Travel is undergoing a profound and even revolutionary shift, according to a broad new study by the leading global communications agency Euro RSCG Worldwide. The results of the study were released this week in KNOW magazine’s “The Future of Travel: The New Vocabulary of Travel and Tourism.” KNOW is a publication of the Euro RSCG Worldwide Knowledge Exchange, a global initiative that pushes knowledge and insights across the Euro RSCG network of agencies.
Analyzing the findings of its study of 2,357 adults in the U.S., France, and the U.K., Euro RSCG reveals how changes in consumer consciousness are molding entirely new modes of travel—and a new industry to service them.
“For years, people have regarded travel as a way to splurge, an indulgence centered on escapism and fun,” said Marian Salzman, president of Euro RSCG Worldwide PR, North America. “Now, we’re looking to make our travel experiences more meaningful and better aligned with our personal values and goals. With millions of people wanting to feel good about the impact they have on the world, there’s been a reboot of travel values and expectations.”
The study places a special focus on the segment of respondents identified as Prosumers. This highly influential group is ahead of the curve in adopting a more mindful approach to consumption that incorporates concern for the environment, local communities, and the global citizenry. For Prosumers, travel is about much more than getting from Point A to Point B and back again.
According to the study:
- 66% consider themselves “Citizens of the World,” suggesting a more globally minded attitude and approach.
- 73% believe extensive travel is key to making a person more interesting.
- And 59% contend that where and how they travel says a lot about who they are.
Where and how Prosumers travel is undergoing a decisive shift, as detailed in the report. Their objectives for vacation periods are changing and so are the demands they are placing on their brand partners. To lead in the category going forward, it is vital that brands fulfill these four imperatives:
- Accept and embrace “green” as the standard way of doing business
- Offer products and services that satisfy Prosumers’ desire to live more mindfully
- Master social media in order to engage Prosumers before, during, and after each travel experience
- Embrace the new models of luxury and customer service Euro RSCG has identified
Awareness of environmental impact has been all but absent from most travel considerations until recently. “Whereas not so long ago the issue of ‘going green’ was one of exhortation and persuasion,” KNOW magazine explains, “now it is more a matter of shade, degree, and implementation.” Brands and companies are finding that eco-consciousness has progressed from a fringe notion to a business mandate. Euro RSCG research into the New Consumer (2009) has found that 74% of Prosumers feel good about making environmentally friendly choices, and 63% are paying more attention to the environmental and social impact of the products they buy. Travel and hospitality brands are speaking to this heightened consciousness through such means as eco-accommodations built with reclaimed and recycled materials, “100 mile” menus centered on locally produced foods, energy-efficient “EcoRooms,” and rewarding travelers for their green behaviors.
Also revolutionizing the category is an emerging mindfulness among consumers fed up with excess consumption and our increasingly artificial, disconnected way of living. Euro RSCG has found that people are hungry for greater meaning in their lives:
- 79% of Prosumers worry that society has become too shallow, focusing on things that don’t really matter.
- 66% worry that people have become too disconnected from the natural world, while 53% worry that digital communications are weakening human bonds.
- Alarmed by current realities, 84% are making a real effort to improve who they are and how they live.
“New modes of travel—including cultural and educational tourism, geotourism, voluntourism, and so-called slow travel—are catering to this newly emerging desire for more,” said Claus Lindorff, managing director of Euro RSCG agency BETC Luxe. “The shifts in mindset behind these new modes of travel have been building strength for years. What has brought them to a broader market is the ascendancy of social media. Now that mainstream consumers can participate in real-time communities focused on a new approach to travel and living, this hyper-focus on social values in travel has blossomed.”
For brands, social media offer creative ways to keep Prosumers engaged well before and long after each actual travel event. New York City’s Pod Hotel saw sales and traffic spike 40% after it created PodCulture, a closed social network in which guests can connect with one another and schedule get-togethers in advance of their stays. Such smart use of social media keeps brand conversations going and carries tremendous scope for a new generation of customer service offerings. This is of particular importance at a time when luxury and service are being redefined by consumers sick of tinny smiles and canned responses, and eager to engage with the real people behind the brand.
Understanding this emerging world of travel—with all its overlapping and interconnected trends—will be vital for any brand looking to grow in the space.
Related Link: Euro RSCG Worldwide PR-NY
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/social_media_empowers_new_modes_of_travel/
Be it for the integration of social search into online travel to Google’s algorithms and Google Labs to the progression of technology and innovation in the travel industry, there are numerous developments which are being keenly followed as of today.
From Google’s perspective, its Head of Travel, Retail and Automotive for South East Asia, Sajith Sivanandan, says delivering the most compelling offers exactly at the time of searching continues to be the biggest opportunity that both search engines and providers (suppliers and aggregators) are preoccupied with.
Sivananda spoke to EyeforTravel’s Ritesh Gupta. Excerpts:
Do you think predicting user preference is the biggest unsolved problem in online travel?
Sajith Sivanandan: I will take the liberty of narrowing the scope of your question to search and online travel. Users are expressing a preference through the queries they input while searching. To me, delivering the best available, the most compelling offers exactly at the time of searching continues to be the biggest opportunity that both search engines and providers (suppliers and aggregators) are preoccupied with. The biggest unsolved problem therefore becomes this: how can we reduce the time to perfect fulfillment of the users’ online travel needs?
Today Google’s algorithms are still quite a bit of a black box for professional search marketers. The semantic web should make it more efficient to create and manage online campaigns, because there will be less left to algorithmic interpretation. How do you assess this viewpoint?
Sajith Sivanandan: Google has always done everything with the user being central. We value relevancy to the user highly and we are mostly geared towards rewarding search marketers that deliver relevancy and a great user experience. This is very well known and search marketers who follow this concept will do extremely well.
On the subject of semantic web, we welcome any developments that help make the process of delivering relevant results to users more effective and efficient.
Google, which last year had introduced a new experiment on Google Labs called Google Social Search, has added a social element to Google Images. With Social Search, Google finds relevant public content from your friends and contacts and highlights it for you at the bottom of your search results. What is going to be the next big thing or trend in social search engine marketing?
Sajith Sivanandan: We definitely see that social search, mobile search and a combination of the two will grow rapidly.
This year, we have already seen a couple of significant moves from Apple and Google towards mobile advertising. How do you foresee the impact on search and social media via mobile phones on the travel industry?
Sajith Sivanandan: Mobile phones will almost certainly and indeed already have a tremendous impact on social media. Reading about latest status updates of friends on the go, latest tweets et al are all tailor made for the mobile. As smart phones gather more steam and data packages become more acceptable to the consumer, the rate of interaction with social content as well as active booking through the mobile will rise. I see a couple of possibilities for the travel industry:
a) Social media is today widely used on mobile phones. Travel industry players who can figure out a way to reach out to users at the time that they are planning a holiday with friends and family and are likely tweeting or messaging one another through social media could well see profitable bookings through mobile.
b) A second possibility is if travel industry players will be bold enough to explore the possibility of a mobile booking only offer, special offers that are available for just say the next 30 minutes if booked through the mobile phone. This needs to be thought through some more but it is basically a possibility to drive bookings through the mobile channel.
Can you provide an insight into how does search differ for mobile phones vis-a-vis PCs? What according to you are the striking differences?
Sajith Sivanandan: There are three very important differences. First, the queries are usually shorter on mobile. People tend to put shorter queries while searching on mobile phones and yet expect a high degree of relevancy.
Second, the time spent searching per session is usually lesser than that on PCs. Users tend to search on mobiles while on the go, for instance on the way to office, during lunch time, on the way back home from office and late in the night before turning in. Usually the session length for searching tends to be short and sharp rather than prolonged.
Third, because you carry the mobile phone with you everywhere, you can do searches based on your location. This adds another dimension of relevancy to your mobile search results. Of course, Google respects our users’ privacy, so we do not store your location or track your movements and our users have the ability to turn off this location-based feature.
The progression of technology and innovation in the travel industry continues at a quickening pace and Asian countries are closing the gap on their western counterparts. What according to have been the major developments in this context in Asia?
Sajith Sivanandan: The rate of mobile adoption in Asia is clearly an important factor for the future with 44 percent of all mobile handsets worldwide being sold in our region. We are also very social people and this is borne out both by the adoption rates for social networks as well as number of social networks in the region, some examples being networks like Friendster, Hi5 and others.
Sajith Sivanandan is scheduled to speak at the forthcoming Travel Distribution Summit Asia 2010 (to be held in Singapore, April 28-29).
Related Link: EyeForTravel Travel Distribution Summit Asia 2010
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/travelers_want_compelling_offers_at_time_of_search_says_google/
The largest metropolitan cities in Germany and around the world rank at the top of these lists, and travelers find the largest variety of hotel deals in these cities on HotelsCombined.de. In Berlin alone, travelers choose from 922 hotels on HotelsCombined.de, and in London, 1,437 hotels are available to choose from.
Berlin, Germany’s number one destination for meetings and conventions is also the number one HotelsCombined.de destination for German travelers in 2010. According to the Berlin Tourismus Marketing, the number of visitors and events in Berlin continues to increase, an indicator that the global economy is on the rise.
New York City ranks as the number one international destination, indicating that a high average room rate does not deter Germans from visiting this city consistently ranked the number one travel destination worldwide.
Of the top 10 international destinations, seven of those cities are within Europe, indicating a strong desire among Germans to stay close to home.
One of the most budget friendly cities (Bangkok) and one of the highest cost destinations (Dubai) are both within the top five international destinations. HotelsCombined General Manager Michael Doubinski comments, “This indicates German travelers focus travel choices on the unique experience and not on the overall cost. However, due to the continually increasing number of visitors to our site, travelers are definitely still interested in hotel deals, and they can find both budget and luxury options at HotelsCombined.de.”
Get the full story and stats at HotelsCombined
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/where_german_travelers_are_headed_in_2010/
HotelPlanner.com, a leader in online group travel, releases their latest product geared towards group and meeting planners looking to book hotel meeting space. Planners are able to search space pricing and available room layouts in a very user friendly interface. This cutting edge tool makes meeting space planning easy for both small one day boardroom meetings and large conventions that require multiple meeting spaces and layouts. The system also contains proprietary information on food and beverage pricing, meeting related taxes/fees, meeting space photos, and special promotions for free or discounted meeting space.
“We are excited to see the very early adoption of the product by both our planners and hotel members,” said John Prince, HotelPlanner’s CIO. “We feel the industry was in need of a comprehensive meeting space search and that we are in a unique position to deliver the service well.”
The new meeting space booking system will provide a distribution channel for all hotels whether they are a small 2 star property or a large convention centric property. Similar to HotelPlanner’s market leading group sleeping rooms system, planners will be able to find great rates and extensive meeting space content while being able to work with the hotel managers directly.
HotelPlanner.com is the leading provider of online services to the estimated $30-45 billion global group hotel sales market. Customers retain the ultimate decision-making power, enjoying access to competitive rates without ever having to pick up the phone or purchasing rooms at an undetermined hotel for pre-negotiated rates. Currently, HotelPlanner’s system processes over 15,000 group leads per month completely online. Over 33,000 hotel members currently compete online for HotelPlanner’s group business daily. HotelPlanner.com has increased sales in 2009 during a year when most travel companies were drastically down. HotelPlanner.com is projecting the same rapid lead and revenue growth for 2010.
Related Link: HotelPlanner.com Meeting Search
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/hotelplanner.com_launches_new_meeting_space_reservations_platform/
“The Internet has indeed become an integral part of consumers’ local commercial activity,” said Steve Marshall, director of research, BIA/Kelsey, in a statement. “The data suggest we’re at an inflection point where the balance of power in local shopping is shifting to online.”
Local advertising dollars will follow eyeballs; BIA/Kelsey expects the Web to get an increasing share of local ad spending over the next several years, reaching one-quarter of the total in 2014.
Over time, the researchers have noted an increase in the number of sources used for local shopping research, suggesting audience fragmentation that can be challenging for advertisers.
Get the full story at eMarketer
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/local_shoppers_look_online_first/
For example, Google has a number of properties and revenue streams besides its core search site located at Google.com, including services such as Gmail and its market-leading video site YouTube. According to Hitwise, YouTube itself racked up 2.14 percent of visits during that period, which when combined with traffic for Google.com would surpass Facebook.com’s traffic by far, accounting for over 9 percent of all U.S. visits.
Perhaps more important, the data does not include traffic from search functions within browsers or toolbars, which accounts for a substantial portion of Google.com’s search engine use. In addition, although Facebook.com remains the primary access point to the social network, use of its mobile site and Facebook connect interfaces is growing.
In terms of revenue implications, Google also has numerous revenue streams in addition to its search product, including its content and display advertising networks, cloud-based software services, and even mobile handsets.
Get the full story at ClickZ
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/facebook_visits_surpass_google_but_what_does_it_really_mean/
The farther out you reserve, the more you save. Reserving more than two months in advance can result in savings of 40%; a month to two months beforehand, 30%; a week before, up to 5%.
“No refunds on cancellations, so this is truly a promo for the Vegas guest that knows for sure they are coming to town,” Station spokeswoma Lori Nelson says.
Properties run by industry giants such as Choice Hotels, Holiday Inn and Marriott are hopping on the pay-before-you-stay bandwagon to assure bookings in hard times. The Marriott Courtyard Gulfport Beachfront in Mississippi had a $103 prepaid room on a mid-March weekday, vs. $129 for a reservation that could be canceled.
Get the full story at USA Today
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/hotels_increasingly_offer_pre-pay_discounts/
Luxury hotels, especially, have some ability to raise prices again because they were hit the most last year,” Scholes said. “They are the ones that cut prices the most—as much as 25 percent.”
Oceana boutique hotel in Santa Monica, California, which boasts sea views and complimentary beach cruiser bikes for guests, has had higher revenue in the past two months compared with a year earlier as a result of boosting occupancy in slower periods and raising room rates in times of high demand, said Kate Jerkens, vice president of sales and marketing at owner JRK Hotel Group. Regular room rates for July currently start at about $399 a night.
The overall U.S. hotel occupancy rate may jump to as much as 59 percent this year from 55 percent in 2009, said Arlington, Virginia-based Scholes. Room prices may then rise next year for the first time since the summer of 2008, by an average of 4 percent to about $98, he said.
Get the full story at BusinessWeek
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/luxury_hotels_lift_rates_as_tourists_return/
Speaking today at the Business Travel News/National Business Travel Association Strategic Travel Symposium in New York, Hanson projected an increase in total collected fees and surcharges by U.S. hotel companies this year compared with 2009. The total, now well over a billion dollars, has steadily increased over the past decade.
Fees pose a budgeting problem for travel buyers because they are difficult to anticipate and vary even among hotels under the same brand flag, Hanson said.
“You could stay at a Marriott, Starwood or Hilton hotel one night, and stay at a different Marriott, Starwood or Hilton hotel the next night, and the fees and surcharges will be different,” he said. “These are hotel by hotel, and they also come and go.”
Get the full story at BTNonline
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/as_rates_decline_hotels_upping_surcharges/
PhoCusWright’s analysts and authors of the newly rebranded PhoCusWright Innovation Edition have identified ten game changing innovations that will forever alter the way consumers search, shop and buy travel.
10 Travel Innovation Trends for 2010
- Alternate Distribution Systems: The Next Round of Attack on GDSs
- Mobile: Going Where No Platform Has Gone Before
- Communicating Anywhere: The Twitter Effect
- Merchandising Simplified Through Offer-Optimizer Technology
- New Technologies Improve Web Presence
- Social Media Monitoring Supersedes Reputation Management
- Social Media and Location-Based Services Converge
- Travel Information: Anytime, Anyhow
- Cross-Channel and Viral Marketing: A Brave New World
- Emerging Computer Capabilities Catapult Business Opportunities
Download a free preview of the publication at PhoCusWright
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/10_travel_innovation_trends_for_2010/
The social networking site has seen phenomenal growth around the world and for the first time surpassed Google.com for a whole week in the US last week, according to the web analytics firm Hitwise.
The milestone indicates how important a gateway to the web social networks, in particular Facebook, are becoming.
Facebook has more than 400 million regular users worldwide, about half of whom visit the site every day to check their updates, post photos and, increasingly, play online social games.
Get the full story at Times Online
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/facebook_ousts_google_in_us_popularity/
According to Compete.com, Facebook recently became the top source of traffic to major sites such as Yahoo and MSN, surpassing Google. Hitwise said that Facebook is the fourth leading traffic driver to news sites.
Nielsen reported that in January, U.S. consumers spent a staggering seven hours a month on Facebook—more than three and a half times the time spent on Yahoo, which ranked second in attention.
Finally, while still tiny compared to Google, search queries on Facebook climbed 13% in January, according to ComScore.
Social networking is still largely thought of as a new genre of sites that help us forge stronger relationships with the people we care about. That’s true. But as we increasingly spend more time on these hubs, it’s clear that we are also slowly using these sites for everyday online activities such as e-mail, instant messaging, reading news, search and shopping. What’s more, the social glue adds value to what, to date, have largely been more solitary experiences.
Get the full story at AdvertisingAge
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/facebook_will_rule_the_web_during_the_next_decade/
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/smartstay/
1. Rate Parity and Direct Distribution Channels: It is crucial for hoteliers to maintain rate parity across all distribution channels. 2009 was a year of rate sensitive shoppers and major discounting. The number of shoppers looking for a bargain will continue to rise. In order to build trust from online customers, hoteliers need to focus on maintaining rate parity across all of the channels. According to recent studies done by PKF and Nielson, business coming from direct distribution channels, such as email marketing, brand sites, independent websites, blogs, social media channels, and mobile devices, will continue to increase in 2010. Hoteliers need to maintain an intense focus on these channels to ensure the maximum ROI.
2. Remember the 3 C’s – Consistent Rich Content (information) across all Channels: This is still a very important criterion for your online success. Start with a well-defined keyword strategy and marketing plan. Identify all of the reasons why people are traveling to your area while creating the content strategy for your site, GDS, CRS, etc. Your ultimate goal is to create content that offers online surfers what they are looking for and incorporates keywords that surfers are using to search for information. Make sure to update all of your online profiles, including hotel description on airline systems and CRS with enhanced content. This will help in maintaining consistent information and relevancy across all distribution channels.
3. Define and Measure ROI on SEO Investment – On-Page and Off-Page Factors: Your promotion strategy should be built on a sound foundation – your website. Make sure your site incorporates the crucial factors necessary for your site to perform well. These factors include on-page factors, content, download time, duplicate content and URL issues, and off-page factors such as securing links from credible directories, websites, and maps.
Translate all of your SEO efforts into measurable metrics such as unique visits, page views, clicks to booking engine, phone calls, RFP’s, and actual revenue generated. While SEO continues to be an important milestone for online success, factors impacting SEO are changing constantly. To do well in search today, hoteliers must focus on universal search results – images, video, micro-blogging (Twitter), review sites, the official hotel website, and local results. A well-defined SEO promotion plan should include strategies to target all channels impacting universal search results.
Get the full story at Milestone Internet Marketing
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/top_ten_best_practices_for_todays_online_hotel_marketer/
eLong will make a list each week of hotels whose price on eLong.com is higher than on Ctrip.com, and compensate users with cash when they book the hotels through eLong and check in, the report said. In an initial comparison, eLong found 90, or less than 1% of its more than 10,000 contracted hotels, offer higher prices on eLong than on Ctrip.com, said the report.
Ctrip.com announced that it had started a best price guarantee promotion for its hotel booking service earlier this month, offering compensation of three times the difference in rates to customers who find lower prices elsewhere.
Source: JLMPacificEpoch
Read also “Ctrip offers best-price guarantee for hotel bookings”
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/elong_meets_ctrips_best_price_guarantee/
Starwood Hotels & Resorts today announces the launch of a limited time offer designed to help winter weary consumers spring ahead to their next vacation.
Book today through March 30, 2010 for the opportunity to save up to 25% off Starwood’s best regular room rates at 810 hotels and resorts across the globe. Whether they are dreaming about the sunny beaches in Tahiti, or powder skiing in Colorado, travelers can reserve their stays by visiting starwoodhotels.com/marchLTO or by calling 866-924-8704 and referencing special number 383511.
The offer is valid for Thursday – Saturday arrivals at hundreds of participating hotels and all days of the week at resorts with no arrival day requirement and for a maximum stay of seven nights around the world through May 31, 2010. Travelers will also have the option to book suites or upgraded rooms at select hotels and resorts. Guests will be charged at the time of booking and reservations are non-refundable. .
Full terms and conditions for the March Limited Time Offer are available at http://www.starwoodhotels.com/marchLTO
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/starwood_launches_limited_time_offer_sale/
“Our reviewers are seasoned travelers, objective observers and trained journalists who stay anonymously in a broad range of hotels. After swimming in the pools, dining in the restaurants, sleeping in the beds, and taking hundreds of photos of every inch of the property, they critically assess each hotel’s overall value and compare it to other hotels in the area,” explained Elie Seidman, CEO of Oyster. “With more than 600 hotels visited and reviewed over the past nine months, our reporters are uniquely qualified to offer expert advice to hotel managers on what travelers want and what hotels can do to attract them.”
The Oyster Hotel Reviews team recommends the following five creative strategies:
1. Don’t try to attract everyone: Determine the clientele that is the best fit for your property and do everything you can to appeal specifically to that clientele. Offer specials and promotions that address the needs of these guests, such as a quiet office space to get work done, family movie nights out by the pool, a complimentary facial in the spa or free shots at the bar. Speak to the guests you want to attract directly through your website and e-mails and via popular social media like Facebook and Twitter.
2. Offer free stuff: Simple freebies, such as a room upgrade, a wine hour in the lobby, minibar snacks, DVD rentals, or even toothpaste or contact lens solution in the rooms can earn you long-term repeat guests who are likely to talk about your hotel online. Also, it’s important to remember that no one likes any surprises on the bill at check-out time, and these days travelers expect free Wi-Fi in their guest rooms and free access to the gym and spa facilities.
3. Invest in a website that works: If your website looks tacky and out of date, potential guests will assume the same about your guest rooms. Your website should showcase your property’s features and amenities, provide up-to-date information about current specials, promotions and free offers, and make it easy for visitors to find information like room rates and availability.
4. Let photos make the sale: Photos are compelling. They make guests ready, confident and excited to book a room. Don’t hide the bathrooms, the lobby, the pool, the neighborhood; the more visual information your website offers, the easier it is for someone to decide to stay at your hotel.
5. Embrace independent reviews: Make it clear to potential guests that you have nothing to hide. By offering a link from your website to a third-party review of your hotel, you are making it much easier for your guests to learn about your property and to book with confidence.
The Oyster.com website now provides objective, comprehensive reviews and over 200,000 photos taken by Oyster reporters for Las Vegas hotels, New York hotels, Los Angeles hotels, San Francisco hotels, Boston hotels, Miami hotels, Hawaii hotels, Jamaica hotels, Aruba hotels, Dominican Republic hotels, U.S. Virgin Island hotels, and Bahamas hotels.
Related Link: Oyster.com
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/five_creative_strategies_for_hotels_to_attract_new_repeat_guests/
O’Rourke Hospitality Marketing, a full-service marketer specializing in the hospitality industry, has just launched Smartstay an iPhone app that hotels can customize to reflect their own hotel brand.
Smartstay is a mobile solution for hotels who have been looking for a way to enter the mobile market and who recognize the many benefits the mobile platform can provide their hotel and their guests. Tom O’Rourke, Founder/CEO of O’Rourke Hospitality Marketing explains, “We’re opening up a channel that has never been used before in the hotel industry. This is not just another app – it’s an opportunity through a mobile channel to connect with a guest before, during, and after their stay.”
O’Rourke explained that the mobile platform is new for hotels and is often overlooked in their marketing plans. Many hotels still spend millions of dollars on traditional media that aspires only to attract guests to their hotel. The mobile platform allows hotels to communicate with their guests in a continuous and connected manner.
Smartstay provides many benefits for hotels and it can help them capture a wider market share, tap into a new source of revenue, and enhance the guest experience at their hotel and in their city. Hotels can send exclusive offers directly through the Smartstay app and the user is then prompted to make a reservation with the single touch e-mail and dialing options.
The hotel can also cross-sell and up-sell guests on amenities, their spa services, the hotel restaurant or events at their hotel through the news feature of Smartstay. The hotel can enter posts as often as they choose and they can also incorporate their Twitter stream to supply their guests with real-time information that their guests can use at that moment. For example if the hotel posts a last minute deal at their restaurant, guests with Smartstay will receive the message on their iPhone and may decide to have dinner at the hotel restaurant to take advantage of the offer.
The Smartstay app also serves as a micro mobile website and guests can see images, videos, and useful information about a hotel. The hotel can manage all the content on the Smartstay app through a very easy-to-use back-end program that they can access online. Hotels can instantly update their content and choose the information they want to display such as directions, specials & packages, room rates, restaurant information and more.
Smartstay appeals to travelers and helps them make the most of their stay at a hotel and in a city. Many people today make travel plans from the road and they appreciate the convenience of managing their stay at a hotel directly from their iPhones. Once a guest downloads a Smartstay hotel app from iTunes, the hotel icon appears on the user’s iPhone. The next time the Smartstay user travels, they are more likely to tap on the hotel iPhone icon and make a reservation at that hotel because of the convenience it offers and the time it saves them from searching the Internet for hotels.
Guests will also enjoy the interactive city guide which will help them find the location of the nearest shops, bars, restaurants, cultural venues, transportation services, and more. Guests simply tap on the icons to see detailed information about a specific place. They can also tap on the phone number if they would like to learn more or make a reservation. Local area businesses such as bars and restaurants may also promote special offers on their detailed description page with the consent of the hotel. With the interactive map feature, guests are able to find their way around an unfamiliar city at any time without the help of a concierge.
The Smartstay app is an asset to any hotel and will help them increase revenue, improve guest loyalty, and enhance the guest experience. O’Rourke has officially launched the Smartstay hotel app and is currently filling requests from interested hotels. However, as Tom O’Rourke pointed out, “There are unlimited opportunities for hotels to use the iPhone app and we are constantly working to add new features and find creative ways that hotels can use the app to connect with their guests and increase revenue. Once a hotel has obtained their customized iPhone app that is not the end, but just the beginning. We are confident that hotels and hotel guests alike will find that the Smartstay app is an invaluable resource for travel.”
Related Link: O’Rourke Hospitality Marketing
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/orourke_launches_smartstay_iphone_app_to_open_mobile_channel_for_hotels/
The good news is there are new innovations and proven tactics for better engaging customers and driving revenue. Here are five:
1. Social sharing: According to the Pew Internet Project, more than one-third of American adults have a social network profile, and many of them use these sites to gather product information and recommendations. Rather than seeing social media as competition, savvy email marketers incorporate the medium into their campaigns, extending reach by as much as 24.3 percent, according to Silverpop research.
Getting recipients to share emails on social sites requires more effort than just adding icons to messages. Recipients must be educated about how and why they should share content. Marketers should feature the social-sharing option in welcome messages and then continue to devote prime space in mailings to sharing icons or links. They should also experiment with how many and which social networks they link to and where the links are placed within messages.
2. Web analytics: In this crowded marketplace, consumers are increasingly demanding relevance. Optimizing integration between messaging and Web analytics platforms is vital to building loyalty, increasing conversions, and improving ROI. Using Web analytics data helps marketers better understand customers’ needs and improves their ability to engage them through targeted and triggered campaigns.
One particularly effective way of combining Web analytics and email is a shopping cart abandonment campaign. Marketers that send reminder messages encouraging online cart abandoners to complete purchases have experienced tremendous results. To increase the sense of urgency, some of these messages remind customers that selected items are not guaranteed to always be in stock. Some companies also include an incentive to finalize purchases.
Get the full story at Silverpop
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/5_tools_to_improve_your_email_marketing/
With 2009 over and hoteliers feeling more optimistic, HeBS sees two very different approaches to hotel Internet marketing in 2010: on one side, some hoteliers are still extremely cautious when spending marketing dollars; on the other, hoteliers are hitting the ground running with more expansive online marketing budgets and an enthusiasm to participate in new initiatives.
How are hoteliers shifting the balance between offline and online marketing budgets? Which initiatives do they believe will bring the highest ROIs in 2010, and to which initiatives are they willing to start devoting more of their budget? Are hoteliers’ finding any more “wiggle-room” in their budgets now that the recession is coming to an end? With social media and mobile marketing dominating conversations these past few months, are hoteliers finally willing to invest a significant portion of their budgets to these up-and-coming marketing formats?
The purpose of the Benchmark Survey on Hotel Internet Marketing Budget Planning and Best Practices is to answer these questions and to assess hoteliers’ Internet marketing priorities and strategies for the year ahead. With these direct responses from hoteliers in the field, HeBS can provide the industry with insights on how Internet marketing strategies for the hospitality industry are developing year after year.
Get the full story at HeBS
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/how_have_web_2.0_social_media_shaped_online_hotel_marketing/
These worse-than-expected results are compounded by fears from over half of hoteliers (55 per cent) that room rates will not return to pre-financial crisis levels until after 2012.
- Only two per cent of European hotel industry leaders predict sustained upturn this year
- Room rates not expected to reach pre-financial crisis levels until after 2012
- More conversions and joint ventures expected in 2010
The DLA Piper 2010 European Hospitality Outlook Report – launched on Monday 8 March at the International Hotel Investment Forum – also shows mixed prospects for new build activity, which stalled dramatically in the recession – 36 per cent of respondents expect a rise in new developments, but 32 per cent expect a fall. Large chains are predicted by 80 per cent to continue their focus on small chain conversion and about two thirds (66 per cent) expect large chains to increase their market share in 2010.
“The largest chains will continue to gain share through greater opportunities to convert smaller chains and the advantages that their operational efficiencies and marketing budgets give them,” said Karen Friebe, global co-chair of DLA Piper’s Hospitality and Leisure Practice.
“But, while there are signs that occupancy levels have stabilised, there is growing concern throughout the industry that room rates will remain low for years to come and conversions are unlikely to compensate for reduced new build activity.”
Growth is expected to be limited in 2010, but over the next three years significant numbers of hotel chains may look to China and India to expand – 28 per cent of respondents see China as one of the best markets in which to grow their business and 24 per cent point to India.
Karen Friebe commented: “Some chains have focused on cutting their debt and are now reasonably well-positioned to grow through new market opportunities in BRIC countries – particularly China and India. Lending conditions have eased a little and we are seeing greater use of joint ventures to spread risk and access capital.”
This is recognised in DLA Piper’s report with three quarters of hotel executives currently seeing increased opportunities for these partnerships.
Many executives at well-capitalised hotel chains have been encouraged by the state of the market – of the 27 per cent who say their outlook for the next 12 months is ‘bullish’, the most popular reason is the investment opportunities created by the financial crisis, with the economy/budget sector named as the most attractive investment prospect.
Download the DLA Piper 2010 European Hospitality Outlook Survey (PDF 450KB)
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/recovery_over_a_year_away_say_european_hotel_executives/
Rolf Freitag, the CEO of IPK International, a world travel research monitor that tracks the trends in outbound travel demand, told Xinhua on Wednesday: “China is very dynamic and is finding it ‘s place in the world. This year’s economic recovery will come from the East to the West.”
In 2010, IPK’s travel research envisions that Chinese outbound travel will bolster a four-percent increase in tourism compared to Europe’s stagnation and a five-percent decrease in the United States.
According to statistics presented at the 44th annual ITB Tourism Trade Show in Berlin on Wednesday, the tourism sector in Europe and North America has been hardest hit in the crisis, with a 19-percent decrease in 2009.
Professor Peter Greischel, who teaches Tourism Management at the University of Applied Sciences in Munich, told Xinhua: “The figures appear realistic to me. I was, however, shocked by the U.S. statistics, which means it is still a depressed market.”
Get the full story at Xinhua
Download the “Global Travel Trends 2009” at IPK International (PDF 1.9MB)
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/china_expected_to_stimulate_world_travel_economy_in_2010/
The nature of the lodging business is that there are always peaks and troughs of demand related to the supply available in any given market. This can be seasonal, development-related, or economic, which the industry is seeing most acutely right now. Can one believe that the best partnerships between companies are those that can flex to the varying demands and needs of each party across time?
Providing his insight into this debate, Greg Albertini, Regional VP Revenue Strategy Asia Pacific, Marriott International, says the best partnerships do not take inappropriate advantage of a specific situation but have a long term view in mind.
“When demand is down and hotels are desperate the OTAs have a bit more power than they do when demand is strong and hotels are selling out. In order for all to thrive we need to work together to augment each others’ strengths. When demand is strong, I will remember the OTA that took advantage of me when demand was low, just like they will remember hotels that did not give them availability when demand was high” says Albertini.
In an interview with EyeforTravel’s Ritesh Gupta, Albertini spoke about trends in the industry, price parity and the hotel-OTA relationship. Excerpts:
What do you see as the biggest changes in the industry as far as RM is concerned?
Greg Albertini: Globally there are a lot of exciting changes taking place; many companies are focused on price optimisation, CRM integration and effective distribution of both rooms and space across a portfolio. The markets here in Asia are rather young from a RM deployment perspective, so I would say biggest changes here in Asia are more around acceptance and willingness to invest in the discipline.
Price parity is an important element, and plays a key role in today’s revenue management and hotel distribution strategy. The concept of profit parity disregards that there are varying levels of value and fluctuations in demand depending on the distribution channel. In this context, how does the online channel offer unique benefits?
Greg Albertini: True, e-channels have built incredible brands with unique value propositions that speak to specific customers. Expedia has told us that 2 out of 3 customers shop on Expedia.com but then go buy on Brand.com; Expedia is okay with this as they see the one customer that books with them as a loyal Expedia customer. You can discuss profit yield all you want, but at the end of the day, if you want access to Expedia’s loyal customer base you will need to be a good partner and offer parity in both rates and availability. The key is to find strategies that provide good partnerships with your e-channels yet also promote loyalty among your own customers to avoid channel / loyalty shift.
OTA’s say that they offer services to hotels that are very much tailored to market demand factors. The key factor is that prices and promotions can be created, adapted, in real time for real customers. Rates are not set seasonally, but rather daily. How do you assess the utility and efficacy of this channel in today’s environment?
Greg Albertini: This issue really depends on a brand’s pricing strategy and technology platform to distribute that strategy across all the distribution channels. We do not see OTAs as being more effective than we are at distributing our own pricing strategies; we can implement in real time any changes we decide need to be implemented.
What some OTAs do bring to the table is access to a loyal leisure customer base that is more price conscious than a typical corporate customer. We look for opportunities to fence away these customers from our typical business traveller with pricing products that are available to both the OTA customer as well as our buy direct customer, otherwise we are telling our loyal buy direct customer that they must become an OTA customer to get the same great deal.
Do OTAs share their rate research with hotel partners so that hotels can be aware of how their rates are being sold online?
Greg Albertini: Some do. The research we like is around parity shops that ensure the OTA in question is not at a price disadvantage in the market. This type of research helps us to better police our own hotels and ensure we have sound execution of our intended strategy.
However, many OTAs work hard to share data that supports missing opportunity that can be realised by offering exclusives in exchange for preference. The problem with this type of thinking is that you alienate other OTAs and you also promote channel shift away from your own lower costs channels which has very negative long term implications.
How can one work on strategies which would allow customers to purchase where they want without encouraging them to book a costlier booking path?
Greg Albertini: There are two significant areas:
1) Parity. If your customers can find a cheaper rate on a costlier booking path, then they will go there to buy.
2) Invest in your online buy direct technology! Marriott spends significant amount of money each year to improve the customer experience on Marriott.com. If price is the same, but the shopping experience is much better on an OTA, then it is just a matter of time before customers go for the better experience. Of course, you could entice with better offers on your own website, but this will put the OTAs at a disadvantage and as a result don’t be surprised when your page placement falls to `page 14’ on their website.
What according to you is the next big thing for travel in Asia? Or can we have a prediction about where the industry is heading in the next few years?
Greg Albertini: Let’s all just cross our fingers for the sustained return of business and MICE demand over the next few years. The price wars in some markets have really hurt profitability of the industry and getting back to the profit levels we had prior to the economic crises (once adjusted for inflation) would be a general blessing!
Greg Albertini is scheduled to speak at the forthcoming Travel Distribution Summit Asia 2010 (to be held in Singapore, April 28-29).
Related Link: EyeForTravel Travel Distribution Summit Asia 2010
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/marriott_on_best_practices_in_hotel-ota_relationships/
Social networking has finally become something valuable for brick-and-mortar businesses. Smartphones and location-based social networks allow users to interact, share, meet up, and recommend places based on their physical coordinates. This real-world connection to social media can mean more foot traffic and profits for business owners.
So-called “lo-so” networks like Foursquare, Loopt, and Gowalla enable any business with a physical location to not only communicate with customers online, but actually get more of them to walk in the door — and that’s exciting.
The question any brick-and-mortar business owner should be asking him or herself is no longer “Should I use lo-so networks?” It’s “How do I do it?” The following tips are essential to getting started.
Get the full story at Mashable
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/9_tips_for_location-based_marketing/
The program has already enlisted some key retailers including Sears, Best buy, Williams-Sonoma, Pottery Barn and West Elm. Rest assured that local merchants, which increasingly rely on Google to send business their way, will follow suit.
These local inventory checks have been talked about in years. In 2006, Google, Intuit and the Kelsey Group outlined retailing’s future and it sounded a lot like what the search giant is rolling out today. Four years later, we’re almost to the point where local inventory searches are part of your average Web experience.
In a blog post, Google outlined how it works. You do a search, click on a blue dot to see if a product is near by and then you can check inventory. The search works on the iPhone, Palm WebOS and Android devices.
Get the full story at ZDNet
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/google_makes_its_local_shopping_move/
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/guestcentric/
The Google Apps Marketplace is a platform designed for small and midsize enterprises to acquire Web-based applications that integrate with Google-built Apps, including Gmail, Calendar and Docs, and then access them through a single Google sign-on. More than 40 companies have introduced apps for business processes, including customer relationship management, e-billing and accounting.
Coinciding with the launch of the Apps Marketplace, Concur released Concur Breeze, an expense reporting application with a simpler pricing model specifically designed for small and midsize companies.
Itinerary management and social communications platform TripIt this week also released a Google Apps Marketplace version of its community platform product, letting corporations form traveler groups based on e-mail domains and travelers share their itineraries with others from their organizations.
Get the full story at BTNonline
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/google_marketplace_drives_corporate_travel_apps/
IATA has cut its 2010 net loss estimate to $2.8 billion in its latest industry forecast, down from the $5.6 billion deficit it was predicting in December. Last year’s loss is now projected to be $9.4 billion, versus the earlier estimate of $11 billion.
The major driver of these revisions is stronger-than-expected traffic growth at the end of 2009 and in the first few months of this year. This improvement is not evenly spread, however – carriers in the Asia-Pacific and Latin America regions are seeing a faster recovery than their European and North American counterparts.
IATA Director General Giovanni Bisignani notes that the forecast “is still a loss, so it is too early to party.” However, he adds that “we can clearly see from the numbers that the industry situation is improving.”
Get the full story at AVIATIONWEEK
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/iata_sees_brighter_2010_outlook/
Kuxun.cn, an online travel service provider in China, is expected to get additional capital from its parent company Expedia, Inc., disclosed Zhang Haijun, chief executive officer for the Beijing-based company, today.
Expedia will lift its investment in Kuxun.cn to tens of millions of US dollars as part of a planned business consolidation in China, said Mr. Zhang, noting that Kuxun.cn still runs independently although it has been put on the financial report of the US-based online travel service provider. Expedia, through its travel information unit TripAdvisor, bought Kuxun.cn for USD 12 million in October 2009, deepening its footprint in the world’s most populous tourism market.
As its next step, Kuxun.cn is likely to team up with Hotels.com, another unit of Expedia, in a bid to grow into a bellwether in the fast-growing online service market, according to an executive for the company. Already a top-ranking player in the China, Kuxun.cn joined forces with several units under the aegis of Expedia after the acquisition.
Source: TradingMarkets.com
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/expedia_to_lift_investment_in_kuxun.cn/
Starwood quietly launched the pilot program late last year after inviting “thousands” of consumers to participate, Mark Vondrasek, Starwood’s senior vice president of interactive and loyalty marketing, told Hotel Check-In in an email in response to questions about the secret program.
Significantly, it’s being run separately from Starwood Preferred Guest, the company’s main loyalty program for travelers who earn status by staying often at Sheraton, Westin, Aloft and other chains. I find Starwood’s bypassing of SPG interesting because Starwood seems to be exploring new ways to identify prime customers based on other factors besides frequency of stays.
Get the full story at USA TODAY
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/starwood_runs_loyalty_pilot_program_that_targets_rivals_customers/
A person familiar with the situation said on Saturday that Google is likely to take action within weeks. Separately, Chinese authorities on Friday told local news Web sites that Google’s Chinese site is likely to close and that, if it does, the news sites will be required to use only official accounts of the situation, rather than publish stories from anywhere else, according to a person familiar with the order.
Google and Chinese authorities have been in talks about the extent to which the U.S. Internet giant will be able to operate a business in China if it follows through on its pledge two months ago to stop following government censorship requirements on its Chinese site, Google.cn. Those talks increasingly appear deadlocked, and Google’s hopes for being able to operate Google.cn without filtering results—which were always thin—have all but disappeared.
On Friday, Minister of Industry and Information Technology Li Yizhong, asked by a reporter about Google’s plan to stop filtering results, said doing so would be “irresponsible” and warned that the company would “have to bear the consequences” if it violates China’s rules. His comments reinforced expectations that the authorities will force Google.cn to close if the company stops censoring it.
Get the full story at The Wall Street Journal
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/google_poised_to_close_china_site/
In January, China Internet Network Information Center, the country’s official domain registry and research organization, reported that by the end of 2009, the number of Internet users in China had touched 384 million, more than the entire population of the United States. That’s an increase of around 50 percent over 2008. Moreover, 233 million Chinese—twice as many as in the previous year—accessed the Net on handheld devices, partly because China’s cellular providers started offering 3G services widely last year.
The Chinese are obsessed with the Internet. People in the 60 largest cities in China spend around 70 percent of their leisure time on the Internet, according to a survey we conducted in 2009. In smaller towns, the corresponding number is 50 percent. The PC is fast replacing the TV set as an entertainment hub, and emotions run high over who gets to log on and for how long. In a small city in northwest China, for instance, a man told one of us that domestic squabbles over using the PC got so out of hand that his wife and he discussed spending, for them, a large sum of money to buy another machine—or filing for divorce. They eventually bought a second PC and saved their marriage.
Get the full story at the McKinsey Quarterly (free registration)
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/chinas_internet_obsession/
One way Mass Influencers can create peer impressions for a brand is to post ratings and reviews, but there isn’t much of a feedback loop to this activity. Are people reading my reviews? Do they find them worthwhile?
TripAdvisor needs to keep reviewers reviewing, and an email message they sent to me suggests one way to do so. They don’t merely ask for more reviews but instead appeal to some of the motivations that Mass Influencers have for their social media activities. The TripAdvisor message takes away doubt about readership of reviews and implies that those who post reviews have an audience eager for more content. Here is what I received:
Do I believe I have an audience waiting to read my next hotel review? Of course not, but this email still motivated me to write a review of another property in which I stayed this past week. TripAdvisor’s email message confirmed my content is relevant to and read by others, and this acted as encouragement for me to post more content (which, in turn, drives page views, return visits, and revenue for TripAdvisor.com).
TripAdvisor cannot succeed in being a content and opinion destination if reviewers only post a review or two and then never return. Their simple email program suggests one way that feedback can be used to keep influencers influencing.
Get the full story at Experience: The blog
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/how_tripadvisor_engages_mass_influencers/
Ctrip.com on Wednesday launched a new service called “best price commitment” for consumers booking hotels online.
In the service, Ctrip promises that consumers who book domestic hotels through its website can get the lowest price than with its competitors. If a consumer finds the booking price provided by another online service provider is lower than that they can get from Ctrip, they will receive compensation equaling three times the price gap.
China’s online travel booking sector has seen a sharp rise in the recent years. According to statistics from the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), 30.24 million travelers made online travel booking in 2009, up 77.9 percent year on year.
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/ctrip_offers_best-price_guarantee_for_hotel_bookings/
Almost 800 travel professionals responded to the 16-question Amadeus survey conducted online from February 12-19, 2010.
“We wanted to hear from the travel agency community about what will impact them, their business and their customers. And we want to help them prepare to capitalize on emerging opportunities as the industry transitions into recovery,” said Tom Cates, Chief Commercial Officer, Amadeus North America.
According to Cates, one of the key survey outcomes is that, even in the face of current marketplace challenges, North American travel professionals are optimistic about the future—for their own business as well as for the industry overall.
When asked how optimistic they were about the year ahead in terms of their own business, the vast majority (88%) of travel agents surveyed reported that they were optimistic or very optimistic, and almost a third (29.5%) said they were very optimistic. When asked how optimistic they were about the future growth of the overall travel industry, the vast majority (85.6%) were again optimistic or very optimistic.
The survey also asked travel professionals about the impact of three significant trends revealed in Amadeus’ recent global report, “The Amateur-Expert Traveller”—namely the rise of the “amateur-expert” traveler, the increasing role of technology throughout the trip experience, and the growth of specialty or niche travel.
“Amateur-expert” travelers are defined as frequent travelers who are more knowledgeable about their destination and what to expect when they get there. Respondent comments showed that travel agents welcome knowledgeable clients who have a better idea of what they want, but who also value and seek expert advice. More than half (50.5%) of travel professionals surveyed welcome and like to work with amateur-expert travelers as clients.
The second trend focuses on the increased role of technology throughout the journey, from the trip-planning phase through arrival back home. Travel professionals feel additional opportunity exists for technology to further improve the travel experience in areas including researching the trip (64.6%) and finding pricing/availability information (55.8%). They also expect next-generation travelers to get more “social.” Social networking (47.5%) tops the list of what travel agents feel will have the greatest impact on how tomorrow’s travelers research and book travel, followed by user-generated reviews (19.8%). Agents are responding to social media’s rise, with more than half (55.7%) indicating that they or their agencies are active in online social channels.
The third trend, the growth of niche travel, relates not only to the specialty travel focus of agents, but also selling other niche services which may present profitable opportunities. When it comes to the niche and specialty area of travel, professionals see major opportunities in family-friendly travel (59.9%), weddings (47.6%), and adventure travel (36.8%). But agents see little or no promise in other areas such as selling travel goods (56.5%) or air charters (54.6%).
The majority of survey respondents described themselves as travel agency owners/managers (41.3%), travel agents (26%), home-based agents (23.4%) and independent consultants (9.3%). The respondents reported they focus primarily on leisure/destination travel (72.2%) and work in the U.S. (93.7%).
“We’re very encouraged by what the survey indicates about how travel professionals feel about their business and industry as economic recovery gains a foothold,” Cates said. “Travel agents are rolling with changes in the industry and with their clients, and they are ready for whatever becomes the ‘new normal’ in this evolving industry.”
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/u.s._travel_professionals_voice_optimism/
Sir Richard’s U.S. offshoot isn’t just selling cheap tickets; it is selling an experience — and one that few other domestic airlines are trying to match. When Virgin America launched in August 2007, it promised to make “flying good again,” by offering, among other perks, in-flight live concerts, Wi-Fi, MP3 players, mood lighting, music in the bathrooms, and even absinthe on the menu.
But trendy amenities can only do so much. Virgin’s bigger selling point — and its hardest ongoing challenge — is the customer service. So far, Virgin is doing something right: In 2009, it ranked first in Zagat’s annual global airline survey of midsize carriers and won best cabin staff in North America from the World Airline Awards. So how does the company get hundreds of flight attendants and ticket agents to keep their cool in the face of unruly passengers, inevitable flight delays, and the everyday drudgery of their jobs? Virgin’s solution is twofold: Hire people with an independent streak, and then stress test them with one of the most rigorous training programs in the industry.
Get the full story at BNET
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/virgin_americas_guide_to_not_screwing_up_customer_service/
Microsoft has been spending heavily for Bing. Jefferies & Company analyst Youssef Squali writes that Bing’s gains are “aided by the company’s aggressive marketing” but writes that its rise “is an indicator of sustainable traction.” He also writes that, with the Microsoft-Yahoo partnership this year, “Bing should become a viable competitor to Google.”
But Henry Blodget at Silicon Alley Insider has another take, writing that “We think Bing is buying these share gains, which means that they won’t be building a profitable search business anytime soon.”
Get the full story at The Wall Street Journal
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/bing_advancing_slightly_in_search_rankings/
To use the new biking directions you need to click on the ‘Get Directions’ link in Google Maps and choose the ‘Bicycling’ option from the drop down menu. When you select the ‘Bicycling’ option the map view will change to show the roads and paths that are suitable for biking. Bike paths with no cars are shown in dark green and roads with bike lanes are shown in light green.
The Biking directions in Google Maps is currently in Beta and only available in the U.S. Google asks users to use caution and report unmapped bike routes and streets that aren’t suited for cycling.
Get the full story at ISEDB.com
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/google_maps_adds_biking_directions/
By Jess Petitt
There are plenty of reasons to have a presence on Facebook, Twitter or other social media outlets, but have you considered the reasons not to? Perhaps it’s time to take a step back and re-evaluate the realm of social media as a priority at your hotel by answering the following questions:
1. Do you have the resources? Is there someone at your hotel who is a true “social (media) butterfly?” The kind of person who knows the Facebook status of all their friends and posts regularly? The one who knows Ashton Kutcher from Twitter, and not from “That ’70s Show?”
2. Do you have the experience? Although the gap is closing, there is still a big difference between surfing the web and marketing a hotel. Your social media czar needs to not only have a working knowledge of social media outlets, but also know how to interact professionally and sell effectively. Remember, your hotel’s reputation is always on the line.
3. Do you have the money? To do social media right, you need to invest time into developing a strategy and design, as well as ongoing updates. Time equals money, and your social media guru has shifts to pull or rooms to sell. Do you have the bucks to schedule them for the hours required to really manage your social media platforms?
4. What is your brand team doing? Most major hotel chains have made significant strides in the creation and monitoring of social media content. Check with your brand marketing resources to ensure that your efforts are brand-compliant and not duplicative. You might be impressed with the brand resources available from your current franchise fees.
5. Do you have a story? Let’s face it, what happens at the Courtyard Cheboygan is a lot more interesting to you and your employees than to the guests. Unless you have something truly interesting to say or a special package or other compelling reasons to come to your hotel, perhaps you should say nothing at all.
6. Do you have the need? When was the last time that one of your guests approached the desk and wondered why the hotel’s specials hadn’t been posted to Facebook or why they hadn’t heard about its shopping package on Twitter? When it comes down to it, if an activity isn’t going to eventually generate revenue, why bother?
If you can answer “yes” to these six questions (and there are plenty of you, particularly in the resort and luxury hotel space who can), then, by all means, it is time to embark on a social media adventure.
If not, then it is time to get back to basics and refocus on the proven revenue-generating marketing efforts that you need to succeed in 2010. Along the way, there is plenty you can do in the realm of online marketing, without jumping in to the Web 2.0 deep end. Here are a few tips to keep in mind:
- Monitor customer review websites - No matter how big or small your hotel is, someone somewhere is saying something about you. Regularly check out sites like TripAdvisor and take the time to respond to positive and negative reviews. There are some great products out there that can automate this process, as well.
- Sign up for Google Alerts - This is a great way to take the proverbial pulse of your hotel without surfing the web on a daily basis. Just Google “Google Alerts” and follow the simple process provided.
- Positioning is king - Never forget that the key to online marketing performance is positioning—both on the major search engines and the major online distributors. Search your hotel as if you were a customer across these sites and develop a deeper understanding of the channels that are both strengths and opportunities for your hotels.
- Local linking - Work with your best local business generators—the universities, hospitals, attractions and companies and partner with them to link their website to yours. It generates business and helps your search engine optimization performance.
For now though, quit tweeting and take solace in the fact that your hotel has electronic keycards, Wi-Fi access, computers and other newfangled technologies the industry never envisioned 30 years ago.
Jess Petitt is the corporate director of marketing & sales for HEI Hotels & Resorts, responsible for public relations, marketing and eCommerce.
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/does_your_hotel_really_need_a_social_media_strategy/
By Tim Gunstone, Managing Director, EyeforTravel
Somehow, despite nervous CFOs and minimal investment, brave marketing and distribution professionals have continued to innovate in the online and mobile channels with phenomenal success.
In November 2009 we reported how Hilton, one of the world’s biggest travel companies, reported a ROI of 44 to 1 from its mobile web investments. This is in the face of the global travel industry shrinking by over 2%. This struck me as being incredibly important. It demonstrated that while our industry may not have grown over the last 2 years, it has evolved enormously.
You are probably aware of some of these changes and are already exploiting them. However, if you (like most companies) have had to cut back on research, let’s face it you are working blind.
We have been researching and running conferences on travel distribution since 1997. That means we consistently analyse the industry and identify the game changing trends, and subsequently invest hundreds of thousands of pounds into running conferences and commissioning research on these core areas. On the back of our research to date this year, I wanted to share the areas I feel you need to focus on and invest in for 2010. I’d love to hear your feedback!
Online sales and channel management: With the European online travel industry growing at over 10% per year and the offline channel shrinking at 6% you need to be exploiting this key distribution channel. By 2012 we predict UK online sales will be bigger than offline. You need to understand how to sell online and across multiple channels, including your own website, third party distributors, high traffic non-travel websites, mobile networks and social media. How travel companies get the right balance between maximising their reach online, and minimising the cost of sale will be a key differentiator of success in 2010 and beyond
Basically, in the last two years the debate has fundamentally shifted from “should we take social media seriously?” to “How the hell do we manage this revolution in communication?” How we all communicate with, market to and engage with our customers has changed forever. Travel companies, large and small, need to embrace social media – or risk losing credibility and market share. But you need to get it right. A clumsy, badly planned social media strategy will do more harm than good, eroding trust and damaging your brand. You need to set the right vision, KPIs and strategy for your business and ensure that you are tracking and measuring your social media initiatives effectively.
Mobile: Mobile web browsing is soaring. It shot up by over 67% in the USA last year and is predicted to grow by an average of 30% per year until 2013. By 2014, experts forecast that mobile browsing will the dominant method of accessing the web. That’s just four short years from now! Major Travel Multinationals are reporting ROI on mobile initiatives at over 400%. The biggest companies in the space, Apple, Google, Nokia, Blackberry, Facebook and Amazon are fighting to control this lucrative fast growing market. If you sell online you need to know how to sell over mobile. It’s a very different medium and offers a host of new opportunities and challenges.
Search and online marketing: how consumers search for travel related products online is constantly changing. In order to maintain visibility on the web, travel companies need to adapt their search strategies to take into account more complex search terms, localised search, multi-lingual search and real time search results (e.g. Twitter feeds on Google). As the same time you need to ensure that your search strategies dovetail into your wider online marketing efforts so that your display advertising, PPC campaigns and web content inititaives drive qualified, measureable traffic to your site.
Ancillary and merchandised revenue: The airline industry will make over US$58 Billion from the sale of non core products this year (CAPA). The growth of online and the potential of mobile will enable the whole travel industry to sell far more than its core product in the next few years. If you have a large customer base, then the opportunity to up-sell and cross-sell ancillary products is enormous – and extremely lucrative. What’s more, a well executed ancillary strategy can help increase customer satisfaction and retention.
However, this is a sensitive area, and you need to be aware of the pitfalls. Get it wrong and you could easily damage your brand and alienate your customers. The potential is huge but will take investment in technology and in creating the right partnerships.
Online payments and fraud prevention: The growth of the online travel industry across different markets follows 2 simple stats. Internet penetration and online payment. Right now over 67% of Europeans can’t pay for travel products online via credit card. Payment capabilities need to match product and target market, an area often overlooked by travel companies used to operating in more credit card friendly markets. Fraud is also an ever present threat, dramatically highlighted by the collapse of the Globespan and e-Clear businesses earlier this year, but an expensive problem for many travel companies.
Related Link: EyeForTravel Travel Distribution Summit, London 17-18 June
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/6_ways_to_drive_more_online_travel_sales_in_2010/
Travel management agencies and consultants said companies are likely to institute permanent changes in the way employees travel, effectively creating a “new normal” for business travel.
Some companies may prohibit premium-class travel altogether or use video conferencing to replace some trips, according to a business travel outlook provided by Carlson Wagonlit Travel.
he central issue now for hotel operators is room rates. Hotels cut prices for their U.S. rooms an average of nearly 9 percent in 2009 and are expected to cut them another 2.1 percent this year, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers LLC.
Will hotels be able to command the rates they once enjoyed in the heady days of 2007 or has there been a paradigm shift in the way people spend on travel?
Get the full story at Reuters
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/you_travel_differently_now/
Amadeus announces the launch of Amadeus LinkHotel, a new distribution and marketing service aimed at small to medium-sized hotels and groups. At the heart of the enhanced service is the former Otedis, the representation company acquired by Amadeus in 2005. All new and existing hotel members will be migrated onto the new enhanced distribution platform.
As well as offering advanced global and internet distribution systems (GDS and IDS) through an open standards platform, Amadeus LinkHotel also provides reservation tools, marketing services, and commission handling. The new distribution technology used by Amadeus LinkHotel is built on open standards. This means that the service is scalable and enables easy integration with other hotel systems, such as revenue and property management. Amadeus LinkHotel supports centralised rate and inventory management, and is one of the only services of its kind to offer automated commission handling to ensure intermediaries receive payment accurately and on time from member hotels.
A key focus of the Amadeus LinkHotel offer is a range of consultancy services. Hotels are offered a complimentary Distribution Optimisation analysis to ensure they will benefit from GDS and IDS reach and following this a wide range of sales advice is offered to help customers generate the best advantage from the services and distribution reach offered. Amadeus LinkHotel can help hoteliers keep up with the latest distribution trends ranging from capitalising on opaque business models, to advice on corporate contracting, and complying with BAR (Best Available Rate) programmes.
For travel agents, Travel Management Companies and online travel retailers and partners, Amadeus LinkHotel provides access to a rich range of new properties including sought-after independent and small chain hotels in primary and secondary business and leisure destinations such as the Asia-Pacific region, Central and Western Africa and Latin America. The LinkHotel service is focused on generating rich content in the distribution system to match the growth in demand for hotels in the emerging economies and the rising demand for niche content. In Western Europe the service will be focused on the business traveller and the supply of detailed information and options for this market.
To fully respond to the increasing demand for smaller hotels Amadeus is expanding its network to include specialised resellers in targeted territories.
“Amadeus LinkHotel creates a new approach to representation, benefiting both hotels and bookers, such as travel agents and corporate travel planners. Amadeus LinkHotel enables any hotel whatever the size to have access to a worldwide audience of travellers and professional travel bookers, through a highly cost-effective single solution. Agents and bookers are getting very specific hotel requests from their corporate clients, such as requests for hotels near remote manufacturing locations or retail parks in emerging economies. The more detailed the request, the more you need the kind of rich, in-depth content LinkHotel offers. In addition hotels count on global distribution exposure to maximise sales around specific market opportunities like major entertainment or sporting events” said Hugo Ehrnreich, Head of Hotel Distribution at Amadeus.
Launch customer City Lodge Hotels is a four-brand chain of business and leisure-focused properties with 5,109 rooms and 45 locations in Cape Town, Durban, Johannesburg, Port Elizabeth,, Pretoria, Nelspruit, East London, Richards Bay, Polokwane, Kimberley, Potchefstroom, George and Bloemfontein. The group is currently developing another seven hotels that will all be fully operational by the end of this year, taking its number of hotels to 52 with 6,442 rooms.
City Lodge selected LinkHotel because it wished to capitalise on the global reach the service provides.
“Distribution trends and customer demand are difficult to judge, and we wanted to get the same reach and insight into the global travel market that some of the large international chains have always enjoyed. It is particularly timely because of the big boost in demand for rooms that the 2010 FIFA World Cup will bring. With Amadeus LinkHotel, our international profile is raised, and we can tap into Amadeus’ extensive distribution experience and wide reach to help fulfil our commercial objectives. There is expert guidance on hand and we have a one-stop shop for all distribution, reservation, sales and marketing requirements. Amadeus is a true business partner and they have been very flexible when meeting our requirements” said Peter Schoeman, City Lodge Hotels’ Divisional Director, Sales and Marketing.
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/amadeus_breathes_new_life_into_otedis_aims_to_shake_up_hotel_representation/
There’s a lot going in local search, and it’s almost as hot of a topic as the uprising of Facebook and Twitter. Whether it’s a general search on Google, a question asked on Facebook, or a restaurant you find on your smartphone, local search is all-encompassing. Here’s the evidence:
- Last year was the first year that local online advertising spend was projected to pass national online advertising spend ($12.34 billion vs. $11.39 billion, respectively), according to eMarketer.
- National brands are now focusing more on the leads they generate at the local level than the overall branding message they promote at the corporate level.
- Location-sensitive advertising on mobile is the biggest thing since sliced bread and will only continue to increase as more and more consumers get on smartphones.
- Bing Maps is implementing augmented reality within its search function so that users can see firsthand what businesses look and feel like.
Get the full story at ClickZ
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/how_maps_are_transforming_local_search/
Google Apps, which Google offers in free and paid versions, includes Gmail; Google Docs word processing, spreadsheet and presentation applications; and Google Sites publishing software.
Google Apps has picked up more than 2 million businesses and 25 million users who opt to let Google host their business data so they don’t have to maintain on-premises solutions such as Microsoft SharePoint or IBM Lotus Notes on their own servers.
However, collaboration applications are only a part of the SAAS software ecosystem. As the success of Salesforce.com shows, there is a burgeoning market for enterprise applications based on the cloud.
To wit, the Google Apps Marketplace allows Google Apps administrators to purchase integrated third-party cloud applications and deploy them to their domains.
Get the full story at eWeek
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/google_apps_marketplace_launches/
Revenue management of hotel inventory has long been the practice for hoteliers worldwide, both large and small, chain and independent. Hotel operators understand and accept the need to forecast customer demand at some level of detail and recommend product availability conditions that will deliver the maximum revenue based on that demand. However, for the most part, traditional hotel revenue management is focused purely on maximizing sleeping room revenue with no regard for any other revenue associated with the hotel guest.
Many companies are now realizing that there is a strong need to adopt a more holistic approach to revenue management across the enterprise. This involves two distinct components. First, there is a need to capture and track all revenue associated with hotel guests in order to segment customers more discretely based on their value—this can come from food and beverage, spa, event venues or, in the case of a casino/hotel, gaming. Second, and equally important, operators need to begin to apply the same principles of revenue management employed at the hotel to each discrete revenue source—there has been a strong push for revenue management in restaurants, spas, event venues and even on the casino floor.
It could be said that casino companies have set the “gold standard” for customer loyalty programs. There is no doubt that frequent players are strongly incented to use their loyalty cards to earn free room nights, food and beverage and a variety of other complimentary items. The “reward” to the casino companies is a wealth of data about these customers, not only what their play is like, but their frequency, recency, booking window, and countless other valuable nuggets of information. And while for casino companies the payoff for this is great, given the kind of money generated on the casino floor, the value of this customer data is no less significant for a non-gaming company. If a resort hotel has a guest who comes frequently, eats and drinks in the fine dining room, visits the spa and frequents the mini-bar, this guest is of far more value than a unidentified business traveler who simply uses the room as a place to sleep on the infrequent trip to town; and if the hotel has only one room left, it would want to identify the known guest and accept them.
While many hotel companies have implemented loyalty programs, the real opportunity lies in the ability to capture data about the customer beyond the hotel in order to truly capture the guest’s profitability, not the room revenue generated. There has been a lot of conversation lately about the move from REVPAR to GOPAR, TOTALPAR or some other such acronym; this is where those companies who practice Total Hotel Revenue Management will win, in realizing it is not about the room, it is all about the guest.
In addition to understanding the behaviors and buying patterns of the individual guest, revenue management within the group and catering segments provides tremendous value and opportunity for revenue growth. Components of group and catering revenue management revolve around establishing a measurement/value for function space; defining the total revenue contributions that a group can provide; managing robust function space and group ceilings; and providing the sales channels with the tools to understand the strategies of the hotel.
Revenue per available square foot (revpas) is a measurement of the revenue an event generates based on the square footage used compared to square footage available. Revpas can be applied to both group catering and local catering events. Another measurement that is useful compares historical day-by-day revenue generated on a particular day or in a specific function room.
Catering contribution per group room night measures the amount of catering a group produces in relation to the room nights used by the group; audio visual contribution can be included in this measurement. Additionally, tracking the amount of ancillary income a group brings to the hotel is beneficial: did they use the outlets, gift shops, parking, valet, etc.?
Establishing group ceiling parameters and dynamically pricing the parameters can increase revenue. If your ceiling is 100 rooms, can you sell the last 25 rooms at a higher price point than the first 25? Additionally, proactively managing those ceilings will help ensure inventory is accurate for transient to sell. A robust space management practice includes ensuring the space is blocked accurately to avoid dark time, performing audits of the space on a regular basis, and blocking space with straight line availability in mind as this allows for multiple day bookings.
Providing sales with the tools such as need date calendars, pricing targets, and function space F&B minimums will help them understand sleeping and catering need times, the best patterns, and when the prices will be highest. These tools will help them steer customers into the right patterns, dates and space.
Related Link: HSMAI
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/the_need_for_a_more_holistic_approach_to_revenue_management/
For at least a few weeks, Priceline will be posting recent successful bids, showing specific dollar “savings” but not the names of the hotels. When I checked, I found winning bid data for lots of locations, including some pretty small towns. And the site showed plenty of good buys in the more popular visitor centers. Samples include a four-star hotel near a major attraction in Orlando for $80 per night, a four-star hotel near the Las Vegas Convention Center for $60 (Priceline says 68 percent off), and three-star hotels in several Manhattan neighborhoods at $100.
On average, Priceline claims that more than 40 percent of its customers got hotel rates at least 50 percent below the hotels’ official asking prices. On the whole, my impression is that the claim is probably reasonable. The last time I used Priceline, I got a hotel room in New York City for half the rates quoted by the big online travel agencies.
Going the other direction, longtime hotel discount player Quikbook has added a few opaque listings. So far, choices are extremely limited: two hotels in Chicago, three in New York, and one in Washington.
Get the full story at the Orlando Sentinel
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/priceline_opens_up_quikbook_goes_opaque/
HotelsCombined.com announced today their partnership with Carlson Hotels Worldwide, incorporating Regent Hotels & Resorts; Radisson Hotels & Resorts; Park Plaza Hotels & Resorts, Country Inns & Suites By Carlson; and Park Inn.
Individuals shopping on HotelsCombined.com and choosing to make their hotel reservation with any Carlson Hotel will now find that the booking will be redirected to the respective brand site (RegentHotels.com, Radisson.com, ParkPlaza.com, CountryInns.com and ParkInn.com) to complete their hotel reservation without any additional mark-ups or fees.
Christine Brosnahan, Vice President Distribution and Reservation Sales for Carlson Hotels welcomed the new relationship with HotelsCombined.com, “The distribution focus of Carlson Hotels is to continually increase our reach to new and existing customers. We want to make it easy for anyone to make a hotel reservation with any of our five hotel brands. This relationship provides Carlson Hotels Worldwide with the ability which enables us to sell more inventory directly through our individual brand websites.”
Yury Shar, HotelsCombined.com Managing Director said, “We are excited about our partnership with Carlson Hotels Worldwide, one of the most recognized and internationally respected brands. Our ability to generate incremental direct business on a global scale is becoming a more attractive proposition to hotel chains like Carlson Hotels Worldwide.”
Related Link: Carlson Hotels International
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/carlson_hotels_taps_hotelscombined.com/
From a professional’s perspective, Preferred Hotel Group’s Director, Revenue Account Management – India, Middle East & Africa, Brij Bhushan Chachra believes for revenue professionals, issues such as these are all part of a continuous battle in good and bad times.
However, Chachra acknowledges that going definitely gets tougher during an economic downturn.
“In this recent economy, there is no “one size fits all” approach. The successful revenue manager is one who understands the new environment; understands his/her business on a micro scale; and will then customise an approach that best fits his/her needs,” says Chachra.
He added, “Last year most of the RM professionals gave in to the customer demands and fought a hard price war. However, they have tried to minimise the effect by rationalising price cuts by market segments, exploring emergence of new segments if new rates are offered and effectively using distribution channels.”
Negotiations
Hotels have been focusing on Group and Corporate contract negotiations and price wars. Hotels are often negotiating for group and contract business multiple years in advance. While RM professionals may have been willing to accept significantly reduced group rates during the downturn in exchange for occupancy, they also needed to be very careful regarding not lowering the rate expectations for dates beyond the foreseeable future.
Professionals realise that when the economy turns up again, multi-year contracts and a lower base ADR could artificially deflate achievable pricing for longer than is acceptable.
Chachra says this is true.
He says last year the group rates offered were significantly low, however this is a direct correlation to the demand.
“The group segment is the hardest hit in an economic downturn. Therefore we have to fight harder to retain or even steal market shares. Most RM professionals have been smart by cutting short term deals and protecting the rates in the long term window. I still feel that 2010 will be a challenging year especially for the group segment as the business on books is low from the segment,” said Chachra.
He added, “However, lead time of the segment has shortened considerably therefore it will depend on how the other segments come back which will influence the rates for the group segment. At this point, I would be positive as the shorter booking lead time will boost figures nearer to arrival.”
Price wars
When key competitors resort to guerrilla pricing for unqualified business, revenue managers are sometimes forced to do the same to retain a respectable market share.
This does not generate any additional market demand, and simply drives down the revenues for all. So to what extent has been the market adversely impacted through such tactics? Answering the same, Chachra said this has been a big concern in the past year.
“In guerrilla pricing, hotels try and do price cuts in short window to pick up additional market share however if done too often this can lead to a dilution of revenues,” said Chachra.
“Unfortunately, revenue managers do get into this vicious circle and effect of the same can be seen in our average rates and revenues. Although the year got off to a positive start, with January booking volumes showing growth, the effect of these tactics is seen in the in the depressed average daily rate, which in all cases is lower than that achieved in January 2009, 2008 and 2007,” explained Chachra.
The affect of these strategies, according to him, also affected the strategic positioning of the hotel.
“Luxury or upscale properties should exercise great care before discounting because of the potential impact that this could have on the hotel’s long-term image. Conversely, budget or economy hotels may not be as affected by a price war because they may benefit from customers ‘trading down’ from more upscale hotels,” said Chachra.
Focus
In down economies RM does everything to stimulate incremental demand, ensure all channels are maximised, all segments are priced effectively, and all systems are set up appropriately to capture whatever demand there is to capture.
Chachra says in the last year RM has handled price sensitivity of certain market segments, tackled pricing wars with the competition and effectively managed the distribution channels.
“I feel the biggest challenge for the revenue management professional has been competing in a price war without suffering long-term damage. These comprise both non-price and price methods. The RM has to assess and determine which ones are most effective at delivering business. This economic downturn pushed us to evaluate our operations, create efficiencies where needed and implement changes that have both short- and long-term impact,” shared Chachra.
Given the concern that revenue managers have about pricing-related issues, it is imperative to assess how hotels can manage price during an economic downturn.
One of the keys to success in a down market is to not offer across the board price cuts, but to instead focus on particular market segments and distribution channels.
“When the economy bounces back, we will come out stronger and ready to take on new challenges,” concluded Chachra.
Preferred Hotel Group’s Brij Bhushan Chachra is scheduled to speak at the forthcoming Travel Distribution Summit Asia 2010 (to be held in Singapore, April 28-29.
Related Link: EyeForTravel Travel Distribution Summit Asia 2010
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/revenue_management_and_the_vicious_circle_of_guerrilla_pricing/
Tristan Walker, director of business development at Foursquare, said that the latest features were intended to help local merchants run their stores by giving them more information about their customers.
“We’re trying to give businesses more retention with current customers and the ability to add new customers with specials,” said Mr. Walker.
Foursquare is a service that allows users to share their location with a group of friends from “checking in” to a restaurant, business or other venue when they arrive. The company encourages the businesses to recognize Foursquare users in some fashion, such as a bar awarding free drinks to their most frequent customers.
Get the full story at The New York Times
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/foursquare_introduces_new_tools_for_businesses/
While Twitter’s geolocation feature has been live through its API since last November, there was no sign of integration into the main twitter.com site until now. As you can see in the screenshot above, for tweets tagged with location, right next to the source of the tweet there is a location placemarker. When you hover over it, it turns blue, and clicking on it brings up a little Google map showing the location that tweet was sent from.
Facebook plans to take the wraps off a new location-based feature in late April at f8, the company’s yearly developer conference, according to several people briefed on the project, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss unannounced services.
The new location feature will have two aspects, according to the people familiar with Facebook’s plans. One will be a service offered directly by Facebook that will allow users to share their location information with friends.
Read “Twitter Turns On Geolocation On Its Website” at TechCrunch, and “Facebook Will Allow Users to Share Location” at The New York Times
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/twitter_and_facebook_are_adding_geolocation_features/
Online travel booking in 2009 saw rapid development and has become a highlight of the tourism market. According to statistics released by the CNNIC, online travel booking users in 2009 increased 77.9 percent to reach 13.24 million. The growth rate is second only to online payment (80.9 percent) and exceeds online stocking (67 percent), online banking (62.3 percent) and online shopping (45.9 percent).
As of December 30, China’s web users has reached 384 million, Internet penetration rate has amounted to 28.9 percent and online travel booking rate has reached 7.9 percent. It is believed that there is huge potential for the development of online travel booking.
Get the full story at People’s Daily Online
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/online_travel_booking_users_exceeds_30_million_in_china/
Prices in 34 of the top 50 European cities also decreased in comparison to last year. In contrast, prices in London have increased by six percent. These are the findings of the trivago Hotel Price Index (tHPI) which is published monthly by the hotel price comparison site trivago.co.uk.
The average price for a standard double room in Europe has stayed consistent at 93 pounds a night – the same rate as last month, and seven percent lower than in March 2009. In the United Kingdom, hotel rates remained constant: 100 pounds in March 2010, compared to 99 pounds in the previous month. In 34 of the 50 top European cities, average hotel prices have dropped in comparison to March 2009. In contrast, London hotel prices have risen by six percent in the year-on-year comparison. London is currently the most expensive city in the United Kingdom with an average cost of 126 pounds a night. This puts the capital as the fourth most expensive city in the tHPI behind Milan (139 pounds), Oslo (142 pounds) and Geneva (177 pounds).
Rising prices in Central and Southern Europe; decreases in the North
The overnight prices in many tourist capitals have increased over the past month. A hotel room in Rome (103 pounds) costs thirteen percent more than in February; in Vienna (105 pounds), the price has gone up by nineteen percent. Similar increases have also occurred in Amsterdam (106 pounds), Athens (84 pounds) and Barcelona (93 pounds), with all three cities seeing increases of nine percent from February to March. The opposite is true in Denmark and Sweden, though prices in both countries are still far higher than the European average. Hotel rooms in Copenhagen (118 pounds) and Stockholm (122 pounds) have dropped by six percent since February.
Stable prices in the United Kingdom
With the notable exception of Ireland, major cities across the United Kingdom experienced only minor fluctuations in accommodation prices over the past month. The average nightly cost increased two percent in London (126 pounds) and rose one percent in Birmingham (88 pounds), York (104 pounds) and Glasgow (79 pounds). No change was recorded in Nottingham (73 pounds), while costs in Manchester dropped two percent to 87 pounds. In Dublin, on the other hand, the average overnight price climbed steeply to 103 pounds – eighteen percent higher than in February – in anticipation of the RBS Six Nations Championship and several upcoming cultural events and festivals. A higher-than-average increase of six percent was also registered in Edinburgh (108 pounds), and stands in sharp contrast to March 2009, when the average stay cost only 94 pounds.
The trivago.co.uk hotel price index shows the average overnight accommodation prices for the most popular European cities on trivago. Prices for a standard double room are calculated on the basis of 160,000 daily price inquiries for overnight hotel stays generated through the trivago hotel price comparison service. trivago stores all hotel enquiries for each month and therefore gives an overview of hotel accommodation prices for the upcoming month. The tHPI reflects the hotel prices within the European online hotel market: The overnight accommodation prices of 53 online travel agents and hotel chains create the average hotel prices for cities, regions and countries within Europe.
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/hotel_prices_in_europe_remain_low/
Only 6% of those polled said they would not take any trips abroad in 2010. 13% said they would take one trip abroad,16% said they plan four or five trips and 13% said that they will be leaving the UK six times or more.
Skyscanner’s February 2010 Top 50 Destinations Report shows that cheap flights to Spanish destinations are still extremely popular with UK travellers. Cheap flights to Malaga, Alicante and Tenerife remain the three most searched for destinations for a second month running. Events such as St Patrick ’s Day may also encourage Brits to take a trip abroad with Dublin moving up four places into the top ten. Delhi also rose significantly in popularity, moving up 12 places.
Barry Smith, Skyscanner co-founder and Development:
“2009 was a testing year for travel; many operators and some airlines went out of business. However, the fact that 49% of people in our poll plan on taking two or three trips aboard this year is great news for the travel industry. And despite been fears that flights to Spain might drop in popularity, our data shows that it’s still by far the most popular country for British Holidaymakers.”
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/uk_travelers_plan_to_take_multiple_trips_abroad_in_2010/
As part of a global reorganization aimed at accelerating worldwide growth, Marriott International, Inc. plans to double its portfolio in Europe by 2015. Amy McPherson, president and managing director of Marriott International Europe, made the announcement today at the International Hotel Investment Forum.
Celebrating 35 years in Europe this year, Marriott International is represented with 174 hotels in Europe, and envisions increasing its portfolio from 40,000 rooms to 80,000 rooms by 2015. Seven of Marriott’s 18 brands are represented currently in Europe: Ritz-Carlton, Bvlgari, JW Marriott, Marriott Hotels & Resorts, Renaissance Hotels, Courtyard by Marriott and Marriott Executive Apartments. In addition, the first European Residence Inn, an extended-stay brand, will open in Munich in 2012.
The development pipeline in Europe includes nearly 30 projects including the Renaissance Moscow Monarch Center Hotel (2010), the Courtyard by Marriott Budapest (2010) and the JW Marriott Hotel Ankara (2010).
“We see strong opportunity throughout Europe to grow our portfolio,” said Arne Sorenson, president and chief operating officer of Marriott International. “Our new operating structure, comprised of four continental divisions including Europe, will help facilitate global growth and bring our teams closer to markets and to our customers. We have tremendous opportunities to grow, with over a third of our current pipeline and about half of our full-service openings this year located in markets outside North America.”
Said McPherson, “Europe is the largest lodging market in the world and holds enormous potential for Marriott. Our talented new team here is aggressively accelerating our focus on growth.”
“With a footing in most of Europe’s gateway cities, we are thrilled to see our expansion continue into secondary cities and emerging markets. We are confident we are well- positioned to achieve this ambitious expansion goal,” she said.
Named the head of Marriott’s European operating division in July 2009, McPherson is responsible for almost $3 billion in revenue across 24 countries and 23 languages and the performance and growth of this new division that combines the former United Kingdom & Ireland and Continental Europe regions. McPherson joined Marriott in 1986 and most recently served as Executive Vice President of Global Sales and Marketing.
Expansion plans for Europe also include two new brands: Edition, a boutique-lifestyle collaboration between Ian Schrager and Marriott; and the Autograph Collection, comprised of independent hotels and resorts from around the world representing upper-upscale and luxury properties with distinctive personalities.
“We expect the Autograph Collection will be a very popular conversion brand in Europe given the region’s variety of iconic, independent and small hotel groups,” said Carlton Ervin, chief development officer for Marriott International in Europe. Ervin added that hotel owners in Europe recognize the value of Marriott’s brand preference and superior systems, sales and technology platforms.
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/marriott_plans_to_double_presence_in_europe_by_2015/
Busy people do inbox triage, quickly deciding which messages to read, ignore or delete unread.
Yet e-mail is such a familiar tool that we often fail to pay attention to the basics, and widely used e-mail marketing tools like Constant Contact allow us to make mistakes on a large scale. With some 350,000 customers, most of them small businesses, Constant Contact makes it easy for non-techies to fill in the blanks on one of more than 400 e-mail newsletter templates and blast their message out to thousands of people. But before you click “send,” here are three things to consider.
Get the full story at Forbes
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/why_should_i_open_your_e-mail/
“The Collaborative Internet” report from Internet security firm FaceTime Communications found increases in the proportion of at-work Web users worldwide logging on to each network studied. LinkedIn was the top site for professional social networking in 2009, followed by Twitter, which was used by more than three-quarters of respondents for work reasons.
The top reasons users gave for using social sites at work were professional networking with colleagues (79%), learning about colleagues (66%), and general research (61%). A comparatively low 37% were logging on to social sites for the more specialized function of marketing to customers.
Overall, FaceTime found 95% of at-work Internet users headed to social sites during the work day for either personal or professional reasons, 61% did so at least once daily, and 15% said they were on the networks “constantly throughout the day.”
Get the full story at eMarketer
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/social_media_complicates_work-life_balance/
By Max Starkov
The latest eTRAK Full Year 2009 report on hotel bookings by channel yet again confirms that today, the online channel is the only growth channel in hospitality. In the difficult economic environment, when travel supply outweighed travel demand by far, Internet bookings for the top 30 hotel brands increased by a remarkable 6.6% in 2009 vs. 2008 (eTRAK).
This increase in Internet bookings comes at the expense of the GDS and Voice Channels, both of which have been declining for many years now.
The growth of the Internet channel for the top 30 hotel brands is not an isolated phenomenon. HeBS reported steady increases in direct online channel bookings across its hotel client portfolio, even in a difficult year like 2009.
In dire economic times like these, characterized by sharp declines in travel demand, a comprehensive ROI-centric Internet marketing strategy can help hoteliers continue to generate much needed incremental revenues and out-smart their competition.
Here are some of HeBS’ findings based on the latest eTRAK benchmark report, surveys and industry data from PhoCusWright, ARC and our own research.
GDS Channel Is in Steady Decline
- GDS hotel bookings via the CRS of the top 30 hotel brands declined by 3.7% 2009 vs. 2008, and constitute 23.6% of total CRS bookings in 2009 vs. 27.3% in 2008 (eTRAK).
- Back in 2006, GDS CRS reservations constituted 31.3% of total CRS bookings for the top 30 brands. GDS share has decreased by 24.6% from 2006 to 2009, when it was reported at the 23.6% level.
- Travel Agency Share from Total Travel Market in the U.S. dropped from 41% in 2006 to 33% in 2009 (PhoCusWright).
- U.S. Travel Agency Locations decreased by 7% in 2009 vs. 2008. The number of locations has been decreasing at an average rate of 4% every year since 2001, and the number of travel agencies has declined from as high as 35,000 in 1995 to less than 16,450 in September 2009 (ARC, HeBS).
The Voice Channel Contribution Is Decreasing
- Voice channel hotel bookings via the CRS of the top 30 hotel brands declined by 2.9% in 2009 vs. 2008, and now constitute 22.2% of total CRS booking in 2009 (eTRAK).
- Last year’s decrease is in addition to a decline of 2.8% for the full 2008 vs. 2007 (eTRAK).
- The Voice Channel is in decline for the 6th consecutive year (HeBS). Back in 2006, voice reservations constituted 31.3% of total CRS bookings for the top 30 brands. Voice Reservation share decreased to 25.1% in 2008 and 22.2% in 2009.
The Shift from Offline to Online Channel is Permanent
- 54.2% of overall CRS bookings for the top 30 hotel brands come from the online channel, which is an increase of 6.6% vs. 2008 (eTRAK).
- 60% of leisure and 40% of business travel will be booked online in the U.S. this year (PhoCusWright).
- 45% of hotel bookings in 2010 will be via the Internet (direct + indirect online channels) (HeBS).
Direct vs. Indirect Online Channel: Dynamics Follow the Economy
Typical of economic times such as the present, the hotel industry (similar to post 9/11) has again “succumbed to the devil” in the face of the major OTAs. Since mid-2008 travel supply has outweighed demand and hoteliers have been more susceptible to panic, resulting in deep discounting and embracing of the OTAs. The result is that we have witnessed a significant shift from the direct online to the indirect online channel in 2009:
- In 2009, 70.9% of online bookings came from the direct online channel (i.e. the major hotel brands’ own websites), while 29.1% came from the indirect online channel (the Online Travel Agencies—OTAs) (eTRAK). This constitutes a significant increase of the contribution from the OTAs compared to 2008, when 75.2% of online bookings came from the direct online channel, while 24.8% came from the OTAs.
- Compare this to 2007, when the direct channel contributed 76% of CRS Internet bookings.
The Bottom Line: Focus on the Direct Online Channel
Hoteliers need a robust Direct Online Channel Strategy, accompanied by adequate marketing funds to be able to take advantage of the steady growth in the Internet channel and shift from offline to online bookings in hospitality due to declining GDS and voice channels. Hoteliers must carefully employ ROI-centric initiatives, including website redesign, website optimization and SEO, paid search, email marketing, online display advertising and proven social media initiatives.
Even in this economy, you should not decrease or eliminate your hotel Internet marketing budget. The Internet, and especially the direct online channel, is the only growth channel for hoteliers and the only “light at the end of the tunnel” in this environment. Even in these difficult times we see “Return on ad spend” (ROAS) as high as 3500% from Internet marketing campaigns we run for our clients.
Market researchers provide various projections for the growth of the online travel channel in 2010, from a small decline as reported by a travel research company, to growth rates as high as 11% in 2010 as projected by eMarketer. These optimistic projections are supported by the leading e-Commerce research company, which declares that overall U.S. online sales will increase by 9% in 2010. HeBS believes that online travel, having always been the most dynamic and fast-growing segment of the overall online marketplace, will experience similar growth rates. Whatever the case might be, the online travel channel, and especially the direct online channel, provides hoteliers with the only viable option for any growth during this recession.
Max Starkov is Chief eBusiness Strategist at Hospitality eBusiness Strategies (HeBS)
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/increase_in_ota_bookings_comes_at_expense_of_gds_and_voice/
Pan-european OTA ebookers.com plans to waive hotel cancellation and amendment fees on its websites.
From today, any customer who has booked a hotel through ebookers.com will no longer pay a fee to ebookers for changes or cancellations, providing travellers with greater flexibility and reassurance when it comes to planning their accommodation.
Customers needing to amend or cancel their bookings previously paid a standard fee to ebookers.com but under the new rules, customers will only be required to pay a fee if the hotel in question has its own cancellation policy in place.
In addition, ebookers has also removed all booking fees across its entire hotel portfolio.
President of ebookers.com, Tamer Tamar comments: “ebookers provides customers with more than 95,000 accommodation options for leisure or business stays in the UK and abroad.”
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/ebookers_removes_hotel_booking_fees/
President Barack Obama on Thursday signed into law the Travel Promotion Act, a measure that will set up an 11-member board to develop a national multi-channel marketing campaign to draw foreign travelers and provide information on travel policies.
Industry executives say the act can help strengthen the U.S. economy and revive the sector, which has taken a hit as the recession dampened demand for air travel and led consumers to cut back discretionary spending at hotels and restaurants.
But some in the travel industry expressed concern about a $10 fee that will be charged every two years to visitors from countries that participate in the Visa waiver program. That fee, along with voluntary private sector contributions, will be used to pay for the program.
Get the full story at Reuters
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/u.s._tourism_measure_draws_mixed_industry_reviews/
Here’s a checklist for blending social media into the PR mix:
- Think SEO and keywords
- Content and video count
- Let press release themes work together with social media content
- Authenticity and relevancy matter; have a real voice and personality behind the social media networks
- Combine each press release with a video component
- Monitor and listen to what is being said about your brand and your competition
- Measure using tools like Google Analytics
The press release is now the tweet, the post, and the status update.
Get the full story at ClickZ
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/blending_social_media_into_the_pr_mix/
The monthly report provides Hitwise data on:
- Top 20 websites for the past month based on visits
- Percentage of traffic to the Travel industry online
- Most popular search terms typed into a search engine that resulted in traffic to websites classified by Hitwise within the ‘Travel’ industry.
- Fast Movers - indicating websites which have witnessed substantial increases in rank in the online Travel industry
Download the full report “Hitwise Monthly Category Report - Travel, February, 2010” (PDF 244KB)
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/hitwise_us_travel_website_ranks_february_2010/
Most wealthy Internet users in the US are optimistic about the economy going forward, according to Ipsos Mendelsohn, and their online spending has historically been higher than average.
That should make them attractive to retailers, which are increasingly turning to social networks to attract customers. But will affluents be as receptive to social marketing as other Web users?
Based on a study from Unity Marketing, the outlook is mixed. Most affluents use social networking sites to hear about their friends and family and reconnect with old friends—not to connect with brands. Just 7% logged on to look for offers or research purchases, while 6% went social to share or buy products or look for coupons.
Get the full story at eMarketer
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/can_luxury_brands_make_friends/
Most everyone agrees that 2010 will be a challenging year for hoteliers to maximize revenues. However, the year got off to a positive start with January booking volumes showing growth (+9.46% vs. 2009, +9.69% vs. 2008 and +20.64% vs. 2007). Unfortunately, this is offset by depressed average daily rate (ADR), which in all cases is lower than that achieved in January 2009, 2008 and 2007. Overall net revenue is growing and, although not back to 2008 levels, it has risen above January 2007 (January 2010 up +2.45% vs. January 2007).
Future booking patterns are confirming what other sources have already said – leisure travelers are gaining confidence – evidenced by future months’ bookings greater than at the same point last year. However, the mostly business GDS channel is different, with suppressed future bookings indicating that this market is still cautious and there is a long way to go before reservations get back to 2008 levels.
Get the full report at Pegasus (PDF 450 KB)
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/un-stoppable_growth_in_ota_bookings_gds_still_lacking_behind/
“In the fourth quarter, we were able to achieve revenue growth of 18% year-on-year. This allowed us to deliver a profitable quarter and eLong’s first profitable full year since 2006,” said Mike Doyle, chief financial officer of eLong.
The China State Council has made the travel industry a priority sector of the Chinese economy. The company believes this will work in its favour, bringing in new opportunities for eLong.
“Starting in 2010, we have quickened the pace of our product and service expansion and upgrades,” said Guangfu Cui, CEO of eLong.
eLong launched dynamic packages, has now contracted more than 10,000 domestic hotels and also offers over 100,000 hotels worldwide by connecting to Expedia, making eLong the largest online distributor in China in terms of hotels offered.
“And we upgraded our online international air booking technology in order to make booking international tickets on eLong as easy as booking domestic tickets,” Cui said.
Net income for full year 2009 was RMB19.9 million, compared to net loss of RMB76.6 million in 2008.
eLong currently expects net revenues for the first quarter of 2010 to be within the range of RMB86 million to RMB93 million, equal to an increase of 10-20 percent compared to the first quarter of 2009.
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/elong_reports_first_profitable_year/
TripIt, the trip management company, has closed a third round of funding, receiving $7 million from a group of investors led by Azure Capital Partners and O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures. These funds will be used to accelerate TripIt’s cloud-based web service to reach more business travelers, as well as new services for mobile and enterprise collaboration at global companies.
Earlier this week, TripIt announced TripIt Groups that gives business travelers an easy way to collaborate on travel planning with other colleagues inside their company. Groups adds to other recently-launched business travel services from TripIt, including free mobile apps for iPhone, Android and BlackBerry, and the TripIt Pro premium service for frequent travelers.
TripIt has now received $13.1M in total investment, including $1M when it launched in 2007, $5.1M in 2008, and $7M in this third round of funding, which was oversubscribed by interested investors.
“TripIt has everything we look for in an investment—an experienced management team and the ability to change a big industry like online travel,” commented Mike Kwatinetz, founding general partner, Azure Capital Partners.
“OATV is re-investing in TripIt because of its continued success in attracting new users and partners to their open travel platform,” commented Mark P. Jacobsen, managing director, OATV.
“We’re just scratching the surface on how we can help travelers and their companies. With strong investors and this new capital, we’re looking forward to bringing more new ideas to market,” commented Gregg Brockway, TripIt co-founder and president.
Over the past year, TripIt has made significant progress expanding its core service that helps travelers organize and share travel plans no matter where they book. Highlights of the past year at TripIt include:
- Expanded support of its Itinerator technology to over 1,000 different booking sites
- Free mobile apps for iPhone, Android and BlackBerry devices
- Launching the TripIt Pro premium service for frequent travelers
- Integration with Facebook, LinkedIn, Plaxo and other top social networking platforms
- An open API that has attracted hundreds of developer partners including many top iPhone apps like FlightTrack Pro and USA Today AutoPilot
- New partnerships with BCD Travel, Farelogix, Hotwire, Hudson Group, IBM Lotus Notes, SeatExpert, Virgin America and Yapta
- Numerous awards and honors, including CNET Webware 100 and TIME Magazine Top 50 Websites, as well as TechCrunch Top Products for the third year in a row
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/tripit_receives_7m_third_round_of_funding/
In December, 1.7 percent more passengers flew in first or business class than in the same month in 2008. “2009 was a year of very distinct halves, with severe recession early in the year and post-recession upturn in the second half,” IATA said, noting that the low point for premium travel came in May 2009, when high-yield traffic was down 25 percent over the same month in 2008.
Since that low, IATA said premium passenger numbers grew 11 percent through December, but even with its first positive year-over-year posting in the last month of 2009, the overall size of the premium market remained down 17 percent compared with “the size of the market in early 2008,” IATA said. “This implies that premium travel has lost six years of growth.”
Source: BTNonline
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/iata_data_shows_return_to_business_class/
Think global, Work Local.” It’s a phrase originally coined in 1915, with urban planning in mind. Today, almost 100 years later, it is the key to effectively building your brand and business online. The difference is that in today’s marketing arena, global refers to a brand’s over-arching identity, while local refers to how that brand is portrayed on specific media portals. It is no longer physical geography that counts. It is the subject matter that does.
This means that yes, the old rules of marketing still apply. The concept of creating a strong brand and effectively positioning it in the market still works. What is new is the way in which you must edit your message to ensure consumers listen to what you have to say.
In a broad sense, communicating effectively online is simple. Success relies on maintaining a stream of content that hits the right people with the right message at the right time. Relevancy is essential for success. Let’s face it, if you’re at a club on Friday night, you don’t want someone pitching you their latest electronic security product. Conversely, a Tuesday morning meeting in the corporate boardroom is probably not the best place for a rant about Lady Gaga’s hot new single. Different place, different expectations
Get the full story at iMedia Connection
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/the_3_key_personalities_of_the_online_consumer/
The goal is to help the consumer who demands a seamless shopping experience - and in turn to help the bottom line.
Retailers’ biggest reasons for site redesigns were to increase sales and conversions and to grab the attention of new visitors and shoppers.
To this end, many will add advanced features to their sites such as video or streaming media and customer reviews and ratings. About one-quarter will also introduce personalized product recommendations, which can be difficult to execute and get mixed reactions from shoppers.
Get the full story at eMarketer
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/e-commerce_sites_freshen_up_to_grow_sales/
A recent report, published on NielsenWire, indicated that time spent on social networking sites has increased from 3 hours per month to 5.5 hours per month in the last year alone, representing a staggering 82 percent increase in the use of social media.
It is increasingly being propagated that businesses have no choice but to access customers via this medium.
According to Morris Sim, co-founder, Circos Brand Karma, if 2009 was the year social media became a cultural phenomenon, 2010 will be the year in which it will become a legitimate business force.
In an interview with EyeforTravel’s Ritesh Gupta, Sim spoke about disruptive digital technologies and other issues driving change in the Travel Industry. Excerpts:
What according to you has been the biggest change the industry has witnessed, especially from social media marketing since last year? Do you think for brands, social media is primarily about test and learn at the moment?
Morris Sim: The speed in which social media reached scale has undoubtedly been the biggest thing that not only this industry, but any industry, has witnessed as it relates to marketing. When you consider that it took years instead of centuries for Facebook’s membership to surpass 350 million people, that’s impressive. And Facebook users are creating content to share at an unprecedented rate… if 2009 was the year social media became a cultural phenomenon, 2010 will be the year that it becomes a legitimate business force. We tell our clients that as a brand, you can’t be testing and learning about social media on your own pace; you’ve got to follow the pace your customers have set, and it’s moving very fast. I take my hat off to brands that invested and experimented in 2009, especially during the downturn, because now they’re ahead of the curve.
Till last year, travel companies were assessing how to develop their own strategy of how to best engage with their customers on the web. How do you assess the approach as of today in a market like Asia?
Morris Sim: I think it depends on the sector. The OTAs have been actively promoting the creation of social media on their sites for quite a few years now, and I see their reviews starting to come up on the first page of organic search results when consumers want to find out more about hotels. Hotels are also monitoring how they’re doing in customer reviews, and not just from an operational perspective; for example we’re helping quite a few hotel clients link bookings to their performance in reviews. Also, some hoteliers have done a fantastic job integrating social media into their brand marketing, like Accor with the Ibis Idol campaign in Thailand.
Airlines got a wake-up call from Twitter when customers were using it to complain about poor service, and many have incorporated the monitoring of it as part of their overall customer service protocol. Some are also using Twitter to publish deals.
Finally, this might be surprising to you but often when I go to conferences the traditional travel agencies approach me wanting to talk about social media as a strategy for them. So I’d say overall, all the consumer-facing sectors are getting engaged in social media, and to good effects.
Which is the best way to measure the ROI of advertising campaigns in a social media environment?
Morris Sim: I don’t think there should be a re-definition of ROI just because you’re using social media. Social media is mature enough that brands should be hardcore about measuring ROI when they decide to invest in it. The one caveat I’d have is this: because social media can be used to drive perception as well as promotions, if a brand is engaged in social media to improve perception, then to measure ROI it must have a good idea how much a net 1 point increase in favorability means to their bottom line to really understand the efficacy. If they don’t know, they can use social media to find out (a simple proxy is how does TripAdvisor ranking impact booking). On the other hand, for social media campaigns that are being run specifically to drive promotions, traditional ROI should be used to calculate its efficacy. It’s our opinion that traditional online campaigns that are either CPM or CPC based, though familiar, are not necessarily the optimal marketing tactics to use in the social media world.
The progression of technology and innovation in the travel industry continues at a quickening pace and Asian countries are closing the gap on their western counterparts. What according to have been the major developments in this context in Asia?
Morris Sim: Actually, as it relates to social media, I don’t think Asian countries are behind their Western counterparts in the application of travel technology innovations to gain market share, which is really what matters in the end. This entire area is so nascent that it’s hard to say any region is the clear leader. However, if there is a gap between the East and the West, I think it’s in the form of information access.
Here in Asia, the various filters and censorships sometime create an information black hole, which is far less the case in the West. Does it really matter since travel isn’t related to politics or pornography in most cases? I think so. Operators may need to have a Facebook-less and Twitter-less and YouTube-less strategy that’s different from its strategy for the rest of the world. It may also need to understand how its perception differs due to different search results from a local search engine vs. a more global one such as Google. There are real costs that come out of people having access to different sets of perception-forming information.
Do you think predicting user preferences is the biggest unsolved problem in online travel? How do you assess the integration of social search into online travel?
Morris Sim: Before solving for user preferences prediction, all travel brands using online as a distribution channel to win customers should look at something way more basic: usability!
I think this is the biggest problem and while better search or social search may be a solution, it’s certainly not the only solution. Take a look at any OTA site; it’s gotten more complicated over the last 12 months. Meta-search sites are probably equally, if not more complex. This may be a result of more information being available, and therefore, a need to present more data and options. But, do we really need more information or just the most relevant one?
The complexity of the booking process may cap online travel unnecessarily because the data glut just overwhelms people. As it is, now I actually prefer to call my travel agent and have her book my air travel for me, and I know that I’m not the outlier. We recommend all of our clients do a usability audit when they’re thinking about their online investment. Sometimes we even make them book on their own website so they can experience what the customers experience. Often, it’s enlightening and leads to good conversation… and changes for the better.
This year, we have already seen a couple of significant moves from Apple and Google towards mobile advertising. How do you foresee the impact on search and social media via mobile phones on the travel industry?
Morris Sim: Mobile as a B2C communication platform has already exploded in places like China and India, and is waiting to explode elsewhere. This means that notifications and alerts can be done effectively via mobile. But how effective is it as a branding or distribution platform? I don’t know.
Certainly for a class of simple transactions, m-Commerce is convenient and acceptable by consumers (e.g. buying a train ticket). However, I think for things that are more personal, complex, or require research (e.g. hotel for my vacation, multi-destinations trip), mobile may not be the best device even with the web browsing advances that Apple and Google have developed. One thing that I do see a lot of people do sitting on public transportations now is using their handheld devices, whether connected or not, to be entertained during those long rides home. Whereas people used to listen to their MP3 players, they’re now watching movies, YouTube, or playing video games on their handhelds. This opens up an incredible opportunity for the travel industry to do product placements. Imagine someone playing a racing game whereby the course go into and out of the grounds of your hotel, or if they race past billboards of your airline or travel agency. Mobile devices are connected devices that allow us to talk to one another, but I think the more sensible thing is to look broadly at handhelds in general, even if they don’t allow us to make calls.
Sim is scheduled to speak at the forthcoming Travel Distribution Summit Asia 2010 (to be held in Singapore, April 28-29).
Related Link: EyeForTravel Travel Distribution Summit Asia 201
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/social_media_in_travel_becomes_a_legitimate_business_force/
Budget airlines in Europe gained 13 million more passengers last year, with cheaper prices pulling in customers amid an overall drop in air travel. Airports say overall passenger numbers dropped 5 percent in Europe last year.
Major carriers were worst affected. The Association of European Airlines said members lost 20 million passengers last year — down 5.8 percent to 325.9 million — as a result of the economic downturn that has cut into business and vacation travel.
Get the full story at MSNBC
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/europeans_flock_to_low-cost_airlines/
HomeAway - a leading online vacation rental marketplace - announced its acquisition of BedandBreakfast.com, the most comprehensive global site for finding bed-and-breakfast properties (B&Bs).
“HomeAway already provides the most trusted sites and broadest inventory for searching for the ideal vacation rental home,” says Brian Sharples, chief executive officer of HomeAway. “With the addition of BedandBreakfast.com, we’re providing travelers with another option to find home-like accommodations for a vacation experience that delivers far greater satisfaction than staying in a traditional motel or hotel.”
BedandBreakfast.com was founded in Austin, Texas, in 1995 by CEO Eric Goldreyer, and has grown into a top travel site listing more than 10,000 B&Bs across 100 countries. The site specializes in providing travelers with a way to have a more personal travel experience for a weekend getaway, business trip or extended vacation.
“We are thrilled to be joining the HomeAway family,” says Goldreyer. “The missions of our two companies are closely aligned – to help consumers easily find and experience a better lodging option than chain hotels and to help property owners effectively compete for and serve the traveler.”
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/homeaway_acquires_bedandbreakfast.com/
RezDelivery is a two-way, state-of-the-art reservation delivery platform that allows seamless connectivity between a hotel’s technology and the third-party provider’s technology. RezDelivery connects both legacy and industry leading central reservation and property management systems, including Micros/Fidelio’s Opera, SoftBrands’ Epitome and Medallion, InnQuest’s RoomMaster, protel hotelsoftware’s protel solution and CMS Hospitality’s Guest Centrix, to small, medium, and large forward distribution channels, including third party websites and offline traditional wholesalers. It allows hotels to manage multiple channels of distribution with optimal control and accuracy, allowing maximum revenue from various demand aggregators.
EZYield.com’s RoomRez is a proprietary solution that adds enhanced functionality and seamless integration to channel management, GDS distribution, revenue management and property management systems. RoomRez is a feature-rich, flexible and functional hotel web booking engine that transforms a hotel’s website into a fully transactional and secure revenue source. RoomRez enhances online bookings by supporting best available rate (BAR) strategies, advanced technological design that prevents competitive shopping tools from reading a property’s discounted rates, and unprecedented functionality for both hoteliers and booking agents.
EZYield.com’s GDSConnect provides a direct connection that delivers hotel rates and inventories to the five global distribution systems worldwide, including Galileo, Sabre, Abacus, Amadeus, and Worldspan that reach over 600,000 travel agents on a daily basis.
EZYield.com’s channel management solution utilizes the most advanced SaaS platform technology available. With the EZYield.com solution, hoteliers can simultaneously update rates, allotments, stay restrictions and packages across multiple third-party websites from a single user-friendly dashboard. Customizable yielding views provide a feature-rich interface to easily execute complicated rate structures and ensure rate parity across all online channels.
Related Link: EZYield.com
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/ezyield.com_launches_enterprise_reservation_delivery_platform/
We are in the age of social media arrogance.
Companies are banking on Twitter and Facebook to be the saviors of their customer service and marketing. Self-appointed social media experts spend days praising each other’s success stories and validating their jobs by spewing lofty answers as to why every company needs to hire experts to manage Twitter and Facebook accounts.
But are companies losing perspective? Is there more to making customers happy than counting Facebook Fans and Twitter followers?
Get the full story at The Miami Herald
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/social_networking_not_enough_for_good_customer_service/
Under the old restrictions, nobody in the travel industry would be legally allowed to blog, tweet or post online content about Carnival – its cruises, its corporate practices – without authorization from the company.
After a few travel blogs raised hackles over the company’s gag rule, the company amended the rule and pulled the restrictive language last month.
“The wording was very overreaching and did not reflect the intent of what we wanted in there,” said Jennifer de la Cruz, a Carnival spokeswoman.
Get the full story at The New York Times
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/twitter_ban_lifted_by_carnival_cruises/
Travelport, one of the world’s leading providers of global distribution systems (GDS), today announced that as part of an ongoing strategy to deliver solutions that better merchandise the products of its customers, that it is selling its GDS advertising exclusively through internal advertising consultants effective January 2010.
With this change, Travelport becomes the only global GDS to exclusively sell its own GDS advertising.
GDS advertising allows travel suppliers to reach travel agents with relevant promotional and product information at the critical point of sale, as they search for air, hotel and car products information by destination market.
“Travelport is developing sales and marketing capabilities which will result in bringing the relevance and clarity of Google-like search advertising to the travel agent’s desktop,” said Paul Hesser, Travelport GDS vice president, Advertising and Merchandising Solutions.
“With plans to roll-out the Travelport Universal Desktop later this year, we will accelerate the move from primarily a distribution vehicle to a strategic sales and marketing platform for airlines, hotels, car rental companies and other travel providers, offering more integrated and targeted messaging opportunities, as well as the ability to deliver robust graphical ads.
To do this effectively requires close coordination of several key functions – consultative advertising account managers, travel expertise, and leading edge technology. We evaluated third-party providers, but determined we could best meet the needs of our customers through a direct relationship.”
As part of this transition, Travelport has established an advertising operations and support team that will utilize a leading edge ad serving platform to deliver campaigns across Travelport’s product portfolio to ensure that advertisers get the highest return on their advertising programs.
The platform will be positioned to support merchandising when used with the Travelport Universal Desktop, which will seamlessly unify selling and merchandising programs, automate processes for travel agencies and allow diverse content to be accessed easily. These merchandising capabilities will enable travel suppliers to better target travel agents with the right products, services and offers at the right time; expanding their revenue opportunities through the distribution of optional services, such as the up-sell of seats and baggage as part of the sales process.
Added Hesser, “Really what this is about is the need to offer a complete marketing package to travel suppliers to effectively reach travel agencies and their travelers. By expanding our capabilities, we’ll be prepared to better merchandise our customers’ products.”
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/travelport_brings_gds_advertising_in-house_says_good-bye_to_travelclick/
TripAdvisor has officially launched its full flight search engine in the U.K., making it even easier for travellers to find transparent information and the best available deals.
Following a successful beta trial, TripAdvisor Flights now offers one of the widest selections of flight choices online. The full flight search includes every major airline, including the U.K.‘s largest low cost carriers, which means British travellers can search a comprehensive selection of flight itineraries and the best available deals.
Bryan Saltzburg, general manager of new initiatives at TripAdvisor, comments, “Following a successful trial, we are very pleased to launch the full version of our flight search to the U.K. market. Now, travellers can search an even larger selection of flights all in one place from the world’s top airlines and travel companies.”
Travellers can find flights from hundreds of carriers including BA, Virgin Atlantic, easyJet and bmi to name a few, in addition to flights listed by the U.K.‘s largest travel companies including Expedia, Opodo and ebookers.com.
New Transatlantic Fees Estimator
The popular Fees Estimator, which simplifies and clarifies airline fees to eliminate any nasty surprises at check-in, has also been expanded to include transatlantic flights. This is the only service in the U.K. which calculates and compares the entire cost of a flight, including ticket price, fees for checked luggage and even anticipated in-flight food service and entertainment, based on the traveller’s needs.
“A British family of four taking a week-long holiday can pay as much as GBP1,060 on European flights and as much as GBP492 on trans-Atlantic flights on checked baggage fees, so it’s important to evaluate more than just the base ticket price to determine which flight is the best overall value,” continues Saltzburg. “Fees Estimator has proved extremely popular with U.K. travellers searching for domestic and European routes, so we’re thrilled to now offer this money-saving function to those searching for transatlantic flights.”
Fare Alert Emails Launch
To add further value for travellers, the new TripAdvisor Flights offering also sees the launch of its fare tracking email service. This free alert service allows travellers to receive email updates as soon as their selected route falls below a designated price point or drops by a set amount.
Saltzburg continues, “This is another useful tool we’ve added to TripAdvisor Flights to help travellers plan the perfect trip. We know travellers don’t always have the time to monitor flight prices - so our new fare alert email service is an easy to use feature making both the flight search experience, and saving money, that little bit easier.”
Additional Flight Search features
- Comprehensive SeatGuru content is available through colour-coded maps with detailed information about each seat, from legroom to noise levels
- Built-in currency converter that allows users to display flight prices in many of the world’s major currencies
- Airline information bubbles appear when travellers mouse over the airline logos, describing special features of a particular airline, including seatback entertainment
- TripAdvisor’s trusted hotel, attraction and restaurant information is always just a click away
Related Link: TripAdvisor UK Flight Search
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/tripadvisor_launches_flight_search_in_the_u.k/
One of the biggest opportunities across our industry to raise revenue per available room is right there in our lobbies. This opportunity does not require a capital expense and can show immediate results. It exists across all segments of the industry and has a proven record of performance. What is it? It is how we train our front-desk associates. Many of these associates are focused on getting the business, which is good. What is not good is that often they use only one of the available levers to get that guest to stay in your hotel, and that lever is fading or discounting rate. While effective in closing the deal, your profitability suffers.
The better lever to use is value selling. When you set the rates at your hotel, you thought about what you offer and how that compares to your competitors. If you did the right thing and set the rate accordingly, why would your front-desk associates sell a discounted rate rather than value?
Here is a simple but proven example of how value, not rate, can be sold.
Get the full story at HotelNewsNow.com
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/raise_revpar_with_value_selling/
“The most over-the-top excesses will probably be a long time—if ever—coming back,” Marriott President Arne Sorenson told the Reuters Travel and Leisure Summit.
He drew a distinction between these hotels and the typical Ritz-Carlton luxury hotels the company operates. Marriott’s other brands include its namesake properties and Courtyards.
Sorenson added that some projects in the Caribbean, which tend to be smaller and partly rely on residences, “may never come back” because they rely on the kind of lavish spending that has gone out of vogue with travelers.
“They require really that conspicuous consumption to support their entire business model,” Sorenson told reporters.
Get the full story at Reuters
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/lavish_hotels_out_of_vogue/
You built your website and are driving traffic to it. You wrote compelling copy and set up an analytics program to monitor traffic trends. Now it’s time to sit back and reap the rewards of all your hard work, right?
Wrong.
Now it’s time to analyze all those charts and graphs within your analytics program, and optimize your site for lifting conversion rates.
A conversion occurs when a user visits your site and takes the desired action (makes a purchase, subscribes to your service, submits a form, downloads an eBook, etc.). Your conversion rate is the percentage of your overall traffic that takes the desired action. The reason to optimize your conversions is to increase the percentage of users who do what you want them to.
Get the full story at iMedia Connection
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/content_is_king_but_conversion_is_queen/
The small business owners who are using social media are primarily engaging in social media through company pages (75%) and status updates (69%) on Facebook or LinkedIn. What’s especially intriguing is that a much smaller percentage of respondents - just 16% - are using Twitter as a customer service channel.
Another interesting notion is that small business owners now believe social media can help them on the lead generation front, and that is the primary motivating factor for engaging in these new customer service channels. So while half of surveyed respondents found the time it takes to use social media sites more daunting than expected, 61% are still putting in the hours and making active efforts to identify new customers.
Get the full story at Mashable
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/how_small_business_is_using_social_media/
Hotels.com today unveiled its 2009 Hotel Price Index, the definitive annual report on hotel prices paid around the world. The index shows hotel prices in the U.S. fell 14 percent during the last half of 2009 compared to rates in the same time period in 2008. Hotels.com attributes the falling prices in North America to the economic slowdown and the subsequent reduced demand for rooms.
With 2009 being the year of the travel deal, some cities did see a rise in prices paid as a result of the cause to currency movements, but also with travelers spending more for a little more luxury. The gap in price between 3, 4, and 5 star hotels narrowed in 2009 meaning travelers could spend less to get more. 2010 promises to be another great year for the travel deal and value.
The HPI also found there was a slowdown in price cuts, potentially showing a leveling off of prices for 2010. Prices dropped 16 percent year-over-year in Q1, 17 percent in Q2, 14 percent in Q3, and finally down to 7 percent in Q4. In fact, for the first time since the HPI has been released, US hotel prices are at the level they were in 2004, dramatically falling from the peak prices seen in 2007.
“2009 proved to be a great year for consumers looking for rooms at reasonable rates, especially in cities that are major tourist attractions such as New York, where prices dropped nearly 25 percent,” said Scott Booker, vice president, global retail, Hotels.com. “Despite signs that prices of hotel rooms are leveling off, consumers can be certain that they’ll always get the best deal possible on Hotels.com, thanks to our Price Match Guarantee, welcomerewards loyalty program and best in class promotions and deals.”
Key Findings:
- Rounding out the top five favorite domestic destinations with US travelers after Las Vegas are New York, Orlando, Chicago and Los Angeles;
- The average price of a hotel room globally was 14% cheaper in 2009 than in 2008. In fact, a hotel room was cheaper in 2009 than it was in 2004, when the HPI began. With just a very few, isolated exceptions, worldwide hotel prices dropped substantially for U.S. travelers during 2009.
- The Big Apple was the most expensive domestic city of those tracked in the global list, with prices averaging $199 during 2009 - a fall of almost a quarter (24 percent) compared to 2008. BUT visitor numbers to the city rose dramatically. The popularity of NYC soared as domestic and foreign visitors alike made the most of great new promotion.
- Among the greatest hotel room price falls in 2009 compared to 2008 across major U.S. Cities were: 18 percent in Chicago ($167-137), Las Vegas ($103-$85) and San Diego ($154-$127); 14 percent in Boston ($183-158) and Miami ($162-$140) and 12 percent in Honolulu ($181-$160), LA ($134-119), Orlando ($106-$93) and Phoenix ($115-$101).
- The most expensive Caribbean and Latin American destinations include the Bahamas, Bermuda, Turks and Caicos and U.S. Virgin Islands. More moderate resort prices were found in Aruba, the Dominican Republic and Jamaica. Average prices for hotels in Mexico and Costa Rica are skewed by the growing prevalence of all-inclusive properties.
- Top overseas destinations for U.S. travelers include: Toronto, London, Vancouver, Niagara Falls and Paris.
- The Emirate city of Dubai lost some of its sparkle in 2009 as the economic slowdown affected the city and hotels were forced to lower their rates. Business travel and the convention industry were both affected by the downturn.
- Beijing, where prices dropped by 29 percent following peaks in 2008 when the city hosted the summer Olympics, saw prices average $109 in 2009 following highs of $152 a year before.
Get the entire report at Hotels.com
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/global_hotel_prices_dropped_beyond_2004_levels_during_2009/
The indications of a recovery, documented in recent government and airline reports, come after 14 straight months of declining revenue for the nation’s airlines and passenger traffic totals that have been dropping for almost two years. Airline experts have blamed the drop in passengers on the recession, high unemployment rates and deep cuts to corporate travel budgets.
The news may be a mixed blessing for airline travelers. As demand increases, airlines are likely to gradually raise airfare rates, experts say. If demand remains strong, the airlines are expected to add more flights and new routes to meet the demand.
Although the forecasts and analysis show that airline trends are moving in a positive direction, industry experts say the airlines have a long way to go before they can expect revenue and passenger traffic numbers to return to pre-recession levels.
Get the full story at the Los Angeles Times
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/things_are_looking_up_for_u.s._airlines/
Travel is still at the beginning of its long descent into mediocrity. Airlines seem to invent new surcharges and passenger-hostile rules every week. Hotels aren’t far behind. Just the mention of the word “customer service” in the back office can be enough to evoke cackles of disdain from the underpaid employees. Worse, there are virtually no consumer protections against any of the inevitable abuses.
Bad hotels don’t just take their guests for granted, they prey on them with poorly-disclosed surcharges like “resort fees” and mandatory gratuities. They barely tolerate our presence, and when we have the audacity to complain about something, they shrug us off.
Use social media to find - and punish - the worst properties. When it comes to hotels, the Internet is by far the most effective way to avoid a troubled hotel. Despite the best efforts of these awful hotels, it’s impossible to hide from an angry public.
Get the full story at MSNBC
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/dont_stay_at_a_hotel_that_hasnt_been_vetted_by_the_internet/
Those traveling with an iPhone, BlackBerry, NOKIA, Android-based or other Windows-based mobile cell phone can securely obtain an encrypted room key in “full data mode”—as long as they are staying at a hotel that enables the OpenWays mobile key service.
The OpenWays solution was introduced in November as a way to enable any of the 4 billion cell phones in the world to receive a dematerialized key via an encrypted acoustic tone to bypass the front desk and access door locks. This ubiquitous solution uses the principle of Crypto Acoustic Credential (CACTM) and text messaging (SMS) to very securely deliver a key to the right user anywhere in the world. The solution is compatible with the major electronic-locking systems and access-control systems. The acoustic key produced is unique, and thanks to OpenWays patents-pending solutions, a fraudulent recording of the key will be made inefficient to open a door.
“This smartphone application is designed to leverage the power of mobile device technology and provide enhanced convenience to hotel guests,” said Pascal Metivier, OpenWays Founder and CEO. “It can operate either as a standalone application or embedded within other cell-phone-based travel and hotel applications provided by the various hotel chains.”
He said providers of property-management and central-reservation systems also are embedding the OpenWays solution within their own apps. MICROS-Fidelio, for example, has incorporated the OpenWays application into MICROS OPERA’s property-management system and MyStayManager.
“By operating the OpenWays smartphone application in full data mode, hotel staff can also take full advantage of mobile technologies,” Metivier said. “Using an iPhone or iPod Touch combined with the OpenWays on-line master key feature gives staff members peace of mind if a master keycard gets lost or compromised. In that situation, the OpenWays application allows management to neutralize the lost credential in real time without having to walk to any single lock.
In addition, the on-line key management of the OpenWays solutions enables staff to remotely extend a guest stay or change a guest from room to room without having to go back to the front desk.
Mobile Tool Kit for Integrating Partners As part of its offering, OpenWays provides a powerful Mobile Tool Kit for its integrating partners, such as the leading electronic-locking system vendors and specialized channel providers, such as PMS, CRS and Kiosk companies.
“Mobile web-based applications are often a challenge,” Metivier said. “What you see and what you get can vary quite a bit depending on the cell phone used. With more than 10,000 different models of cell phones operating worldwide, it is really difficult for developers to keep up with application standards. The OpenWays Mobile Tool Kit provides an automatic hardware detection feature that allows for our rendering platform to automatically adapt the content to the piece of mobile hardware used by the guest making it clear, readable and easy to use.”
OpenWays is a solution provider focused on securely delivering access credential to all mobile phone in a fully interoperable way, he added.
Related Link: OpenWays
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/an_iphone_app_to_bypass_front_desks_and_open_room_locks/
Europeans are getting more social minded every day. According to the Internet Advertising Bureau, Europe will be spending a lot more time interacting with social media in 2010. European companies are said to be using social media mainly for research purposes and to drive product sales. European users meanwhile are spending more and more time on the web and in particular on social media sites.
Facebook is the leading social network in the US, but it is experiencing rapid growth throughout Europe. According to comScore Facebook is the most popular social network in 11 out of 17 European countries. Other social networks are feeling the pain of the Facebook growth but still play an important role.
In other European countries local social networks are losing ground to Facebook, but are still playing a big part, especially when it comes to branded communities, blogger outreach, UGC, video distribution, reactive customer service and display advertising. They are successfully fighting back against the US giant. So which social media sites should you target? Let’s take a look at a few European countries and the social media sites that can be useful for online marketers.
Get the full story at Search Engine Land
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/beyond_facebook_and_twitter_social_media_optimization_in_europe/
The Pew’s extensive report “Understanding the Participatory News Consumer” dives deep into the media habits of people, who have significantly altered the way they get and share information because of the Internet.
The findings come ahead of a roundtable discussion March 9-10 hosted by the Federal Trade Commission on the future of journalism. It’s the agency’s second event exploring the future of journalism as traditional news outlets struggle to survive with business models disrupted by the free flow of information on the Internet.
Sixty percent of respondents to Pew’s survey said they get news through the Web. The most popular news sources are national and local television news followed by the Web, newspapers and radio. But that’s continuing to change, according to the report.
Get the full story at The Washington Post
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/internet_surpasses_newspapers_radio_for_news/
Kayak plans to offer booking facilitation via mobile device, and eventually the Web site as well (Private Sale has already launched with this feature). Consumer information will be collected and passed to the chosen site, which will process the booking. The goal is to improve the otherwise shaky meta-to-booking mobile experience.
The leader in travel metasearch may not technically be making any bookings, but what difference is there to the consumer? Can we even call Kayak “meta” anymore?
PhoCusWright director, research, Carroll Rheem explains, “Kayak is not really becoming an OTA, but they are going to try to compete with them head-to-head to gain consumer traffic. According to Kayak co-founder and CEO, Steve Hafner, they intend to become a more full service travel planning site, but will retain ‘media company’ status.”
Get the full story at PhoCusWright
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/kayak_to_become_a_more_full_service_travel_planning_site/
CWT president of suppliers, products and technology Andrew Winterton today said the deal would achieve material cost benefits to CWT and release internal resources to focus on customer-facing development but not impact customer-facing processes.
Winterton said the new relationship with Amadeus is focused on the “commoditized servicing aspects of our transactions,” including functions like mid-office, quality control and back-office functions, such as invoicing, financial reconciliation and ARC reporting, but added, “It is not envisaged in any way that the user interfaces and business processes that our customers go through would be impacted by this initiative.”
In addition to CWT’s plans to leverage Amadeus’ processing scale to create an “operating environment that is scalable and can support that volume of transactions in a more cost-effective way than we can do ourselves,” Winterton said CWT is exploring opportunities with Amadeus to be more nimble in addressing changing requirements in the industry.
Get the full story at BTNonline
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/cwt_taps_amadeus_for_technology/
The travel industry has a pretty good handle on many aspects of its marketplace. For example, we know how many people in the U.S. travel, how often, what products they purchase, how they purchase them and how much they spend. We also know a great deal about the different segments of the travel industry: the transportation and accommodation elements of travel. But when it comes to the things travelers do when they get there—in-destination activities and services—we know surprisingly little.
Local activities, events, attractions and services have long been overlooked—or passed over—by the broader travel industry. The domain is highly fragmented, with myriad small players operating low-margin independent businesses with little automation. But there are four major trends in Web and mobile technology that are poised to transform this domain, opening entirely new opportunities for travel providers to deliver relevant, contextual content based upon a traveler’s location, preferences and profile. This will change how travelers travel.
Get the full story at PhoCusWright
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/the_potential_of_in-destination_activities_and_services_in_travel/
RTSuite, RateTiger’s premium channel management product has now also been developed for the iPhone. It will give hoteliers greater flexibility with rates and availability while not having access to a computer. The App will provide an alternative access point and compliments the installable and web-based tools. Although the web-based tools can already be used on smartphones, the new App has been optimized for iPhone usage.
Following the vast array of consumer-facing iPhone booking applications on the market, RateTiger is now turning the handset into an intelligent business tool. RTSuite will soon be available in the iPhone Application Store free of charge to RateTiger customers. An additional app for Blackberry users will be available during March 2010.
“Extending our applications to the mobile handset will help hoteliers to become even more dynamic. RTSuite now provides hoteliers with the ultimate control from the palm of their hands wherever they are.” said Sascha Hausmann, CEO, eRevMax (owner of the RateTiger portfolio). “We are on a mission to create the ultimate flexible channel management tool; Hoteliers can now be confident that they can access and update their sales channels wherever they are; at their property, on their laptop, or on the move with their mobile handset.”
Related Link: eRevMax
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/hotel_channel_management_hits_the_iphone/
Success in the PPC arena starts with having a solid marketing skill set. Good marketing, not good technology, drives PPC success and ROI, and once you have a solid marketing foundation, success in PPC is much easier. The fundamentals of marketing include 1) knowing your customer and 2) knowing your value proposition or your unique selling proposition. PPC advertising is just a vehicle for you to deliver that message to your target market or customer.
If you or your organization has a strong marketing skill set, managing the campaign in-house and delivering a strong ROI can work for you. If you do not, managing a PPC campaign in-house might not be a good fit for your company.
The PPC learning curve is steep, but not impossible to climb as long as you concentrate on the fundamentals. There are more than enough resources available in the marketplace to teach you the mechanics of creating and managing a PPC campaign.
Get the full story at iMedia Connection
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/8_tips_for_optimizing_in-house_ppc_campaigns/
Among the top 100 companies on the roster, 47 percent had a Twitter account. Twenty-two percent of all Fortune 500 companies had a “public-facing corporate blog,” and more than eight in 10 of those linked directly to a corporate Twitter account.
Four of the top five corporations—Walmart, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and General Electric—“consistently post on their Twitter accounts,” according to the study, titled “The Fortune 500 and Social Media: A Longitudinal Study of Blogging and Twitter Usage by America’s Largest Companies.” (ExxonMobil was the exception.)
In a breakdown by industry, 13 of the Fortune 500 insurance companies had an active Twitter account, making that sector the most likely to tweet. Eleven of the food-related companies used Twitter.
Get the full story at AdWeek
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/corporate_america_gone_tweeting/
Based on a study that Google recently conducted, where they asked travel shoppers at what stage of the planning process do you watch video or visit video sites, they found that across all five stages of the travel planning process, starting from research rates through post purchase, more than 60 percent of respondents viewed videos at each one of those stages.
In this episode of VTV Channel, VFM Leonardo interviews Tom O’Rourke of O’Rourke Hospitality Marketing, to learn
- The roles of professional and guest videos
- Tips for developing inspiring videos
- Why travel shoppers want to see video
Watch the video at VFM Leonardo’s VTV Channel
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/what_travel_shoppers_want_from_hotel_videos/
Abacus International, a 22 year veteran of the travel industry and Asia’s leading travel facilitator, revealed today at an exclusive Abacus media roundtable that emerging markets and new business practices that surfaced during the economic downturn will underpin growth and set the underlying trends for the year ahead.
Abacus International President and CEO, Robert Bailey, stated that along with other key industry players, Abacus had seen earlier-than-expected recovery with uptick in bookings registered since October last year: “The travel industry had seen some of the most difficult times in the past year but the green shoots we saw in the second half of the year continued to grow and closed the year with better-than-expected results.” The company ended the year with a 1% decline in overall bookings and is forecasting 3-5% growth in travel bookings for the first half of 2010.
Emerging markets – one of the green shoots seen during the economic crisis – will continue to drive travel bookings up with IndoChina and Central Asia as key growth regions. Several other markets such as Nepal, Bangladesh and South Korea had also contributed to Abacus’ better-than-expected business results.
The importance of the emerging markets was also highlighted in a recent report by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as the key contributing factor for the region’s better performance in 2009. Asia is expected to enjoy 5.7% GDP growth in 2010, with emerging markets leading the rest of the world out of the downturn. [1]
New business practices that surfaced during the economic downturn are also set to continue as travel management companies and travel agencies start to see the value that these changes have brought to their business models.
In the latest Abacus Asia Travel Sentiment Survey of around 200 leading travel agents across the region, 92.3% said that the changes they have adopted during the economic downturn have strengthened their business and put them in better shape for 2010.
“The sale of ancillary products was cited as the number one strategy. We found that almost 60% of the agents indicated that the sale of ancillary products such as hotels, travel insurance and other non-air products had helped sustain their business revenues. This is an additional revenue stream for which we have been providing keen support to our travel agents through relevant solutions and partnerships,” said Mr Bailey.
Meanwhile, around 40% of the agents ranked the launch of promotional deals and packages as the second most important change. Allocating more resources to online channels tied with technology investments as the next most important changes with 30% of the travel agents saying that these investments have brought improvements to their businesses.
Mr Bailey explained that the surge in online travel bookings had helped revive overall booking figures over the past year: “The huge increase in internet penetration in emerging markets as well as aggressive airline promotions have helped boost passenger numbers.” The prospect for the online segment continues to look positive. According to the Abacus Asia Travel Sentiment Survey, 71.3% of the travel agents that have no existing online business component said they are planning to develop one.
Another key contributor that will further stimulate growth in the region’s travel industry this year is the low cost carrier sector. As fuel prices make an upward trend, consolidation efforts as well as network expansion will form key strategies in the year ahead.
Moreover, as competition stiffens in the industry, network carriers may well adopt ancillaries as the next revenue strategy whereby fares are unbundled and categorised according to specific airline services and flight requirements.
In the year ahead, nascent trends that the industry is currently showing sporadic interest in are expected to emerge stronger as travel players discover the relevance and benefits that they can bring to their businesses. These trends include the use of online marketing, as well as the adoption of digital applications and mobile technology.
In conclusion, Mr Bailey said: “Asia’s huge potential for growth and its relatively younger travel industry mean that travel players in this region are strategically well-placed to capitalise on the new realm of opportunities as the economy steps into a recovery phase.”
Get the full story including Market Highlights at Abacaus International
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/asia_leads_travel_industrys_recovery/
The extension of the Google Comparison Ads pilot to the UK announced yesterday will see a new vertical tested by the search giant: credit cards.
Comparison Ads is effectively a metasearch (or price comparison, using the Cheapflights parlance) of products already in the AdWords system.
It looks and feels like a scaled-down Kayak in terms of functionality.
Trialled for the first time in some selected states in the US with mortgages in October 2009, credit card firms will be the next sector taken on board to test pricing, interest from suppliers, functionality and user behaviour.
Google is inevitably and officially remaining tight-lipped as to how, where and when it might extend the project further.
Get the full story at Tnooz, and Google’s Inside AdWords blog
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/travel_next_for_google_adwords_comparison_ads/
Orbitz announced the winners of its 2010 Best In Stay Awards, recognizing more than 50 top-rated hotels based on reviews by Orbitz guests themselves.
“As social media continues to evolve, more and more travelers are looking for advice from other travelers to help them choose the best hotel,” said Peggy Bianco, Group Vice President of Global Hotel Supplier Services for Orbitz Worldwide. “The Orbitz Best In Stay Awards aim to applaud those hotels that continue to impress their guests with a high level of customer service.”
Orbitz Best In Stay hotel winners were selected based on the overall score they received from Orbitz customers. Reviews and scores for each hotel are collected only from Orbitz customers who have booked and stayed at the hotel. Reviewers are asked to rate a variety of hotel attributes on a scale of 1 to 5, including amenities, maintenance, hotel staff, room comfort, location and value. The “overall score” is an average of all reviewer scores submitted.
Introduced in 2005, Orbitz hotel reviews let travelers take advantage of the first-hand knowledge of hundreds of thousands of authentic hotel customer reviews solicited only from Orbitz travelers who have booked a stay at the hotel. Hotel reviews can be sorted based on the type of traveler, such as business, couples or family, to find the right hotel that fits travelers’ specific needs.
Now, Orbitz customers can also share their hotel reviews with their Facebook network. Travelers simply click “Connect with Facebook” after completing the review form to post the review to their Facebook page.
Related Link: Orbitz 2010 ‘Best in Stay’ Awards
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/orbitz_2010_best_in_stay_awards_winners_announced/
Back in the early digital days we often fielded panicked calls from in-house marketing personnel whose head of marketing or another C-level executive would demand that they secure the top organic search listings in the major search engines. Thank God most business people now understand both the value and difficulty of that feat.
Today’s equivalent is the overworked, understaffed, and stressed out in-house marketing departments being presented with the demand to start tweeting or get a Facebook page up - yesterday. When your boss comes blowing into the room demanding that you make an immediate splash in social media, deflect any attempt at forcing an ill-conceived tactical launch by asking for a short period of time to gather and present your research, plan, and budget.
Get the full story at ClickZ
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/tips_for_meeting_your_boss_urgent_request_for_social_media_success/
When asked to select the most important features that would motivate them to use a single-ID tool, more than four in ten didn’t see any of them as compelling. With a list that included features as simple and appealing as “The ID worked with Yahoo,” “The ID worked with Google,” and “The ID would only be used with sites I select,” 44% of consumers surveyed instead selected “I’m not interested in creating a single ‘ID’ that works at multiple Web sites.”
There is demographic skew to this data; only 32% of young adults responded “not interested” compared to 52% of those 55 and older. Still, a significant number of people don’t yet see the benefit of portable IDs and unified registration systems.
What should marketers do with this information? Given the significant indifference, should they slow down efforts to implement single-ID profiles on their sites?
Get the full story at Forrester
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/single_id_what_consumers_think/
With TripAssist, travelers can:
- Research flights, destinations, hotels, cars and activities from anywhere.
- Once they book, they can manage and update their itineraries as circumstances dictate – find an alternative flight, research their seats via SeatGuru seat maps, access real-time flight status and more.
- Unlike other travel apps, TripAssist provides real-time SMS and email updates free of charge.
- Users can automatically sync an itinerary from their Expedia.com account, or create and add a new itinerary if they didn’t book on Expedia.
- For example, after users have landed at their destination, the app will automatically provide easy access to their hotel information, including its
address, to help them on your way. And while users are in the app, Expedia.com customer service support is also accessible with a single keypad
touch. Users can also use the app to track flight status of friends and family, making airport pickups a lot easier.
In addition to the iPhone app, Expedia has also optimized its site for most mobile phone browsers, including those on iPhone Safari, Blackberry, Android
and Windows phones. Users will be able to search and book flights, hotels, cars, and activities via a streamlined, easy-to-navigate interface perfect for small screens and phone-based web browsers.
Expedia.com estimates that approximately, 1% of sales came from smartphone browsers using the full Expedia.com site in 2009, and expects this number to grow with the mobile-optimized web interface.
TripAssist requires iPhone OS 3.1 or later and is available from the U.S. App Store as a free download.
Related Link: Expedia TripAssist
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/expedia_launches_tripassist_2.0/
The Amateur-Expert Traveller” is a comprehensive report that describes 3 key trends influencing the travel industry and the impact of the current recession.
- The amateur-expert traveller: the internet has brought significantly more information to the average traveller’s fingertips – whether from professionally produced or user-generated content. Will your travellers still need you?
- The technological trip: technology has improved the booking experience immeasurably but the trip itself remains ripe for technological innovation.
- All niches great and small: niche travel services like adventure travel, religious travel and weddings offer opportunities for additional revenue.
Download the full report at Amadeus (PDF 2.6 MB)
Article location: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/amadeus_sees_potential_in_niche_travel_services/