Friday 31 May 2013

What are you doing this weekend?

Check out Trip Advisor top 5 activities for ideas!
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Stanley Park
Ranked #1 of 152 attractions in Vancouver
Category: Parks
Owner description: North America's third-largest park draws eight million visitors per year, many of whom may skate or walk past you on the... more »
Map Visitor photos (1170)
Sea to Sky Highway
Ranked #2 of 152 attractions in Vancouver
Category: Scenic Drives
A two-lane scenic highway passes both the Pacific Ocean and rugged mountain peaks.
Map Visitor photos (174)
Museum of Anthropology
Ranked #3 of 152 attractions in Vancouver
Category: Natural History Museums; Speciality Museums; History Museums; Museums
Owner description: The Museum of Anthropology, on the campus of the University of British Columbia, is an incredible collection of artifacts and... more »
Map Visitor photos (94)
Lynn Canyon Park
Ranked #4 of 152 attractions in Vancouver
Category: Parks; Bridges; State Parks
Lynn Canyon Park officially opened to the public in 1912 and has been a popular destination among tourists and local residents ever since. Lynn Canyon Park is a great location for... more »
Map Visitor photos (182)Add to trip
VanDusen Botanical Garden
Ranked #5 of 152 attractions in Vancouver
Category: Gardens
This beautiful garden has 22 hectares of plants and trees.
Map Visitor photos (76)

Thursday 30 May 2013

Mixing Arts and Hotels


Check out this cool article from Hotelchatter.com featuring our very own
Fairmont, Pacific Rim

Exhibit A: Vancouver Art Gallery’s Grand Hotel Exhibit
By: Janice Tober for HotelChatter



If you consider yourself a true hotel nerd, pack your bags: You’re going to Vancouver! The Vancouver Art Gallery has an installation so perfect it ain’t even funny. It’s called Grand Hotel: Redesigning Modern Life (on until September 15) and it’s broken out into four themes: Travel, Social, Cultural and Design (see our full-blown review of the exhibit on sister site, Jaunted).

Not to get too arty on you, but here’s our take on how these themes play out in real life using the fine Fairmont Pacific Rim as our specimen.

Travel: Yes, travel can be getting from Point A to Point B but the underlying driver for most is adventure and escape.

Everything about the Fairmont Pacific Rim says “escape,” particularly the amazing Willow Stream Spa with its outdoor sun deck, where you can hang out with your pampered peeps around heating lamps and fireplaces, or in the whirlpools with flat-screen TVs above you to catch your favorite show.

Social: Hotels are social hubs full of interpersonal machinations.
We told you about the Fairmont Pacific Rim’s hot-spot Lobby Lounge earlier this week, but then there’s their Oru Restaurant or their hopping giovane cafĂ©: coffee bar by day (reputed to have the best in the city) and wine bar by night. To say these spots are popular with locals and guests would be the understatement of the day. Social hubs? Absolutely!



Stay with us -- two more themes to go!

Design: One of our favorite topics when it comes to hotels, design is one of the ways hotels keep upping their game so that the cool kids will stay there. In fact, the whole hotel experience is curated: service, food, rooms, all designed to say something to you.



You see good design all over the Fairmont Pacific Rim, whether through tiny (but expensive!) details like having the marble walls in the lobby form a strangely pleasing line of Vs or through large statements like the Owner's Suite (locally known as “the cube”) which hangs outside of the hotel in all of its maxed out chicness.


Culture: Hotels leave an imprint on the place they’re located as do the people who stay there. Good hotels –- the ones we geeks really like -– add to the place they call home.

At the Fairmont Pacific Rim, the building itself is a work of art with its poem found on the outside of the building when you look up or through its in-house art collection. Similarly, guests leave an imprint, whether it’s the recent stay by Tom Cruise (just a rumor you understand -– wink, wink) or other celebs or royals that the hotel is too discreet to name.

The hotel has a Designed to Perfection package that includes VIP passes to the Vacouver Art Gallery, overnight accommodation, a self-guided art and design tour of the hotel, the hotel's book Room for Passion, a guided architecture tour of Vancouver by the Architecture Institute of BC, and a picnic lunch from giovane cafĂ© -- all starting at $549 CAD ($532).

Wednesday 29 May 2013

What's new in Jamaica?

Check out what Cande Nast Traveller has to say about the new Jamaican resorts!



Jamaica is as popular as ever, and now there's even more reason to go.

In the town of Treasure Beach, on the south coast, Jakes Hotel has added the Seaweed Luxury Villa(www.jakeshotel.com; £750 per night). Encompassing one four-bedroom cottage and one two-bedroom cottage, it has its own gym, infinity pool, outdoor grill and bar. It's all very boho-chic: over-sized cushions, seashell decorations, rattan mats, a turquoise-and-white colour-palette, and Red Stripe on the menu.
The five-bedroom villa Roaring Pavilion, in Ocho Rios, is now available to rent through the Firefly Collection (www.firefly-collection.com). It is on the stretch of beach where James Bond stumbled upon Honey Ryder (Ursula Andress) and her conch shell in Dr No; Sean Connery himself stayed at Roaring Pavilion during filming. Opening in Port Antonio in January 2013 is Trident Castle and Trident Hotel, both part of the boutique Geejam Collection, owned by music producers Jon Baker and Steve Beaver.
The brilliant-white baroque-style castle, which in fact dates back to 1979, was once the home of the eccentric Earl Levy, who hosted style icons, actors and high society; Audrey Hepburn, Kate Moss, Johnny Depp and Denzel Washington have all stayed here.
Trident Castle has nine rooms, and Trident Hotel will open with 13 one- and two-bedroom villas decorated in a similar contemporary style to Geejam, which has five all-white cabins.
The compant also has plans to open Blue Lagoon, a restaurant-bar-spa at the water's edge of a natural lagoon of the same name, late next year. For more information on Trident Castle and Trident Hotel, visit www.geejamcollection.com
For more information in these destinations and article, please see Conde Nast Traveller

Tuesday 28 May 2013

Why Should You Pursue a Hospitality Career?

Check out Hoteljob.com top 10 reasons!


1. Work in a Relaxing Vacation Oriented Environment

From the work location, to the customers you serve, working in a hotel or resort is one of the most fun and relaxing career paths a job seeker can take. You’ll find customers at a hotel or resort can be much more enjoyable to serve than customers in other industries who’re likely overworked and dealing with the stresses of life’s ups and downs. People come to hotels to relax and have a good time. It’s their chance to escape work and the burdens of every day life. To facilitate this, every detail in a hotel, right down to the decor, is selected to create a welcoming environment. It’s a far cry from a stuffy office cubical or a noisy construction site. When working in a relaxing, vacation focused environment your job can become much less stressful and much more enjoyable, making it hard not to absorb some of the same good mood and vacation vibe your hotel guests enjoy.

2. Great Pay

Great paying hotel jobs are abundant. Career options are particularly great in larger full service properties and resorts, but in general, hotel companies that value providing amazing guest service are willing to pay top dollar for top performing hospitality staff. Such hotel companies offer competitive starting wages, regularly scheduled pay raises, bonuses and other financial rewards for providing great service. Additionally, many resort and hotel jobs derive large portions of their salary from sales commissions and service tips. Reservations, timeshare sales, bartender, restaurant server, spa attendant, and concierge are just a few hotel jobs that often pay $30-$40 per hour without the need for a college degree or years of work experience.
Likewise, hotel management jobs offer competitive salaries in comparison to other industries, whether working in Engineering, Sales or Customer Service. Front Desk Manager jobs pay on average a $40,000 salary in US hotels, and the average Hotel General Manager earns around $95,000. You can check salaries for more hotel jobs at Salary.com.

3. Entry Level Job Opportunities

There is a large variety of entry level jobs and career opportunities available in hotels and resorts, management and non-management jobs alike. In an industry where the ability to provide great guest service is more important than anything, a strong work ethic and an outgoing personality are often valued more than a college degree or years of experience.
Hotel jobs such as reservations, front desk, and guest service agent are great starting positions for job seekers interested in building their resume and moving into upper management. Likewise, there are other entry level hotel jobs in areas like engineering, security, and culinary departments that help job seekers build work experience in their chosen careers while earning great starting pay.

4. Career Advancement

The hotel business is a multinational, $3.5 trillion industry. Between franchise motels, full service hotels, casino resorts and the corporate offices that oversee them all, your hotel career can offer unlimited growth potential. There are a great number of job departments in a hotel, from housekeeping, to sales, to landscaping and guest services. In a large multi-hotel company, each of these departments offer a long chain of command through which hotel staff members can advance their hospitality careers. Once you find the department you are most comfortable in, you can pursue job growth from property level management, to regional management and executive level positions. Marriott International is a great example. As stated in our Best Hotel Jobs in the US article, 3,000 of their managers started their careers at Marriott in entry level jobs.

5. Coworker Camaraderie

The hotel and hospitality business attracts a lot of friendly personalities. These are people who enjoy meeting and working with others. Workers employed in hotel jobs are there because they know how to be polite and accommodating to guests. In a healthy workplace, it’s only natural these traits carry over to how employees interact with one and other. Greeting and serving new guests every day keeps hotel professionals in a pleasant, outgoing and social mood. Finding a new job or pursuing a new career in a hotel is a great way to make new friends and build long lasting work relationships.

6. Opportunities for Part Time and Temporary Employment

Hotels in your area may often need additional employees during certain seasons or busy times of year, for which they need to hire temporary staff. Additionally, there are regular busy times throughout the week, such as weekends or nights for which they need to retain permanent, part time employees.
These are great opportunities for job seekers having additional responsibilities such as school, family or a primary job who would like to pick up a little extra cash or supplement their existing income.

7. Learn New Career Skills

A hotel is a tight knit community of workers and professionals of various trades. Whether employed in a job department such as engineering, human resources, sales, or IT, working in such close proximity of hotel professionals in other departments allows you the opportunity to learn new career skills and pursue new job titles and careers vastly different than your own. When jobs open in one of these other departments, as a hotel employee, you’ll often have the opportunity to apply before the job is made public.

8. Job Relocation

A change of scenery can be nice, and it’s exciting to think what life might offer in a new city, or maybe even on a different continent. But starting a new life in a new city is difficult if you don’t already have a job lined up. The nice thing about working for a large hotel corporation that manages dozens, or even hundreds of hotels, is how easy it can be to transfer job titles, or to pursue a new career or job promotion in a sister property.
Featured employer on our hotel career board, Interstate Hotels & Resorts, manages over 260 hotels and resorts in the United States alone, and even more hotels internationally. When working for such a company, you can move to a new city and have your new job waiting on you without having to start over with a new company and undergo training for a job you already know.

9. Meeting New People

Every day you’ll be meeting and greeting new faces on the job. Between the hotel guests and your coworkers, you’ll have the opportunity to interact with diverse groups of people from all walks of life. Whether serving and entertaining hotel guests, or making new friends with fellow employees who’re new hires, or transfers from other hotels, or seasonal and part time staff you only occasionally work with, the constant flow of new faces and personalities keeps your workplace fresh, fun and exciting.

10. Job Benefits

Most hotels are part of a major brand such as Hilton Hotels, Hyatt Hotels, or Marriott International. Even independent and boutique hotels are often owned by large hotel management companies operating a vast number of hotels and resorts across the world. Requiring potentially thousands of hotel workers and other hospitality professionals to keep their hotels running, these organizations know they have to offer great benefits to attract and retain hospitality job seekers.
Benefits job seekers qualify for while working for top hotel employers like Marriott and Hilton can include medical, dental, maternity leave, vacation pay, tuition reimbursement, and retirement packages like 401(k)’s. Hotel professionals get additional benefits and luxuries that workers in other industries never get the opportunity to enjoy. Most large hotel organizations offer employees things like free employee meals as well as discounted or even free vacation travel, lodging and dining at affiliated hotels, restaurants and resorts throughout the world. Benefits like these allow you to take your friends and family to places and do things they otherwise may’ve never been able to experience.
Between great pay, amazing benefits, opportunities for career advancement, and a fun and enjoyable work environment it’s no wonder why nearly 2 million American workers have taken careers in the hotel industry. With the growth and excitement that promises to accompany the ever changing vacation and lodging industry, fun and rewarding opportunities are sure to follow. Search Hotel Jobs today, and make your career a vacation!