Top 10 Romantic Hotels in Europe

For Valentine’s Day 2010, the hotel price comparison site trivago.co.uk has brought together a list of the top ten most individual and romantic hotels in Europe.
Every year couples exchange gifts such as flowers and chocolates on Valentine’s Day. Those who want to impress their beloved one, offer an unforgettable romantic weekend getaway instead. trivago has prepared a selection of the cosiest romantic hotels. Whether a small luxury hotel right next to Buckingham Palace, a restored millhouse in the French Dordogne, or a quaint hotel overlooking the Italian Umbria – these hotels guarantee special quality time together.
Here are the top ten hotels that offer a very special atmosphere and have very good reviews from travellers:

Santini Residence, Prague
The elegant Santini Residence offers nine spacious suites, where couples can enjoy hours of leisure time together. Some rooms have a special highlight: Ornate ceiling paintings that attract the attention of all visitors. Located in the middle of the historical centre of Prague, the luxurious hotel is an ideal base for exploring the capital of the Czech Republic. The Prague Castle and Charles Bridge are easily accessible. In the evening, guests can relax with a glass of red wine in soft lighting and with musical accompaniment on the cosy sofas in the hotel lounge.
Hotel bookable from 104 pounds per double room per night including breakfast via lastminute.com
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Hotel 41, London
Guests at Hotel 41 are located in the neighbourhood of the Queen: The luxurious city hotel can be found behind Buckingham Palace. In a quiet and exclusive location, the hotel welcomes its guests with the flair of a traditional London club. In the tastefully decorated lounge with chandeliers and antique furniture, couples can enjoy their afternoon tea in an elegant atmosphere. After a stroll over the Tower Bridge and through the streets of the bustling capital, comfortable and stylish rooms await the guests of the hotel.
Hotel bookable from 244 pounds per double room per night via booking.com



Hotel Gródek, Krakow
The Gródek hotel is tucked away in a small side street in the historical centre of Krakow. The 23 guest rooms are individually furnished with a great attention to detail. From here, guests can embark on a journey into the past. The popular “Kings Way” takes travellers past the memorial of the Battle of Tannenberg, a large gothic tower and the medieval marketplace. Only two minutes separate this area from the charming city hotel. In the intimate atmosphere of the hotel restaurant, guests can enjoy the evening with a romantic candle-lit dinner.
Hotel bookable from 86 pounds per double room per night including breakfast via lastminute.com

Villa Contessa, Bad Saarow
The Villa Contessa is located in Bad Saarow on Lake Scharmutzelsee in Brandenburg and is only around one hour’s drive from Berlin. Located in picturesque natural surroundings, this small hotel is home to eight mundane and lovingly decorated rooms. Highlight for lovers: The Rose Spa Suite with a private bio-infrared sauna and a four-poster bed. Guests who book the luxury suite can enjoy the hotels award-winning cuisine in private on the lakeside terrace. Couples can spend time on a romantic carriage ride, in popular thermal baths or on a boat trip on the lake.
Bookable from 173 pounds per double room per night including breakfast via villa-contessa.de

Moulin d’Abbaye, Brantome (France)
Moulin d’Abbaye is located in the charming market town Brantome in a restored mill house on the tranquil River Dronne. The rooms are all named after the Bordeaux grands crus and decorated with a meticulous attention to detail. In the small town in Dordogne there is a lot to see: a well-preserved medieval city, ruin and Gothic facades on the Rue Joussen. After a leisurely stroll through the city, travellers can enjoy a romantic dinner in the hotel’s restaurant and become enchanted by the magic of this hotel.
Hotel bookable from 130 pounds per double room per night via HRS.com

Amfitriti Paradosiakos Xenonas, Nafplio (Greece)
The Amfitriti Paradosiakos Xenonas is a small and elegant hotel in the beautiful port town Nafplio. Each of its five rooms is individually decorated in a particular colour. Handmade carpets and antique furniture give the rooms a romantic historical feeling, without losing the modern day comforts. With a view of the sea from the breakfast terrace, guests can begin their day on the Peleponnes. Lovers of Greek mythology also have a lot to explore, with the archaeological sites of Epidauros and Mykene nearby.
Hotel bookable from 68 pounds per double room per night via booking.com

Hotel The Pand, Bruges
The first-class hotel The Pand is located in the centre of Bruges. Decorated with numerous works of art, antiques and rich fabrics, guests are surrounded by luxury. A boat trip on the “Reien”, the canals of Bruges, is a must on a visit to the city in Flanders. Under picturesque bridges there is a lot to discover along the banks: Hidden gardens, artistic facades and medieval houses. Travellers can also spend the day by the open fireplace in the library of The Pand.
Hotel bookable from 149 pounds per double room per night via booking.com

Il Cantico della Natura, Magione (Italy)
Il Cantico della Natura is built out of massive stones from the 16th Century and is home to twelve rooms and suites. Surrounded by olive trees guests have a breathtaking view of Lake Trasimeno. The rooms are cosy and are individually decorated with fine furniture. In the Jacuzzi or the sauna, lovers can take advantage of the “dolce vita”. For adventure seekers, the hotel regularly organises various activities such as sailing, mountain biking or cooking classes, in which fresh ingredients from the Umbrian region are used.
Hotel bookable from 139 pounds per double room per night via fastbooking.com

Villa Carona, Carona (Switzerland)
In Ticino, in the south of Switzerland, Villa Carona can be found in the artistic village of Carona. In the two hundred year old Patrician House, the hotel has 18 individually designed rooms. At this family run inn, rest and recreation are in the foreground. In particular, the gardens of the house are a little paradise: Here guests can have a breakfast with a view of Monte Generoso before they go on the popular hike from Carona to the picturesque village of Morcote.
Hotel bookable from 88 pounds per double room per night via hotel.info



Ca‘n Simó, Alcudia (Majorca)
The small family-run hotel Ca‘n Simó with only seven rooms is situated between the bay of Alcudia and Pollensa. In traditional Majorcan architecture, guests can enjoy the amenities of modern luxury away from the tourist hustle and bustle of Majorca. The area around the lively town of Alcudia is also a place for peace-seekers: Whether a romantic walk on the beach, a tour of the nearby golf course or an excursion to the dragon caves of Porto Cristo. After an exciting day on the Balearic Island, guests can relax in the hotel whirlpool or sauna.
Hotel bookable from 85 pounds per double room per night including breakfast via booking.com

REVPAR… GOPPAR…Something is Missing
By Patrick Landman
In the early days we all measured the performance of our hotel based on occupancy. Then the revenue management phenomenon hit our industry and we all shifted to REVPAR. Nowadays the keyword is GOPPAR. We want to see how every booking affects our GOP. But something is missing…
On a flight last week from London I was pondering on the fact that we are moving from REVPAR or revenue on our profit and loss statement all the way down to GOP or gross operating profit too fast. Mind you the first articles on GOPPAR I find online date back from 2003. But we are missing a few steps here which are crucial to fully understanding our GOPPAR.
And don’t get me wrong, I am one of the biggest fans of GOPPAR as REVPAR does not give us enough insight as KPI (key performance indicator). However we need to fully understand what the GOPPAR represents.
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So let’s a take a step back and run through the definition of REVPAR and GOPPAR.
REVPAR = (Rooms) Revenue / (per) Available Room, or, ADR (average daily rate) x Occupancy % (shortcut…)
GOPPAR = GOP (gross operating profit) / (per) Available Room
Surprisingly enough I did find the definition of REVPAR on Wikipedia, but not the one of GOPPAR. So I took the liberty of writing a basic definition… Please add your points of view here as well, when you have some time on your hands…
Back to my point now. The difference between GOPPAR and REVPAR are the all operational costs of the hotel. The problem is if we lump all of them together we don’t fully understand the results from our pricing, contracting and distribution strategies.
We propose to implement another KPI. NREVPAR, or Net Rooms Revenue per Available Room.
NREV = Rooms Revenue -/- Distribution Cost, Transaction Fee & Travel Agency Commissions
NREVPAR = Net Room Revenue / Available Room
It is one step before GOPPAR on which you can measure very well the performance of the hotel and your revenue manager.
Now again here we would not like to look at it as a total, but we propose to measure NREV per market segment in the hotel. Or rather we would like to start looking at NADR, Net Average Daily Rate per market segment and even account or distribution channel.
Imagine you can see the NET Revenue and NET ADR of every corporate booking, made directly or through the GDS. And get NETREV for group business, online travel agencies, merchant models, tour operators and wholesalers.
Finally we would be able to compare apples to apples and do a proper displacement calculation based on NADR and NREVPAR contribution.
Unfortunately PMS systems are not configured to pull this data automatically. For now it is a tedious manual task that we are performing in hotels we work with. As un industry we have to challenge our system and software providers to enhance their systems and develop them according to our requirements of 2010. We would need to be able to add to agency and account profile the % commission. To the source codes like GDS we should be able to add transaction fees or % commissions as well.
I hope to see more hotels working both with GOPPAR and NREVPAR this year. It will help us to better understand our business, make wiser decisions and in the end achieve higher profit margins.

Marketing Innovation for Hotel in 2010!
By Carol Verret
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While demand probably isn’t coming roaring back in 2010 it is returning. It’s time to shake off the ‘battle fatigue’ of 2009 and hit the ‘reset’ button for 2010 to take advantage of the positive opportunities that present themselves going forward. ‘In a recent AP-GFK poll, 72% of Americans said they’re optimistic about what 2010 will bring for the country. That’s a dramatic difference from their same poll answer where almost 75% of them thought 2009 was a bad year for the country.’ (Margie Fisher, Small Business Trends, 01/02/10) At the same time, many businesses thought leaders believe that innovation will be key to plugging into this sense of optimism and converting it to business success.
Innovation isn’t about sweeping change. It can be series of small initiatives that enhance the sales effort. A few positive innovations can add up to a big difference in how you locate and develop new business – how you attract and engage them.
Develop a Strategy for Marketing Innovation:
Don’t’ get too hung up on the plan and develop analysis paralysis. A bad plan well executed trumps a good plan that never gets off the ground. What kind of prospects are you looking for? Who are your current ‘great’ customers and develop a strategy to find more like them. How many large accounts or ‘whales’ are you working – what is the mix of smaller accounts or ‘tunas’ that you can locate and get to close faster than the ‘whales’? How do you attract them in innovative ways – what’s the ‘bait’? you can use business marketing  emails as of the strategy in your business

Try New Ideas – don’t be Afraid to Fail!
Generate many ideas on small innovations that you can enable now to get the attention of your prospects and clients. They don’t have to carry a high price tag and if you generate enough ideas, some will succeed and others not so much. For example, how about developing videos and using them on the social network profiles to engage customers?  Embed a video in business marketing email of the hotel team assuring the prospect that if they book their business at your property, the entire team will service their business well. Include the GM, front desk team, the chef – let your imagination be your only limitation. A Flip video cam is all you need to enable a video strategy. A company that manufactures and markets office furniture decided to have a little fun and developed a video of their sales team playing musical chairs using their office chairs – a little fun never hurts and their customers loved it!
Enable a Mobile Strategy:
Many web sites and business marketing email eblasts are not mobile friendly. It doesn’t take much to ensure that you are sending TEXT versions of your HTML eblasts that are more easily read on mobile phones. Experiment – see if your open rates increase with mobile friendly content. If your content sends the reader to a landing page ensure that it is mobile friendly with short concise offers that are easily accessible.
Attracting Business – Not Pushing Product:
Your online presence and property profile on social networks are like an online store – some will pass by and not look over, others will look over and smile, others will walk up to the ‘window. ‘When they walk into your store, they may be just ‘looking’, when they begin to interact with you and share what they are looking for, you have an opportunity to take them offline and begin the dialogue. You have effectively ‘attracted’ a potential client – they check out you and the hotel before they ever engage you one on one.
We have entered the ‘culture of engagement’ – prospects look to engage with hotels and sales people that set themselves apart from the other 100+ hotels that approach them every day. The innovation challenge – what five small innovations can your team think of to engage new business prospects?
if you would like to know about busines marketing emails tips read here !

Critical Email Prospecting Straregies
Jay Schwedelson, Corporate Vice President of Worldata, focused on the newest trends and lastest developments in prospecting, in his presentation ‘Critical Email Prospecting Strategies for 2010,’
At the Email Evolution Conference 2010 in Miami Beach, Florida. Below are some quick tips your hotel in Business Marketing Email can use to improve your email marketing campaigns:

• Test your e-mail creative on a mobile device to make sure it displays correctly.
• Keep your e-mail campaign on a server so that people can access the message at a later date.
• Don’t use recipients’ names in the subject lines because they can be picked up by spammers.
• Include the offer deadline date in the subject line. This can increase open rates by 39% (i.e. offer ends Jan 31st).
• Analyze why recipients unsubscribe – why they leave is just as important as why they arrive. Send a follow-up email with a short survey asking why they unsubscribed.
• The top reasons people unsubscribe to a mailing list is because they receive too many emails from a sender (38%), or the emails are not relevant to them (23%).
• Include links that allow recipients to share your email with their own social network. People who use Facebook or Twitter at least once a week are 38% more likely to open a 3rd party email promotion, and people who use LinkedIn at least once a week are 37% more likely to open a 3rd party email promotion.
• Send your e-mail at least 2 weeks prior to the event date.
• Send a reminder email 2-3 days prior to event.
• Try sending your emails on different days of the week, and at different times of the day, to see what is most effective for your audience. In the past, many businesses avoided Mondays, but now Mondays are showing the best response rate. Test deploying your emails on Fridays as well.
• Never send an email after 4 pm. Experiment with sending emails at 8 am.
• Test your subject lines. Select 10% of your email address list and divide it into 2 groups. Send a different subject line to each group. Wait 24 hours, and then analyze the data to see which subject line was most effective.
• Include an offer in your subject line. Some offers that work well are Free Shipping, Invitation Only, Discount on Next Purchase, Gift with Next Purchase, or Exclusive Secret Sale.
• When you analyze the metrics on your open rate you may not be seeing the whole picture. Open rates are tracked only when the recipient enables the email images. Many recipients don’t enable the images, so even though they have opened your email, it won’t be tracked as an ‘open.’
• Your click-through-rate is more important than your open rate. Generally speaking, if your open/click through rate is more than 2% you are doing well.
• Use tools to help you manage your overall campaign. Below are some free tools you can start using right away.

Strive to improve your email campaigns in 2010 and increase your ROI with progressive email tactics. Work to build a solid database and make sure you segment your e-mail campaigns and avoid one-size-fits-all mailings. Email campaigns are a very effective way for hotels to connect with their audience and generate new and repeat
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