AZALEA Residences Baguio

Few days ago, DigitalFilipino.com had it's first ever out-of-town workshop, held at the posh Azalea Residences Baguio. Dubbed as DigitalFilipino Club's “E-Commerce / Digital Marketing Business Model Review,” the workshop aims to educate and update its members to the current trends and techniques when it comes to e-commerce & digital marketing.

We left Manila around 6PM en route to Baguio, had a quick stop over in Gerona for our dinner and tried to take a bloggers group pic at the famous Lion's Head when we got there.

our room

kitchen and dining area fit for 4 persons.

We finally arrived at Azalea Residences around 11PM.  The place is so beautiful! The area is quiet & well-maintained. Staffs and securities are on standby 24/7, in case we need them.  Our room has 3 flat-screen LCD TV, two on the rooms and one in the living area. Our room has two bedroom unit, balcony that let you smell the pine trees nearby, 2 bathroom with bathtub, fully equipped kitchen & dining area and 2 bedroom with queen-sized beds.

Azalea Residences Baguio is perfect place for family gatherings. A right venue for your corporate events!

elevator lobby

Azalea Residences is the freshest addition to the flourishing hospitality industry in the Philippines! They offer the brand of convenience and amenities of top hotels overseas yet maintaining the natural texture and traditional character of the Philippines. A holiday haven for sure!

view from the 4th floor.

Their on-site facilities and amenities include: Lobby Lounge, Playground, Coffee Shop, Business Center, Wi-fi Internet connection, Souvenir Shop, NDD, DDD, DID, Drivers' Lounge & Sleeping Dormitories, 24-Hour Doctor On Call, Safety Deposit Box, Handicapped Accessible. Soon, they will have a Spa, Gym & a Swimming Pool.

if the need arises, they also have a Business Center.

To make your stay worry-free and rejuvenating, Azalea Residences Baguio offers the following services: Spa & Massage Services, Tour Arrangement & Vacation Services, Laundry & Dry Cleaning Management, In-Room Dining, Transportation Arrangement to and from Manila, A 24-hour Front Desk, Daily housekeeping included in the room rate and Private bathroom for each unit.

After checking-in, we immediately hit the sack to get some energy for the full day ahead!

The DigitalFilipino Club's “E-Commerce / Digital Marketing Business Model Review workshop was held at the Function Room of Tradition Restaurant of Azalea Residences Baguio.

Each stay at Azalea Residences is inclusive of a buffet breakfast at Tradition Restaurant, located at the right side of Ground Level. From 6AM to 10AM you can enjoy a wide array of food ranging from Filipino breakfast to Intercontinental or American. There are freshly cooked pancakes & eggs with choices of fresh juice or coffee.

After our breakfast, we immediately started with our workshop at the Function Room. The E-Commerce / Digital Marketing Business Model Review was headed by Ms. Janette Toral, founder and owner of DigitalFilipino.com. We started the workshop by introducing ourselves. Present in the workshop are the digital team from 7-11, KFC, Shopinas.com, SysGen,TheVillaGuide.com, etc.

The first part of our workshop about E-Commerce / Digital Marketing Business Model review, is composed of Business Model Canvas building blocks,  Plotting of current business model and challenges and later on, Feedback session.

Each of us was given a task of doing our own business canvass based on our lesson. Mine was called "Blog Speak" a mock blog network like Blog4Reviews & Nuffnang.

The second part is the Review of emerging and popular business models, that includes Customer-centric business model design,  Blue-ocean strategy and Presentation of revised business model canvas.

I liked the part where we're given a task to do our own Business Model Canvass, we we're supposed to present it with a slideshow presentation in front of other workshop attendees, so everyone can learn from everyone. But due to time constraint, few of us didn't make it.

Anyway I chose to do a mock-up blog network that I called Blog Speak, a business that will run just like Blog4Reviews/Nuffnang. It will be a medium between brands & bloggers. Since I didn't have the chance to present this, I will just blog about it :D Below are the full details:

• Consumer Segments: Bloggers wanting to have an extra income and added contents on their blogs / Brands who wants cost effective way of advertising.
• Costumer Relationships: One-on-one, repeat, Cross-sell & Upsell.
• Channels: Social Networks, Events, E-mails, PR's, Website & Mobile.
• Revenue Streams: Commision fee per blog post done and Coordinator fee.
• Cost Structures: Website domain & hosting, Site maintenance. Pay-out fee to bloggers.
• Value Proposition: Carefully chosen bloggers, Honors non-disclosure, No minimum pay-out required.
• Key Resources: SERP, Presence in social sites.
• Key Activities: Blogger management, advertiser pitches, Join e-commerce conferences & expo or digital marketing activities and/or networking.
• Key Partners: Bloggers/Micro-Bloggers as content publisher. Future partners as advertisers.

While others present their business canvass model, bloggers, toured the whole Azalea Residences with their marketing head.

8^o Lounge (Eight Degrees Lounge) is located at the right side ground floor of Azalea.

view from the ground floor when you looked up :)

the area that leads to the playground and the picturesque front are of Azalea Residences Baguio.

The Playground filled with flowers and plants. Of course I tried the swing! ;)

They also have a huge tent for your event needs. This is located just beside the hotel, at the back of the playgrounds.

Impressive facade will greet travelers and guests of Azalea.

The Azalea Globe. Azalea is actually the name of a flower. Yep! those pink flowers you can see from this photo.

Our room in the fourth floor has the same balcony. But ours is near the pine trees!

Before our dinner we had a quick stop at 'The Mansion' for photo-op.

We had our super filling dinner at Kalapaw, a hole in the wall restaurant famous for its boodle fight. This one has a whole friend chicken, bangus sisig, sinanglao, deep fried hito, tinumok, inihaw na pusit & assorted pickles. They have a big serving of kalapaw fried rice, fit for a construction worker! :D

That night is the first time that I ride a Baguio cab with only P30 flag down rate. :) We head back to Azalea Residences. Got silly with other bloggers wearing our Azalea bathrobes, we called the night, Bathrobe Party! :D Had a long chit-chat with bloggers at the veranda of our room while we smell the pine trees! haha. We slept around 12AM as we ready ourselves for the Day 2 of our workshop.

Our Day 2 started with the workshop on Digital Influencers Framework, Profiling, Social Media, and SEO Influences and followed by the second batch of presentation of Business Canvass Model of DigitalFilipino.com members.

“Influenced” or “Be Influenced,” that's one of the things I learned during this workshop. In this digital times being an influence to other people is really important. If your a blogger or a business owner influencing their decision to follow you, or liking you or, being a fan of you is not an easy task. Also you have to know what is the need of the people.

At around 2PM, we check-out of our rooms at Azalea Residences and had a tour around Baguio City.

our first stop was the Pink Sisters Convent.

bought Ube Jam & Strawberry Jelly at Good Shepherd. The view from above is breathtaking! Did a quick stop at Mines View Park but since I already visited it for several times already, I didn't get off. Plus, its raining too, other companions get off to buy pasalubong like walis hehe ;)

merienda at Choco-Late de Batirol and for the first time I tried their tsokolate, suman & bibingka. Wow. YUMMY! Perfect for the wet weather there. Then, we visited the Eco Trails at Camp John Hay. Then we head on to Kennon Road and visited the market to buy strawberries & strawberry crinkles. Flowers there are so cheap. Well that's Baguio!

After a long ride, we arrived at Gerona, Tarlac around 8PM. We had dinner at the fun ISDAAN by Barrio Fiesta. I recommended the place , since I saw it when we went to Lingayen for Palarong Pambansa 2012, luckily they all agreed. The place is like a theme park + restaurant. The kid in me comes out! :D

We we're so busy touring the whole place, we didn't know dinner was served already :) Each serving of rice is P100?! WTF! :D But it's so sarap! Super worth it.

Every visit at Baguio City is super enjoyable and Azalea Residences makes it much more FUN! I will come back for sure! :))