Results of the study of Grodno hotels for "cycling friendliness"

Cyclists of Grodno are periodically approached by cyclists planning a trip to the city. In addition to an interesting route, it is important for them to find out in advance the conditions of overnight stay, the opportunity to visit a cafe in a bicycle uniform, etc. We are glad that Grodno hotels understand the potential of cycling tourism and are improving the conditions for receiving guests today.

Cyclists of Grodno are periodically approached by cyclists planning a trip to the city. In addition to an interesting route, it is important for them to find out in advance the conditions of overnight stay, the opportunity to visit a cafe in a bicycle uniform, etc. We are glad that Grodno hotels understand the potential of cycling tourism and are improving the conditions for receiving guests today.

We were able to convince ourselves of this by conducting a study on the bicycle friendliness of hotels during August within the framework of the “Business Bike” campaign, which is included in the “Urban Cycling in Belarus” project with the support of the European Union. To collect information, hotels / hostels were asked to answer several questions on the online questionnaire.

10 questionnaires were sent out (8 hotels and 2 hostels). They received 7 responses (6 hotels and 1 hostel).

We can now refer to the "bike-friendly" hotels / hostels all who gave the answer: hotels "Neman", "Kronon", hotels "Grodnoturist", "Slavia", "Semashko", "Belarus"; hostel "Hello, Grodno!"

The first to answer not only the questions, but also the letter itself were "expensive" private hotels. I am glad that Grodno business really thinks about the comfortable conditions of its clients. We had to wait longer for answers from the state-owned hotel.

They did not answer the questions of the questionnaire: the hotel "Prival" and "Omega", a hostel on the Augustow Canal.

Already from the first answers, it became clear that each hotel / hostel was visited by cyclists and accommodated in them.

Out of seven, only two tourism entities do not have the usual bicycle parking. Obviously, when the hostel is located in a residential building, there may be no place or consent of the residents of the building to install a bicycle parking. But the absence of a bicycle parking near a large and inexpensive hotel is more likely to indicate the interests of customers that have not been taken into account so far.

Hotels that indicated in their responses that they needed recommendations on how to install a bicycle parking, were sent a corresponding booklet.

In four hotels, a parked bike is monitored by cameras and security guards.

Regardless of whether there is a bicycle parking near the hotel / hostel, most of them offer other options for storing your bike: at the entrance, in the parking lot, indoors. The hotel "Belarus", in the absence of a bicycle parking near the building, allows storage of a bicycle in its room.

Only the "Kronon" hotel and the "Grodnoturist" hotel are ready to offer bicycles for rent. Moreover, "Kronon" provides its customers with the service free of charge. Considering that Grodno is a small city, there are bike rental points within a 10-minute accessibility of most hotels.

All responding hotels / hostels can tell their customers where to go for rental in their area and indicate the recommended cycling routes.

None of the hotels / hostels refuse to provide information for cyclists. This should be of interest both to the rental centers mentioned above and to travel companies offering bike excursions. But half of the respondents indicated that they are ready to post only non-commercial information.

Several more new hotels will be opened in Grodno in the coming years. It is important that already during the design stage, a parking space is provided not only for cars, but also for bicycles. Some tourists come in groups of 10 and this should be taken into account.

Somewhere it will be appropriate to park a bicycle parking in the courtyard of the hotel under video cameras, but if the size of the building allows, of course, it would be better to make it covered and easily accessible for transport owners. Whoever arrives by car carrying bicycles will also want to park in a safer environment so that they can rest at night instead of keeping their luggage safe 🙂

During the survey, we asked to send photos of bicycle parking, but did not receive any. Without them, it is impossible to visually assess the convenience of bicycle parking, and the absence of a photograph raised doubts about the reliability of the answers.

In order to feel the work done thoroughly, we decided to take pictures of the hotel bike racks ourselves. To our surprise, two of the “existing” bike parks turned out to be an opportunity to leave the bike in the courtyard, fastening it to the fence. We are not ready to call this the most comfortable condition for parking bicycles. Well, only that in one of the hotels the courtyard with a fence is under video surveillance.

It is impossible not to touch upon the topic of communication, which is a part of marketing. Conducting a survey among 10 tourism entities, we faced the following difficulties:

- someone on the site that serves as a business card does not have an e-mail for communication, but the letter did not reach through the feedback form;
- someone has no e-mail or feedback;
- employees on the phone do not know if the hotel has e-mail;
- someone's e-mail is read only by the director, other employees do not have access to it, even when the director is on vacation;
- Someone did not take the letter seriously and did not pass it on to a possible performer, did not answer themselves;
- with a request to give an answer to several questions, some had to call and write 3-4 times.

Hotel marketing is not only about providing hotel services to a customer who walks through the door. In our opinion, hotels should be able to communicate with customers and the public, including remotely.

Public Relations is not like advertising, but is a free channel for disseminating information about services to gain visibility and create an attractive image.

We are grateful to all Grodno hotels that responded to our letter and allowed for the first time to do a small but interesting research on the cycling friendliness of tourism!

Thank you Velo Grodno for the material!