Posted by Jonathan Meier on Fri, Mar 05, 2010 @ 03:10 PM
Alberta Fashion Week is just around the corner (March 21st - 27th), and all of us sponsors are getting pretty excited about it. However, in the meantime there's a high profile fashion event that is going to give everyone here at Nuvo Hotel Suites a chance to get geared up for the main event, as well give back to the city. I'm referring to the The Human Touch Experience, slated to take place at the Commonwealth Conference Centre here in Calgary on March 13th.
This fashion show has a bit of a twist to it, though. The designers (Kyle Nylund, Valrie Powell, Jenna Etcheverry, Tracey WardKerr, Patricia Livingstone & Megan Debackere) will work in teams with various local artists (Kenzie Housego, Paul Spenard, Groundwaves, Something Sweet by Nicole, M K Dunkle) and a group of exceptional models (
Alexandria, Carina, Brittany, and
Kevin). Each of the five teams will be responsible for creating an interactive display to represent one of the five senses. It's actually kind of an obvious twist, when you look at what the event is called.
And, of course, there will be music and performances by DJ Sonny Chiba, The Matt Blais Band, and La Caravan to accompany the silent auction. The best part, at least in my mind (this fashion stuff usually goes over my head), is that all the proceeds from the auction and the $85 ticket will be going to charity. That charity is the Inn from the Cold Foundation, they provide temporary emergency shelter for homeless families, offer the programs and services their guests need to rebuild their lives and create a hopeful future. They've been known to work with families for up to two years to help them break the cycle of homelessness. So, do a good deed and go see some incredible artwork and modelling, listen to some great rock and roll, and maybe even throw down a few dollars for a silent auction item. It's okay to live it up a little when it's for a good cause.
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Jonathan Meier is the Marketing and Social Media Coordinator for
Nuvo Hotel Suites. He has received a degree in Communications Studies from the University of Calgary and is now, miraculously, employed in a related field. When he's not at the Hotel dealing with the daily dose of craziness he's usually out in the mountains near his hometown of Canmore where he can be seen climbing, skiing, or doing anything at all that doesn't involve computers.
Posted by Jonathan Meier on Fri, Feb 26, 2010 @ 04:53 PM
The Hard Days Night Hotel
Who doesn't want to snuggle up with Paul McCartney? Well, now you can do the next best thing here at this Beatles inspired hotel in Liverpool. The hotel itself is a four-star luxury property that's been filled with Beatles memorabilia, murals, paintings, and photos. This isn't exactly as easy to accomplish as you might think. Keeping your hotel in the ‘luxury' realm while modelling it after the Beatles, and keeping it all tasteful, is a hair-thin line to walk. You'd expect a lot of kitschy decor, but in reality the theme work is surprisingly tasteful, from the enormous murals of John Lennon and Paul McCartney, in their respective namesake suites of course, to the "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" montage in the hotel restaurant, it's all done a with an understated and somewhat subtle style. Don't worry, Beatles photos and memorabilia appear all over the hotel, and many rooms feature unique Beatles artwork. Even the staircases are lined with photos of the Beatles' glory days. Unfortunately, due to conflicts with the current reality it occupies, the hotel is not open eight days a week (I'm sorry, but I had to put at least ONE song reference in here). If you want a closer look at The Hard Days Night Hotel, follow this link
Propeller Island City Lodge
Okay, now this place is WEIRD. I know there have been some pretty odd hotels on here before, but I'm saving this one for last because I haven't seen anything that could top it. There are 31 rooms, and each and every one of them is beyond bizarre. There's a room with the two beds in Lion Cages, a room where the beds are in Coffins, a room that has a Jail Cell for the bedroom, and of course, for the sexy times there's a room that is...
Yup. COMPLETELY surfaced in mirrors.
According to the website, it's like living in a kaleidoscope.
Apparently during this hotel's lifespan there have been a few errors made in its construction. I can't imagine why, maybe it happened when they designed the bed that's shaped into a Castle. Anyway, some of these relics and errors have been assembled in the Museum Room. Oh yes, this room has an elastic floor, by the way.
Lastly, there's my favourite room, it features a mechanical illuminated barrier that can be lowered to effectively cut the bed right down the middle. That's not why I like it, though. I like it because it's a Space Cube.
Jonathan Meier is the Marketing and Social Media Coordinator for
Nuvo Hotel Suites. He has received a degree in Communications Studies from the University of Calgary and is now, miraculously, employed in a related field. When he's not at the Hotel dealing with the daily dose of craziness he's usually out in the mountains near his hometown of Canmore where he can be seen climbing, skiing, or doing anything at all that doesn't involve computers.
Posted by Jonathan Meier on Fri, Feb 19, 2010 @ 05:23 PM
This week I'm continuing with this second trilogy of hotels that make my little boutique hotel, Nuvo Hotel Suites, look like a truck stop motel. This issue has a medieval hotel that requires its guests to play along with the theme, a hotel where each floor is a genre-devoted library, and an Ice Museum that allows its visitors to book individually carved rooms.
Aurora Ice Museum:
The Aurora, described as the most artistic ice hotel in the world, is located about 60 miles outside of Fairbanks, Alaska. Constructed by World Ice Sculpting Champion Steve Brice the Aurora Ice Museum at Chena Hot Springs, the Aurora is chock full of icy-cold awesome.
The unique bar serves drinks in sculpted ice glasses, and the nearby Chena Hot Springs Resort is famous for its views of the northern lights and the curative powers of its hot waters. The only catch is that, due to some kind of hassle with the Fire Marshal, they are unable to advertise the existence of their rooms. They do exist however, and a simple query at the front desk will get you into one of four unique rooms. One is an igloo with a skylight, another has a polar bear bed (I'm not really sure what this is, but Polar Bears are cuddly, right?), and another has a four poster.
Library Hotel:
I. Must. Stay. Here. I love reading, and this New York Hotel has ten stories of books to peruse. Every floor is devoted to a different genre so guests can spend quality time with enormous quantities of the books they love.
This mansion-style Hotel is the very first hotel to arrange guestroom floors, room art and reading material by the 10 major categories of the Dewy Decimal System. Floor choices include Science and Math, Language, Literature, History and Technology - with sub topics further defining individual rooms. This means that each of the 60 rooms is uniquely adorned with a collection of books and art exploring a distinctive topic within the category or floor it belongs to.
Medieval Hotel Detenice:
This one sounds like it would very similar to spending your entire vacation at a renaissance fair. A renaissance fair that takes place in Romania about 400 years before the renaissance. Not that that's a bad thing, of course. Who doesn't enjoy sleeping with animal pelts on the walls and drinking their ale out of beer steins?
Harking back to a more rustic time, this hotel features traditional open fire cooking, and original furniture pieces. Thankfully, although the toilets are wooden faced they, at least, are of the modern, flushing variety. The real selling point for me is the advertised dinners which take place in the Brewery Tavern located next door to the property. Guests are entertained by swordsmen, juggers and dancers while they feast on traditionally prepared food and practise their medieval mannerisms. Hmmm, methinks this fief ‘tis worth a visit!
Jonathan Meier is the Marketing and Social Media Coordinator for
Nuvo Hotel Suites. He has received a degree in Communications Studies from the University of Calgary and is now, miraculously, employed in a related field. When he's not at the Hotel dealing with the daily dose of craziness he's usually out in the mountains near his hometown of Canmore where he can be seen climbing, skiing, or doing anything at all that doesn't involve computers.
Posted by Jonathan Meier on Fri, Feb 12, 2010 @ 05:06 PM
A while ago I wrote a series of posts about the weirdest and coolest hotels I could find on the internet. Due to popular request, here is another instalment of the same. If you missed the first one, you can check it out on my blog at www.nuvohotelsuites.com. While Nuvo Hotel Suites is a cool little boutique hotel in it's own right, there are some much crazier properties out there. Some bring their guests closer to God (well, sort of), others allow their guests to hitch rides on steam powered locomotives, and there's even one where you can get a taste of the life of a great Kahn.
Three Camel Lodge
For adventurous tourists, or Central Asia history enthusiasts, there's a hotel in Mongolia where you can experience the nomadic lifestyle of the ancient Mongolians firsthand. Guests staying at the Three Camel Lodge get to experience "The Lodge's twenty Deluxe Gers include a private bathroom with a toilet and sink, a king size bed and amenities such as felt slippers, Mongolian-styled bathrobes and locally produced toiletries and camel milk moisturizing lotions."
A Ger is a large, felt tent by the way. While the accommodations do look great, I would stay away from the local liquor. Traditional Mongolian Kumis is brewed from fermented Horse milk.
Hotel Saint-Merry
At first I thought this hotel was gorgeous, but the more I thought about it, the creepier it seems. This Parisian boutique hotel is actually a converted 17th century church.
The furniture and decor in this property is simply stunning. Those are flying buttresses bisecting that room over there, actually. However, there's something a little bit creepy about headboards that used to be confessional boxes.
Snowdonia Manor
This 15th century manor house is actually one of the oldest habitations in Wales. It also has an incredibly awesome name that sounds like it should be the greatest country ever. It's actually a wilderness preserve, 160 acres of ancient woodland, and this cottage is right in the heart of it.
Another cool feature of this hotel is the ability for guests to hitchhike on steam trains. The station is located a minute's walk away from the cottage, and guests can literally thumb a ride from steam trains that make the journey 16 times a day, in peak season.
Jonathan Meier is the Marketing and Social Media Coordinator for
Nuvo Hotel Suites. He has received a degree in Communications Studies from the University of Calgary and is now, miraculously, employed in a related field. When he's not at the Hotel dealing with the daily dose of craziness he's usually out in the mountains near his hometown of Canmore where he can be seen climbing, skiing, or doing anything at all that doesn't involve computers.
Posted by Jonathan Meier on Fri, Feb 05, 2010 @ 04:47 PM
Contests are always designed to bring something back to the organization running it. Either the return for the organisation is monetary, increased exposure, or brand loyalty. Sometimes, however a company runs a contest that really is a brilliant win-win for everyone involved. This exact scenario is playing out right now with a contest being run by the Peruvian Board of Tourism on Twitter.
Figure 1.1 Peru, now available on Twitter.
The rules are simple:
- Either log in or create an account through Twitter to begin posting your tweets.
- Post positve unique comments regarding Peru, it could be informational or travel related. examples: "I can't wait to visit Machu Picchu" or "Did you know that potatoes come from Peru" followed by the #Karikuy hash tag, this earns you 1 point per unique tweet.
- For 2 points per unique tweet include our ow.ly link to your tweets as well as the Karikuy hash tag: "Did you know that potatoes come from Peru" #Karikuy http://ow.ly/YOgN. And for 3 points per unique tweet include the #Travel hash tag in addtion to our link and karikuy hash tag: "Did you know that potatoes come from Peru" #Karikuy #Travel http://ow.ly/YOgN
- 4. Finally for 5 points per unique post, upload or post a link for our website (www.karikuy.org) to your blog, website, social network or any online media, then send us an @reply with the address of your posted link, for example:
@Karikuy http://www.yourwebsite.com
For the maximum of 10 points per unique post, post or upload our link (www.karikuy.org) to any Peru related website and send us an @reply with the address like the example above.
This is brilliant in several ways. It's easy to play the game, if you're already on Twitter then you have a pretty good shot at winning just by exerting some daily diligence. It builds massive SEO credit for the Karikuy website while at the same time getting a ton of positive information about Peru and Macchu Picchu out in the Twittersphere and beyond, thanks to Google's new real-time searches. Karikuy is making use of an already popular Social Media program, and combining a very attractive prize, and the results are impressive. Just search for any Peru-related subject in Twitter or Google, if you don't believe me. The only potential downside is the amount of time and effort it would take to continually tally the points, but it shouldn't be too hard if they're using Hootsuite. Essentially, these good folks just bought some very effective, and very cheap SEO. Well done, Karikuy. Well done.
Jonathan Meier is the Marketing and Social Media Coordinator for
Nuvo Hotel Suites. He has received a degree in Communications Studies from the University of Calgary and is now, miraculously, employed in a related field. When he's not at the Hotel dealing with the daily dose of craziness he's usually out in the mountains near his hometown of Canmore where he can be seen climbing, skiing, or doing anything at all that doesn't involve computers.
Posted by Jonathan Meier on Fri, Jan 29, 2010 @ 05:26 PM
The February winner of the Free Stay For Visiting Creatives contest here at Nuvo Hotel Suites is an author, screenwriter, and journalist by the name of Todd Babiak.
Todd Babiak is an award-winning author, journalist and screenwriter. His second novel, The Garneau Block, was long listed for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and was the winner of the City of Edmonton Book Prize. His third novel, The Book of Stanley, is in development for television.
He is also a columnist for the Edmonton Journal and on the board of PEN Canada, an organization that fights for freedom of expression on behalf of writers who are persecuted for their writing. This is what's bringing him to Calgary.
On Thursday, February 25, WordFest will be proud to host an event with Todd Babiak during his brief trip to Canada before returning abroad. The event is at the Auburn Saloon in 
Downtown Calgary. The evening is in honour of Freedom to Read Week and Todd will be reading from his new book Toby: A Man. To help promote the new book online, he's started his very own etiquette advice blog. The twist is that he's writing the blog as his character Toby, who happens to be an etiquette commentator for a major American television Network and the host of his own show, Toby: A Gentleman. The next time you feel the need to perk up your day a little, or if you need directions on the most gentlemanly way to move through life, check it out at www.tobyaman.com, it's actually quite funny.
Jonathan Meier is the Marketing and Social Media Coordinator for
Nuvo Hotel Suites. He has received a degree in Communications Studies from the University of Calgary and is now, miraculously, employed in a related field. When he's not at the Hotel dealing with the daily dose of craziness he's usually out in the mountains near his hometown of Canmore where he can be seen climbing, skiing, or doing anything at all that doesn't involve computers.
Posted by Jonathan Meier on Fri, Jan 22, 2010 @ 05:24 PM
Nuvo Hotel Suites is now a cut above your standard Boutique Hotel in the artwork department. A talented local artist, Kathy Lycka,
has generously allowed us to show some of her pieces in our main entranceway. While the pieces below aren't the exact ones we have displayed, they should give you a pretty good sense of what this "abstract artist addicted to texture and color" (www.kathylycka.com) is all about.
Kathy received her formal training from the Alberta College of Art and Design, earning a Bachelor of Design in 2001 while majoring in Visual Communications. Since graduation she has worked as a graphic designer for a variety of national and international corporations here in Calgary, Alberta and in London, England.
"My most recent work is a pure, unrestrained exploration of texture and colour that exploits every type of medium within my reach. To me, they represent the definition of mixed media to its fullest." - Kathy Lycka
Jonathan Meier is the Marketing and Social Media Coordinator for
Nuvo Hotel Suites. He has received a degree in Communications Studies from the University of Calgary and is now, miraculously, employed in a related field. When he's not at the Hotel dealing with the daily dose of craziness he's usually out in the mountains near his hometown of Canmore where he can be seen climbing, skiing, or doing anything at all that doesn't involve computers.
Posted by Jonathan Meier on Fri, Jan 15, 2010 @ 03:48 PM
There have been massive changes in the marketing industry in the last year, none quite as pervasive as the rise of Social Media as a marketing medium and as a way to earn higher rankings in searches. While multiple debates continue to rage on about its ultimate usefulness, there are some accepted truths. Social Media is about conversation, not conversion, and it is very time consuming. Now, even though phone companies, banks and other large organisations would have us believe otherwise, there is no way to automate a conversation. However, luckily there are ways to shave some time off of some of the repetitious tasks that are involved in creating and maintaining a Social Media presence.
Use Programs that Work Together
Delicious and Twitter are excellent examples of this. If there's a news story, or a sale, that I want to put on twitter, but also spread out on the Social Bookmarking sites, I use Delicious. When you create a Delicious bookmark you can set it to simultaneously send out a Tweet on the same topic with the URL automatically shortened thanks to bit.ly. It's a great way to hit two birds with one stone. And yes, that was a Twitter pun.
Automatically Schedule Your Releases
A big part of maintaining a high profile online is to regularly generate new content. In the warp-speed paced world of Twitter and Facebook, this gets exhausting pretty fast. An easier way to manage this is to use Hootsuite to write a week's, or even a month's, worth of tweets and schedule them to be released daily. This is just one small facet of everything that Hootsuite can do, by the way. Unfortunately, no similar program exists for Facebook (that I am aware of).
Use One Program to Check Your Web Presence
These days, if you want an online presence you have to have a Blog, a Twitter account, a Facebook account, a Squidoo lens, you have to comment on other people's accounts, tweets, and blogs, as well as add respond to your own comments, etc, etc. It's a lot of work, and it can quickly become overwhelming just trying to keep track of all the conversation's going on at once. Fortunately, there are programs like Social Mention. The people who came up with this one deserve to be canonised. Social Mention can run a highly-refineable search through the entire Social Media Jungle and report back with every little post or tweet that has your search term in it.
Jonathan Meier is the Marketing and Social Media Coordinator for
Nuvo Hotel Suites. He has received a degree in Communications Studies from the University of Calgary and is now, miraculously, employed in a related field. When he's not at the Hotel dealing with the daily dose of craziness he's usually out in the mountains near his hometown of Canmore where he can be seen climbing, skiing, or doing anything at all that doesn't involve computers.
Posted by Jonathan Meier on Fri, Jan 08, 2010 @ 04:40 PM
Nuvo Hotel Suites has been operating as a boutique hotel in downtown Calgary for just about 10 months now, and if you had asked me 11 months ago what lessons I thought would prepare me for working in the hotel industry, Confucian principles would not have been high on my list. However, I recently came across a paper on Confucian doctrine I wrote for a University course some time ago and I realised that a lot of Confucius' teachings can, and should, be applied to running a hotel.
Master replied: "How about 'shu' [reciprocity]: never impose on others what you would not choose for yourself?" Analects XV.24
When you're viewing your own hotel rooms and procedures, remember to ask yourself "If I were a guest, would I want this?". If the answer is "No", then take the appropriate action.
'He who gives no thought to difficulties in the future is sure to be beset by worries much closer at hand.' Lau [15:12]
The message here is simply to plan ahead. But, there's more to it than that. If you can keep your long-term plans organised, it'll make it that much easier to deal with unforeseen problems as they occur because you can fully focus on solving them.
'Ensure that those who are near are pleased and those who are far away are attracted.' Lau [13:16]
Keeping a good reputation locally is a vital part of building a prosperous business, and marketing yourself as a destination is a great way to attract travellers. But you can't forsake one for the other and expect to succeed. For example, while we normally do quite well with the travelling business crowd, this past holiday season we managed to fill up the Nuvo with local guests who were going out to paint the town red on New Year's Eve.
'Claims made immodestly are difficult to live up to.' Lau [14:20]
Make sure that your marketing accurately reflects what your hotel has to offer. If your website says you're a luxury hotel, you'd better have room service and Jacuzzi's.
"To know your faults and be able to change is the greatest virtue"
It's often harder for a hotel to discover its faults then it is for a hotel to change. Talk to your guests; ask your regulars what changes they would like to see, e-mail out some surveys to your guests after they check out. If you don't ask questions you'll never know the answers, and in this case that means you'll never improve.
Jonathan Meier is the Marketing and Social Media Coordinator for
Nuvo Hotel Suites. He has received a degree in Communications Studies from the University of Calgary and is now, miraculously, employed in a related field. When he's not at the Hotel dealing with the daily dose of craziness he's usually out in the mountains near his hometown of Canmore where he can be seen climbing, skiing, or doing anything at all that doesn't involve computers.
Posted by Jonathan Meier on Sat, Jan 02, 2010 @ 06:45 PM
As 2009 draws to a close, I find myself looking back over the last year, the first year for Nuvo Hotel Suites, to take a look at what we did right and what we did wrong. While the vast majority of the reviews we received online are positive, there are some legitimate complaints. Others are a bit more irrational, or were clearly written for the sake of spite, and still others were a little bit over the top in their praise. Daniel Edward Craig has written a great article to help sift through the various types of bogus online reviews, which you can read here. For my own development I took a look at a few of the best and worst reviews of the last year to try and keep on doing the right things, and avoid doing the wrong things.
Nice space
I liked the converted apartment style room. Nicely furnished, good amenities, and great location. My only issue was that the sliding door/window opened to a very loud street. A/C required that this door be propped open and a lot of road noise came in. Too hot if closed, too loud if open. Bit of a lose-lose situation. Other than that I quite like the room. Would definitely stay again but either on a different side of the hotel or in the winter when I don't need the window open.
This was posted shortly after we had initially installed A/C, but before we had time to drill holes in all the suite walls to allow for proper venting. So, we were on our way to fixing this issue, but it took some time to retrofit the entire building with portable A/C. At present most of our suites have A/C with a vent, however our corner units by necessity use window-mounted units.
Well priced, executive style, great central location
Really enjoyed my stay. The photos do the hotel great justice and real life is exactly what you see in the photos. Really well fitted out, executive apartments/suites. Would recommend for either business or personal travel. Service is lean however professional and flexible. Not a hotel with 24hr serviced concierge and reception however had no issues none-the-less. Definitely will recommend and return myself.
Traveller's tip
Ring ahead and have a chat with them to discuss key and parking arrangements ahead of time.
This is a sterling review for us, with the one exception being the parking tip. As a small boutique hotel parking is something of a challenge for us. We don't have any room on our own property for a parking lot, so we rent stalls from a neighbouring office building. On the plus side this means we can provide parking for our guests, on the down side, the only way to get to the parking is to walk outside across the street. While I'd love to have parking onsite, without tearing down the hotel and rebuilding it's just not going to happen
Too hot!
Booked this hotel for two nights but only stayed for one. Too hot at night couldn't get any sleep.
This was the most common complaint we had in 2009. For the first half of the summer, Nuvo Hotel didn't have any A/C. We do now of course, but these are some of the hardest complaints to handle since there's no way to immediately rectify the problem at the time of the complaint. In this case, we ordered a number of different units from a various stores in Calgary and let our guests and maintenance teams let us know which ones worked the best. Once we and settled on the units we wanted we permanently installed them.
Jonathan Meier is the Marketing and Social Media Coordinator for
Nuvo Hotel Suites. He has received a degree in Communications Studies from the University of Calgary and is now, miraculously, employed in a related field. When he's not at the Hotel dealing with the daily dose of craziness he's usually out in the mountains near his hometown of Canmore where he can be seen climbing, skiing, or doing anything at all that doesn't involve computers.