USA Today Launches Hotel Content Platform- I Want More

In order for this business travel blog to be successful, it must also appeal to the business traveler who has a corporate travel policy. Most major corporations will require their employees to stay at hotels where they have pre-negotiated rates and terms.

Blog about how they can improve their experiences? What new changes are hotels implementing to make their hotel feel more like home? Write about specific road warriors and their stories. How do they mix in fun? What do they do with their pets? How do they stay connected with their family and friends? How do they stay healthy?

What I love most about this, Chris, is how it is a great way to bolster their differentiating brand attributes. I read the New York Times regularly, but look forward to USA Today when I am staying in hotels. There biggest point of brand differentiation is their national coverage and focus on itinerant professionals. So expanding and reinforcing this message with their blog is brilliant and ads a lot of value to me as a frequent business traveler. Thanks for this post!

Best.
William
http://www.reachcc.com

We have been encouraging all our clients to use blogs… So why not a hotels. Blogs are great tools and when used properly can give the client easy access to the pulse of their customers. What would be even more beneficial is if they have locals pitching different restaurants, clubs, etc. The good the bad and the ugly with no fear of. They can go as far as partnering with local restaurant, amusement parks etc the list can go on and on. Thanks again for a wonderful post Chris!

I think the hotel blog is a great move. As long as it is easy to participate mobiley (is that a word), I am all for it. Since travelers, especially business folks, are going to have a voice, it needs to be easy for them to participate.

It is a natural extension of USAT’s “outside your door” initiative. They are being very agressive & cooperative in getting their papers to the hotel for distribution to the rooms. The hotel sends an email order based on their expected occupancy and the papers arrive on time for distribution before morning.

Because USAT makes it “easy” for hotels, it is effectively replacing the local papers in hotels. This blog will build on that link as travelers are still, to some extent, a captive media audience.

This is a great idea, and it looks like the blogger is having fun with the concept, taking content from TMZ for the security breach in Jamie Foxx’s room. I liked the irony that the guy who fired the guy wearing an ash Wednesday cross on his forehead was fired from a hotel that leases land from the Catholic church.

I don’t travel as much as I did (and with this economy, I’ll be staying with friends this summer when I go to a convention in Chicago) but this looks like a blog with a variety enough that I might just put it on my blogs to watch every once in a while. Thanks for the tip!

xo,
Suzi

A former road warrior, I wish this platform was available back then. i will certainly check in from time to time, especially as I start traveling more in the fall.

I would include not only txt but video and pics in order to enhance user experience. Traveling is mostly visual experience. She can drive the message much more efficiently this way.

Nice post Chris:)

It would be awesome to see a friendfeed type section where you can txt or tweet a note about how your business travel is going an others could come in and comment/rate the note. Building small and sometimes large strings of short content from on the road.

The same model could be an answers engine. Thinnk what Dopplr does for business travel. Same thing Hunch/Blellow are doing only focused for this audience.

I just checked out the Hotel Check-In site and was impressed by the quality of the content and the way the articles engage the readers Chris. Thanks for the heads up!

I don’t understand the purpose of this USA Today site. I just clicked there, browsed around, and I have two conclusions:

First, judging from the popular tags, content is focused on hotel chains, e.g. Marriott, Holiday Inn, Ritz-Carlton, etc. For a site that is supposedly geared at business travelers, don’t they know about the brands? Shouldn’t content be focused on more services, such as dining options, wireless accessibility, and who’s offering coupons for area attractions?

Second, what’s with the tabloid journalism style of photos, such as dogs humping each other? Doesn’t do it for me.

I have to agree with Ari on this one. If it’s geared towards the busines traveller, then it’s got a long way to go in terms of content and usability, specifically for business travellers who are pressed for time. At the moment it comes across as more of a travel-meets-hotel news blog. This said, I think it holds a lot of potential and is a step in the right direction…

I think you’ve all missed the BIG issue here. The reason why the forum is not more active is not because it lacks the right software, content or idea to kick it off, it’s because it lacks well thought out community management.

The community software and idea here is OK, but building a community is not a software issue, it’s a question of engagement. Around the world people and companies are trying to start communities. The ones that succeed will have better launch strategies for gradually building engagement and conversations. The forum on this site is like walking into an empty restaurant – you don’t want to be there because no one else is.

In the same way that a good restauranteur will never open without a well planned launch, nor should a community be started in this way. Here are two good posts on the subject:

A prime example of the software-approach to community management in this USA Today example is the fact that Barbara calls herself a “moderator” in the fourms (because that’s the word the software vendor uses in assinging roles and rights). Young communities don’t need Moderators, they need party hosts. Moderation is a policing role, this forum does not need a policeman it needs a great MC.

Charlie

Sorry, links didn’t work. here they are:
10 Commandments of Managing Online Communities
Empty restaurant syndrome

Very interesting. We have colleagues who are working on something similar for hospitals.

I’ve been running my own site for executive travelers — focused on actually experiencing some of the cities you’re in through independent hotels, interesting restaurants, and the occasional side trip to a great store or exhibit — and community is key to such a venture. I wish USA Today success though believe they will gravitate toward the big guys with big advertising budgets. However, I think that the only chance to get beyond the beige room and room service experience is to engage a broad network of travelers with a spirit of adventure. I’d welcome all of your thoughts and input at http://www.executivenomad.com.

Charlie is dead on with his “empty restaurant” analogy. We refer to it as “first on the dance floor” at LiveWorld. Taking the lead is difficult, but joining a party — or community — where everyone is already dancing is much less daunting.

There is a whole range of duties undertaken by “moderators” in online communities today, but a crucial one — and one that is often overlooked — is the social host-type that Charlie references. Social hosts aren’t simply approving or rejecting posts and comments; rather, they’re fanning the sparks of topics that members have raised, welcoming newcomers, connecting members to each other around shared interests, and jumpstarting new discussions as needed. It will be interesting to see if Barbara plays this role, for example, on the Hotel Check-In boards.

These efforts are vital in the early stages of new communities, when members are still finding their way around.

Bryan | @BryanPerson
LiveWorld

I agree that USA Today could to a better job on the “community” part, and it does bother me when I’m forced me to create an account in order to participate in the discussion. Overall, I think they’re off to a good start and I found the information posted useful (which I can’t say about a lot of other travel blogs).

First let me say thanks to Chris for taking the time to review Hotel Check-In and provide the encouraging feedback. This is my first attempt at blogging, so I welcome it all, from kudos to constructive criticism. I also want to thank the people above who also spent time on the site and comment. I plan to tackle a number of issues raised in you comments – such as reporting about corporate travel policy changes, writing about new dining options at hotels and investigating the quality of wireless access. And of course, Chris, we at USAT are also trying to figure out better ways to boost engagement in the forum, although i’ve heard that time also helps (site launched 3/31). Finally, next week starting Monday, April 13, I’ll launch a new feature, where a hotel CEO blogs on Check-In for one week, replying to readers’ questions directly. Starwood’s CEO will be fielding questions next week. You can go to the site again and make a comment there, leave one in the forum/CEO area, email me at bdelolli@usatoday.com, or tweet them to barbdelollis. Don’t hesitate to contact me about anything else. Cheers, Barbara

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