As a die-hard music aficionado, wannabe DJ, and devoted fan of chillout music, probably the hardest part opening my hotel will be creating the playlist.

That’s why when I heard about Ambiance Radio – a company co-founded by Bradley Newberger that turns background music into a science – I knew I had to learn more. His claim?

“It doesn’t matter whether you personally like the music or not”

“We’re building a 21-st century solution for background music. The fundamental way the industry thinks about music is wrong – it’s too often based on personal tastes. Personal tastes are so subjective. When you play to what the manager thinks guests should hear, the result is rarely what it could be.”

Bradley’s story begins when he was a senior student at Cornell University, working as a new manager for Taverna Banfi – the restaurant attached to the Statler Hotel (Cornell’s teaching laboratory for the hotel school). A few years ago, they completely renovated the restaurant to feel like a Tuscan-style bistro, and it looked fantastic. But the music was left untouched: a 5-disc CD changer played random tracks from Italian opera CDs. Consistently, the comment cards showed earned lower scores than any other element of the customer experience. So when Bradley became a manager, one of the first tasks was to fix the music.

He looked at the options that were available. Everyone’s first reaction is to program an iPod themselves, but this takes a really long time to do. Plus, it gets repetitive if this list never changes. A few high-end boutique firms specialize in creating playlists that reflect the personality of the hotel, but their approach is still based on personal tastes and preferences. They ask “What do you want the room to sound like or feel like,” and then a DJ will create a playlist based on these preferences.

This started Bradley on a quest to find more a more objective way to program music, which a couple of years later became Ambiance Radio.

Music can achieve business objectives

“In developing our company, we applied the findings of decades of academic and scientific research into how music affects the way people feel and behave.  Time after time, researchers found that music has a profound business effect on the environment. The right music could increase F&B revenues from 5 to 20%, depending on the time of day and music tested. In a lobby, music can make waiting in line feel shorter than it actual is – or reduce the time is seems it takes to retrieve your car at the valet. Music triggers a chemical reaction in the brain that changes perceptions.

Perhaps as importantly, music plays a big role in employee performance. The brain gets most engaged when it hears different types of music back to back. Productivity can be increased with the right mix.

The missing element until now: Technology

Technology is a key part of the Ambiance Radio platform. “We looked at what types of music achieved desired effects in the hospitality environment. We developed an algorithm that factors in who is in the room, what are the psychographics – and what the business objectives are there and created a series of proprietary processes that can deliver the Right Music for each venue, varying it day by day, hour by hour as needed. We capture data for each property in an interview and then the technology take over from there. Our system creates and delivers customized feeds for each site and updates them hourly.”

Surprising opportunity: Limited service hotels

I love talking about experience design and experience marketing on this blog, but sometimes get pushback from the owners of limited service hotels. “We can’t afford to spend money on things like that!” But as I wrote in Why Hotel Design Directly Affects The Prices You Can Charge, design and experience elements are what separates a $49 hotel room from an $800 room. Music is another key element in experience design.What’s interesting is that Bradley has seen a lot of initial traction with limited service hotels already.

“Music is something you can instantly put in and change the feel of the room. People walk in and when you see their expressions, you know they had a different experience.” Many limited service hotels play TVs in the lobby – but TVs are a poor way to introduce your guests to the hotel. “Guests come from all walks of life, and when you think about the political environment of today (for example), so-called centrist news organizations can lean one way or the other, and this can cause people to be emotionally involved. Changing the soundscape to music can affect a profound change on the environment.”

“There’s a profound difference between the music you play in the foreground in your home or office and the music that is best to play in the background of a hotel. In the foreground, you’re thinking about whether you like the song. But for background music, it’s not about what you personally like. It’s about what experience is best for the demographics and business objective you want to achieve in the space.”

“Music is for the guests in the room, and not your personal enjoyment.”

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Thanks, Bradley! For more information, visit AmbianceRadio.com

Martin Soler told me something that caught my attention: “In my opinion, hotel design is worth at least 40% of a property’s marketing value.” As he is someone who manages the marketing for some of the trendiest hotels in Europe, I value his opinion. In this guest article, Martin explains how he came to this conclusion.

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What are the main factors that increase your sales on the internet and how can you control them? Once you’ve mastered your occupancy what can you do to increase your revenues?

These are classic questions and there are several answers. Some of the first re-actions to increasing revenues (and specifically profits) is to look at how to reduce OTAs and other commissioned agencies. While this is often necessary, increasing the customer experience is sometimes more important.

Interior design may or may not affect occupancy (it can help but there are more factors to that) but it makes all the difference in the ADR.

When we strip it down a hotel is a room with a bed and a place to wash. Now the price someone will pay for that may be enough to pay the rent but that will be about it. The added value of any hotel rests on interior design as the only visual factor. The other factors of location and service do play an important role – but they’re not that easy to display on the internet.

There is a quote from Steve Jobs that I think quite applies to this (and no I am not an Apple fanboy) which may illustrate exactly that relationship between OTA and interior design.

“A lot of companies have chosen to downsize, and maybe that was the right thing for them. We chose a different path. Our belief was that if we kept putting great products in front of customers, they would continue to open their wallets.” - Steve Jobs

Now improving interior design doesn’t necessarily mean shutting down the hotel for two years, hiring a famous designer and spending 10 million dollars. (If you can do that however, I’d say do it!) Hotels like Hotel Albus in Amsterdam or Hotel Taylor in Paris have redone their interiors for much less money by refurbishing the rooms with new furniture, improving the floors, upgrading the bathrooms and that can be done entirely without shutting down the hotel and spending millions.

When I took over the management of Hotel Taylor in Paris several years ago the hotel was just wrapping up a complete refurbishment but spending less than 500,000 EUR for 37 rooms. The result on the ADR was immediate, because with great photos and a brand new website the hotel could present the rooms and show that an excellent experience.

The ADR went from 65 EUR to 110 EUR a night in about 12 months, and we kept the same occupancy rate over the year. Of course there are points like increasing the service, getting a great online reputation etc.

But with internet being the main channel for hotel distribution your biggest asset is images, each great photo of your hotel is worth 1000 words in text and that could even be an understatement.

Try to explain your amazing service in words on your website, it’s just not going to convince people to stay there. But a couple of great photos change everything.

So while you may not be able to pay for Christian Lacroix or Jacques Garcia to come redesign your hotel you most definitely can upgrade the hotel on a gradient, floor by floor and start selling at much better prices.

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Thanks, Martin!

You can see the original post on Martin’s hotel marketing blog.

[Top photo credit: HotelDesign.nu]

La Maison Champs-Elysées has a privileged location in the Golden Triangle area on the right bank of Paris. Situated just blocks away from the Champs-Elysées, the hotel feels like a world away: it’s quiet enough to hear birds singing in the morning.  A complete refurbishment of the property began in October 2010 on this former Sofitel hotel, with re-design led by the renowned fashion house Maison Martin Margiela. The hotel managers hosted me in Paris recently, and shared a bit about what this partnership means for their hotel and the hospitality industry in general.

The goal of the renovation at La Maison Champs-Elysées was to give guests the experience of having a luxurious city home. “Some hotels are places to see and be seen, but the concept of La Maison was to provide a place to get away and have privacy,” hotel director Hugues Godard told me.

The new interiors clearly show the distinctive style of Martin Margiela. A signature pure, white design theme pervades the building. Striking minimalism is balanced with design touches that pay tribute to the heritage of the building. While Martin Margiela has worked on individual hotel suites in the past, La Maison Champs-Elysées is their first complete hotel project.

The advantages of this partnership

By partnering with Maison Martin Margiela, the owners of La Maison Champs-Elysées receive a number of key benefits.

Instant credibility. Partnering with a leading fashion house provides credibility within the industry and for their discerning clients.

Improved guest experience. Experience design is an increasingly important discipline in hotel marketing, and the design of a hotel plays a large role in the guests experience.

Increased word of mouth. This credibility and lifestyle branding leads to more online buzz and media attention. Through this partnership, it’s more likely for the hotel to get attention outside of just travel media: many design, architecture and lifestyle media outlets are also picking up their story.

High fashion enters the hospitality industry

“There are natural affinities between lifestyle hotels and fashion brands.” – Bjorn Hanson, New York University

La Maison Champs-Elysées seems to be a part of a trend we’ve seeing around the world over the past few years. Other fashion houses are experimenting with hotel concepts. Armani opened hotels in Dubai and Milan. Versace has hotels in Australia and Dubai. Even Tommy Hilfiger has begun a hotel project converting a New York building into a luxury hotel.

Great design is a huge element in the guest experience, and for the always-connected customer, experience serves as the new marketing. It will be interesting to see La Maison Champs-Elysées fully open this Monday, and watch this part of the industry evolve even more in the years ahead.

Thanks to Martin Soler and Hugues Godard for their help in creating this story.

Music and other multimedia content can be an important part of experience design, and thanks to Michael I’ve become aware of a few ways this could work.

Pandora and Spotify playlists

What originally caught Michael’s attention was how the Wanee Music Festival was doing this – creating a custom Pandora playlist for fans of the event. Clearly, this could work just as well for lifestyle hospitality brands as it does for music festivals. I see opportunities for different types of hotel playlists: ones that highlight the best local artists, and ones that reflect the type of ambiance you’re trying to create.

In Europe, Spotify is the music suggestion tool of choice – and Staying Cool has created playlists on the site for their Birmingham property.

YouTube playlists

Earlier this year, YouTube introduced video playlists. (You can read the tutorial here) This could be helpful for not only a series of videos touring your hotel property and surrounding area, but also for linking a collection of stories.

It seems hotels have yet to really explore the opportunity here. How could you extend your brand experience by curating music and video content?

Share any examples you know in the comments below.

Last night I was talking with the founder of a hospitality group in Barcelona, and we were thinking about how to WOW guests. (Which I always write in uppercase, because it’s a concept more than an emotion. It’s the constant pursuit of going above and beyond the average.)

There are basically two ways of doing this: expected WOW and personalized WOW.

Expected WOW is something you’d use in your marketing. It’s what people read on your website and hear from others online. Whether it’s the design of the Burj Al Arab in Dubai, the amenities at a Kimpton property, or the service at a Four Seasons – people arrive expecting an extraordinary experience. (And failure to consistently meet these expectations would cause disappointment.)

Unexpected WOW is usually the result of attentive staff thinking quickly and creatively. Chip Conley writes in Peak about how Joie De Vivre encouraged bellhops and other front-line staff to listen for clues about the purpose of a guests’ visit, then provide unexpected service based on that. The advantage to this is that even the tiniest gestures can surprise and delight your guests.

We’re seeing more and more experience designers pursuing WOW through various ways like this, but Ritz Carlton was one of the pioneers. Every staff member at every Ritz Carlton in the world gets together each morning to share a story of when a member of the team went out of their way to create a WOW experience.

How do you design and encourage WOW service?

After reading John’s article, Have it Your Way, I knew I needed to bring him on here to talk about creating a personalized guest experience. John Hendrie has a significant amount of experience in the hotel business, and currently helps companies enhance their online reputation through Hospitality Performance. Listen to our conversation:

Call Summary

02:01
JM: How would you define remarkable hospitality?

02:05
JH: I think that’s got a number of components. Probably the two key components are sensitivity to your audience and the other piece would be engaging that audience that you wish to serve. And what makes it remarkable is how you merge and marry and blend the two to create something that is very different and very distinctive. That’s what makes it remarkable.

02:41
JM: I hear a lot of talk about designing “guest experience” from consultants, agencies and hoteliers. What in your mind is wrong about the way hotels are currently designing their guest experience? What do you think is missing?

02:57
JH: I think we’re in the midst of some pretty interesting times, and I think what’s happened in the last — probably 2-3 years — and will continue to evolve is the whole, I guess, outlook of and consideration of what the hotel experience should be. I think before the recession, it was kind of happy-go-lucky; people were just spending without being very attentive. I think hotel properties became devalued in terms of the experience.

When new hotels were being developed it was still the cookie-cutter kind of approach, and then all of a sudden, wham. You had the recession. And it’s the old story: out of the ashes will rise the successful properties, and I think we’re really starting to see that for hotels. You know, from what I’ve been reading, it’s gonna be into the smaller properties who are the real winners in lifestyle, lifestyle and value.

04:10
JM: How do you define “lifestyle”? I’m very interested in moving us away from the cookie-cutter approach to hotels, but is this only a design issue? Are there some staffing and training factors at play here?

04:33
JH: It’s the whole ball of wax. As I said, an evolution. And the operators who understand that would be very successful, while as the operators who try to maintain what has been in place simply will… will fail. In my eyes, it’s pretty cut and dry. Unless all of a sudden we have huge, huge, prosperity again across the board, and I don’t think that’s gonna happen. And then people tend to forget and they settle.

05:12
JM: So what does the traveler of today expect? How can we actually go beyond their expectations and really delight and wow them?

05:20
JH: Like I said, and I think this recession really created a pretty significant belweather, if you will. Up to that point I think, sadly, our travelers were really dumbed down and they were excited when somebody smiled at them, if someone gave them eye contact, and if the food they ordered was what they ordered and was hot, if it was supposed to be hot. So they were just kind of settling, if you will. And to hoteliers and restaurateurs, that was just fine because they were still making money.

So I think nowadays what has really changed in the make up of your traveler — those who are traveling — is they are very distinctly looking for value. They very distinctly are not settling for second best.

High on their agenda is a good quality, valued experience versus what they would’ve expected three or four years ago. What delights them is a whole other, you know what I mean. We’re talking about this whole evolution. What probably disgusted them or they accepted three or four years ago, as I said, was really a low level of attention and service.

And once again, the savvy operators moving into 2011 and beyond, they’re gonna be very attentive to simple things, just simple courtesy. That has a premium nowadays and you just don’t see it in the marketplace. You don’t see it in your hotels, you don’t see it in your restaurants, you don’t see it at your pharmacies, you know, or at your dry cleaner. So I mean now there’s some very simple things that have real currency nowadays that just aren’t gonna cost an arm and a leg to put into place.

I think you’re gonna have, once again, successful operators needing to really define what their mission is, what their story is, and blending that with what they know about either their current audience or the audience they seek in order to create that memorable experience. So there’s gonna be some new definition out there on the landscape.

08:06
JM: For hotels trying to reach the value-oriented guest of today, it’s not all about slashing rates; it’s about providing an extra level of service that makes the guest feel special and cared for.

08:19
JH: Absolutely. You know, make me feel respected. Make me feel loved.

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The rest of this transcript is available to our Insider’s Circle partner hotels only. Please sign in to access the complete interview. If you haven’t yet brought me on your team, you should see the details of my Insider’s Circle program.

When you buy a product at an Apple Store, there’s a good chance they’ll complete the transaction on a mobile device where you are.

Savvy hotels are bringing this concept out of retail to their properties. Someone walks the guest in, completing the check-in process along the way.

In this week’s episode of This Week in Hotels, Guillaume and I discussed some of the changes Hyatt is introducing for their Andaz brand – explained by Barbara De Lollis in this article for USA Today:

Andaz hotels do away with the big, iconic front desks, which were created more than a century ago when hotels looked for a way to secure customers’ cash, Hanson says. When guests walk into an Andaz, they’re greeted by a “host” who walks around carrying a tablet computer.

If guests want to get to their room immediately, the host may offer to help carry bags to their room and check them in.

If guests have time to chat, the host might walk them to a sleek, modern table decorated with a bowl of cherries, and offer fruit and coffee while taking their information. The process resembles stepping into a friend’s home instead of a business transaction.

It’s so different from the wait-in-line-and-wait-for-us experience of a traditional check-in desk.

Maybe this is not practical in your situation. But if you’re opening or rebranding a hotel, I would give this some serious thought.

Re-engineering processes like these show your world centers around the guest.