Tweets and the Hotel Traveler in 2020

@LoyaltyTraveler ‘Halfway through this post I get to Hotel Traveler 2020 – please read entire message’

This past weekend I spent time at the Las Vegas Convention Center with a few thousand bloggers from around the USA and the globe convening for BlogWorld08.  What an eye-opener to the future of social media and mass communication! 

Have you “tweeted” someone today? 

If you are over the age of 40 you probably have no idea what that means.  Go ask someone under 30 to tell you about the social networking tool, Twitter, or brush up on your Wikipedia knowledge here because Dictionary.com doesn’t yet state this new “verb” meaning in its definition list for tweet.

Read Oliver Mark’s story, “Apple Founder Steve Wozniak Interview, Answers Your Tweeted Questions,” and you will get an idea of how most of the dialogue at the BlogWorld08 workshops was generated between workshop panelists and the audience sitting in the room.

In a workshop I attended Sunday one woman made the comment – speaking into the microphone from the stand in the center room aisle – she felt she was one of only three people who hadn’t “tweeted” during the conference. 

I was # 2 on that list.

@LoyaltyTraveler ‘Mike Shinoda is sitting behind me at the Blogger Credibility workshop.  Cool’

What does all this social media have to do with hotels and the Hotel Traveler in 2020?

Jitendra Jain, Starwood Hotels e-commerce manager in Dubai, has an interesting article in HotelMarketing.com – “Back to the Future: Meet the Hotel Guest of 2020” – on the role of the hotel guest in the ‘Hospitality Renaissance” of the coming decade.

“My stay. My choice.”

Yesterday I posted about Homewood Suites web technology allowing the guest to pre-select a hotel room prior to arrival.  Wouldn’t it be great to have the ability to pick your own hotel room like we can with airline seats?

“I stay. I sell.”

I also posted yesterday about a FlyerTalk thread discussion containing a list of the ‘Best Hilton Hotels in Europe’ and then went off on a tangent about Dresden, Germany.  Perhaps some day someone will make a decision to go to Dresden or read a Kurt Vonnegut book based on my post.  Social networks are influential in helping us decide what to do with our lives.  We are interconnected, but in a fragmented way. 

Corporate marketers are realizing the influential nature of social networking and looking for ways to monetize the medium.  I’m looking for ways to monetize myself.  The two objectives are not necessarily at odds with each other. 

I am a consumer advocate for getting value for the money you spend on hotel travel.  My experience has shown me hotel loyalty programs add value to hotel stays.  160,000 members on FlyerTalk convinces me there are many others who also find value in travel loyalty programs.

As JJ describes the Hotel Traveler 2020, “Why should I trust all the hype, marketing and advertising when I have perfectly good friends & like-minded acquaintances who’ve been there, done that?”

The same e-newsletter of HotelMarketing.com has this Hyatt Place article, “Creating the ideal hotel for today’s plugged-in traveler“.  The piece reads like corporate marketing.  Alison Kal, VP of Hyatt Hotels states, “We developed a comprehensive understanding of the mindset and habits of contemporary travelers and used that knowledge to create an experience that fosters guests’ satisfaction.”

Makes me want to go to a Hyatt Place tonight.

Seriously though, I really like Hyatt Place hotels.   My first stay at a Hyatt Place hotel had the consequential effect of winning free tickets to see Bruce Springsteen.  Amenities like a 42-inch flat screen TV that actually has HDTV service (at least in Fremont, CA), a large couch, a work desk, free internet access at a hotel computer station or free wireless throughout the hotel, and a lobby cafe for sandwiches and packaged food for a traveler who is running out of the hotel to the airport at the last minute.  These hotel features work for me.

Many of the 115 hotels in the USA have room rates under $75 all-in which makes Hyatt Place an incredible deal for earning Faster Free Nights over the next few months.

@ LoyaltyTraveler ‘I stay. I sell.’