Phew!!!!

Well those that read the blog know i am not one to moan! but by eck its been Hot Hot Hot and i dont just mean the fab weather, the Phone has almost rung of the hook this week, we could have sold the whole place about 3 times over, this is just what we all needed at the end of the main season a massive boost to all of the hotels, and in fact the whole town.

It just goes to show if we could have sunshine like this all the time there is nowhere better that the British seaside, sitting outside sipping a cool beer and watching the world go by its just a shame that Llandudno has not got more places where you can sit with a drink and look at the sea, i know there are lots of hotels but no pubs at all on north shore and only one on the west shore , its a pity cos some of the sunsets on West shore this week have been spectacular WHO NEEDS TO GO ABROAD!!!!

Hotel Booking Systems

The way guests now book hotels is so very different from years ago when we all would asvertise in about 12 newspapers, the tourist board brochure etc etc, now we all have swanky web sites and links to all sorts of booking agents.

However Google are now testing their own system and it looks prety good in my opinion

http://www.google.com/hotelfinder/ it searches for hotels has reviews prices comparisons etc, its not yet available to uk hotels as google say they are only testing it but you can bet your life that it will roll out making google billions of dollars worldwide.

Will they corner the market? will they close down all the other sites? just like the internet devastated the high st travel agent? and biggest question of all how much will it cost us all?

Think about it! one company able to control the whole market it could happen.

Brilliant Hotel Managers Response to Complaint

Below is a brilliant response to a trip advisor review that i read today, it just shows that you can make even bad reviews work in your favour.

i have kept the Hotels name back but a trawl through the hotels section of north wales will find it.


Guests Review


We visited the hotel and went for lunch upon arrival, The hotel smells of smoke, it is dirty, untidy, short staffed & To top all that off there is no where to sit. The hotel was busy at lunch and we were disappointed to find that the Hotel Restaurant is not open on weekdays. So we had to sit in the Mirror Room where there actually was a table. Awful food, overpriced, not value for money. We were so disappointed by all this we cancelled our reservation. We could not stand the torture anymore.

Stayed August 2011, travelled with friends





Hotel Managers Response.


We are grateful for all positive and negative reviews of The ********* Hotel. Most help us to continue to raise our standards of customer service. Some are simply misleading and frankly unworthy of comment. We are not aware of any room cancellations on the day in question and as we were fully booked that day we do not understand how a room that had not been booked can have been cancelled. The lunch service was busy as one might expect on a Busy day in August. We offer a traditional 3 course Sunday lunch service on Sundays but on other days we offer a popular terrace menu with starters including local Bardsey crab salad, main courses including sea bass, local Welsh black beef, home cured ham hock and a wide choice of desserts. There is seating for 60 outside and 40 inside, all with tables and chairs as one might expect. We make no apologies for the fact that the ******** in high season is a busy place and from our guest feedback we are delighted to note that the vast majority of our customers are satisfied with their visit. However we cannot hope to please 100% of our visitors as the place simply does not suit some people and we agree that in this case it would be best for our esteemed critic to seek out a more appropriate destination next time. Should any suggestions be required we would be glad to be of service in this respect.


****** ****** ******* Hotel Mansger

Trip Advisor Interesting Points

The legal view from law firm Thomas Eggar"


TripAdvisor undoubtedly has a loyal following of customers worldwide who use the site to decide where to stay. Therefore, it has great value where it is used properly by reviewers and hoteliers alike.

"Its value has even led to the UK Government suggesting earlier on in the year that the star rating for Hotels in the UK should be replaced by a customer review database similar to the one maintained by TripAdvisor on its website.

"However, TripAdvisor constantly faces complaints about the genuine nature of reviews and its position regarding the removal of comments that are not true and/or defamatory. In England, defamation claims can be brought against third parties like TripAdvisor if having been notified of a defamatory statement they continue to publish it.

"However, TripAdvisor values free speech and might not always consider that it is appropriate or necessary to remove allegedly defamatory reviews. If a review appears on TripAdvisor's website that is factually inaccurate and damages the reputation of your hotel in the UK, your ultimate recourse is to obtain a court order that is enforceable against TripAdvisor in the US.

"In these circumstances, it is more than likely that TripAdvisor would remove the defamatory content. However, such claims are expensive to pursue in the UK and the US and unless severe damage has been and is being caused to your business such claims are going to be rare.





"As a result, TripAdvisor's overall policy is unlikely to change. With this in mind, hoteliers should welcome the recent confirmation that the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) are investigating claims that some reviews on TripAdvisor's website are defamatory or made up.

"The investigation is interesting in that the ASA has only recently had authority to look at websites and in that context will be specifically considering third party user generated content.

"However, it should give TripAdvisor the opportunity to consider its policies on how reviews are verified, used and if appropriate removed. This can only be of benefit to those in the industry (including TripAdvisor) who all have a vested interest in reviews being factually accurate and helpful to customers."

The Travelodge Debate

Does anyone honestly think that one Hotel With no parking is going to have any effect on any Hotel B&B Guest house etc some people think that they will come here and put us all out of business. (RUBBISH)

At the last count there were about 13000 bed spaces in Llandudno and another 40 or 50 is not going to make much of a dent in it my personal opinion is that the restaurant /Bar will be a great benefit as you can bet your life that they will serve food till late at night unlike most places in town that close at 8pm.

The whole area around it will be busier and a better place, apart from the parking issue i have no problem with it at all and welcome any competition, they will not try and undercut it is not in their interest and there are to many competitors in the market place.

I just checked Their web site for this weekend double room £55.90 plus £1.50 cancellation insurance plus £13.30 for 2 breakfasts plus £19.90 for 2 dinners plus £10.00 for 1 day use of wi fi internet, Total for 1 night £100.60 for 2 persons, and that's in Blackpool where you can get a B&B for a lot less, and an average cost here is about £90-100 for the same thing so hardly a price shattering offer is it?.

They will no doubt offer low rates in the winter when they need to keep the place full and will do an Easy jet type of thing and offer rooms for £12.00 but will probably only have 2 rooms at that rate. its just clever marketing but the public are getting wise to this upselling lark and charging for everything that used to be included.

They will have to make money, they are not a charity, they have shareholders to keep happy, and they will just want a slice of the very big cake that is on offer, they will also be advertising Llandudno on there worldwide web site and will no doubt bring visitors to the town who may not of thought of coming here in the first place,that Can only be a good thing.

All in all i welcome them and everything that they bring to the party, the good things certainly outweigh the bad.

Haulfre Gardens

We decided to have a little walk up to Haulfre Gardens the other day its a smashing walk as all you locals will already know, however what a sad site there was to greet us the old shelter is in an awful state and this is what our visitors are greeted with when they venture up there.

What a pity Conwy cant see the damage that this sort of thing does to the tourist economy, its not the only eysore in town granted but sureley something could be done about it, after all its not like it would take much to put it right.

Maybe some of the students from Llandrillo could be asked to work on it as a project. (oh but silly me thats a stupid idea)

September Weather! Make or Break Month

September is such an important month to a lot f hotel owners it is make or break and so dependant on the sunshnie.

Not unnaturally, guests at a holiday hotel have a keen interest in the weather. The collective mood of our hotels guests will vary from the benign (on a sunny day) to the malignant (after three consecutive wet days). So weather forecasts play an important part in our hotels guests life here, either to be assured that the good weather will continue, or to be re-assured that the bad weather will end

Indeed the whole infatuation with weather forecasts starts before they even appear here. Particularly last minute holiday makers check with the forecast before they make a booking. If the forecast looks bad, then they either go elsewhere with a better forecast, or stay at home with the TV and a takeaway pizza.

Trouble is that to weather forecasters, Llandudno, or to be fair anywhere outside the South East of England, is as remote and as important as Mongolia. Either we do not exist (in other words North Wales is not mentioned), or it gets lumped into the North west

(I saw a very gloomy Weathergirl standing in front of her map one day saying "well that was a very wet day today, wasn't it". It might have been for her in London, but here in North Wales it had been sub-tropical, a fact that she failed to mention)

Why, you might ask, should I care if weather forecasts are wrong - simple answer is that people decide not to come, if they think the weather is going to be bad.

In llandudno we would have Clear Weather around, but snow on the Mountains, pointed up by the forecasters, would lead to guests cancelling on the grounds that we must be under snow

When the hurricane struck around 1988 the media concentrated on the havoc in the South East, but went on to inform us merely that the hurricane was "heading north", with no thoughts of where in the north it was actually heading
In 1997 there was great emphasis on the news of floods in the "west country". People started cancelling holidays across Cornwall in droves. A survey of every weather station in Cornwall on the day of maximum publicity for these "west country" floods, showed that not a drop of rain had fallen in the entire county of Cornwall. Again the actual floods had been closer to London than Newquay
The collective gloom that seems to descend on guests after more than a couple of days of bad weather can be infectious. We had four couples who had booked independently of each other, met each day after dinner, and whipped themselves up into such a frenzy of despondency that they all decided to leave after a few days.

Whilst I appreciate that weather forecasting is not an exact science, and is indeed a very inexact science, forecasters ought to be more aware that they are plying with hotels livelihoods when they make the mistake of believing that if it is raining in London, then it is also raining in Newquay, Aberdeen or Llandudno. There are lots of us out here who are fortunate enough not to live in London, so let us have forecasts that stand up to scrutiny.

It may be a pain for the forecaster to say it is sunny in North Wales, if it is raining in Basingstoke, but bite the tongue and tell the viewers the truth.