Marketing

Green Lodging, Eco-Tourism, & Mash-Ups

October 16, 2008

I started to think about the ways that I could utilize a blog to help http://www.mintek.com. I wrote this sample blog post a long time ago as a proof-of-concept.

Since then I’ve done a lot more reading. As I am now prepared to start blogging for Mintek – I figured I’d throw this one in for fun. I’ll conclude this at the end with some more recent commentary.

April 4, 2008: The Start of a Concept

The idea for this concept has been percolating in my head the last couple days while I have spent time reviewing web2.0 stylized companies and websites for the purposes of marketing.

These companies are often little on substantive infrastructure, but high on utility. While I am moderately informed on such technologies I found openkapow.com today. I believe this fills the gap from a technological stand-point for what I was looking for.

The concept is simple. Utilize bring 3 different areas of information into one searchable web mash-up. The purpose of this mash-up would be for searching for green hotels (one type of information), with price (another source), & mapped (a third source).

1. Green Hotel Listing
2. Hotel Pricing
3. Mapping

Green Hotel Listing

I initially thought I might utilize each State’s individual, such as Florida’s www.dep.state.fl.us/greenlodging/lodges.htm, but thought that gathering that information might be tedious to collect. I then looked at Environmentally Friendly Hotels’ (EFH) website and ran a search with no criteria to find this list of hotels http://www.environmentallyfriendlyhotels.com/search.php?q=. While other sites such as www.greenvacationhub.com were considered, EVH immediately became the front runner because of their simple data format with rankings.

- 1110 Carriage House Inn, Austin, Texas, United States
- 1785 Inn, North Conway, New Hampshire, United States
- 1920s Cottars Safari Camp, Narok, Kenya
- 3 Rivers Eco Lodge, Dominica
- 51 Buckingham Gate, London, England
- 5th Avenue Suites Hotel, Portland, Oregon, United States
- 70 Park Avenue Hotel, New York, New York, United States

Hotel Pricing

The next data collection variable is hotel pricing. Of course, I’m looking for a system that can pull information on location, date, & price from the list compiled of EVH + PM users. This is much easier to gather than “greenness” because of http://www.Priceline.com, http://www.Travelocity.com, & http://www.Hotels.com. I’m not sure which one I will try to build the app on, but lets’ assume Priceline for the time being.

Mapping

Mapping. Let’s see mash-up + maps = Google Maps. Enough said.

So how would I envision the website looking? How about something like this:

Action Items

1. Download the Openkapow software and figure out if I’m technically savvy enough to program that.
2. Work on simple proof of concept.
3. Develop working model.
4. Find a good URL.

Marketing Reasoning

Why would I spend the time to design this type of website?

Simple. Green is good. Waste is bad. Our systems are designed to efficiently schedule & properly maintain the assets of companies. These assets are important costly assets that use lots of energy. You can look at a few of our white papers about PMs and energy efficiency, but suffice it to say that properties that actively maintain their equipment in the best working order are going to be significantly more “green conscious.”

Parting thoughts

How does thriftiness and longevity make a company green? Well being green is important and David Bach proves that for consumers being green makes money. Discovery Channel’s new blog Treehugger.com has a great article about his new book