I have been leaving things in hotel rooms for 25 years and my experience is, that unless you go back straight away, you never ever get them back. However, my sincere thanks goes to the Holiday Inn on the Cromwell Road London who had my 3 ties and tie wallet two days after I left the hotel. I phoned the hotel and when put through to security, I was met with a voicemail service. My heart sunk as I left my message because I knew, just like every other time, that was the end of my ties!
Shock horror but within an hour the head of security phoned me and said that he had the ties and I should call him before coming to the hotel and he would meet me in reception with them. And that is exactly what happened. Great service! I have told a dozen people this story and if I ever leave something in a hotel again, it will be the Holiday Inn on the Cromwell Road.

But it’s not just me. A recent survey carried out amongst 30 Novotel Hotels revealed that guests leave very unusual things in hotel rooms (as well as ending up naked in corridors on a regular basis). Items found by housekeeping were fake limbs, a snake, arrest warrants, false teeth, (you wouldn’t go back would you!) a baby (was reclaimed) a two metre high statue and a riding crop under the pillow…really. http://tinyurl.com/smh-hotelroom

In the same survey, women were found to be the messiest, watch more adult movies than 10 years ago and chocolate remains their number one minibar item…hmmm. One Novotel reported a story of a guest calling reception to ask the duty manager to help get his vegetables out of the microwave. As the hotel doesn’t have microwaves the duty manager went to find the vegetables locked in the safe…I love this business!

And finally…it’s all about Holiday Inn this week. In today’s news they have announced a “Human Bed Warming Service“. So before you tuck in for the night, a member of staff attends the room with a full body fleece and lies in your bed to get it to 20-24 degrees, the appropriate temperature in which to doze off according to the sleep consultant…I’ve applied for a Saturday job! http://tinyurl.com/HumanBedWarming 

Except for the lucky ones amongst you who live under warmer climates many of you will have been battling the elements in this new year as snow and ice hits most of Europe. Whilst some countries seem to contend extremely well with harsh winters I recently experienced the joys of an airport seemingly unable to clear 10cm of snow from its runaways. A three hour wait in the airport followed by a two an half hour wait inside the plane allowed me to get on with my work thanks to those fantastic laptop batteries our IT department issue to our road warriors. Gone are the days where you would work for an hour and then dash off to the bar because the battery was flat. And as my laptop battery level reached dangerously the zero minute mark we were promptly disembarked and told to fend for ourselves, ah the joys of low cost airlines. With all airport hotels overflowing found a train into town and then trudged through the snow to the nearest hotel arriving shivering, wet and disheartened. And then hospitality took over- a warm welcome at reception, some genuine sympathy, a great room with a comfortable bed, a good meal with an excellent smiling service and a life saving beer. Followed by a fuzzy TV picture, an extremely limited number of TV channels and a few out of date movies. Interesting how that fantastic experience and great work by the staff can be marred by a lackluster in-room experience.

Acentic has just celebrated its sixth Christmas as a company and this year's present from Santa was by far, the best yet. Two days before Christmas a delivery arrived in the form of a binding offer to buy a controlling stake in Acentic from ISM Communications Corporation (ISM) and Philweb Communications (WEB).

These two public companies listed on the Philippine Stock Exchange have joined with Niantic Holding, a German company controlled by Dr. Andreas Jacobs, to invest in Acentic to further extend our technology offering throughout EMEA and launch Acentic Asia to serve the Asia and MiddleEast markets.

According to Lodging Economics’ latest Asia Pacific Pipeline Report http://tinyurl.com/China-India-HotelConstruction the Asia Pacific hotel pipeline is the second largest in the world and this region has two of the fastest growing economies in the World, China and India, with more than 208,847 hotel rooms in the pipeline in China alone.

We are very excited about our new owners as they have vast experience in our field. Not only are they the previous founders and owners of one of World's largest hotel technology providers but clearly can also spot talent (hee-hee) and their current businesses are in the field of IT and gaming.

Our current product offering of Digital TV services, High Speed Connectivity and Worldwide media and content is currently in Hotels belonging to virtually all of the major global brands and now having the opportunity to support their needs further afield is very exciting indeed.

We’re looking forward to the changes and growth this new dynamic brings to the Acentic family in 2010 and beyond. As a company that has always been dedicated to customer service and quality products, we are still dedicated to keeping our hotels happy and helping them deliver the best in room services possible to their guests.

We have just come out of the noughties, so what is this decade called? The teenies? The booming teens…. (let’s be positive) the twenty tens?

Whatever. There is much to look forward to: We have the football World Cup, always good for anyone’s business, the Winter Olympics, the Ryder Cup, Andy Murray is going to win his first major and Scotland will win the six nations. You don’t get much more positive than that to me.

There are some great films to look forward too as well. Wall Street 2 (as mentioned in a previous blog), Up in the Air with George Clooney, Robin Hood with Russell Crowe (yawn!), the final books of Harry Potter and Gulliver’s Travels with Billy Connolly….yeehaaa.

It’s at this time of year that I, and I suppose many other managers in my position, need to galvanize our teams and launch them into the new year with confidence, optimism and a sense of fun. My first award of the year and “Cool Friend of Acentic” goes to Emily Somers. Emily works for the Glove division of Medline and created, choreographed and directed the attached film, which was created to promote awareness for breast cancer in a hospital in Portland, Oregon. When the site gets a million hits, Medline will give a large contribution to the hospital and free mammograms to the community.

To persuade everyday people do extraordinary things is inspiring. I invite you to do the Pink Glove Dance and be inspired.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEdVfyt-mLw