How to attract Seniors efficiently on your Homepage?

One of the pre-assignments for EMCup2016 was to write a paper about Surfing the Silver Wave. Our team, Pure Arctic Madness decided to make an analysis about hotels' webpages and their senior-friendliness. We base our analysis on a research about what qualities and features make a webpage easy to use for older people.

Features of a senior-friendly webpage:

- Readable Font size 

- Easy to navigate

- Good click-ability, no moving objects etc.

- Main items presented directly on the homepage

- Allows you to make a mistake

Seniors are slower than average Internet user to finish their task online. Thus, it's important to keep your webpage simple and straightforward. 

We analysed hotel webpages like Ibis, Novotel and Mercure from the Accor chain, Radisson Blu and Park Inn from Carlson Rezidor chain and Crowne Plaza from IHG. Some of the pages had good features for attracting seniors but for few of the pages, it was easy to say that their main target was not with the senior travelers.

Our analysis also covered different offers and packages ment for seniors. Seniors are very versatile on what they want for their trips. Some ought to experience wellness and spa in a relaxing environment while some enjoy more exploring city trips. In common to these cravings is that seniors appreciate accessibility and straightforward reservation process that should be taken into account while planning offers and packages for older people. 

When considering special offers and packages for seniors, there is room for improvement in the analysed webpages in this segment. Some of the hotels had already considered these kind of offers but in most of them, seniors should have to settle for regular prices and packages.

Senior-friendliness is the current trend. Making your webpage and special offers as accessible as possible is a great step in achieving this emerging segment's attention.

- Pure Arctic Madness

Get to know Linh

Hello the World! 

Here's Linh. I am soon turning 21 in two weeks! I am a third year tourism student at Lapland University of Applied Sciences. Ending up pursuing my higher education in the very northern of Finland has its interesting sides and stories. From here, I got a chance to do different things, such going for an internship abroad in Germany and then going for an Erasmus exchange in Austria. All of those times gave me plenty of memorable moments and experience. 

I'm still on my way finding out my real aspirations which I want to do in the future. Meanwhile, it is worth to go places and experience as much as I can!

At this moment, I'm really excited about the EMCup competition. Together with the other members, we all hope to gather, make friends as well as learn from the participating teams all over Europe!

Pure Arctic Madness is coming!

To all my friends and followers and gonna-be followers, keep supporting us! Your engagement with us would be very valuable! Like us on Facebook and follow us on Instagram! <3

Get to know more about EMCup!

What is EmCup?

EMCup is a hospitality competition for European Hotel Management Schools. The contest gathers daring students, who have a courage to stand out and show their entrepreneurial spirit and views. Each year, the competition holds different practical topics which strongly relate to the hospitality industry. The participating teams from the invited schools are expected to express their vision and out-of-the-box ideas. At the same time, this is an opportunity for all the students to broaden their experience as well as network of friends. 

This year's theme of the contest is "Surfing the Silver Wave". The topic drives all the participants to think about the growing aging population market. How can the hospitality industry cater to this specific segment in a most efficient way? This is something that we will find out soon from all the brilliant students from all over Europe in February 2016 in Maastricht, the Netherlands!

 Photo: image via empowernetwork.com

EMCup competition is a point of connections and sharing ideas among hospitality management students!

And this year, #Pure Arctic Madness (Anni, Linh, Anna and Lauri), the representative of MTI and Lapin AMK, is competing with other teams. Follow us to get updated! 

Our Facebook Page: Pure Arctic Madness / EMCup 2016

Our Instagram account: purearcticmadness

If you are interested in EMCup, visit their Facebook Page or their official website!

Here is Lauri calling!

Well, Hello You! 

It is my turn to introduce myself. I'm Lauri and I'm part of this great team from Finnish Lapland.. 

The red spot is Sastamala, 
but where is Rovaniemi?

Let's go 700 km to Southern Finland and find my home town, a place called Sastamala. Sastamala's population is about 25 000 people. We have there more entrepreneurs than any other city in Finland. That is quite cool! :)

Do you know this game?

I'm a 22-year-old second-year Tourism student in MTI (Multidimensional Tourism Institute) and I am studying with a Finnish group. I have got great experiences in participating in different competitions and events in my studies. In October me and Anna were at the Barents in Levi for one week. We were there hosting VIP guests from neighbouring countries. And now we are coming to Maastrich! I'm so exited!

To the top of the hill and over it!

But how did I get the idea to move to Lapland?

Well that is a good question... First it was an accident, but nowadays I would not change a single day being here. I have enjoyed my stay here near the Arctic Circle, Snow, Northern Lights and people. This all here is just so amazing, and nature, how pure it is... 

You can just imagine it...

Stay tuned, 

This all is just beginning... 

Pure Arctic Madness has landed

FOLLOW US!

Pure Arctic Madness visited Restaurant Day

Restaurant Day - International food carneval all over the world.
The first Restaurant Day was held on 21th May in 2011. On that day they had 45 different pop-up restaurants in Finland. Since the first day the food carneval has kept on growing. There are four Restaurant Days annually: on February, May, August and November. By now there have been 23 600 one-day restaurants with approximately 2,7 million customers in 73 different countries.

Pure Arctic Madness visited  Restaurant Day on 21th November in Rovaniemi. We visited culture restaurant Kajo where they served cuisine from Middle East. Falafel, hummus, couscous with chicken, tabbouleh, baklava and many more! Ah, it was delicious! Atmosphere there was warm and cozy and the whole family who ran it did it together.

Restaurant Day is a good opportunity to taste and enjoy different food, people and the atmosphere. It's a way to discover new people and delicacies and to get great experiences.

"We have a group of friends that are all passionate about cooking and food. Then we heard about Restaurant Day and we knew what to do. We decided a theme and prepared the menu. Now we have had our one-day bistro twice as a part of this carneval. We do something that we love and we do it together. We try different themes to challenge ourselves everytime to make it even better." - Anna

Restaurant Day is a great way to learn and discover more of the trends and culture in restaurant field. Definitely worth to visit and perhaps to make your own dreams come true!

For our team it was a way to get to know each other better and shared experiences are a way to give us more inspiration. Here we come EMCup 2016!

More about Restaurant Day

             

Pure Arctic Madness joining EMCup 2016

It is official! We are the team from Lapland University of Applied Sciences joining EMCup 2016!   EMCup is a a competition for the best European Hotel Management Schools held in Maastricht, Netherlands, in February. This is a big honor to all of us, since this is the first time our university has been invited to the competition. This year the theme is "Surfing the Silver Wave". The population is aging and tourism industry needs to respond to the needs of the new customer segmentation. 

Our team Pure Arctic Madness consists of four students: Lauri Laikko, Anna Pälä, Anni Honkanen and Linh To. We study in Rovaniemi where tourism is one of the biggest economic industries. Our school Multidimensional Tourism Institute (MTI) is a unique institute that combines three different schools together under one big umbrella. These three schools are Lapland UAS, University of Lapland and Lapland Tourism Collage. We all have a different background and work history, which makes us strong together as a team. 

We will start a story line of where we introduce each of us more in detail. 

Follow our social media channels to give support to our team. You can find us from Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google +, YouTube and Pinterest. We appreciate all the support we get! Follow, like, comment, share, be active! :)