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Archive Category: Hotels

Starwood ties up with Chinese location-based social mobile app

Starwood Hotels & Resorts has formed a partnership with Chinese location-based social mobile app, Jiepang, in order to offer Chinese Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG) members check-in rewards.

China continues to be a major source of new loyalty travellers for Starwood as evidenced by the 71 percent jump in Chinese enrollment in SPG last year. The group says this initiative marks a new digital extension to its loyalty programme specifically designed for Chinese travellers.

Starwood is to provide a localised social networking platform tailored specifically to Chinese travellers. The partnership will pave way for hotels to engage with guests and reward SPG members for their geo-social behaviour, leveraging Starpoints as a form of social currency.

“SPG’s new partnership with Jiepang localises and redefines the `check-in’ for our Chinese SPG members, enabling rewarding experiences beyond their hotel stays,” said Janice Chan, director, Digital Distribution & Marketing, Starwood Asia Pacific Hotels & Resorts.

Now guests can earn Starpoints and Free Weekend Night Awards for Jiepang activity at over 200 Starwood hotels and resorts in Asia Pacific. From December 1, 2011 to January 31, 2012, SPG members can now earn bonus Starpoints by checking in via Jiepang with a confirmed reservation.

Every month, the SPG member with the greatest number of Jiepang check-ins across all Starwood hotels in Asia Pacific will be declared the SPG Mayor. In addition to status and special SPG perks, the Mayor will be interviewed and featured within the specials landing page and will also be asked to contribute travel tips to the SPG Jiepang tips page, www.jiepang.com/spg.

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“2012 seems to be unfolding as a year with a lot of uncertainty”

IN-DEPTH: Uncertainty is once again creeping into market forecasts and turmoil in markets, customer sets and distribution channels is likely to happen in a number of ways. Revenue management systems and processes will need to be nimble to adapt as events unfold, says Frederic Deschamps, Vice President, Revenue Generation, Carlson Hotels

By Ritesh Gupta

Individuals working in revenue management in the hospitality industry often term management of the short term pressures as their major challenge especially when the external forces driving the industry aren’t too favourable.

The obvious RM issues relate to the downturn during the financial crisis and the subsequent upswing. Even as the global economy is facing increased uncertainty over the ongoing turmoil in the financial markets, revenue management specialists acknowledge that the industry on the whole hasn’t learnt the dangers of price cuts. Numerous studies have demonstrated that this is the least profitable strategy for the long term. Yes, it may yield short term gains, but certainly does more damage in the long term. One needs to be smart in how they drive tactical promotions.

2012 seems to be unfolding as a year with a lot of uncertainty, says Frederic Deschamps, Vice President, Revenue Generation, Carlson Hotels.

According to Deschamps, there are a lot of unpredictable forces shaping demand -- external forces such as the continued financial uncertainty in large markets and the internal forces of competition.

Deschamps says where revenue management can contribute the most in a situation like this is to be extremely vigilant on forward developments and have solid reporting in place to monitor the outlook, to have a process in place to help steer revenue activity in other areas based on a sophisticated view of the outlook and to have a price elasticity-based revenue optimisation system that can handle the complexity of treating every location and every day as a different pricing situation.

EyeforTravel’s Ritesh Gupta spoke to Deschamps about major developments pertaining to RM in 2011 and the outlook for 2012. Excerpts:

What according to you have been the major developments this year as far as revenue management is concerned? What do you think stood out in this discipline?

Frederic Deschamps:

The most consistent development across the hotel industry has been the increased prominence of revenue management.. This has been driven by a strong but uneven recovery where hotels face a complicated pricing situation where every market and every day can be different and therefore need assistance from systems to price correctly. Everyone’s brought their own solution to this challenge, but everyone’s brought some kind of solution.

How do you think the onus is going to be on revenue management to deliver considering the business environment and other external factors, and also the maturity level of RM? What do you think should be the focus of RM professionals going forward?

Frederic Deschamps:

The task of revenue management is going to be to be prepared for any eventuality. Uncertainty is once again creeping into market forecasts and turmoil in markets, customer sets and distribution channels is likely to happen in a number of ways. Revenue management systems and processes will need to be nimble to adapt as events unfold. That implies that revenue management needs to be put in a position to steer the overall revenue activity, armed with detailed forward-looking reporting on segments and channels at the hotel level.

What do you think are the major challenges today for RM professionals in order to optimise pricing, maximise inventory, and drive higher revenue while improving operational efficiencies across the organisation? How do you think RM is going to increase its significance from where it is today?

Frederic Deschamps:

In my estimation there are at least two major ways to increase revenue management’s contribution to the hotels’ bottom line. One is to start evaluating the worth of a booking on a profit basis and not just a revenue basis and the other is to start evaluating a booking on a lifecycle and not just marginal basis. By profit, I mean that all revenues and not just room revenues (i.e. including food and services) can be included and the costs of distributing rates and servicing the customer can be included. By lifecycle I mean that the repeat business or lower price elasticity of a customer can be taken into account to prioritise inventory access, rather than just looking at the single booking transaction. Revenue other than room revenue can represent 25 percent or more of a hotel chain’s revenues, and guests have an average of 2.5 stays in hotels, these are significant multipliers on the typical “room revenue only, single stay” approach of revenue management systems today.

Recently, Amadeus highlighted that price management thrives in an environment where revenue management does not. It is possible to realise a vision of a market tied to customer personalisation in place of more limited customer segmentation. It also indicated that the fluid, dynamic model of price management, and this multi-variable model works much more effectively with the complexities of the hotel industry. How do you assess the situation?

Frederic Deschamps:

Price management, or rate optimisation, claims to maximise revenue by setting the rate just right to truncate demand at the optimal level. Traditional management looks for the combination of customers paying different rates that maximises revenue. To the extent that pricing is becoming more transparent and more and more customers are converging onto a single rate, price management is becoming more in line with market realities. Carlson Hotels has adopted this approach and uses rate optimisation worldwide with strong results. However, it must be said that in price management (or rate optimisation) a lot rides on the quality of the rate calculations so the devil is in the details with that approach.

Within an organisation, RM professionals will not only need to invest more time and effort in liaising with other disciplines, but it is also being mentioned that the more ambitious the RM department and RM system become, the harder it will be to know that every single commercial decision contributes to overall profitability, i.e. to carry out RM’s main task. Keeping profitability as the guiding principle for all these new initiatives will require vision and discipline. What do you make of this assessment?

Frederic Deschamps:

I think that’s essentially correct, but not all that different from what revenue management tries to do today. Revenue management is uniquely positioned to steer the revenue process, because their expertise is about setting rational expectations of what lies ahead and about the customer. What lies ahead is the actionable window for all other revenue-contributing departments, so revenue management is the natural scout for this activity. Organisations that embrace this view tend to involve revenue management in virtually all their activities, so revenue management itself needs to prioritise effectively to ensure their activity remains productive. Most revenue management organisations develop solid tools and processes to increase their throughput without significantly increase resources to deal with this challenge.

Do you believe that revenue managers seem to still follow too easily the principle of dropping price to generate more demand?

Frederic Deschamps:

Good question! Overall I believe that the last few years where we’ve seen significant drop-off in demand has had a sobering effect on price-dropping. Revenue management has been reminded that there is a limit to customer elasticity. My perception is that revenue managers today are more discerning with their prices and fairly disciplined about calculating their break-even point before they initiate or respond to pricing activity. I believe that overall this is to the hotel’s as well as the customer’s benefit. A rationally priced market provides both a reasonable return to the hotel and a fair price to the customer.

The hotel industry has witnessed the emergence of price optimisation tools that incorporate real-time competitive rates with a hotel’s demand and booking patterns to recommend the best price. Overall, the industry is focusing more on price elasticity and price optimisation as part of its overall revenue management strategy. What do you make of the situation?

Frederic Deschamps:

I believe that’s correct, and Carlson Hotel is an enthusiastic early adopter of this approach. Our assessment is that with increased transparency between distribution channels, and the proliferation of instant-information tools (PDA’s etc); it is no longer realistic to price segments of demand discreetly. Therefore, the question is no longer how to prioritise inventory to customers paying different prices in a revenue-maximising way, it is to find the single rate most customer will essentially pay that maximises revenue, taking the customer’s alternatives into account. I believe that this approach brings a lot of rationality to the pricing in the market place which is to the hotel’s and the customer’s benefit.

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Marriott International’s mobile app now available in five languages

Marriott International is now offering its mobile app for iPhone, iPod touch, and Android devices in Chinese, Spanish, German and French.

First introduced in English three months ago, the app has already been downloaded more than 500,000 times.

The company also announced the launch of its all new “app-like” Marriott mobile website in Chinese, Spanish, German and French, as well as English, that can be accessed from any web-enabled mobile device.

“As the Marriott International portfolio of hotels expands and diversifies worldwide, we are putting a premium on investing in our eCommerce channels, including mobile,” said Shafiq Khan, senior vice president, eCommerce for Marriott International.

The tools enable time-crunched travellers to quickly find nearby hotels, book a room, check their upcoming reservations and get details about their hotel, including photos. With the app and mobile website, travellers can also enroll in Marriott Rewards, check their point balance, and even find out what’s happening in the local area.

Earlier this year, the group shared that through June of this year, Marriott’s mobile website averaged nearly 2.6 million visits a month and $21 million in property-level revenue a month, which was more than three times the volume compared to the same time period from the year before. “We know that more than half of hotel reservations made using mobile devices are for same-day stays. This shows how rushed mobile travellers are; speed and choice are critical,” Khan said then.

Marriott’s mobile app for smartphones and its upgraded mobile website were developed by Kony Solutions.

The group’s mobile website and apps are hosted and managed by AT&T.

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Venere.com launches mobile site

European online accommodation specialist Venere.com has launched its mobile site. The company has dedicated an entire section to Venere.com deals with seasonal promotions, 24-48 hour sales and destination specific offers with prices starting from €30.

The company highlighted that its focus is on improving customer services and hotel discoverability, and it also acknowledged that mobile as a channel is becoming a major source for booking last minute accommodation online.

The initial launch covers five languages: English, Italian, French, Spanish and Danish. The company says the site is optimised for the most common mobile devices.

“Hotel bookings are much easier and faster if you can rely on your mobile, said Spyros Assonitis, director global marketing at Venere.com. “For this reason, our next step will be the launch of the 'Hotel Near Me' feature and many others to allow customers to find accommodation while traveling.”

The site has been created by mobile platform firm Usablenet.

To celebrate the new mobile site, Venere.com has launched a contest that will allow users to win 40 free weekends across Europe and the Mediterranean.

Users can participate in the contest, titled Book Mobile and Win Trips to Europe and the Mediterranean, via the company’s site, www.facebook.com/venerecom or www.win-with-venere.com. Those who make a booking (till 23rd January, 2012 via m.venere.com) will be entered into a draw for 40 free weekend breaks.

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Hyatt Hotels’ mobile app focuses on clean design with an intuitive flow

Hyatt Hotels Corporation has introduced its mobile app that allows iPhone users to search and explore hotels using location-based technology, check-in and checkout, book new and view existing reservations, as well as join, find deals and track point balances through Hyatt Gold Passport, Hyatt’s guest loyalty programme.

The company shared that an Android app is currently under development.

The Hyatt Hotels app has been launched in order to simplify the travel research process for consumers on-the-go. The company acknowledged that researching travel options can be time consuming – especially if you are on the road and need information immediately.

“We wanted our app to offer a clean design with an intuitive flow so travellers can easily have all the most important details at their fingertips to make their travels as simple and seamless as possible,” said Bill Bernahl, vice president, e-Commerce, Hyatt.

Some of the features of the mobile app include: One touch access to key features; Access to weather, local time, maps and turn-by-turn driving directions to any Hyatt destination worldwide; Search, find and book hotel reservations based on rate, location and available amenities at properties around the globe.

Hyatt’s mobile offering also includes a mobile website, which allows guests to find and book a hotel, access special offers and make new reservations. This site, which is accessible at Hyatt.com on any smartphone, is available in five languages – English, German, Japanese and simplified and traditional Chinese.

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Travelodge attempts to capitalise on UK’s supermarkets expansion plans

Budget hotel chain Travelodge is aggressively looking at the UK’s supermarkets expansion plans. The group says it is currently developing or is in talks with virtually every supermarket brand in Britain.

Travelodge has accelerated it new opening’s programme by capitalising on the UK’s supermarkets expansion programme - to open more ‘Metro’ style stores across the country. So far this year, Travelodge has opened a site with Tesco (London Cricklewood) and Morrisons (Manchester Salford Quays).

In a new development, the group is currently developing three mixed use hotel and retail sites alongside Waitrose - one of the country’s leading supermarkets. Representing a £27million investment, the joint hotel and supermarket developments will create 85 Travelodge jobs. The three joint ventures are located at: Aylesbury (to open at the end of 2012), Sidcup (scheduled to open in August 2012) and Vauxhall (to open in November 2012).

In addition to these three sites currently being developed alongside Waitrose, Travelodge is also developing and is in close negotiations on a further 25 co-partnership development deals with a number of large supermarket companies across the UK. This co-development programme represents a £130 million investment.

Guy Parsons, CEO of Travelodge, said, “We have an aggressive growth strategy in place and our aim is to have 1,100 hotels by 2025. To fuel our development programme we have capitalised on the UK’s supermarkets expansion plans; by co-developing a hotel on top of a Metro style store.”

“The reason we work so well with supermarkets from a development perspective is the ease in which a hotel and ground-floor supermarket can be built. They are also able to attract finance relatively easily, even in this difficult environment,” said Parsons.

In the run up to Christmas, Travelodge is opening seven hotels and creating 151 jobs. Hotels are opening at the following locations: Birmingham, Bolton, Doncaster, Portishead, High Wycombe, Kidderminster and London Twickenham.

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“Consumers are savvy enough to know that not all social commerce content is equal”

IN-DEPTH: Travel companies that control their social commerce content themselves will find their return is ultimately limited, says Richard Anson, founder and CEO, Reevoo

By Ritesh Gupta

Travel companies are increasingly opening avenues on their websites for their guests to contribute ratings and reviews directly.

There are multiple benefits when one goes ahead with such move. It can’t be ignored that consumers find value in consumer ratings and reviews on travel sites. Such content is already being generated on several platforms including independent travel review sites. If you don’t take part in the conversation, you leave open the possibility of people saying things that may not be particularly true. Depending upon how companies evoke participation, engage their audience and present the content, travel companies are ensuring that consumers end up making more confident booking decisions. And, it also makes more sense considering that major search engines are giving increasing importance to reviews for placement of your hotel on search results.

By taking such decisions, travel companies are also indicating that they are ready to form deeper relationships with their customers.

Recently, when Octopus, part of the Kuoni Group, signed a deal with social commerce company Reevoo to provide authenticated reviews of cities and hotels offered as destinations by Octopus, it shared that it is confident about such move.

“Knowing what people like and dislike about the Octopus service sits well with our business ethos of listening to customers and continually improving our service. Conversations about our service will happen with or without us, so it is far better to be part of them and to learn from them,” said a spokesperson for Octopus.

In order to know more about such initiatives, EyeforTravel’s Ritesh Gupta spoke to Richard Anson, founder and CEO, Reevoo.

Travellers have become increasingly reliant on technology for trip planning. But with the growing number of online resources comes an increase in unreliable sources and general confusion about what sites to trust for what services. How do you think this gap is being addressed in the travel industry today?

The paradox that exists at the moment is that a site like TripAdvisor, which is alleged to have suffered from unreliable reviews, has grown hugely in reach and influence, while people’s trust in travel reviews declines. So the gap you’re describing is actually widening all the time.

And there are two answers for how that paradox is being addressed in the travel industry.

At a micro-level, the answer is ‘piecemeal’. For example, some hotels run loyalty schemes, or have started to introduce solutions in which their regular visitors may leave reviews of the hotels in which they’ve stayed. But there’s always going to be doubt over people’s motives in writing a review if they are members of something like a privilege scheme.

But at a macro level the gap you mention hasn’t really been addressed at all, and that is why Reevoo is turning its attention to the travel sector. We’ve built a reputation in the retail sector for impartiality and transparency, and we’d like to bring our values to the travel sector.

According to Travelocity data, three out of every four travellers say that they have unanswered questions on the hotels they are interested in after doing initial online research. How do you think UGC is being used today to overcome such shortcomings in the trip planning and booking process?

Hotel websites are often quite static in terms of their content, and they exist principally to sell room inventory. When people want to know more, they turn to review sites and forums and seek opinion from people who have stayed there. The challenge from a hotel’s point of view is that these conversations are happening on multiple forums away from their own site, with limited opportunities for the hotel to take part in those conversations. And that’s the gap in the market right now.

Reevoo highlighted that travel review sites have been the subject of allegations regarding the authenticity of their reviews on several occasions. What are the main issues in the industry today when it comes to the whole business of user-generated content and sustaining a fair play for everyone including consumers?

There are certain principles which, if followed, protect the value of user reviews for both consumers and travel suppliers. The principles, which are based on trust, transparency and impartiality are:

• Reviews should only be collected from genuine, verified purchasers, so that fake reviews don’t get into the system.
• Reviews should not be manipulated. All reviews, good and bad, must be shown. They must not be modified, negative reviews not be removed, nor should reviews be shown selectively.
• Content sources should always be transparent. When a response to a review is written by a business owner this must be made completely clear to the reader.

Reevoo recently launched a consumer manifesto, with the support of the UK Government’s Consumer Minister Edward Davey, in which we, and our partners, committed to these principles.

For its part, Reevoo says it only collects reviews from authenticated customers. As concerns grow over fake consumer reviews, what do you think is being done today to remove any misleading or inaccurate reviews from websites?

Since March this year, the Advertising Standards Authority has started concerning itself with misleading or fake user-generated content on websites. By adhering to the principles I shared above, Reevoo meets all of the new ASA requirements and existing laws and guidelines – and has, at the same time, built an outstanding reputation for providing trusted reviews. Wherever people see the Reevoo brand, they have become confident in the veracity of what they’re reading. The same will be true as our brand becomes more widely used in the travel sector as our values are built both into what we do and how we do it.

Travel companies are now themselves opening avenues and letting consumers post content on their sites. How do you assess such developments?

It’s a great development but travel companies still have a long way to go. There are a number of challenges around how best to generate this social content to give a balanced picture of your business that consumers will trust.

Most travel companies will be using passive systems where they let members of the public post directly to their site or their Facebook pages. As well as delivering only a handful of reviews, these systems tend to see a disproportionate response from unhappy customers.

The alternative is a proactive system – in which all customers are contacted post-trip to ask for reviews – which leads to a more balanced picture that isn’t dominated by extremely good or extremely bad ratings. Proactive systems also have the advantage of a higher response rate that generates more reviews: for example, Reevoo’s proactive collection methods get four times the response rate of standard passive systems.

Trust is also a key factor. Consumers are savvy enough to know that not all social commerce content is equal: research shows that consumers trust reviews sourced and administered by an independent third party three times more than reviews provided by a brand alone. So, travel companies that control their social commerce content themselves will find their return is ultimately limited.

In the travel industry, it is pointed out that many medium and smaller travel companies haven’t yet caught onto the fact the reviews increase online conversions. How do you assess the situation?

Speed is an important factor: the faster user-generated content is collected and published, the sooner the benefits of increased bookings are delivered. And, of course, if you’re collecting reviews quickly, you’re providing the kind of highly-relevant, up-to-date content that’s most useful to consumers and very attractive to search engines.

How do you think travel companies are working on their customer review process by making it more interactive and helping consumers help each other with the ability to respond to reviews and share their thoughts?

Interactivity is currently limited in the travel sector, although I’m delighted that businesses such as Octopus Travel (which is a customer of Reevoo) are starting to embrace it. Octopus will shortly be enabling consumers to ask questions of verified bookers and also responding to reviews and questions themselves, in a transparent manner. It will also be extending the reach of that interactivity to social networks like Facebook by adding sharing tools so consumers can share their recommendations and reviews, and ask their friends for advice.

How do you assess the developments in the hospitality industry pertaining to integration of review systems with Facebook, which enable hotels to collect and share their guest reviews right from their hotel Facebook pages?

Facebook is a remarkable platform, which is becoming more and more important. It’s used increasingly for recommendations: 24 percent use it to see what their friends have liked and 27 percent ask friends for recommendations. These percentages are up from 22 percent and 19 percent six months ago and this rise is one of the reasons that we’ve recently added advanced social plug-ins and features to our social commerce portfolio. Solutions that don’t integrate with Facebook and Twitter are likely to be deemed as deficient quite soon - even sooner if the figures for Facebook usage continue to increase like they have in the last six months.

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HotelClub appoints new commercial director

Accommodation booking website HotelClub has appointed Chaminda Ranasinghe as its commercial director.

Ranasinghe will lead the commercial team to maximise conversion and revenue globally.

Ranasinghe will be responsible for driving the organisation’s strategic commercial direction which includes hotel inventory strategy, partner marketing and merchandising opportunities.

The company is counting on Ranasinghe’s extensive experience in numerous industries with specific expertise in online marketing and eCommerce.

Prior to joining HotelClub, Ranasinghe honed his eCommerce skills in insurance based financial services at Zurich and Aviva in the UK.

Last month HotelClub.com introduced new site features and functionality – including improved search results, map view, virtual tours and a streamlined booking process. The new offering also features a more generous Member Rewards loyalty programme. Members now receive up to seven percent back on every booking that can be applied to any future hotel bookings globally made on HotelClub.

This announcement marked an important milestone in the ongoing migration of Orbitz Worldwide’s consumer travel brands – ebookers in the UK and Europe and Orbitz and CheapTickets in the US – onto a single technology platform.

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Securing room night bookings by encouraging spur of the moment trips

IN-DEPTH: Travel in many ways represents the killer app for mobile commerce. Savvy consumers want to lock in the best deals and ticket prices, no matter where they are.

By Ritesh Gupta

The mobile hotel booking category is witnessing new developments on a regular basis.

Late last week last-minute mobile hotel bookings specialist HotelTonight shared details of its $9 million Series B round. The funding round was led by Battery Ventures and it also includes continued participation from Accel Partners and First Round Capital.

Accel Partners believes the industry is set to witness the emergence of new global brands as mobile disrupts traditional desktop players. According to Theresia Gouw Ranzetta, Partner at Accel, HotelTonight is proving this in the travel category, as consumer behaviour shifts towards on demand, impulse booking. The immediacy and persistence of the new age mobile phones - of always being with users - naturally leads to impulse purchases.

For its part, HotelTonight will use the funding to expand the product to new mobile platforms, accelerate customer acquisition and expand into new global markets. Launched in January of this year, HotelTonight has witnessed 1,000,000 downloads on iPhone and Android devices. The company’s deals are currently available in 28 destinations. The company plans to expand this to 35 markets by the end of the year.

HotelTonight believes it is in an advantageous position at this juncture. The company says it is a “mobile-first” company and setting the standard for mobile hotel bookings. The entire company, including its sales organisation, marketing team, brand identity and every bit of software code is built from the ground up for mobile and last-minute booking.

“As we are based in Silicon Valley, we saw first-hand the growth of mobile as a platform, and the need for a “mobile first” hotel booking service,” HotelTonight founder and CEO Sam Shank told EyeforTravel in an interview conducted recently.

“Right now, web-based travel agencies have a mobile division. In a few years, we expect this to be the primary division of these companies, with a secondary “legacy online websites” divisions. While this transition is taking place, our mobile-only orientation gives us the ability to focus and innovate. Separately, in conversations with hotels, we identified the need for a new, flexible channel to move distressed, last minute inventory through mobile channels without onerous commitments,” explained Shank. “We have no legacy systems. Our decision to focus on this platform and specific use case is an enormous competitive advantage.”

Category expansion

Some of the established travel companies, including hotels and online travel companies, are increasingly looking at expanding their offerings.

A couple of months ago, InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) mentioned that its mobile booking sites and apps now contribute over $10m of revenue a month. The company has seen a nearly 1,000 percent increase in room night bookings from mobile devices and it surpassed the 2010 total number of room night bookings from mobile devices in the first five months of 2011. As the group announced its Interim Results to 30 June 2011, IHG’s chief executive Richard Solomons said that the growth is expected to continue as consumer booking preferences evolve.

For smaller to mid-sized hoteliers creating stand alone apps and websites isn’t economically efficient at this phase of the market. There are lots of great ways hoteliers can use mobile search and display budgets to acquire customers. Consumers are gravitating towards bigger well known brands on mobile devices, unlike the desktop where search is king. This creates a great opportunity for the larger OTAs

Few weeks ago Priceline.com announced the availability of an iPad-supported version of its Tonight-Only Deals service. Travellers who download the free app with the new Tonight-Only Deals service will have access to a selection of 3-star and 4-star hotel room in 34 cities for check-in that same night, with a maximum 4-night stay, at discounts of up to 35 percent off published prices. Deals will be posted on the service at 11:00 a.m. local time. Room reservations can be instantly booked up until 11:00 p.m.

This initiative from Priceline followed the introduction of its Tonight-Only Deals hotel reservations service, which has been bundled into its Hotel & Rental Car Negotiator app for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

Usage trends show that approximately 70 percent of priceline.com’s mobile customers are booking hotels for same-day check-in. Accordingly, the company believes there is a clear market need for the Tonight-Only Deals service.

Consumer Interest

There’s lots of consumer interest at this stage, the challenge for brands will be the 'how' - the best way to deliver highly relevant experiences to users based on where they are and what they are doing. Savvy smartphone users are embracing emerging behaviours at a rapid pace, across photos, check-ins, gaming and tagging.

The convergence of two technological shifts – with the rise of the smartphone use and the meteoric popularity of social media – has created a seismic shift in consumer behaviour. Now, wielding their GPS-enabled phones, social media users are more comfortable than ever before in sharing information about their lives, and also expect instantaneous access to information and purchasing no matter where they are in the world.

In its Social Media and Mobile Strategies for the Travel Industry 2011 report, EyeforTravel highlighted that as travel marketers learn to harness the data now available to them, and as social media users continue to contribute to the data stream, these layers of information will prove increasingly valuable. Customised pitching, location-based marketing and increased opportunity to create lasting relationships and grow loyalty with customers are all opportunities that travel brands can take advantage of in the year ahead.

Focus

Ultimately your mobile strategy should reflect your ability to serve unmet consumer needs in a differentiated way. This is particularly true in the mobile space, where users want the ability to do anything on a mobile or tablet device, that they would normally be able to do on a desktop.

Mobile also opens the doors to creating entirely new services and experiences for consumers based on their location, which has exciting implications for in-trip experiences.

It's inevitable that the growth of mobile bookings will continue to rise dramatically. Yet this growth, as Shank says, will not replace non-mobile bookings. For example, mobile devices add no benefit to booking a highly-researched, advance-purchased family vacation. “That said, within a very short period of time, we feel that for people on the go, there will simply be no other option than mobile hotel bookings,” according to Shank.

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Rising to the challenge of ever-increasing customer expectations

IN-DEPTH: By making the most of the data and information available about their customers, travel companies have a unique opportunity to deliver truly differentiated experiences and make travel not just more convenient, but more enjoyable, too.

By Ritesh Gupta

Various sectors including the travel industry have been embracing customer-centric strategies to fuel competitive advantage.

But despite possessing a vast amount of data and information on their customers, it is being highlighted that travel companies are not making the creative leap from insight to innovation. And one of the main obstacles in reaping full benefits from such initiatives pertains to customer information being fragmented across multiple operational systems.

As pointed by loyalty marketing and customer relationship management specialist ICLP, listening to customers is a starting point, of course, but not always enough. The company has highlighted that customer-centric e-tailers like Amazon have, for example, introduced many customer relationship techniques that demonstrate the power of suggestion. The proven success of recommending purchases and activities, based on previous interactions, shows how easily the customer experience can be personalised to encourage loyalty. Significantly, the e-tailer ‘recommendation’ technique also shows how to offer products that customers might want but just not be aware of yet.

So overall, what’s at stake?

Companies need to rise to the challenge of ever-increasing customer expectations. Traditional points and miles alone are no longer strong enough to drive customer loyalty. If brands fail to innovate consistently, and fail to find ways to differentiate their customer relationships from competitor offerings, they risk losing vital customers, according to ICLP.

Customer centricity

The exciting thing is that travel suppliers have a rich amount of data about their customers. They know when and where they are going, how long they are staying, how much they are spending, etc. Harnessing this data to develop knowledge and insight about a customer’s value and needs means that travel suppliers have a unique opportunity to deliver truly differentiated experiences and make travel not just more convenient, but more enjoyable, too.

There are several data sources and these include web analytics data; CRM, email & marketing automation databases; Call centre data; online survey data etc.

The travel industry has been working on initiatives to implement individual point solutions to deal with each channel. Unfortunately, while an individual touch-point experience may get better, it’s still not going to address the need for consistent, high-value experiences across any touch-point. And, it is adding more complexity to the overall mix.

As highlighted by Travelport in one of EyeforTravel’s reports this year, the customer-centric winners in any industry are the ones that have an enterprise data warehouse strategy and governance mechanisms to ensure quality integrated data exists, that master data management is in place that has clear definitions of what a customer is, what a supplier is, and so on. All too often, the daily demands of the business encourage bad data behaviour; behaviour that leads to the creation of a multitude of customer data marts and questions about where exactly the version of truth about a customer exists.

Customer centricity slices across a number of key functional areas: marketing, sales, IT, distribution, operations, all the touch-points, etc. Because of the complexity involved with all the functional areas, it is critical that the CEO endorse the concept and drive adoption across his or her leadership team. The best way to ensure accountability is to tie it to metrics and bonuses. This infers that you need a way to measure results and measure how senior leadership drives evangelism, execution and results through their individual organisations. Implementing shared key performance indicators that are consistent and mutually supporting across the enterprise are one step towards breaking down organisational silos.

Loyalty

Customers have also, however, become harder to reach and more connected via social media.

Airlines and loyalty programmes must understand what customers want and constantly seek to adjust the proposition to meet customer demands and expectations.

According to ICLP, brands need to embrace the complex, interconnected benefits of the evolving social media world. Brands that understand how they can play a more significant role within their customers’ social communities can create greater emotional connections. Brands must find innovative ways to add even greater value in these channels to increase their customers’ loyalty.

Indeed presence within a customer’s own social media space is a great opportunity for businesses to build loyalty with their most influential customers. The measure of getting this right is primarily finding the optimum mix of location, channel and timing. When done well this can create the perfect mix of right product, at the right time, in the right place. The result is highly relevant communications at a low cost that will maximise customer satisfaction and grow loyalty.

“Persistence of your brand in a customer’s daily life is growing at a fast rate as companies work out how to create commercial opportunity from the growing social platforms. We believe that this will be a continuing trend as it is cost effective, relevant and customers are choosing this as their channel of choice,” The Mileage Company’s Iain Pringle recommended in an interview with EyeforTravel earlier this year.

Customer recognition

Customer recognition across the growing number of possible channels/interaction points is extremely important, not only for optimising marketing strategies/tactics for each customer, but also for enabling the travel provider to correctly value both the absolute and relative financial value each customer brings to its business.

As multi-channel recognition solutions are put in place, the next phase of improvement will include tying CRM data and information systems together to allow travel marketers to offer a specific customer a consistent, yet tailored, customer experience across all contact points based on the customer’s current value, projected future value, and specific needs and preferences.

Travel companies are recognising the value of bringing together customer transactional information and marketing/contact history and making it available across the company to improve customer intelligence and decision-making. Optimisation solutions such as contact optimisation and media/channel mix optimisation are rapidly growing areas of interests in a variety of industry verticals, including travel.

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