," Stephens says. "A lot of them are gaining more attention for their booth by just tweeting around."

Drawing Traffic to Your Trade Show Booth: Be Aggressive, Not Abrasive

If you're debuting a product, and actually want a lot of general buzz and interest in your product and brand, the golden rule is: "If you have a product people can play with, make sure you can bring it," Brull says. "The whole point of face-to-face marketing is so people can touch and feel things."

For small companies with small booths, just remember that for every 10' by 10' booth you have, you have approximately four seconds to engage someone that's walking by. And distractions are aplenty: "The trade show environment is easy to get overwhelmed, it's easy to go into this zombified state and it's so easy to not be able to take anything in," Friedmann says.

Brull suggests to draw in people, create a clean, warm environment they can step into. "In some way, it's your retail store. You need to think of it as your home for a few days, and inviting people into your space should be pleasant," he says.

Having the right people in your booth can also make or break the quick impression your company makes on passers by. For the weekend, remember, the employees in your booth are your ambassadors. While Friedmann says they should never hawk to people from the aisles, they shouldn't be hidden behind a table. They should ask engaging questions off the bat to find out in a non-intrusive way whether the person stopping by is a potential customer or business partner – or just might be curious about your brand.

David Maskin makes a living drawing people into trade show booths. He creates personalized nameplates by bending aluminum wire as giveaways from the company who takes him on to sit in their booth. While Maskin – who goes by "The WireMan" – markets himself as a traffic magnet, he tries to go beyond collecting business cards and creating cold leads.

"The way I like to do things is to go beyond just drawing people into a booth. The big word free is one way to get people to come in. Others will come in just to see what I'm doing," Maskin says. "And when one person comes in, their colleagues come and stand around, which gives the booth staff time to come and mingle with the crowd."

Stevens says: "To me the most important thing to keep in mind is quality. It's really easy to waste a lot of money on a show – it's an expensive environment on a cost-per-contact basis. You want to make sure you're attracting and talking to people who are really likely to be buyers or influencers in your world."

Drawing Traffic to Your Trade Show Booth: Look Sharp

It's not just the shiny things inside your booth that can be a draw for attendees. The booth itself can attract visitors.

Aside from the open, warm, retail-style aesthetic Brull suggests, you'll want to make sure you don't box in too much of your space with tables or displays. "You don't want to block your door with a table," he says.

This year's Exhibitor magazine exhibit design awards hailed mostly booths that created a calm sanctuary in an otherwise chaotic exhibit atmosphere. And doing something that stands out doesn't have to be expensive. Autodesk Inc. won an exhibitor award for creating an 18-foot-high double archway or cardboard tubing that soared above its and custom-made walls and desks. The cost? Thirteen dollars per square foot.

"One of the most effective booths I've ever seen was a 10' by 20' booth with a back wall of boxes or all colors and shapes," Brull says. It was for a box-shipping company. "It was neat, and eye-catching, but it wasn't expensive."

That said, design options can be pretty restricted when you only have a 10' by 10' or 15' booth.

"The most important thing in booth design in a small booth – or any booth really – is the signage," Stevens says. "Assuming you've done your work in pre-show promotions, you want to attract the people who know you."

The way to attract them, Stevens says, is with a "benefit-oriented" sign. It should:

-       Be visible and legible from down an aisle on the showroom floor
-       Have words that give a potential client a good reason to stop.
-       Answer the question for a client: What's in it specifically for me?
-       Not use a lot of jargon, such as "exceptional interface."
-       Include a solution to a business problem.

Don't be afraid to be specific – turning off a segment of the trade show audience who isn't your target is just fine.

"If you're offering specific software for accountants, say so," Stevens says. "You do in fact want to repel unqualified prospects. The real value of show exhibiting is to develop valuable contacts with people you might do business with, and you only have x number of hours to do that."

Read the full article here on Inc.

4 Tips for Training Event Staff

When guests walk through the door to your event, it’s your event staffers who will ensure that they experience the event as you’ve planned and envisioned it. Are they up to the task? Help them offer flawless service with these four training best practices.

1. Role-play your event as a guest.

The difference between a good event and a great event is attention to detail. How should arriving VIPs or speakers be greeted and managed? Should pre-registrants be processed in a different line from on-site registrants? You know how to handle these “simple” situations instinctively, but don’t assume that your volunteers or local staff share your hard-learned skills. Role-playing, where you take on the persona of different types of guests, gives you an opportunity to show your volunteers how to properly attend to all of them.

And if you can, literally walk the venue as different guests would. Knowing, in detail, how they will flow through an event can help you prepare volunteers and station them where you predict confusion.

2. Prepare your staff for FAQs.

You’re an event planner. You know that there is no amount of signage or advance information that will prevent guests from asking questions. Prepare your volunteers or staff with a list of responses to frequently asked questions. These might include queries about food allergies, coat check, restrooms, the business center, or other issues. If necessary, coach them about how to handle a registered guest who brings unregistered friends to a limited-seating event.

For cases that can’t be anticipated or otherwise need your attention, make sure your staff knows how to get in touch with you. They don’t need to have all the answers, but they should be able to quickly find them. Confident staff will ensure a positive experience for every guest, even those who require special consideration.

3. Allow enough time for training.

Training an hour before an event leaves little time for staff to internalize your instructions. Consider holding a training session at least a few hours—if not days—prior to the event. Make it more appealing by offering free food or organizing an outing after. The more excited staff are about the event, the more enthusiastic they will be when helping your guests.

If prior training is impractical, consider printing a “cheat sheet” that briefly explains what’s required and covers any frequently asked questions. E-mail the checklist to volunteers before the event so they can look it over on their own.

4. Thank them, and then thank them again.

Have you ever worked for a boss that didn’t appreciate your efforts? Don’t be that boss. If you make your volunteers feel like they are a crucial part of the team, they are way more likely to adopt your goal of event success.

They represent you during the execution of the event and will be most effective if they’re happy to be there. Besides, a positive experience will make them more likely to volunteer at an event in the future and could save you the trouble of recruiting and re-teaching inexperienced staff.

Recognize your staff as your greatest support in the execution of the event and acknowledge them with thanks before, during, and after an event. They’ll show their gratitude with their performance.

Drew D’Agostino is CTO and cofounder of Attendware, online software that simplifies and automates event management processes. The company is backed by .406 Ventures and is headquartered in Boston, Mass. Prior to founding Attendware, D’Agostino served as a contracted CTO for several startup companies, was a member of the product team at Gemvara, and was director of business development at Jola Venture, a funded startup that launched a sustainable food-preservation technology in Cameroon, Africa.

Full article can be found on meetingsnet.com

Splash, The Party Scientists Stealing Big Business From Eventbrite

People don’t want ads, they want memories. To shift from spammy marketing to providing experiences, companies like Anheuser-Busch, Spotify, NPR, and Wired promoted 80,000 events in 2013 with a little startup called Splash. In co-founder Ben Hindman’s first in-depth interview, he tells how Splash’s event platform is challenging bland incumbents with its beautifully designed party websites.

A hundred years ago, big events like the World’s Fair were announced with bold, artistic posters. That was the only way to catch someone’s eye on the street. Yet somehow, the Web 2.0 era sucked the life out of event promotion.  In the name of consistency, Eventbrite and Facebook caged events in uninspired templates. But if you’re throwing a big event, why would you want it to look like everyone else’s?

“I have been obsessed with the power of the live event since I can remember,” Hindman tells me. He believes the invitation website isn’t just an event’s first impression — it’s where the party starts and ends. It needs to be as unique and vibrant as the experience itself and should host memories of the moment afterwards.

As a founding member of invite-only getaway conference Summit Series and director of events at city guide site Thrillist, Hindman was charged with luring people out of their homes. Meanwhile, he noticed brands were having great success growing and delighting their customer bases through events. That’s when he had the idea for Splash, a way for anyone to build a gorgeous event website, manage attendees, and create a gallery of photos, videos, and other social media from the shindig.

It’s free to set up and host event sites on Splash. Users get full control of the background, fonts and color schemes, as well as where functional elements like talent bios, RSVP buttons, and ticket sales go. Attendees can check in on mobile when they arrive, and organizers can project a Splash-aggregated real-time stream of photos taken at the event and view analytics afterwards. Paid, à la carte Pro services include more customization, design assistance, email marketing, and on-demand support, because when it’s day-of-show, promoters need immediate help to save their sanity if something goes wrong. Splash’s “Hall Of Fame” of great event pages shows off what it can do.

In the two years since, Splash has stayed quiet refining its product despite explosive growth. The 80,000 event sites it hosted in 2013 drew 1.6 million attendees, and Splash processed $3.5 million in ticket sales. Through the 2% + $0.99 it charges for-profit companies to sell tickets processed through Braintree, it brought in $100,000 in revenue. That ticket fee is just a little lower than Eventbrite’s.

In 2014, Splash is expecting 5X that revenue. In fact it’s already booked $300,000 in revenue this year thanks to big enterprise deals with frequent event throwers like Anheuser-Busch, which is planning 60,000 events on Splash this year for its products like Budweiser beer. Facebook is even using Splash instead of its own events platform to promote parties at SXSW and developer meet-ups around the world. That’s a pretty solid endorsement.

On the back of this momentum, the 12-person startup  just closed a $1.5 million seed round from Maveron, Lerer Ventures, David Tisch’s BoxGroup, PROfounders, Red Sea Ventures, Great Oaks, and angels like Scott Belsky of Behance, former Facebook sales director Kevin Colleran, Hot Topic’s Eben Pagan, and Thrillist’s Jody Rones. That builds on the $240,000 convertible note it raised from BoxGroup in 2013.

Splash still has a long way to go before becoming a household name like Eventbrite, which is rocketing towards an IPO. It’s also competing in some ways with MailChimp on email marketing and NationBuilder for political events. But while Splash does sell tickets, its focus is more on free-to-attend branded events. That’s where the real opportunity is — companies with big budgets trying to make a big…splash. With great design, even something as low-key as a “public policy happy hour” can seem exciting.

Read the full article here: Techcrunch

When Airlines Screw Up Your Flight, AirHelp Gets You Paid

Uh oh! Your flight was overbooked. You’ve been bumped off the flight, and they can’t get you another ride for hours.

Surely, the airline has to give you something, right? But what? A drink voucher? A few extra inches of leg room on a future flight?

Try a couple hundred bucks. AirHelp (part of Y Combinator’s Winter 2014 class) exists to help you figure out when the airlines legally owe you money — and they don’t get paid unless you do.

AirHelp launched in Europe last year, where the company’s co-founders tell me they’ve helped “tens of thousands” of passengers in the past 6 months. Today they’re expanding their service to U.S. domestic flights.

While the dollar amount varies and the laws differ from place to place, airlines in both Europe and the US are often legally obligated to compensate a passenger whose flight they’ve screwed up. What they aren’t obligated to do, however, is go out of their way to make sure you go through the process. They’ll give you a piece of paper explaining your rights — but if you don’t catch the small print, they’re not going to point it out.

[A quick, simplified breakdown: for flights ending in Europe, airlines must compensate passengers whose flights are delayed, canceled, or overbooked. For domestic U.S. flights, airlines are only responsible when they've overbooked your flight and have to "bump" you. ]

In Europe, required compensation can go as high as €600 (roughly ~$800). In the US, the compensation can be as much as $1,300. It all depends on how much your original fare was and how quickly the airline was able to get you to your destination, but the rates are set in stone by the European/U.S. transportation departments. (Here are the relevant U.S. regulations and their European equivalents.)

In many cases, getting paid is just a matter of knowing the right phone number to dial, or the right form to fill out… and then being persistent. Really, really persistent.

That’s where AirHelp comes in. You give them the details of your flight, and they’ll check whether or not you’re legally owed any compensation. And if you are? You sign a PDF that gives them power of attorney (with regards to dealing with the airline), and they go hunting for the cash. If you end up getting paid, they keep 25% of it. And if you don’t? You pay nothing.

The company tells me that they’ve gone so far as to take an airline to court when said airline wasn’t following the laws — but even when they have to do that, the cut they take doesn’t change. “We might lose money in some cases,” co-founder Nicolas Michaelsen tells me, “but it sets a precedent that will pave the way for other similar cases. The airlines need to know it’s not okay.”

Of course, there’s a reason that the airlines might try to put up a fight: most of them aren’t doing too hot, financially. While things seem to be looking up, well over a dozen airlines have filed for bankruptcy in the last decade alone — and that’s with most of them already throwing in crazy fees at every opportunity. If everyone starts bangin’ down their door for this money, it’s easy to imagine ticket prices going up overall.

But the laws in place are there for good reason: it may work for a while, but the solution to an airline’s woes isn’t to screw the customer.

Read the full article here: Techcrunch

How You Can Choose the Perfect Music for your Meeting

Here is how to decide what music to play in your Meeting or Conference to help with brain-based learning. While you could use an endless number of criteria, these  are a good start. I recommend using an iPod with a Bose Sound Dock player. You get the best of all worlds.

1) State. What emotional state are you trying to elicit? Pay attention to what happens to your own body and mind as you listen to a song. Pay attention to the beats per minute (BPM). Songs in the 35- 50 BPM range will be more calming, while those in the middle 55-70 BPM will be more moderate for seatwork. For activities, the pace might be 70-100 and for energizers, maybe 100-160 BPM will REALLY rev it up.

The state is also the feelings you want to have within your participants. When participants complete an assignment, project or even a simple task, I want upbeat celebration music. When we are doing a class stretching or reflective writing, I want slower, uncluttered, calming music. When we are about to start out on a big task, I want inspirational, upbeat, even marching music. In short, use music as a second teacher in the classroom to support the mood.

2) Age of Listener. What generation am I working with? Stay within your generation! The way to decide is ask this simple question: If they’re adults, what music did they listen to in high school and college? If they’re age 14 or less, what are the current soundtracks to movies that are hot?

3) Type of Music. Do I use music with words or instrumentals only? In general, use words only if it’s for transitions, games that require them or special occasions. Most of the time, instrumentals are better. If you use only one kind of music you’re missing out on some great alternatives.

Read the full article here:
Eric Jensen Brain-Based Learning

Marriott Invests in Technology; Launches New Program for Meeting Planners

Yesterday, Marriott Hotels launched Meetings Imagined, a new program that aims to help meeting planners and hotel staff collaborate on event creation. Using an online platform, MeetingsImagined.com shares tips, trends, and images described as “inspirational” to spark creativity. Through the website, customers can collaborate with hotels to design custom events or view programs featured at the participating test hotels, as well as share images on social media sites, such as Pinterest and Facebook.

The site has images of experiences Marriott has hosted around the world as well as event tips such as icebreakers, food and music to set the mood. (“Tip:  Create plenty of breaks throughout the day. Research shows that the brain focuses better with several short breaks rather than a few long ones.”) Planners can tailor food and beverage, setup, technology and experiences based on the ultimate goals of each meeting, to design more inspiring and engaging experience for attendees.

“Attendees and planners are looking to be inspired,” Andrew Moffett, senior director of event management for Marriott, told International Meetings Review. “They’re looking for resources to go to and finding different ways to set up and execute meetings based on their needs. We’ve categorized what these look like for planners. They can go online and look through a library of photos to gain inspiration.”

The concept is the result of research that found key shifts in how planners work collaboratively and use technology. After speaking with next generation customers and analyzing more than 40,000 meetings hosted at Marriott’s hotels each year, the research team determined seven purposes for meetings: celebrate, decide, educate, ideate, network, produce and promote.

“We know every meeting has a purpose,” Moffett said. If a planner is looking to hold a training class, for example, the planner and a hotel’s event manager can collaborate through the Meetings Imagined program to create the right kind of environment that would promote higher learning engagement and retention. “We’re looking to co-create this with our customers who bring us meetings and the hotels that have been selected.”

Five Marriott hotels within the U.S. will test the new concept, including the Chicago Marriott O’Hare, Tysons Corner Marriott, Gaithersburg Marriott Washingtonian Center, Orlando World Center Marriott, and the Atlanta Marriott Marquis. The concept is also available in Europe at the London Marriott Grosvenor Square, Paris Marriott Rive Gauche, Munich Marriott Hotel and the Amsterdam Marriott Hotel and will expand to more Marriott Hotels in 2014.

See the full article on
International Meetings Review

10 Body Language Tips Every Speaker Must Know

We all know that when we give a presentation or speak in front of a group, not only are our words important, but the body language that accompanies them.

Your words may give the audience one message while your body sends quite another.

As if getting the words out wasn't hard enough, right?

An infographic from SOAP Presentations lists 10 body language tips to employ during your next presentation. These tips range from how to get the audience to like you, to how to make sure the audience remembers your key points.

For example:

1. To get the audience to like you, make eye contact. People tend to pay more attention to and like those who look them in the eye.

2. To boost your confidence, open your chest and arms, and keep your back straight.

3. To demonstrate authority, be calm and use small, stiff gestures.

4. To draw the audience's attention to something, point directly at it and look at it yourself. The audience will follow your lead.

5. To convince the audience of something, use positive gestures — smiling, nodding, open movements, etc. — throughout the presentation.

Check out the full graphic for more:

Read more: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/230253#ixzz2oNhquFjo

If it’s in the hotel room, it's a souvenir, right?

by Theodore Koumelis

More than two in three (70%) of British travellers admit to taking something from a hotel following their stay, with toiletries being the most popular pilfered items. Three in five (59%) UK hoteliers report that their guests often take a variety of items when they leave. However, the TripBarometer Truth in Travel survey reveals several discrepancies between what travellers say they take, compared to what hoteliers report missing from hotel rooms once guests depart.

“Shampoo is one thing, but please stop taking the towels!”
Guests are more likely to admit taking items that are customarily thought of as complimentary such as toiletries or stationery. However it seems some travellers feel that even the towels, light bulbs and batteries they find in their rooms are free for the taking as well.

Despite less than one in ten (7%) of global travellers, and just one in twenty (5%) British travellers, saying they have taken towels from hotel rooms, an alarming one in four hoteliers report towels going missing following a guest’s stay.

Some travellers have peculiar ideas about what makes a good travel memento – one in ten hoteliers report clothes hangers going missing and 7% have found the batteries removed from TV remote controls after guests check out.

Items travellers admit taking from hotels vs. what hotels report having been taken:

“If it’s free, it’s for me”
When it comes to the key motivators for choosing an accommodation, travellers around the world love a freebie. Over the past year, traveller interest in complimentary amenities has gone up, reinforcing the idea that one of the best ways for hoteliers to entice guests is to offer free services as part of the daily rate.

More than two in three (68%) British travellers now expect the hotel they choose to have free in-room Wifi.

What amenities global travellers expect from their accommodation in 2013 vs. 2014: “It seems some of us Brits are prone to stretching the bounds of what is a legitimate hotel freebie, but we’re not alone. Travellers from around the world are apparently pilfering items such as towels and clothes hangers, with US hotels the most likely to report these items missing,” commented James Kay, TripAdvisor spokesperson.

See the full article here:

http://www.traveldailynews.com/news/article/58125/ldquo-if-it-rsquo-s-in-the-hotel

UNWTO Volunteers promote tourism’s contribution to development

On International Volunteer Day (5 December), celebrated in 2011 under the theme ‘Volunteering Matters’, UNWTO is highlighting how tourism and volunteer work can make a difference through its UNWTO Volunteers.

UNWTO Volunteers work on tourism projects around the world, contributing to development through tourism. On International Volunteer Day, UNWTO Volunteers have been sharing their experiences and showing how their support to tourism projects in the world’s developing regions is helping to change lives (watch the video at http://vimeo.com/32914854 ).

Whether in Bhutan, Brazil, Guatemala or Niger, the UNWTO Volunteers all agree that tourism is having a positive impact on the local communities they work with, economically, socially and culturally. Tourism can be one of the most effective drivers of grassroots development and employment for developing countries, and volunteers are helping to make this potential a reality.  

UNWTO’s Volunteers programme, run by the UNWTO.Themis Foundation, counts on over 200 individuals who have received training in tourism as a tool for development. Many of these professionals, including the four in the video, go on to volunteer around the world, applying their training to benefit local communities.

See full article: UNWTO

Small encyplodia of travel errors

This is a recommendation for all German speaking readers (sorry for all others).

I stumbled upon this little booklet called «Kleines Lexikon der Reise-Irrtümer» while reading a newspaper.

The german travel author Nele-Marie Brüdgam has written this lovely booklet and gave an interview to the Swiss newspaper Tagesanzeiger lately.

Frau Brüdgam, wann wurde Ihr letzter Irrtum auf einer Reise entlarvt?
Kürzlich, im September, auf meiner letzten längeren Reise: zehn Tage Malta und Gozo.
Und, welchem Irrtum sind Sie damals aufgesessen?
Es waren mindestens drei Irrtümer: Erstens: Es ist sinnvoll, auf Malta einen Englischkurs zu belegen. Englisch ist zwar die zweite Amtssprache auf Malta, aber das maltesische Englisch klingt sehr eigenartig. Zweitens: Tauchen könnte ein nettes Hobby sein. Drittens: Malta hat angenehm warmes Wetter im Herbst.
Welches ist immer noch der am weitesten verbreitete Irrtum unter Touristen?
Meinem Empfinden nach gehören zum Beispiel die folgenden Irrtümer zu den am weitesten verbreiteten: Venedig ist völlig überteuert und viel zu touristisch. Die Franzosen sprechen keine Fremdsprachen. Fliegen ist gefährlich.
Warum halten sich die so hartnäckig?
Vielleicht, weil der Mensch gern das bestätigt sieht, was er erwartet. Und weil er die Gefahr liebt.
Den Fehleinschätzungen wollen Sie nun mit Ihrem «Kleinen Lexikon der Reise-Irrtümer» beikommen. Schaffen Sie das?
Das Buch liefert den Lesern sehr viele Infos und Fakten. Was aber noch wichtiger ist: dass jeder Leser seine eigenen Vorurteile hinterfragt, mit offenen Augen und wachem Geist auf Reisen geht. Und so seine eigenen Irrtümer entlarvt.

To see the full interview please visit the Tagesanzeiger. 

This interview was made by Daniel Arnet.

New rules for airlines kick in this week to protect fliers in the US

According to USA Today Travel, new federal rules designed to prevent long tarmac delays for international passengers, provide greater compensation if fliers are bumped off flights and make airlines better disclose extra fees take effect on Tuesday.

The consumer protection rules, from the Transportation Department, will:

•Let the department impose fines on U.S. and foreign airlines of up to $27,500 per passenger if they leave an international flight on a tarmac for more than four hours without taking off.

•Raise compensation if passengers are bumped from an oversold flight. They'd get double the price of their tickets up to $650 if their arrival at their destination is delayed just a few hours. Currently, compensation is equal to the ticket value, up to $400. Longer delays would trigger payments of four times the value of their tickets, up to $1,300. Currently, that compensation is capped at $800.

•Require airlines to prominently disclose all ancillary fees on their websites, including fees for checking bags, providing meals and canceling reservations.

The Transportation Department had proposed more rules. But the airlines complained they'd need more time to adapt to them. The department agreed to delay the following provisions until Jan. 24. The provisions require airlines to:

•Promptly notify passengers at the boarding gate, on airline websites and via their phone reservation systems of flight cancellations and delays of more than 30 minutes.

•Allow customers to cancel reservations without payment for at least 24 hours if they're made at least a week before departure.

•Include all government taxes and fees in advertised fares. Airlines typically exclude them.

•Not raise a fare after a ticket has been bought unless it's a result of government taxes and fees and the flier agrees to any increase.

To see the full report please visit USA Today Travel

An open letter to conference organizers by Scott Berkun

This post comes from Scott Berkun

Dear Conference Organizer:

For centuries you and your peers have helped spread good ideas. For that, I like you. Events are important and organizing them is a thankless job. I’ve run my share of events, so I know. But there is a unspoken, often forgotten, problem I’m compelled to bring to your attention: most speakers do a bad job.

Some of this is not your fault. Good speakers are hard to find, especially ones who are available, affordable, and reputable. It’s challenging to fill an afternoon with great speakers, much less a 5 day, 3 track program. But it’s commonly forgotten in your trade that speakers are the center of your event. They are the core of the agenda. They are what you advertise and what they promise to teach is why people pay to come. Yet once signed up to speak, they are often an afterthought, neglected and ignored.

There are simple and inexpensive ways to solve this problem.

1. Provide audience demographics. Make it easy for speakers to make the right assumptions about your audience. Give a sheet listing: age breakdown, job titles, gender breakdown, reasons for attending, and more. Most events have this information for marketing purposes, but rarely provide it to the speakers. This is dumb. The speakers make the product people are paying for (e.g. talks and workshops) and should be well informed about who the customers are. If nothing else providing this data reminds speakers it’s the audience that matters, not their egos.

2. Provide speaker training. There are many great books on public speaking and books are cheap. Send them to your speakers, and do it far enough in advance for it to impact their preparation. It signifies you care about their skills and want them to do their best. If even 20% of them read the book, and each avoid one basic mistake, it will pay off dramatically in higher quality sessions. Presentation Zen, which focuses on slide design, and my own book, Confessions of a Public Speaker, which covers everything else, make excellent companions. Major events and corporations hire speaker coaches, as speaking is a performance skill, but this can be expensive for large events. Books are an affordable place to start. Put this in a packet with #1, and send it out when you sign a speaker.

3. Send example videos from previous years. Talking about presenting and watching a good presenter present are different things. Give people a sense of what you, as an organizer, hope they achieve. It will also familiarize them with what attendees saw, and how they responded, in previous years.

4. Schedule a walkthrough / tech-check for each speaker. We know how fear works – unfamiliar rooms and spaces increase people’s nervousness. If you schedule a 15 minute slot early in the day, or the day before, for speakers to go to the room, try out their gear, and get comfortable, everyone wins. It’s also insurance against any compatibility issues (projectors vs. laptops), as there is nothing worse than discovering these problems in front of a live crowd. If you are not allowing speakers to use their own laptops (which is preferable), a walkthrough is extra important.

5. Have a volunteer in the room during the session. Every room should have a volunteer who can assist the speaker for any last minute needs or problems. This includes assisting with tech problems, getting water, helping with Q&A at the end and more. For a free ticket, many people will be happy to play this role, so everyone wins.

6. Provide confidence monitors in ever room. One distracting habit among many speakers is they look at their own slides, annoying the audience every time. Some of this is lack of practice, but part of the problem is room design. If you put a monitor in the front of the room, facing the speaker, so they can see their own slides while looking at the audience, everyone wins. It’s cheap to set up, has clear benefits and requires no extra work on the part of the speaker. Events like Ignite Seattle consistently do this, which helps explain why so many good talks have happened there.

7. Do not inflict a slide template on speakers. Attendees will remember where they are without an a reminder on every single slide in every single talk. Give a basic template to speakers as an option if you must, or as a head start for first time speakers, but that’s the limit of the value of slide templates. For whatever reason they tend to be ugly, confining, and just plain silly. A related suggestion: let speakers use their own laptops. Moving slide decks between computers often breaks fonts and other formatting, problems organizers rarely notice, but can be devastating to even a well prepared speaker.

8. Have a speaker’s dinner or happy hour. Have an evening early in the event where speakers can meet each other, and the organizers, and make some social connections. You want the speakers to be happy and friendly at the event, as it’s the interactions they have with your customers between sessions that are likely to be the most memorable for them. The more social you are with speakers, the more social they will be with your attendees. And some speakers are dying to meet some of the other speakers and that can only happen through you.

9. Rate your speakers and share the data. Speakers rarely get any useful feedback on how well they did. Everyone is polite and tells them they were great, even when they bombed. Most events do surveys after each session, but the data oddly never makes it to the speakers. This is broken. A simple stack ranking tells every speaker how they compared against their peers (e.g. “You were the 5th best speaker out of 10, based on audience surveys”) is a potent motivator for them to examine their skills, and to pay attention to what the better speakers did differently. Have a best session award, so everyone sees the feedback loop in action. UIE events even pays speakers a bonus that gets larger the better they scored. Shouldn’t pay be tied to performance for speakers too?

Please consider these simple things. You, your audience and your speakers all benefit at the same time. Perhaps you know better ways that the ones in this list – that’s fantastic and I’d love to hear about them, and I’d be happy to help promote their use to other organizers.

Signed,

- Scott Berkun, A speaker

See here the complete list: Scott Berkun's Blog

12 Great Sites to Improve Your Travel

The web has had a definite effect on the travel industry, enabling people to be their own travel agents. With the improvements in mapping technologies and the ability to share knowledge, it has never been easier to find the information you need regarding the places you want to see.

Here comes a great list from appstorm, and if you are looking up this website then you might find some other valuable tips and tricks there.

Enjoy and profit.

Keep Your Audience in Focus – 16 Resources for Effective Presentations

When going through all the effort to get in front of a crowd, you need to ensure that you communicate effectively. In the past decade, the majority of us have most likely had to sit through a bullet point infested presentation that completely failed to keep us engaged. Or worse, awake.

There are many aspects to giving a good presentation and being an engaging public speaker. The good news is that the web is full of good resources that can help us improve in these areas. By now, most presenters are aware that lots of text in your slides is a no-no and knowing your content is priceless. But even that isn’t enough.

Here are a list of resources list of resources that can help you take your talk to another level. Enjoy!

Google’s Proposed ITA Deal Has The Online Travel Industry Crying, “No Fair!”

Google’s proposed $700 million acquisition of flight data powerhouse ITA Software is running into some serious resistance from the online travel industry. A group of online travel companies including Expedia, Kayak, Travelocity, and TripAdvisor are lobbying the Justice Department to block the deal on antitrust grounds through an organization called FairSearch. Some of these companies were also behind competing bids for ITA Software which failed. Microsoft separately opposes the deal as well.

ITA provides flight data, schedules, fares, and availability to many of these travel sites, airline sites and Microsoft’s Bing search engine. The FairSearch coalition argues that allowing “Google could use ITA to try to marginalize competitors in ways that raise prices for consumers and limit innovation.” They fear that Google will use its search dominance to steer traffic away from their own sites and favor flight search on Google itself.

These fears are not completely unfounded. A lot is at stake here. Online travel is a huge business. It accounts for an estimated $80 billion in ecommerce sales, or 38 percent of all ecommerce last year (the biggest segment by far). It also contributed an estimated 6 percent of online advertising (and an estimated 8 to 10 percent of Google’s revenues). About two thirds of all travel plans start on a search engine, and FairSearch claims that more than 30 percent of all travel searches already start on Google.

Getting this deal through the Justice Department will be a big test for Google. For its part, Google responds that it will honor all of ITA’s existing contracts, won’t sell airline tickets, and it plans to keep sending traffic to travel and airline sites. The reason Google wants ITA is because flight search is broken and needs fixing.

But in order to fix flight search, Google will very likely try to keep people on Google longer before sending them off to a travel site. Just like the ITA-powered travel section of Bing today is a fully-functioning travel search engine until the last click to purchase, Google will likely move in a similar direction. The travel sites understandably don’t like the prospect of Google gaining even more control over their business.

As I’ve written before, the ITA deal represents a huge shift in strategy for Google towards more vertical search and a possble move from cost-per-click (CPC) to cost-per-action (CPA) advertising. What if Google starts charging travel sites a CPA bounty based on each ticket purchased instead of just for every click it sends? Google would make more money under such a scenario, and the travel sites would make less—but only if Google has good enough data to know which flights to show which travel seekers. That is why Google needs to own ITA and all of its data.

Does that raise antitrust concerns? Maybe. But it’s all hypothetical harm at this point. Only one thing is certain If Google gets this deal past the DOJ, you can expect a few more going after other online industry verticals, which in turn will change the Google search experience depending on the type of search you do.

This article is written by Erick Schonfeld of Techcrunch.

Advancing Tourism’s Response to Climate Change

Today I would like to bring a special paper to your attention:

From Davos to Copenhagen and Beyond:
Advancing Tourism’s Response to Climate Change
by the UNWTO

Tourism and travel is a vital contributor to the global economy and especially important for many developing countries. Tourism is an effective way of redistributing wealth and a catalyst for gender equality, cultural preservation and nature conservation. As a result, the sector is also contributing to the UN Millennium Development Goals.

Climate change is one of the most serious threats to society, the economy and the environment and has been an issue of international concern for decades. The Inter‐Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has reported that warming of the global climate system is “unequivocal” and that it is “very likely” that anthropogenic (human‐made) greenhouse gases (GHG) have caused most of the observed global temperature rise since the middle of the 20th Century. Ambitious emissions reduction
targets for developed countries and an effective framework that addresses the needs of developing countries are required.

Read the full paper here:
White paper