By means of Twitter, yes, that microblogging system we have been talking about, we got to know that the Hotel Auditorium launched its brand new corporate blog, an initiative, promoted by Rafael Martinez, we applaud from Hoobing for since our very beginning we bet on this sort of new 2.0 functionalities; we incorporated a home specialized in tourism blogs so users can get to know other traveler’s experiences and we also show links to the corporate blog of hotels with this service. From here, our best wishes in this new challenge fot Hotel Auditorium!

Nevertheless, the case of Hotel Auditorium is not an isolated one within Hoobing: other hotel chains like Valamar hotels, with 9 hotels in Croatia, are taking care of their 2.0 functionalities and have awesome corporate blog where they provide news relating the hotel chain as well as information and reports about their destinations, always written in a plain and familiar language.

Likewise, the Catalan company Nuñez y Navarro, has been already managing its corporate blog NN for 3 years now, NN Experiences. A complete blog where they inform about events that take place in the city of Barcelona, location of its hotels, by means of which they launch different marketing strategies, like, for instance, the stories contest “Barcelona, a unique experience”, where the communicate their brand to final users with the aim to boost loyalisation. Besides, they manage to create what the Spaniards know as “boca a boca”, the well-known buzz, which is to say to make users talk about your company.

From the Hoobing Team, congratulations to all for a well-done job!

Keep on bloggin’

Leaving the coast behind, we quickly move to the most genuine urban environment. Sidorme, Quality Low Cost Hotels is a hotel chain formed by 5 comfortable, new and inexpensive low cost hotels. Its entities are located in cities well known for their appeal for business and leisure tourists, cosmopolitan cities like Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Girona, Granada, Jerez, etc. Why not paying a visit to these spots to check their amazing value-for-money relationship? Also in the Spanish mainland, we would like to highlight the Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express, from Intercontinental Hotels Group. 12 of their 15 hotels have already registered in the first intermediary-free hotel search engine.
Stay in tune with Hoobing, we are skyrocketing! Enjoy and get rid of intermediaries!

And, as many of you will take advantage of you trip to Rome to discover at least a bit of the city and the country, what better than visiting our blog search engine to get ready for some short trips with the help of the contributions of our favorite bloggers.

Finally, heading to the Menditerranean, we highlight the 7 hotels belonging to Castella Hotel & residence Group, located in regions of Lombardy, Paratico, Morimondoi.

As you can see, Hoobing is a global Project and hotels all over the world (Dubai, Antigua & Barbuda, Malaysia, India, etc) and of every kind (resorts, country apartments, urban hotels, etc) are joining it.

What about you… Do you want to join the first hotel search engine that boost your direct sales?

Our blog has remained a little bit idle after the busy days of HOTELTrack ’09, but now we are back on the track after having compiled some of the best hotels that registered during this last week. We have prepared a choice of hotels, classified by exotic destinations.

Amidst the Caribbean waters we find a cluster of islands that form a nation with an odd name, Antigua & Barbuda. The Cocos hotel, a resort composed by 26 little wooden bungalows lies in the middle of the ocean, enjoying one of the most impressive islands of the Caribbean. A little bit further on but located on island as amazing as the Cocos Hotel, we find Sangri-La’s Rasa Sayang, a resort –spa located on Batu Feringgi beach in Malaysia. Enjoying a infinite sunset feeling the waters bathing your feet must be an unforgettable experience. Also in Malaysia, but specifically focused on those traveler interested in urban tourism, we recommend the Thomas Bernthaler hotel, a five star hotel located in Kuala Lumpur which registered last Thursday, April the 23rd.

Apart of being exotic, Dubai’s Versailles Hotel is located in the capital of one of the most luxurious of the East. If you are planning to visit that country, do not hesitate to visit the datasheet of this hotel. It is worth the effort. Finally, we would like to highlight the Mandakini Castle Hotel in Jaipur, India. A classy three stars hotel, full of the flavors of the East. A hotel recommended for urban or business tourism.

This year Hoobing had the opportunity to participate reading the paper “Intermediary Free Environments, an Opportunity for the Hospitality Industry”, and we had the pleasure to share table with Emilia Jódar, Yahoo! Search Account Manager and Ramón Solé, Product manager for Rumbo.es and Viajar.com. Unfortunately, Viçenc Martí, Vueling’s Marketing General Manager could not stay due to work compromises.

First of all we would like to thank Lluis Soler for organizing the event, both the topics reviewed – revenue management, innovation within the hospitality industry, online positioning, etc.-and the readers were excellent. Fernando del Corral, Asunción Zorrilla y Javier García Cuenca were superb in their presentations relating revenue management. Oscar Casasnovas clearly pictured how an independent hotel can innovate in social media marketing and showed the importance not only of listening but also of participating in the conversation, so being able to carry out improvements in the hotel service with the aim to loyalise possible customers.

We, on our behalf, wished to review the evolution of the distribution systems within the hospitality industry, before the internet era, during the first steps of online distribution, what is currently going on and finally, which are the latest trends. Following our motto Book directly | travel smart, direct sales are becoming more and more important, especially during hard times like today’s, a moment when there’s a tendency to cut down intermediary costs.

As a conclusion to HOTELtrack’09, in our opinion, not only innovation is important to generate revenues as Hosteltur online journal noted last Friday, the 17th: microsegmentation of customers is also essential for hotel-driven marketing campaigns to render really effective. To get to know the customer and send him the information he really needs is the best way to “hit the target”.

During this last two months the use of the micro-blogging system has seen a spectacular increase. Even Tim O’Reilly echoed this trend. Companies, media and even individuals use this communication channel to inform, build a corporate image or improve personal and professional relationships.

Twitter was the first micro-blogging system that appeared when mixing components from social networks and blogs; it allowed inserting short messages in the fashion of short articles of only 140 characters. Its simplicity, infinite number of updates and the possibility to use the said tool through mobile phones and pda’s make of Twitter a tool extremely useful for those travelers wishing to inform about their whereabouts at any moment. A good example is Soultravelers3, a blog written by a family that is travelling around the world and, for instance, wants to share their visit to Seville by means of their Twitter account. What better than uploading a video from one of the “Semana Santa” parades?
We would like to highlight that Soultravelers3 has been awarded the first prize in the Micro-Blogging category by the Travel Blogger Awards hosted by Lonely Planet, for bringing forward an amazing ‘What are you doing now?’ experience. Check their gallery on Twitpic – a site to share photos on Twitter- where they keep uploading content to picture all their comments on Twitter.

Another Twitter user that ended up being finalist in the Travel Blogger Awards in the micro-blogging category is Nerds Eye View, a girl from Seattle who, equipped with an ukulele, a camera and a passport as her only luggage, just decided to travel around the world and recount her experiences on Twitter

As you can see, the blogosphere brings us some really incredible cases.On Hoobing we also use this tool to bring you our latest news: last hotels and blogs that registered with us, the “blog of the week” section”, sector news, etc. You can visit us and become our follower

Now that the Easter holidays are here, take this opportunity to visit their datasheets on Hoobing.com and book directly on their official web sites, where you will find all you need to get some days of well-deserved rest.

On the other hand, Anantara is a group with 10 amazing hotels peppered along countries such as Thailand, Maldives, Indonesia and Abu Dhabi, the biggest country within the UAE federation. We especially recommend this chain to those looking for a escapade in the paradise of the Indic Ocean, dreaming with never-ending beaches and crystal-like waters.

Today, Monday the 30th, it’s been the British Tourism portal Eye For Travel who published news about Hoobing. We invite you to visit these portals and read what the media says about our project. By means of these portals, you will be also able to stay tuned with the latest novelties of the Tourism and Hospitality sector