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Newshound: Trends and Reports – Hotel Online Distribution

Travel products dominate savings from daily deal sites, as does Groupon

Interesting data out of UK-based DealZippy after analysing a year’s worth of deals from across a range of industries and platforms, showing how popular the channel remains in travel. Given that the company takes a feed from over 30 UK deal sites, such as Groupon, LivingSocial, Wahanda and Qype, the data is pretty robust and representative of the marketplace. So what did it discover? Over the course of the past 12 months just over 60,000 deals have been published by the sites it covers, featuring some 22,600 individual businesses.
http://www.tnooz.com/2012/09/25/news/travel-products-dominate-savings-from-daily-deal-sites-as-does-groupon/#wqqk1bl1HsggZhAM.99

The implications of last-minute bookings for hotel operators

With shifting consumer expectations due to the proliferation of last-minute booking apps, hotels must consider the implications of offering rooms via the last-minute mobile channel.
The promise of reducing empty rooms via last-minute bookings is nothing new – last minute travel has always been big in Europe, where the close proximity of dozens of relatively inexpensive destinations encouraged many consumers to care less about advance planning in favor of a lower priced getaway.
http://www.tnooz.com/2012/09/20/mobile/the-implications-of-last-minute-bookings-for-hotel-operators/#XWuUA5BcisbrwrZy.99

More hotels posting reviews from their own guests

The online review of the Best Western hotel in Eagle Rock started with a critical headline: “Very poor quality, will never stay here again.” What is surprising is that the review was posted on a link found on the website of that very same hotel. Best Western International, one of the world’s largest hotel chains, recently announced that it had redesigned its website, adding links to reviews submitted by its guests to TripAdvisor.com. The move marks a trend in the hotel industry.
http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-hotel-reviews-20120921,0,7499976.story

Focus on online search vital as channel grows

With nearly 80% of the average consumer’s Web experience beginning with an online search, optimizing online content for search is crucial for hoteliers to compete in the market. “That’s an advantage for us,” said Tran Hang, head of the travel industry at Google, who shared that statistic last week during a session at EyeforTravel’s Travel Distribution Summit North America in Las Vegas. “We’re seeing a big shift from offline working media to online working media,” said Jack Feuer, founder and president at digital consulting firm Digital Marketing Works.
http://www.hotelnewsnow.com/articles.aspx/9002/Focus-on-online-search-vital-as-channel-grows

Travel marketer takeaways, cross-channel optimization and hotel revenue management

This month’s EyeForTravel North American Travel Distribution Summit was chock-full of travel industry thought leaders sharing case studies, best practices and knowledge surrounding the various areas of travel distribution. From keynotes to social media to mobile to revenue management, the conference covered many of the au courant challenges that travel marketers, startups and executives are tackling.
http://www.tnooz.com/2012/09/24/event/eyefortravel-travel-marketer-takeaways-cross-channel-optimization-and-hotel-revenue-management-video/#mALmDqPj4CZzyEK7.99

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Flash Sales – the future of hotel booking

Flash Sales offer great deals for a very limited time, they can often have much tougher terms and conditions to many other offers that can make it difficult for travelers to cash-in their voucher. Yet some hotels are seeing this as a great way to promote their hotel and show travelers what they can offer.

One hotel I spoke to offered 75% off their standard rate, and this is in London – what a potentially excellent deal. But as a traveler it is really worth price shopping and seeing what rates are on the market, across traditional booking channels, to make sure it is a great deal.

Yet tapping into travelers with a budget mindset is ideal as the speed of purchase encourages them to buy faster.

A few places you can find these interesting deals include Secret Escapes, GroupOn, Living Social, Voyageprive.com and Travel Zoo. I recently attended an event organized by HOSPA – an association for hoteliers to find out more.

As a hotelier – you do need to think of what brand represents your hotel. You need to agree with the supplier a sustainable pricing model on the discount and commission the website charges. Don’t get surprised if the results don’t come in as you expect, nothing worse than planning booking based on a pure marketing promotion.

The HOSPA panel agreed that on the whole, those who bought these Flash Sales were often consumers who can afford to spend several hundred in a daily deal, making a decision in a moment.


 
Advising hotels on how to make the most of Flash Sales, Nick Stafford, General Manager of Escapes Europe of Living Social remarked: “The worst thing you can do is discount heavily to your own customers. I booked a flight and 2 days later received a discount promotion of 60% from that airline. Discounting to loyal customers is dangerous and can reduce the value of your product as they just hang around waiting for the sale,” Nick felt short changed by the airline. “Our offers are for a specific time, feeding recipients needs then and there.”

However hotels maybe trying these new forms of social and digital marketing, yet are still very behind on the online basics, TravelZoo still needs to create web landing pages for hotels that (believe it or not) still do not have websites. Then these hotels complain when they don’t get the results they need. To me, hotels need to get a grip with the basics before trying this method of sales.

The only advice these channels seem to offer to hotels is to think in advance, do not call up last minute desperate to fill the hotel. This is not last minute bookings, these are future bookings aimed at helping the quiet periods, and revenue managers should know the weeks when the hotel is usually quiet.

There are no exact figures on how much these flash sales cost, it will be anywhere between 10% – 50% commission depending on the offer, the location of the property and the brand.

I am hoping that independent hotels are offered good deals, but I get the impression it maybe more financially challenging for small independent properties.

Some immediate tips for hotels:

  • Select the right channel that markets hotels like your property
  • Identify the lowest rate you publish and can make money from
  • Build from this lowest rate, taking into account maximum commission you are willing to pay before you make a loss
  • Look at your additional services – value-adds – and see how you can create a great package offer that costs you very little
  • Get a good idea of how the flash sales members behave to identify the best price

Ryan C Haynes is VP – Marketing Communications at eRevMax and is responsible for driving all PR and Marketing activities for RateTiger and eRevMax brands globally. Ryan is based out of London and can be reached at ryanh@ratetiger.com

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ITB Berlin 2012

The travel industry was at centre stage at ITB Berlin – the world’s biggest travel trade show, and one of the best predictors of upcoming trends in the industry. 

With over 230 travel technology companies exhibiting and over 110,000 trade visitors attending, the technology halls were buzzing with activities. The industry is really embracing channel management and the travel technology revolution is at its full steam. I was glad to see that this is mostly being driven by opinionated bloggers and well read journalists who understand the relevance of technology in travel.

RateTiger had a corner stand, giving us enough room to accommodate our never ending stream of visitors. Most of the audience this year showed an increased level of awareness towards the key online distribution technologies and the critical role of an efficient sales channel management strategy as part of the Revenue Management process. 

Cristina Hernandez, Sales Manager, Germany saw a lot of discussion around HRS and the price-fixing issue in Germany. She says “This could spell a game-change for HRS which is expected to launch a new business model. While one of the largest OTA websites, HRS could easily fall victim to consumer and industry dissatisfaction with so many other channels vying for their market. The big question – what happens to rate parity? We will soon see how hoteliers themselves need to respond to this price-fixing ruling.”

On another end of the scale, Cristina Blaj, Sales Manager, UK witnessed discussions on voucher-sites – Groupon growing its travel offering – its marketing activity ramping up, and gaining a greater consumer foothold. However many discussed how damaging this is to revenue and profits. It is claimed that Groupon encourages return purchases at the normal rates following a significant promotional offer, yet the impact of Groupon on this is yet to be seen.

While my colleagues were busy understanding trends in their interest areas, I managed to get involved with discussions on marketing in revenue management, how it is today being forgotten and yet it is so much a part of the buying process. I believe it is important for hotels to have visibility and exposure across as many channels as possible, yet have a strong website for direct sales. Even Cornell University recently published a paper showing how listing on Expedia increases direct website visits. The idea is to have a good distribution mix and keep flexing the different websites while assessing volume to improve occupancy and revenue through different channels.

Overall, like every year, ITB had put up a great show, offering exhibitors and visitors what they came looking for. Check out our pictures from the event. I look forward to the Asian edition of the event in Singapore later this year. Cheers!


Ryan C Haynes is VP – Marketing Communications at eRevMax and is responsible for driving all PR and Marketing activities for RateTiger and eRevMax brands globally. Ryan is based out of London and can be reached at ryanh@ratetiger.com
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FITUR 2012

The thirty-second edition of FITUR was inaugurated by Prince Philip and Princess Letizia of Spain. The official opening by the Royal Family once again shows its unconditional support for the tradeshow and, in general, the Spanish tourism sector.

I attended the event along with my colleague Cristina Hernandez. We found that the exhibition this year was comparatively smaller due to the ongoing recession and various country representations were missing. However, FITUR made their commitment clear to the online sector, web 2.0, technology, social networking and video marketing among others during FITURTECH conferences.

The discussions at the event revolved around topics like new revenue trends such as Flash sales (Groupon), Social Media booking engines, online distribution, direct xml connectivity, online reputation management and affect of the recession on Southern European domestic travel scenarios, etc.

We had a stand which kept us constantly busy. Overall it was a good show with lot of networking opportunities. Look forward to the next edition.

Pilar Sanchez Aita is Sales Manager for Spain & Portugal at eRevMax and is responsible for sales of RateTiger products in the region. She can be reached at pilara@ratetiger.com