You can always tell who are travel agents on a cruise. Difficult to say why but you can. On SS Splendor last week there did not appear to be any ‘working’ travel agent but there was one very important travel writer, Lee Tulloch, above. She went into purdah for two days to tidy up what will be her fifth novel, about a travel writer. Yes, it’s autobiographical.
She has regular columns in both The Sydney Morning Herald and The Melbourne Age. Girlahead asked her what she looked for in hotels.
Please, she urges hoteliers, go back to think of hotels as hotels not residences. Today’s younger travellers are so used to working from home they want hotels to offer working from the world – having a proper desk in her Splendor suite (#616) is really a joy. Hotels need to start thinking what guests really need.
On press releases from hotels, she has strong views. She dislikes bland statements, and such cottonwool phrases as ‘redefining luxury’ and ‘working with the community’. What does that mean? She wants specifics. She also wants ideas for unique stories, and names. Australians, she says, are gregarious and they want to go home with a story about someone.
On food, she admits that a long, lazy breakfast is something that she really loves, and hospitality could make a bit more of their breakfasts, she says. Yes she her favourite hotels – she can always find stories on such grand hotels as the CIPRIANI, Belmond’s Venice beauty.
And with that, the assembled company of two forsook Splendor’s magnificent Meridian Lounge and rushed off to their respective dinners.
