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Quote of the Day no. 3

Heaven Is...
Hilarious Quote on T-Shirt

Heaven is where the police are British, the chefs are Italian, the Mechanics German, the lovers French and it is all organized by the Swiss.

Hell is where the police are German, the chefs British, the mechanics French, the lovers Swiss and it is all organized by the Italians.

Unfortunately for the creator I forgot where I found this.

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Happy Hotelier?s Most Popular in May 2008

I know. there is a WordPress plug in somewhere out there, but after a month of futzing around with Woopra, such list is easy to export from Woopra for a certain period of time. Here you go:

  1. Istanbul Museum of Modern Art: Times Present Times Past There is a lot more to be said about Istanbul Modern.
  2. Hilarious: Judge in The Hague fines Blogger for ranting about Dutch Telecom Company Call Center Employee. Unfortunately, forced by the judgment, the journalist in question had to take the content entirely from the internet.
  3. My Page: Unusual Hotels. The first one that concerns my main focus: Luxury and unusual hotels.
  4. Some Concerns about Tips From The T-List. After some initial stirring of the pot, everybody is submerged in and back to his/hers own business again. See the Facebook page:Tips from the T-List Redoux.
  5. To Sexy to Fly?. Yes! At first I was hesitant about this post, but sex does sell. Even Loic Lemeur realizes this as he advertises his seesmic with sexy videos. Pity nobody clicks my Too sexy too Fly Update where Kyla Ebbert appears to have landed a Playboy photo shoot. It does me remember I should do another update…
  6. Street Art (1) Istanbul Cow Parade.
  7. Dutch Design 12:The New Heineken 5 L DraughtKeg: Very handy for a beach party!
  8. My page: T-List and L-List.
  9. Many visitors want to know about me.
  10. Yotel goes to Amsterdam Airport (Schiphol) and Yotel Gatwick’s First Guest reviews.

Quote of the Day no. 2

?We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit.?

Aristotle

Via Zen Habits

Street Art (4): The Berlin Billboard Single Room Pod Hotel Visited

When I wrote about this now closed Berlin object of art/experimental one room billboard hotel in December 2007, I didn’t imagine that people would actually sleep in it. I visited it in March when I was in Berlin for ITB Berlin. Henri Roelings, who is one of the guys behind WiWiH (Who Is Who In Hospitality) had booked it during ITB Berlin and had actually slept in it a during ITB Berlin.

The Berlin Billboard Single Room Pod Hotel Visited By Happy Hotelier

On the corner of Kommandantenstrasse and Neue Gruenstrasse one finds this billboard that hides the hotel room behind it. The room has no windows, so it is definitely a room without a view.

The Berlin Billboard Single Room Pod Hotel Visited By Happy Hotelier 02

Henri commented that when he stayed in the room, he had slept very comfy,but he was a little bit afraid that people could easily fire him up by making a fire under the room. Luckily the giant steel watchdog opposite of the hotel room has been watching over his safety.

Berlin Billboard Single Room Pod Hotel Visited By Happy Hotelier 02

Henri had the ladder to enter the room so that he could advertise WiWiH.

Berlin Billboard Single Room Pod Hotel Visited By Happy Hotelier 03

Once entering the hotel room I was surprised to find a real bathroom. There was water for the wash bin and the shower via a reservoir. There was a chemical toilet and there was electricity.

Berlin Billboard Single Room Pod Hotel Visited By Happy Hotelier 04

Here you can see that you could hang your clothes, had a TV set and a drawer chest and an easy chair. All very doable.

Berlin Billboard Single Room Pod Hotel Visited By Happy Hotelier 05

The Guest Book

Not only the hotel room is artsy. According to the Guest Book its guests are artsy a well and they liked it!

Berlin Billboard Single Room Pod Hotel Visited By Happy Hotelier 06

This Swiss comment reads: “First sushi, then Victoria, thereafter Paul and finally here: Reason: Birthday!”

OMG: Earthquake in Reykjavik, Iceland

After trying to get some things done and staying away from Twitter this week a bit, I just logged on and got a first hand report from my Blogging friend Hjortur Smarason of Marketing Safari that Reykjavik just had a 6.7 Richter scale earthquake.

Twitter Over Capacity

I am almost certain Twitter is not over its capacity because of this earthquake. It is fluttering for some weeks now already.

I am experimenting away to get a decent screen shot from the conversation. Just to be able publish quickly I’ll give some links to Kwout:

Kwout 1

Kwout 2

Hjortur on twitter via kwout

Am I saved by the bell?

Maybe: The point is this: Hjortur asked me two weeks ago, if I would be interested to go on a Cruise in Iceland and blog about it. I had to decline because right now I am much too busy and also because my readership just from the Netherlands is a bit too small…..It just might not be interesting enough for his client. His relating post is this one: A Great Opportunity for Travel Bloggers

Constance who he is referring to is one of the two lady Bloggers of the Dutch Blog Vakantie Blogo who I introduced to him and who went in my place. Sorry Constance!

Update:

And here a first picture of what happens at such earthquake:

Firts Picture of Iceland Earthquake Result

Source:MBL

Update 2:

Constance reported already extensively about her trip in Dutch:

  1. IJsland
  2. IJsland
  3. Voordelig naar IJsland
  4. Cruise op IJsland>
  5. Boutique Hotel in Reykjavik I envy her for being able to review that
  6. Reis naar IJsland
  7. Cruise in IJsland
  8. Blue Lagoon

Well done Constance!

Update 3: 01.30 AM Local Time

Funny to see that I beat CNN by approx 4 hrs. Strange way of storing their stories here at CNN they quote me under From the Blogs.

Stay in Frank Lloyd Wright?s Davidson House

That’s a good idea: Open an architectural monument for a stay! Then you can enjoy the look and feel of the creation of the architect.

Davidson House Buffalo By Frank Lloyd Wright 02

The Davidson House in Buffalo, US, a design of America’s foremost Arts and Craft movement architect Frank Lloyd Wright is open for a stay with a minimum of 2 nights.

Happy Hotelier?s High Five No 1: about Tagging your Photos, Word of Mouth and Twitterati

Travel Blog Carnival Venetian Logo
Old Logo for Happy Hotelier’s High Five…
until I find a better one. Claude maybe?

General
I read many Blogs and share many posts in my news feed reader. You can find my scraps in the widget in my sidebar or at Happy Hotelier’s Shared Items.

I have dutifully reported about developments in the Travel Bloggers world, You can find those at my t-list category and some of it on my t-list page.

Travel Blog Carnivals

I have also dutifully reported about and about Travel Blog Carnivals. You can find these reports in my Travel Blog Carnival tag.

Thus far I was able to pinpoint the following Travel Blog related carnivals:

If I am missing some I would like to know!

Happy Hotelier’s High Five.

I believe it is time to start my own variation on a Travel Blog Carnival and I have coined it: Happy Hotelier’s High Five, because:

A high five is a celebratory gesture made by two people, each raising one hand to slap the raised hand of the other ? usually meant to communicate mutual satisfaction to spectators or to extend congratulations from one person to another. The arms are usually extended into the air to form the “high” part, and the five fingers of each hand meet, making the “five”, thus the name.(High Five on wikipedia)

I will not publish it on a scheduled date. I will publish it each time when I have found five persons or sites or posts that I deem worthy a High Five. It even will imply me echoing old news.

If you want to draw my attention to a post you may e-mail me at gje[at]hetnet.nl or give me a message at Twitter

My High Five no 1 are for:

  1. Todd Lucier of Internet Marketing For Tourism for Upload Photos Correctly 10 Tips more Hits. Very important not only for “ordinary” (static) site owners, but also for Bloggers: If you name and tag your photos creatively, then your visibility gets a boost. This is also important because now I have Woopra for a week or three and see that more than 50 % of the referrals to Happy Hotelier are by image searches, rather than keyword searches.
  2. Set Godin who makes you think about word of mouth as he always make you think: Why Word of Mouth doesn’t Happen.
  3. Hjortur Smarason of Marketing Safari, because:
    1. He is the only one I know of thus far who Twittered just before and after his son was being born. Congrats! Maybe a first on Twitter?
    2. He is one of the first marketeers who really takes travel bloggers serious and who set up his client with a couple of bloggers going on a cruise with the intent of getting good coverage off course: A Great Opportuni...

Some Concerns about Tips From The T-List

Tips From The T-List Banner

After three conferences with dedicated sites, the initiators of Tips from the T-List decided to start a more permanent site.

The site and its lay out need urgent attention imo!

  1. My main complaint is that the RSS feeds don’t work as they should: During a certain period of time they produced duplicate content. That has been taken care of in the meantime. The feeds are intentionally delayed. However to me it seems that the feeds are not added automatically with a delay of one or two days, while I believe they should. The time lag is so big the Blog loses momentum.
  2. Contributers to the site should be able to withdraw posts they deem less suited to publish over at Tips from the T-List.
  3. Contributers to the site should be able to edit posts. I understand the need of some over all editing of the site, but it is clear from looking at the site for some time now that the editors have very little time available for the editing;
  4. The navigation of the site needs attention, because it is not easy to wade through. I don’t like the difference between tabs and categories. Throughout the site there is no consistency.

All in all Tips From The T-List doesn’t take off as it should. Presently there are only 30 some travel related bloggers putting together their content. WiWiH has travel blogging as a lesser priority than its other activities and therefore was not chosen to act as a platform for the Tips from the T-List posse. Nevertheless WiWiH performs far better better imo. It gives you a clear overview of some travel blogging.The new startup Alltop’s Travel Alltop with currently 81 Blogs featured even gives a far better overview.

The income from the site

The initiators have announced that all income from the site goes to a good cause. I am glad they announced that. No fear anymore that they will earn some Adsense cents over my content. However I was not asked neither informed on beforehand that they would open up the site for advertising. Maybe I don’t like advertising at all….

The various agendas from Travel Bloggers

During ITB Berlin Bloggers summit it became apparent to me that the initiators of Tips From The T-List have their own limited area of interest, which is internet marketing for travel. I have a feeling that their main aim is to convince travel providers that they should listen to and engage travel bloggers as a marketing tool. There is nothing against that idea, but I am afraid that when one looks at the huge reservoir of thousands of Travel Bloggers, they forget they could make a far bigger Travel Community than Tips From the T-List is doing presently and consequently are losing big opportunities and huge momentum.

In my prior post I noted that Hotel Blogs Org, another Travel Bloggers aggregator presently seems to be hacked. I am sure the participants won’t like to be part of that. I wouldn’t. However Hotel Blogs seemed becoming a far better sharing tool than Tips From The T-List is at present.

Some Travel Bloggers don’t want to be part of Tips From The T-List because they are afraid they might jeopardize their Google ranking.

Some other Travel Bloggers don’t want to be part of Tips From The T-List, because direct competitors of them are behind the site.

It is my strong conviction that Blogging is sharing and not only sharing what you deem in your own commercial interest. I myself for instance have blogged about a fellow small hotel that blatantly had stolen the look and feel of the website of my own hotel. In another instance I have written about the opening of another hotel that is a direct competitor. A Blogger should be as impartial as possible without becoming impersonal.

Dear Friends can’t we finally bridge these gaps?

Finally we should reconsider its name: T-List
While every startup nowadays seems to reconsider its name, I suggest we reconsider T-List as a name for a posse of Travel Related Bloggers.

Create a Google alert for “T-list” and see what happens: All sorts of post are reported by Google:
Sh*t List
I don’t list
won?t list
didn?t list
can’t list
doesn’t list
weren?t? list

Beware: Hotelblogs.org Hacked!

http://www.hotelblogs.org/

:: Hacked by Dengesiz Team :: via kwout

Update May 20, 2008
In order to prevent confusion: Hotelblogs.org is not my site. I was checking it out and found this screen. Whatever it means this Turkish group wants to achieve. It seems the site owner is sound asleep. Also I wanted to share me finding Kwout which is a nice little thing to create screenshots and is now available as an add on for FireFox.

Latest update May 20, 2008
And they are back online fixed and all and only after one night’s sleep:-)

Winding Down from ITB Berlin part 2: The Travel Bloggers

I have to get this post off my chest, be it for mere reference for myself, but also as preparation for the tagging of the many photos I took and uploaded already.

Here are the travel bloggers that were listed for the Berlin ITB Bloggers summit: