Four Seasons are most 'relevant' hotel brands

Brodeur Partners looked into the heart of what really matters when it comes to online conversation about hotel choice and has come up with intriguing answers. “We wanted to go beyond speculation and opinion, and really see what drives online behavior – in this case, conversation – around different hotel brands,” said Brodeur Partners CEO Andy Coville .

The study reveals that Hilton, Marriott, and Four Seasons (in that order) have the highest Conversational Relevance?  in online discussions among leisure and business travelers.  The conclusion is based on an analysis by Brodeur Partners and MavenMagnet of what is “relevant” in online brand conversation.

The Conversational Relevance? scale is a measure of how much people are talking about a brand and how impactful and positive that conversation is. Brodeur and MavenMagnet parsed more than 18,000 online conversations between May 2012 and October 2012 across social networks, profiles, forums, news websites and blogs.

“We looked not only at practical considerations but at how the brands resonated with hotel guests’ senses, values and social needs, which are the other dimensions of Brodeur’s relevance model,” said Jerry Johnson , Brodeur executive vice president of strategic planning. “When a brand is engaging all four dimensions, it inspires strong feelings and an abiding loyalty in those who experience it.”

“Using our proprietary technology, we tap into the collective intellect of engaged consumers—in this case, consumers sharing their experience about travel and hotels,” said Aditya Ghuwalewala, MavenMagnet founder. “Our zero interference approach eliminates the risk of respondent conditioning thereby delivering actual insights focusing on what’s relevant in the space.”

On a recent Friday night, about 100 cars park in the lot outside The Poker Room in Hampton Falls. Inside, it could be any function hall — well lit, a brightly patterned carpet. Several flat-screen televisions tuned to the Bruins hockey game hang from the ceiling. Players sit at long oval tables playing Texas Hold 'em.

At one end of the long room, there's a blackjack table, roulette wheel and a table for craps. There's another well lit room, strictly for more card games.

The crowd is mostly men in jeans but there's a healthy smattering of women. In one corner, a small bulletin board shows the name of the charity that benefits from the day's action. This evening, it's the American Legion Post 72 Auxiliary in Alton. A solid, dependable cause for a middle-of-the-road crowd.

This is gambling New Hampshire style and no other state has a set-up quite like it. In the last fiscal year, players put more than $33 million on the table, and their eagerness to test the odds generated nearly $1.6 million for the state and almost $4.8 million for nonprofits. Now that Gov. Maggie Hassan has upped the ante by including casino revenue in her budget, charities that count on those dollars have a powerful incentive to weigh in on the casino debate at the Statehouse.

In charitable gaming, state law limits any single bet to $4. In multiple rounds of betting in cards, the pot in the middle of the table can go as high as $200, although $60 to $75 is more typical. In roulette, a player could put as much as $40 down on a single spin of the wheel. Card tournaments run differently. For those, players can plunk down anywhere from $40 to $150 to get into a game, with the option to buy more chips if they run out.

The amounts are not insignificant but come nowhere near the stakes in casinos where thousands of dollars can be in play. This is low-octane gambling.

The state has 10 other licensed places where people can play any day of the week throughout the year, although not all of them are active. The list includes Seabrook Greyhound Park, the River Card Room in Milford, Casablanca Casino in Belmont, the Manch Vegas Poker Room in Manchester, and the largest one of all, Rockingham Park in Salem. Each location partners with about 35 charities each year and gives them 35 percent of the proceeds.

A variety of nonprofits benefit, from the Nashua Symphony to the Miss Keene Scholarship Program; from the Knights of Columbus to AIDS Response Seacoast. There are local hockey clubs, baseball leagues, land conservation trusts, health clinics and countless Rotary, Lions and Elks clubs.

The operators run the games and pick the charities. Some, like the one at Rockingham Park, largely work with the same nonprofits each year. Others, like the Poker Room, mix it up, keeping some but rotating others. By law, no charity can have more 10 days a year of gaming.

“The game operators have a lot of control,” said Paul Kelley, director of the state Racing and Charitable Gaming Commission, which regulates the industry. “They decide who participates and they pick the nights. A Saturday night with lots of players is going to mean a lot more money for a charity than a Tuesday night.”

Looking at the numbers, it doesn't take long to see large differences in the flow of dollars to certain towns and cities. Charitable gaming is not a state program that spreads its bounty equally.

Every gaming center super serves its immediate community. Ed Callahan, president at Rockingham Park, said when gaming began in 2006, he sent invitations to charities in and around Salem for an informational meeting.

“Whoever showed up and was interested, we worked with them,” Callahan said.

He oversees two centers, one at Rockingham and the other at the Seabrook Greyhound Park. Together, they account for nearly 60 percent of all the betting statewide, about $19 million in FY 2012.

Any charity that is on Callahan's roster is head and shoulders above the rest. The average take was $22,000 last year. The typical charity statewide made half as much, $11,000. With such a gap, it's easy to understand why Callahan has a waiting list of about 190 charities.

In charitable gaming as in real estate, location is everything. Looking at the past five years of data gathered by the Racing and Charitable Gaming Commission, Salem's nonprofits received more than $6.2 million. Portsmouth was second with $2.5 million, and Manchester was third with $1.7 million. Taking the number of residents into account, the disparity is even more extreme — more than $200 for each person living in Salem compared to just $16 for each person in Manchester.