The Editor's Hospitality Blog

There's an interesting new posting on Evanomics, the blog written by the BBC's economics editor, Evan Davis.

Evan is on a mission to help the masses "understand the world, using the tool kit of economics". On this occasion, the concept of value engineering comes under his scrutiny.

There's only one thing better than hotel guests who are prepared to come and spend money at your hotel - and that's guests who return to your hotel time after time to spend money.

Two such guests are David and Jean Davidson, who have been living in Travelodge hotels in Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire for the past twenty years. Now, the Davidsons are to have a room named after them at the Gonerby Moor Travelodge, in recognition of their two decades of loyalty to the brand.

The Davidsons estimate they have paid out £100,000 in bills, but point out that this has bought utilities, a personal housekeeper and a tidy room with good disabled access (thumbs-up, Travelodge!) since 1987.

Do you have any seriously loyal customers at your hotel? How long have they been with you? And do long-stay guests become part of the hotel, after a while, like the Major at Fawlty Towers? Let us know.

Check out this response to a previous posting, in which the writer complains about the practice of overbooking hotel rooms on the assumption that there will be cancellations.

It sounds from the tone of the posting that he or someone he knows has recently been turned away from a Travelodge, despite having booked and pre-paid for a room there:

Are we to conclude that Travelodge is in the business of entering into contracts with its clients, which it knows it cannot fulfill? I am awaiting a response to an emailed request and personal phone call to the manager of the offending Travelodge.

Has this person been unlucky or ill-treated? Or is this standard and fair practice? let us know what you think.

Those clever people at Travelodge have struck upon an ingenious way of gathering intelligence on potential sites for new hotels: cash rewards.

The budget hotel chain has mustered a £25m bounty to encourge the public to help it in its quest to open 500 new UK hotels by 2020. If the company builds on the land or in the building you suggest, they'll pay you £500 for each bedroom, up to a ceiling of £150,000.

This is a typically clever piece of marketing from a company that's become expert at courting publicity. What's more, it allows consumers into the decision-making process and taps into local knowledge.

So, any ideas? let me know and I'll be sure to pass them on for you ...

We've had ice hotels, treehouse hotels and underwater hotels. There are even plans afoot for hotels in space. And now Travelodge have unveiled the container hotel.

The budget hotel chain's new hotel in Uxbridge, West London, is being constructed entirely of shipping container crates which are stacked and then bolted together. According to a company spokesman, this Womble-like reuse of the everyday things merchant seamen leave behind could cut 10% from the cost of each build. With the average build cost of a 100-bed hotel around £5m, this could translate into a £500k saving per new-build.

This set me searching the web for other weird and wonderful ideas for hotel designs. My quest took me to the niftily-named blog, Construction Projects World, which presents some of the more remarkable buildings - some of them hotels - currently being thrown up around the world.

The link above shows how a new wind-powered, rotating hotel planned for Dubai (where else?) will appear, once completed. As the blog says, the building will bring a new meaning to the phrase, "panoramic views".