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Comment on Deborah's article - Four ways Groupon might work for travel businesses

I found this article very interesting for hoteliers in the sense that it reprensents a new opportunity to generate revenue. Just like Deborah pointed out, if hoteliers are ready to sell with zero margin, they can create income through additional revenue. Hoteliers tend to forget that anscilliary revenue is almost as much important as selling a room.


I agree with Deborah when she says that she would not recommend luxury hotels to work with Groupon. I would rather recommend it for 3* hotels when the demand is low.
 
 
Link to Deborah's article

How to reduce your hotel's dependency on OTAs

Online Travel Agencies are a real issue for hoteliers. Direct bookings are more beneficial for hoteliers than bookings through OTAs. However,  hotels needs them, but in the same time their level of commission is very high. They are positive for hoteliers in the sense that they boost hotel occupancy, they introduce new guests to hotels, and they offer dynamic packaging (combine hotel with car rental, airline tickets) to undecicdd consumers. However, hotels do not really know how to deal with them, as some of them apply rates without really analysing their strategy.

I found this article interesting as it gives advice on how to deal with OTAs. Experts suggest that hoteliers should spend as much of their budget as possible into obtaining direct bookings. Hoteliers just need to analyse which strategy to apply with OTAs in order to manipulate the availability and price of rooms, in order that OTAs don't take full advantage over the business. Hotels should enforce a few daily strategies:

• Forecasting - hotels should forecast the future demand to control the availability and rates to apply to OTAs.
• Practice rate parity - apply the same room rate on hotel website, travel agencies, third party websites, ect. Practicing rate parity helps avoinding discounting war between OTAs.
• Monitoring, managing channels - control and adjust rates and inventory across all channels to take advantage of distribution.

As the article points out, hoteliers must constantly adapt their strategies to the market in order to make the most out of OTAs, rather than these online agencies becoming a pain. You cannot apply a definite strategy with OTAs, it's a day to day adaptation. Hotels needs to play it smart!


Link to the article

Travel Leaders - Improved Business Travel Outlook for 2011

Travel leaders reveal business travel trends for 2011

I found this article very interesting, as it shows the results of a survey made by travelleaders.com. It reveals the 2011 business travel trends: the top five selection for business travellers while choosing a hotel and the level of business travel for 2011.

The top five selection while booking a hotel room for business travellers are:

1. Location - near meeting venue, or business company (82.8%)
2. Rewards program - frequent guest points (ie. Miles and More) (54.4%)
3. Free WiFi - in guest rooms (31.4%)
4. Near Airport (17.7%)
5. Free breakfast (13.2%)

I am not to surprised to see that business travellers mostly favour a hotel near the business venue or company, as they are on business travel to work, and not to include leisure, although many travellers mix both business and leisure (65.7%). Corporate negotiated rates between companies (ie. Société Générale, LVMH, etc) and hotels are usually contracted as hotels are near a satellite office of the company.

In regards to companies business travel policies, a slight majority answered to say that their had not been any changes compared to 2010, apart from an increase in the level of business travels and therefore in hotel bookings. Indeed the survey showed that the booking levels would increase to 39.7% (28.6% in 2010).

This increase is positive for the hospitality industry as it will give a boost to the activity. However, the hotel activity will have to wait until 2012-2013 to regain the activity of 2007. Furthermore, hotels still have to be creative to stay attractive and competitive as although the level of business travels will increase, companies still try to reduce travel costs.

Link to the article

Comment on Caroline's article - The future of travel loyalty programs

I agree with Caroline on the fact that hotels will need to be more creative to compete with the existing loyalty programs. However, I believe that hotels do not automatically have to create their own loyalty programs. They can create partnerships with existing ones. For example, hotels can create partnerships with Miles & More so that guests can accumulate Miles. Many travellers can be influenced in choosing a hotel if they can accumulate Miles. They can, in the future receive discounts or free flights or room nights.

Alinean Research Reveals Social Media Hierarchy of Needs

This article was written and originally published by Alinean Company, which provides dynamic sales and marketing tools to vendors who work on a B2B level. Through this white paper, Alinean points out a new approach to Social Media to increase a hotel's return on investment. It showed that ROI is increased through engagement, driven by a set of best practices through a Social Media Hierarchy of Needs. This Hierarchy of Needs was created in relation with Maslow's well known hierarchy of needs. Maslow's pyramid represents the human developmental psychology through 5 stages of human needs: Psychological, Safety, Love / Belonging, Esteem, Self actualization.

The hierarchical set of engagement best practices include content, campaigns, monitoring and collaboration. The research's results show that there is a higher return on investment and cost savings if there is a good social media level of engagement from marketers to attract and correspond with followers, influencers, readers ... on social medias. The article adds that all the 4 steps should be well implemented by marketers in order to obtain an effective level of engagement.

I found this article very interesting as I believe that as a future hotelier, every new marketing approcah is good to focus on and analyse to be very effective and efficient in the future. Social Medias are the current best marketing approaches today.Many hotels create accounts on social medias, but they do not really know how to use them correctly, and make the most out of them, therefore this social media hierarchy of needs can be a helpfull tool for hoteliers to create new business and increase their ROI.

Link to article