Dangerous Dogs and Hotel Marketing
Archive - Originally posted on "The Horse's Mouth" - 2007-05-19 11:31:48 - Graham EllisIt's dangerous to make a law based on a single case, or even on just a couple of cases brought to attention in a very short time span. We saw this with the "Dangerous Dogs" act of 1991 which was a rushed piece of legislation and has come into some disrepute. In January 2007, it was still coming up as an unpopular piece of law in a public (radio) poll.
In a similar vein, making snap decisions to set company policy, or changing the web site based on individual inputs, is a risky business with a chance of dealing with one issue but, in the hurry, creating another. So my decision on Friday morning to add pricing information for courses with hotel accommodation included in addition to the prices without overnight accommodation was not totally made in response to a delegate saying "I wish I had known you had rooms here" as he grumbled about a leaky room in a hotel just up the road that cost him twice what he would have paid us ... no, it was a much more considered decision that it might have appeared based on not one but a small handful of incidents, and a growing comfort that our accommodation product is quite exceptional.
Weighting against the change is the desire not to be too pushy - not to oversell, and also the fact that we need to allow some of our big corporate customers to book course and hotel under separate cover, even though it may cost them more and may result in their delegates NOT staying with everyone else on the course (a disadvantage, this, in terms of them loosing a great deal of the benefits of peer interaction out of course hours). And also against the change is the need for us to be ultra-clear on VAT since training courses are normally quoted without, and hotels with.
Have a look at one of our course descriptions now updated ... and you'll see how we've introduced the options as clearly as possible. I hope we'll have cut the small handful of incidents - and I do hope to have made Lisa's job of seeing whether or not delegates will be staying with us that much easier.