A veteran in the industry, Andrew Wood shares his insights into the industry. His writings are analytical and to the point giving us viewpoints from an experienced trade personality. He infuses his writings with his own personal unique style that draws the reader into arguments. Andrew is also General Manager/ Chaophya Park Hotel & Resorts and President-Skal Int'l Bangkok/ Skal Int'l Councillor-Thailand/ Area-Director of Development.
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Yep its official - the colour of the boardroom has definitely changed. Green is in!
No-one can escape the fact that caring for the environment not only makes sense but it also makes cent$.
Still only a trickle, but soon a stream of customers who will want to know what the travel & tourism industry is doing to protect this fragile planet for our children? The answer is not so easy, but those businesses that ignore this issue will definitely loose out if customer choice dictates a desire to support eco-friendly businesses. Companies appear to be queuing up to declare themselves neutral with zero carbon footprint emissions (offsetting their carbon emissions 100 %.) It certainly sounds appealing. Let’s face it, if we are enjoying ourselves and not adding to global warming, then it certainly has a ‘feel good’ factor that money can buy.
Hotels have been conscious of the need to go green for years and many lead the pack. Undertaking many of the best sustainable practices, such as energy saving and promoting the four pillars of sustainable tourism, namely: Recycling, Reducing and Reusing and Replacing. More and more corporate leaders are pledging to fight the climate crisis, reaping huge social and financial rewards with green strategies and enacting comprehensive environmental policies. Its time to get your company to make the same commitment!
To help Skal International has just released a booklet entitled Tips for Sustainable Tourism. It’s a small easy read booklet, to get a FREE copy log onto www.skal.org or email skal@skal.org.
When I was young enough to attend lectures, I was taught about the four P’s of marketing. You know the Price, Product, Place, Promotion kinda thing.
Actually we didn’t really need to know that from the lecturer we tended to find that out out every time we went down to the local market. Here, like everywhere, price is a crucial piece of information when deciding whether to purchase or not. But how many times do try to buy something but you can never get to the bottom line? Is it really a secret?
Low cost airlines and hotels (hopefully not mine!)....are particularly bad.
I was recently interested to buy a wine-by-the-glass dispensing machine, for our new lobby bar. The savings on spoilage, over pouring combined with increased sales from an attractive display, with wines in perfect condition and at the perfect temperature appealed to me. My only draw back, the sales manager simply would not give me the price. He said it depends...on many factors. But I only wanted one and I didn’t want all the fancy add-ons like computerized sales analysis and others. So please the price…how much is it?
“Sorry I can’t tell you… it’s like buying a car or a house”, the sales man said.
NO it isn’t! Even with my car and apartment I knew the price, then weighed up the market and made a purchasing decision which included the cost!
I guess when someone doesn’t want to tell you outright, what the price of something is, they either think it is too expensive themselves, or they believe that it is such poor value that they don’t have the confidence to sell the product.
This is not quite the case with low cost airlines. Here the trick is trying to avoid saying the true price to make it appear VERY good value. So the price is x but fuel surcharge is y and tax is z. You are left to add it all up. So what looked attractive to get your attention, which is after all the key, now feels like you were ripped off. Not a good marketing feeling at all.
So please can we get back to good old fashioned pricing…the price you see is the price you pay. No one likes nasty surprises…we have enough of those THANK YOU!
Andrew Wood | 
