• Are you looking too good? (or the Santorini hotel problem) asks Rohit Bhargava
• Park Hotel Amsterdam tries a little viral campaign with HotelMessage.com
• 10 tips to make your blog look like a website
• David Ingram talks about handling negative customer reviews
• And finally, some (totally useless?) facts about how gender affects Twitter relationships

• Ben Parr at Mashable gives the scoop on Google Wave – a real-time communications platform launching later this year
• Adam Kirby of Hotels Magazine shares four historical hotels that did a good job re-designing their rooms
• Wall Street Journal reports on Starwood’s experiment with digital magazines
• Greg Finn at Search Engine Land on why editorially driven social news sites matter
• Dan Zarrella blogged some tips for international SEO that are useful if you want a global audience

1. Hyatt CEO Mark Hoplamazian announced @HyattConcierge – providing 24/7 support through Twitter
2. Theo McKinney shares how boutique hotels must create a “biospheric customer experience“
3. HotelWebsiteDesigners suggest RevPOV (Revenue Per Online Visit) as a RevPAR benchmark alternative
4. Anna shows some examples of how to attract visitors with user-generated content (UGC)
5. Josh Dreller has us re-think the optimal paid search campaign structure

• eMarketer reveals that 60% of Twitter users fail to return the following month
• Mark Hodson gives his opinion on which travel firms are doing well with Twitter (and which are doing poorly)
• Newt Barrett shares 6 reasons your blog is your most important social media tool
• David Meerman Scott reminds us that driving people to a website is just the start of the sales process
• Raveable, a new hotel review site, attempts to find the opinions behind online guest reviews

1. Carol Verret learns a good lesson about being nimble & working hard from the Kentucky Derby

2. Bill Marriott announces a fan film contest for Renaissance Hotels – the winner gets to work with Spike Lee

3. John Jantsch explains how Google just upped the ante for local search

4. Adpulp shows how Portland’s Ace Hotel stands out through creativity

5. The New York Times points out that art isn’t merely decoration for new hotels

My top five stories of the week for hotel owners and marketers:

1. Tourism New Zealand uses a mobile video recording studio to record visitor’s impressions
2. Michael Hraba demonstrates why Facebook could be a waste of time
3. Brian Clark shows how to write great Twitter headlines
4. Lori Weiman explains the importance of looking beyond rankings to measure your search marketing effectiveness: ad coverage & number of positions also important
5. Jim Butler shares that LEED and Energy Star certified buildings earn a 31% price premium

Welcome to a new feature – Five for Friday – where I’ll share the 5 most interesting stories I’ve found during the past week on the web. Let’s get started…

1. Synovate researched the process people use to choose a hotel. While most people do some research, 1 in 10 simply choose the first ‘okay’ hotel they find. Are people finding you first?
2. Similarly, Reuters reports that hi-tech facilities are a major factor in attracting new guests. HotelChatter posted their list of Top Geek Hotels for 2009.  What cool technology could you add?
3. Ginny McGrath shares the 10 hottest online travel trends she observed at the Travolution Summit in London. Interesting thoughts on websites getting simpler and more useful.
4. John Jantsch explains why Twitter is the new Helpdesk, and gives some tools you can use.
5. Chris Brogan shows how travel companies can get started in social media. Some great ideas for encouraging participation, such as posting a business card with social media sharing suggestions.