A gourmet night in Nicosia

I must admit that my weakness is good food. I cannot resist to the invitation that promises new taste experiences. Last night I accompanied my sister and her husband to probably the best restaurant in Cyprus.

In my life I have had the luck to work with great chefs. I had the luck to taste new tastes that made me feel what we call a gastronomic orgasm. Last night I had a very well prepared beef carpaccio that combined the aromas of the Mediterranean herbs and the high quality of tender beef. The lemon marinated mushrooms with the combination of pesto and parmesano were honestly one of the simplest ways to impress my palate. I asked Marios (the owner) to take care of my main course and the only condition was that I wanted no meat, I was scared to spoil the carpaccio. The seafood paupiette on a bed of fine potatoes aromatised with lime and herbs was nothing else but an extraordinary surprise.

I will not write anything about the dessert. I will let you discover that area. If it happens to be Nicosia visit Domus Lounge Restaurant and Bar. Its just a few meters before the entrance of the Archbishops’ Palace, call Marios at 22433722 or before you land to Cyprus or arrive in Nicosia make sure you have send your reservation at reservations@domusloungebar.com
Enjoy your Dinner. (do not forget the dessert).

Paphos Archaeology , Paphos Lighthouse and Shish Kebab (Gyros)

I must say that every day that passes I am very happy with the town hall of Paphos (Cyprus) and especially with the mayor and the council of the town.

Their capability to govern the town is amazing. I admire the fact that they really look after our touristic attractions and ancient monuments in a monumental way.

Pafos has a landmark, its lighthouse. All of us who live here have admired amazing sunsets under this magnificent witness of the importance of our town in the navigation world. I am sure the mayor himself must have given a kiss to his wife overlooked by the lighthouse, I am sure that all absolutely all of the members of the council have walked to the lighthouse during their youth accompanied by this special person, I am sure that all of them forgot about this area of the town, the most beautiful place of our town. They forgot about it, and this easy to confirm that if you just walk there from inside the archaeological park (avoiding meter and half high weeds).

On your way to the lighthouse you will have the pleasure to see how the sensible department of Antiquities of the Republic of Cyprus preserves the Roman Odeon and its surroundings, including the waste bins. You will enjoy the view of tins and empty plastic bottles, tissues and other environmental friendly waste that decorate the pathways to the lighthouse.

I had the opportunity to do the full tour with friends from Spain that were here in Pafos during Easter time. It was really fantastic to see how our predecessors did not think of leaving instructions of how to clean the area around St. Pauls Pillar, I cannot understand how those wise men did not think something so important.

I would like to thank Mr. Savvas Vergas and his team for the sharing the waste of the city with my guests from Spain in the Archaeological Routes of Paphos, thank them for saving money on cleaning in order to invest them in beating the world Guinness record of the biggest Shish Kebab (Gyros) again. This Guinness record really makes me very proud as a citizen of Paphos and this is why I will encourage all my friends to honour this council again in the next municipal elections.

Thank you for running our town so well.

Cyprus hotels and travel agents alert

A new report is out and is indicating that the main tour operators that operate in Cyprus have an increase on their online platforms.

• In the year to September 2008, 33% of TUI UK's mainstream business came from online, making it the tour operator's biggest sales channel.

• Thomas Cook's recently launched e-commerce platform, Starfish, is helping increase conversion rates on thomascook.com by more than 300% and web sales in the UK have reached 27% of total bookings.

• EyeforTravel Research indicates that 26% of all UK hotel rooms are now booked online and we predict this rate will continue to increase at 15% per year till 2011.

• In a recent Expedia survey, 50% of respondents expect to save GB£250 on next year's holiday by booking their trip online, with 30% planning to switch from a traditional high street agent to an online source in 2009.

The question now is. Do you as hotelier or incoming agent know enough about online marketing? Do you have the knowledge to compete in this global market called online market? Are you ready to learn, to adapt, to adopt and improve your everyday business practices?

Internet is a free or almost free space but knowhow and expertise is something that we all need to pay for. So invest in expertise and knowhow so the free internet world makes money for your company!!


Post originally posted on www.emrgence2009.com Blog platform

To do or not to do?

Last week I had the opportunity to meet with 2 graphic reporters of very well known German tourist magazine who were in Cyprus to make pictures and write about things you can do in Cyprus and especially things related to the richness of archaeology we have.

It was really disappointing to hear that their impression about our archaeology was really poor and really negative. I was not surprised since personally I know that the Department of Antiquities in Cyprus is run by people that have no vision, no ambition and defiantly not any intention to share knowledge and experiences with the visitor of any sites.

The 2 journalists told me that they have visited almost all the sites in Cyprus but in none of them they found anything to DO. Yes to do and not to see. They are used to visit sites in Spain, Italy and other EU countries where the visitor has the opportunity t DO something, to watch an audiovisual journey, to experience the way of life of our predecessors with the use of new technologies, museums where children could actually touch and feel the old world, workshops and so many other things to DO.

Those 2 experts on Archeological tourism found our sites boring, found our museums dull, found our historical content dead and they are very right. They are very right because the governmental department responsible for the archeology of Cyprus is dull, is boring and defiantly not useful.

It seems that the older references on this blog are still very valid....

Benchmarking equal Archeological Sites !!!!

Life is back at the Tombs of the Kings in Paphos

Online customer Scare by Cyprus Hotels

On Friday the 10th of April 2009 I made a survey to 12 hotels in Paphos, Limassol, Agia Napa and Troodos in order to find out how Cypriots book their weekend holidays. The result of this mini survey is:

• 80% make there bookings online
• 10% book over the phone
• 10% with travel agents

Now the Cypriots who use the internet prefer www.bookcyprus.com , www.booking.com and www.expedia.co.uk . This would have been completely normal if the Cyprus Hoteliers did not have what we call special prices for locals. The funny thing is that these special prices are more expensive than the web of the hotels, more expensive than Booking.com and more expensive than expedia.

Then, today Saturday the 10th of April I have made a test on the 12 hotels I mention above. I called their reservations department, I checked their own web, I looked for them on the 3 web sites mentioned above and I also called to a travel agent.

The result was:

• 8 of those 12 hotels had 5 different rates for the same dates for the same room. One rate on the phone, one on their own web, one on expedia, one on booking and one on bookcyprus.com
• 3 of them had the same rates over the phone and on their own web but different rates on the 3rd party web sites.
• 1 hotel had price parity all the way thru.

I felt like an idiot when I mention to one reservation officer of the first 8 hotels that on booking.com I see that they have available rooms for 55 euros cheaper than the price is giving me over the phone and on their own web is 45 euros cheaper than the phone price. The answer was very embarrassing, those prices are for foreigners. I asked what would it happen if I book on booking.com and the poor lady got upset, she told me that I cannot make a booking from abroad if I am a Cypriot, and that the prices for Cypriots are the ones she told me.

I thanked her and I hung up the phone. I stared at my computer and I thought of sending an email to the General Manager of the hotel and the owners with a copy to the CTO and the 2 hoteliers associations. I decided that I will not do it because the reservations lady came all the way from Russia to work in Cyprus and she only follows orders of those I was going to send an email to. I will not mention the hotel, I will only say that is a five star hotel in Limassol.

I am wondering if hotels in Cyprus really want Cyprus residents to stay in their hotels.

Post originally Published on www.emergence2009.com

Your hotel is filthy according to TripAdvisor, is it really ??

Social media is changing the world of Tourism. This is something we all know and we all experienced during emergence2009.

Trip Advisor is probably the place where most of us, as hoteliers go to see how our hotel is rated. Now Trip Advisor also has another face, the search by key word face. If you search Filthy Hotels in Cyprus on Google or even worse search Filthy Hotels on Trip Advisor we see that this portal is NOT a valid source of information.

On the list of Filthy Hotels in Cyprus you will probably see your own clean hotel that comes up. I am sure that hotels like Ledra Iberostar in Paphos is not filthy, like St. Raphael Hotel in Limassol is neither filthy, I was there many times myself and they were very clean hotels.

The word filthy is just another word in the English language; customers may use it in a hotel review to describe how filthy the clothes of the kids got after playing in the kids club and had a great time. This is the case of Louis Phaethon that arears on the list of Filthy hotels despite its rating is really good.

The list of filthy hotels in Cyprus on Trip Advisor is huge and it goes back until 2006. So is Trip Advisor a benchmark? How valid are the comments and the search results there? Judge yourself? Is there a way to avoid this? Yes there is. !!!

Reputable Hotel with bad online reputation

Our friend Richard Sedley on his Twitter today was sending us on an article on the web of E-Consultancy about what importance brands should show about social media comments . A very interesting article that I read with great interest and inspired me to cruise on Trip Advisor and randomly check some hotels in Cyprus and Greece.

Amathus in Rhodes and Coral Beach in Pafos. Both hotels have positive and negative comments on this social media platform which I personally do not like. Now, the difference is that Rhodian Amathus followed up one negative and gave a very nice answer that makes lots of sense. Coral Beach never answers anything. This back turning gives the “excuse” to the guests to give even more negative reviews so as they influence more people. The conversation is only between the tourists and the hotel does not take any part.

Well this a fatal error. See by yourself here.

Coral Beach by Trip Advisor http://tiny.cc/i6F8P
Rhodian Amathus by Trip Advisor http://tiny.cc/7E7LF

This post is also posted on www.Emergence2009.com

Libra Holidays, choose Libra for your hotel so you go bankrupt

After several conversations with hoteliers in Cyprus and Greece I realised that Libra Holidays Group, also known as Alburry Travel Group has literally sent to bankruptcy lots of hotels and their families. This is well known but what was not that known is that the same situation happens in Turkey and Egypt. After some investigation I found out that Mr. Adreas Drakou and his environment managed to cheat many more naïf hoteliers also in Turkey and Egypt.

I have a list of apox 60 hotels and correspondence with some of them that proves that.

I am wondering why the hoteliers do not reveal and go against the owners of Libra worldwide. The owners are Andreas Drakou and other honourable businessmen form Cyprus and the UK and at the end of the day they are also victims of this big fraud since Drakou dragged them in the ditch.

There is a law office that deals with cases like that, very successful in similar cases and if the hoteliers of Cyprus, Greece (E.U countries) can join forces they will be able to recover their money. The money Libra and co took form the hoteliers is not lost, they became plots in Sharm el Sheik, in Bulgaria and Romania.

In these times of crisis we need to be united and get those companies and their owners out of the market.