The Top 8 Things We Learned from Marks & Spencer’s 2013 Plan A Report. An excellent summary and inspirational to apply to your own business!  

The Alto Hotel in Melbourne is Australia’s first carbon neutral hotel. Read here about their other environmental initiatives.  

Oasis Collections latest info-graphic shows a variety of advantages to staying in a short term apartment rental instead of a hotel. That’s why at yök we want to offer you a ‘casa’, not just a hotel room…

The boom of low-cost lodging, an interesting article in El País about how the number of hostels in Barcelona has doubled in the last few years, and about how for each legal bed there is 1 or 2 illegal ones, according to Carles […]

Last week Petz Scholtus took part in the conference “How to mitigate the impact of mass tourism in Barcelona?” by Upsocial. Juan Manuel Ribera, tourism consultant, explained that “tourism is not one thing but the sum of many things like gastronomy transportation, health care, […]

In 2012 Barcelona received 7,44 million tourists, 0,7% more than the year before according to La Vanguardia “Barcelona mantiene el número de turistas en 2012 pero caen un 6,8% los españoles”  

TripAdvisor launched the GreenLeaders Program to help eco business get the recognition they deserve and travellers plan more responsible trips. So far this is only for US-based hotels and B&Bs but we hope it will be global soon. Check TripAdvisor’s survey guide […]

Here some ideas to save energy: An Overview of Energy Use and Energy Efficiency Opportunities, and also check out Energy Star’s guidelines for hotels.

If you every need to write a business plan, we recommend Business Model Generation! This is our canvas by Petz Scholtus!  

Chip Conley is a hotelier with an interesting message. Watch his TED talk: Measuring what makes life worthwhile. Other professionals from the hotel business we like are Eric Goode, Sean MacPherson, Tyler Brûlé and Alex Calderwood.  

This is our logo, designed by Katie Barcelona in San Francisco. Here is her explanation of it: “The logo for yök was created to embody the spirit of Barcelona. Inspiration was drawn from mid-19th century encaustic tiles in the city, and also […]

Barcelona is the third happiest city in the world, according to Forbes… maybe that’s a bit exaggerated, especially if you read why (shopping?!) but we agree; you can be very happy in Barcelona!  

Fliegender Kaffee (German for flying coffee) is a social coffee tradition in Berlin. The idea is simple: buy one coffee for you, and one for a person who can’t afford one that day (homeless, student, unemployed, …). The concept was born in […]

Hotels in 2013: No More Gimmicks or Bellmen, Says Ian Schrager Taste, not gimmicks“People can’t get away with the generic copycats they’ve pulled off in the past. The new idea will be to try not to overwhelm the customer with ideas and […]

Hotel vocabulary for beginners! In Spanish via Traveler.es. Concierge: el Sr. Lobo de los hoteles. La palabra viene de comte des cierges (“keeper of the candles”): era quien guiaba a los aristócratas con una vela por sus palacios. Es quien te ayuda y responde tus […]