Learn to be Hospitable

To some, hospitality comes naturally. Others by necessity must be trained, haha. I think one of the worst experiences one can have while traveling is dealing with people in the travel and transportation industry who exhibit obvious lack of hospitality skills. I’m sure you know exactly what I mean. The airplane or hotel can have the most lavish lobby, the most lush accommodations, or be the most wonderfully discounted opportunity in the world, but if you are served by cantankerous, sneering, or dirty service representatives, you can kiss that good experience goodbye. Any business that is serious about their service would, I think, invest in hospitality training of their employees, and mandate 100% satisfaction with the service. Based on some of my own experiences, I’d say that hospitality training is on the bottom tier of quite a few travel and hotel venues. Hospitality is EVERYTHING in the travel world. TripAdvisor reviews are predominantly filled with the bad experiences of travelers; the common denominator? Bad service. Dirty rooms. These are easily solved by hospitality training and skills. A decorative lobby or an attractive museum may make a good first impression, but that impression is all too brief. People are social creatures. A friendly, helpful, and congenial service rep is worth more than the marble walls and tinkling crystal chandeliers! We travelers know this!

Moreover, when resources abound for hospitality management schools, both online and on campus, it is egregious for a business to neglect to train the staff. So here’s my little message to anyone in the travel and transportation businesses: train your staff! Teach them to be hospitable! Monitor customer satisfaction! Believe me, it could make or break your business.

Marketing Your Brand

I never thought that they day would come when I would see blogging- especially travel blogging- become a part-time career for me. But it has! It’s been pretty neat, too. I’ve connected with advertisers, business owners, and readers, and it’s been an incredibly enriching experience. I’m finding it helpful as a pro-blogger to “market my brand,” which is a fancy way of saying that it helps to promote myself and my blogs.

Next to social networking, the most important marketing action is business cards. I had some made up a few years ago, and I make it a point to drop them off wherever we visit. I frequently tell the tourist establishment that I will be writing a journal/review of my experience at their place. They are always pleased, and visit my blog. Some help me along in my promotion by linking my blog on theirs, or passing along my posts to media outlets or advertisers.

Business cards and other marketing tools were once out of the league of small-timers like me. But thanks to the Internet, we can purchase business cards online. Some bloggers promote their blogs with t-shirts, magnets, and other accessories. At such sites as 123print.com, you can find very affordable products for business or home– they have a huge selection of business cards– even linen business cards!– and many, many more customizable accessories for the office or for your home needs.

The only way to get people interested in your brand is to get the word out about you. And that takes some effort. Market your brand and watch your business take off!

Promote Your Travel Blog

Wherever we travel, I take my business cards with me. They have my blogs’ addresses on them. I hope that the managers of the places we visit like reading about their museums/parks/events on my blogs. It gives them a little boost, and their visit and word-of-mouth mention gives my traffic and SEO influence a little boost, too. Problem, is, I’m running out of cards and have been looking for some comparable prices online. I think I found the perfect place: 123print.com! They have excellent designs with options to upload your own logo, as well as offering customized address labels, wedding invitations, photo cards, Post-It notes, banners, baby announcements, holiday cards, car magnets, and much more. They look really great, and the business card special is 100 for under $4! Plus, they have gift certificates for holiday giving. They look great. Check them out to promote you travel blog or personal use.

New York is Full of JERKS

I have a few small affiliate businesses on the side, to earn a little money from Amazon and Christian Book Distributors. New York State is (once again) killing business (and the Constitution) by forcing Amazon (and it’s subsidiaries) to charge New Yorkers sales taxes on purchases, even though there are no physical Amazon stores in New York. The Supreme Court, years ago, ruled on this. Not that New York cares. You can read more about this issue here at the Tax Foundation. New York’s actions– charging sales taxes on goods purchased out of New York State and delivered to the state– is a breach of the interstate commerce clause of the Constitution, but since when has New York abided by something so trivial as the U.S. Constitution? Certainly not when there’s money to be made!.

So I got this in my email inbox today.

Dear Affiliate,

As you may be aware, New York State legislators have passed the new “Amazon Tax” bill requiring out-of-state online retailers to collect state taxes on purchases being shipped to New York addresses because they have affiliates that live in the state.

Unfortunately, we will be affected by this new tax bill because of our relationship with you and in order for us to avoid a nexus issue, we are being forced to terminate our affiliation with you effective immediately.

We appreciate your past efforts on our behalf and please know that this is something that we do not enjoy doing, but due to the situation, have no choice.

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

Doesn’t New York State know what they are doing?!?!?! Of course they do! And we all watch, as the moving trucks keep coming…

Do me a favor– Stumble this post to get the word out. New York has GOT to change!

Destiny USA To Lay Off Workers… Again

Destiny USA, a major shopping, amusement, and hotel attraction hailed as “saving Upstate New York” several years ago, is laying off employees again. This project, something like an Epcot without Mickey Mouse, has been nothing but a royal pain. I was surprised it got past all the hoops, hurdles, and litigation and was finally built in Syracuse, NY.

Destiny USA was regaled as the economic savior for Central New York (the poorest region yet most expensive place to live in the state, perhaps even the nation). It had its ups and downs over the years, mostly by people who didn’t want to have to subsidize another “government creating jobs” scheme. New York State economic policy has been disastrous, especially with their “Empire Zones” and “payments in lieu of taxes” deals. And so many big businesses shaft the system: they come, they build, they get the tax breaks, they leave. And they leave us residents with their vacant buildings, sprawl, more jobless people, and higher and higher tax rates.

News story about the latest layoff is here. Older news stories about the history of Destiny’s shaky project are here and here.

When will New York learn?