Latest trends and highlights from the online hospitality market: Hotel eMarketing 2008, London 16-17 Sep

Relactions was invited to speak at Hotel eMarketing Conference 2008 in London, with the keynote speech “Optimising your website to maximise conversion”, and I had the chance to follow a number of interesting presentations and participate to four different round-tables. The Conference was interely dedicated to the hotel industry and to analyse what strategy some of the best in class (the major group/chains) are undertakening to maximise their online marketing activities. Here are my personal conference highlights:

1) Taj Hotel says: "Take the Web to the consumers!" - Ashok Lalla, Director of Internet Marketing Taj Hotels Resorts and Palaces
Ashok Lalla, Director of Internet Marketing Taj Hotels Resorts and Palaces, introduced a new perspective of/on online consumer's behaviour. Since the Internet has forever changed the shopping and buying patterns of worldwide travellers, it is not possible anymore to stick to the traditional marketing segmentation. As surfing and buying behaviours can be extremely diverse, even within the same socio-demographic segment, using traditional marketing persona to infer buying behaviour can be extremely risky and lead to the wrong marketing decisions.

Buying habits are not defined by income, status or demographic segments anymore and are becoming more and more situational, and marketeers should accordingly shift their focus moving from consumers segments to consumers avataars: according to the specific travel motivations, a person can be user, consumer, producer, member of community, participant, and relate to the brand in different ways.

Mr Lalla also gave some suggestion on new ways to face the challenges of the web 2.0 environment:

• Abandon recommendation engines. Create referral engines: use the power of consumers to co-create a brand and spread the buzz, build emotive networks and remove the anonimity of recommendations engines.

• Loyalty marketing is giving way. Adopt the customer advocacy prism: go beyond rewards and recognition. Turn customers into evangelist and brand advocate.

• Redifine SEM: SEM is not search engine marketing, SEM is Special experience for me.

• Think beyond revenue management: a good marketeer should look at the customer value management, that does not mean giving customers the best deal, but giving them the best reason(s) to come back. Therefore, make the experience abundant and remember: while price completes the transaction, brand completes the heart connection.

2) Undertaking the impact of social media on the hotel buying decision - Daniel Kerzner, Regional Director of Starwood Hotels and Resorts
This presentation was particularly useful in highlighting some practical examples of how a hotel chain can aknowledge the power of UGM in influencing buying decisions and turning it into a asset. Whilst the hotel industry often focuses on the fear for the negative impact of users' reviews on revenues and brand, some examples were provided on how Starwood is actually using consumers' opinions to improve its product and communication strategy.

After all, the Web is a kind of gigantic focus group where real-time opinions and conversations are exchanged, where any product is dissected under any angle by any consumer segments...so why not listening to the consumers and learning from them what the perceived strenghts and weaknesses of a product are?

The result of analysing what the actual USPs of a hotel are according to its reviews on Tripadvisor and OTAs can be surprisingly different from what a general manager or a marketing expert thinks, and help to effectively improve the product and product proposition. Starwood did just that, changing, for instance, the communication strategy for one of its property in Paris, in order to have the website content focus on the single thing that any customer was enthusiastically talking about and that was previously almost ignored: the view.

3) From BAR (best available rate) to BAC (best available content) - Annalisa Ballaira, CEO Relactions
Annalisa Ballaira, CEO Relactions, introduced the new concept of Best Available Content, which means ragaining control of the direct relationship with clients by providing trustworthy, rich and usable contents in addition to the correct price. The best rate AND the best content is what can keep hoteliers ahead of competitors and vendors alike, engaging customers to navigate and buy on a hotels'own website, helping reducing distribution costs and increasing loyalty rates.
A post of this subject will follow soon on this blog..

4) Monitoring and exploiting social networks and user generated content - Martin-Verdon Roe, Director of Sales Europe, Tripadvisor
Martin-Verdon Roe, Director of Sales Europe, shared some impressive numbers on the fast growth of Tripadvisor. If you think they were big, well, they're much bigger.
On April 2008, the total number of reviews posted on Tripadvisor was 15 millions, up from 2.9 millions in 2005, 5 millions in 2006, 10 millions in 2007. Whilst some suggestion for the hospitality operators on how to monitor and address negative reviews should hopefully be familiar to most hoteliers, I found interesting the fact that the average score of the reviews is now 3.7% and most of the posted review are actually largely positive (40.6% have 5 as score). Martin also confirmed the emerging "trend" of using Tripadvisor as a R&D platform, paying attention to customers' evaluations and suggestions for product improvement.
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The difficult relationship between hoteliers and online distribution

An interesting video on the most common solutions adopted by hoteliers to effectively handle distribution and technology challenges.

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A longer and richer tail

In a recent article published in the Harvard Business Review (n. 1-2 2008), university professor and forecaster Vito Di Bari predicts the appearance of the longer tail by 2015. Starting from Chris Anderson’s ground-breaking long tail concept, namely the grassroots diffusion of supply and demand on line, and the prevalence of “many niche items” as opposed to “few mass items”, Di Bari has hypothesized the growing density of the long tail concept, with users increasingly interested in specific, unique and local characteristics.

It is not difficult to see that within the next decade, the number of web users will progressively increase. However we will not see an increase in the number of skilled users, but rather the base level of web surfers will expand, users of the “Popular Web”, with a relatively low level of computer literacy but nonetheless possessing the technological devices necessary to gain access to the Web. A particularly telling example is the case of China, where there has been an 833.3% increase in the use of the Web from 2000 to today, but where the overall penetration of the Internet in the population reaches just 15.9%. This implies that the potential growth of China, and similarly that of many other Far Eastern nations, is enormous.

The increase in numbers of this type of web user will change the approach to the Web. According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project,

“The growth rate of China's Internet user population has been outpacing that of the U.S., and China is projected to overtake the U.S. in the total number of users within a few years”. This means that alongside the language of global computer communications, namely English, local languages used by “Popular Web” users, such as Spanish, Chinese, Russian and Japanese, will also become more common.

According to eMarketer,

By the end of 2008, Russia will be the second largest Internet market in Europe: Russia will have more than 40 million Internet users by the end of the year. Russia is projected to have nearly 43% of its population using the Web by 2012, up 72% from the 2007 level.

...And By 2012, nearly 50% of the world’s Internet population will live in the Asia-Pacific region. Global and local are therefore concepts that will interact in order to create glocal, a concept that is not new to anthropology, but that is less common when applied to the Web. Sociologist Zygmunt Bauman reintroduced the concept of glocal – a term coined by Roland Robertson – in a theory proposing the necessity of combining global culture and planetary diffusion with local pockets of resistance capable of expressing typical habits, customs and languages.

For the travel industry, the combination of local and global conveys the idea of localization, which has a perfect correspondence with Di Bari’s proposal of the longer tail. Faced with Web users of low scholastic qualifications and interested predominantly in what is familiar to them (languages, habits, local products), for companies it is fundamental to propose glocal versions of their websites and products. Not just a simple translation of the original site, but rather a cultural and linguistic adaptation of the company’s image, communications and on-line marketing.

The longer tail therefore implies an approach based on local aspects to communicate a global travel brand and product online. In the space of just a few years, it will be necessary to come to terms with the Web’s cultural/ethnic evolution, which will further highlight that which is still at an initial phase. It will therefore become fundamental to modify language, and also visual communications, or, more in general, the look&feel of corporate hotel and travel websites.

In the tourism sector, the longer tail will be very marked and noticeable. Web users will use their own national search engines to look for international travel destinations, and they will expect to obtain information and products corresponding to their requirements, therefore in their own language, and with the same respective cultural approach. To summarize, glocal websites. Local websites, not translations, which can communicate with the user by means of a familiar language.

What is already important today (offering a website in different linguistic versions) will soon become fundamental: it will be essential to refine communications, entrusting it to glocal experts. Glocal, because they will have to be familiar with global marketing systems, and they will have to be able to adapt them to local situations by means of close cooperation with local resources (mother-tongue professionals, local experts…).

Some examples:

• Involve local editors or correspondents to enrich the local versions with contents specifically aimed at different markets.


• Think of the visual and content priorities of each market and organize the website structure and webmarketing activities correspondently. While a Japanese user will appreciate bright colors, lots of interactivity and a certain density of content, a European would probably feel overcome by such a display and prefer a cleaner, more visual and less cluttered content.


• If you are in the process of evaluating a Content Management System, consider the need for some flexibility in terms of content display.


• Think of the product and service priorities of each market: your expensive luxury suites can become a strong USP for some affluent local if you ensure that such priority is consistently reflected in your online marketing (keyword advertising copy and focus, seo strategy, online advertising concept, online press releases' contents) and in your website (metatags for the seo, promotions and contents).


• Involve local experts of seo/sem localization: search behaviours are quite different even within the European arena, and extremely diverse if you look at Asian countries.


• Take some time to re-think your market priorities and opportunities: an emerging economy might not represent a significant portion of you revenue now, but could represent a strategic move in the middle term to outpace your competitors and gain visibility over time.

By 2012, the Internet market will be substantially different to what it is today, and it will be oriented particularly to linguistic scenarios differing from English, closely linked to the local situation. Consequently, it will be essential for any travel professional to communicate with his target in Chinese, Japanese or Russian, using various targeted strategies and optimizing ROI, avoiding the waste that would result from the compilation of messages that are culturally and linguistically distant from a segment of users with limited computer literacy and a highly glocal nature.
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Usability: what's in a name?

Usability is a very broad issue, so broad it can often be overwhelming when it comes to choose the right kind of testing methodology for your travel website and the right kind of company to conduct the analysis. Yet usability is a vital aspect for the success of a travel website, as it directly affects the conversion rates (i.e. your revenue) and the user experience (i.e. the perception and reputation of your brand).


Additional benefits of revising your website based on a usability test include: fewer requests for assistance, accolades for development of an high quality and friendly interface, an increase in off-line bookings as result of a positive image for your brand.

Usability evaluations come in many different forms such interviews and observations, cognitive walk-through, heuristic reviews and expert usability inspections, eye- tracking tests...each methodology having its pros and cons and applying to specific budgets and needs. In this article I will not discuss each option in details, but rather try to highlight some general points that are important to approach the issue with the right objectives in mind.

Not all websites are created equal
My first point is that usability best-practices should be industry-specific and that it is not effective to adopt a purely theoretical approach, and to test a travel website with the same methodology and expectations you would adopt for any other e-commerce or distribution website.

Let me make an example on this.
Let's suppose that a usability test on your website finds that a certain number of users launches a booking query, clicks on one of the result listed in the following page and then leaves the booking process, either by leaving your website altogether or clicking back on other navigation elements that are external to the booking funnel. A purely theoretical approach would probably identify some on-the-page design, graphic or functional elements as the core problems affecting your conversion rates. An industry-specific approach would instead bring some additional key-questions to the table: is the pricing competitive? what is my average booking window and are those users likely to come back to book at a later stage? how much quality content am I providing in the rest of my website in order to persuade a user to proceed with the booking?
The reasons for that users' behaviour could be outside the specific design issues: an holistic and travel-specific approach is advisable in order to avoid over-semplifications and a too design-centric approaches to conversion problems.

You need to add this kind of wisdom to any usability analysis, either by involving a travel expert in the process or by interpreting the data based on your specific knowledge of the industry and of your own company.

Design is how it works..and how it feels
Another element that usability tests often overlook is that websites are as much as a branding/marketing tool as a e-commerce platform. The capacity to engage the user at an emotional level is as important as the purely functional aspect: a gallery of beautiful pictures of an hotel, a page of fantastic VIP's references or a list of persuasive users' reviews could improve your conversion rates just as much as a complete user-centric website re-styling.

Your website is not just a booking engine, but rather a branded environment that must convey your identity and unique selling points: usability must work towards those objectives as much as towards a user-friendly, clean and clear interface; usability recommendations should consider business and marketing goals as much as the compliance to general usability best-practices.

Inspiration is fine
A very effective (cost/benefit) way to evaluate your website might be not too look at it in first place...meaning that a well-conducted benchmark analysis is possibily the best thing you can do to improve your website.

Instead of focusing on your own website limitations, scout for ideas, innovations and best-practices around you..leverage other people's experiences and talent, learn from the best-in-class and from the money they spend in analysing users' behaviours. A web-usability bechmark should include your direct competitors but, most importantly, should look at those travel companies that are setting the pace online: OTAs and big hotel chains need to constantly optimise their websites to achieve their huge distribution targets and can provide some usefull elements to understand what your customer expects when visiting a travel website.

Users are your best experts
Before paying someone for using your website and telling what enhancements would best meet your clients' expectations, why don't you ask you clients first? Actually, your customers are already answering most of your usability questions in this very moment, leaving a lot of informations about their navigation patterns, preferences and exit-points into your web-analytics software.

Brace yourself for trouble
Of course usability tests are best conducted while at a design stage, when the user interface is being designed, following the collection and analysis of relevant client and user requirements. Unfortunately this is very seldom the case. Re-designing part of an existing website can be a pretty painfull process, either for technical, budget or "political" reasons. So if you are ready to pay for a usability testing, then you should be very well ready to actionate the remedies that the analysis will indentify. Right?
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Christmas wishes from Relactions (and a very special guest)

And a happy new year from all our team!

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Emerging trends in the hotel industry: no frills, more trills for European travellers?

No-frill chic is a new consumer trend that is going to deeply affect the hotel industry, by shifting consumer expectations and changing the traditional segmentations in which marketeers try to squeeze - with decreasing success - the modern travellers.

Trendwatching defines the No-frill chic trend as:

"low cost goods and services that add design, third-party high quality elements and/or exceptional customer service to create top quality experiences at bottom prices.

No-frills chic is important to all consumer sectors because of its power to change consumer expectations. Frugal consumers will like the chic experience at virtually no extra cost, dumping 'no-chic' low cost offerings. Old-style 'luxury' consumers may be tempted to forego more expensive, traditional products and services. This is in many ways a natural evolution of the no-frills concept. In the end, there aren't that many goods and services that require no experience at all."

When it comes to hospitality, the concept is very well represented by a wave of new hotel companies that promise to (finally) bring some real innovation to the industry by combining style with budget, mixing the chic with affordable rates.

No-frill chic hotels want to appeal to both budget consumers who will love to experience some extra chic at no extra costs, and to the more demanding travellers who are ready to welcome a non-traditional concept of luxury and service. The spectrum is indeed quite wide, and ranges from the core "no-frills/back to the basics" model (very close to the low-cost airlines concept) to a more chic level, where also the sophisticated desing-minded types and the business travellers can feel confortably cocooned by stylish architectural details.

Here an overview of the new-comers...

1.
Yotel has recently opened its first hotel at Gatwick Airport and a new opening has been confirmed at London Heathrow for the end 2007. The target is very specific: rooms are defined as “Business Class Cabins” with “luxury yacht finishing”, and are available from £25 for hourly or overnight stay, for a perfect match with travellers air-plans. The declared ispiration here are business class airlines "because they know how to use a small space and some of the technology of luxury yachts".

2.
Keeping on the budget-side of the lot, EasyHotel.com is the natural extension of the EasyJet concept, with the same focus on aswering to a basic need with a basic but "to-the-point" product, at low prices. As a low-cost carriers understood that the core need was flying from A to B, not necessary eating an on-board meal, EasyHotel akwnoledges that short-stay customers will accept less space for a better price, and offers very basic but safe, clean rooms for the night at budget prices. Customers pay for what they use (e.g. television, extra housekeeping, extra towels). Five hotels are now open in London, Basel and Budapest, and more will come soon, as the company can count on the very significant EasyJet customer base.

3.
The latest technology and quality products in a sociable atmosphere, a comfortable bed and great pillows with no out-dated services. This is what Amsterdam-based CitizenM chain offers to its clients. A dedicated offsite factory allows the company to consistently maintain high quality standards and streamline the building process of new hotels. Significally, CitizenM’s founders include professionals from both the hospitality and fashion industry. The stylishly designed lobby, furnished with Vitra furniture pieces, allows customers to programm their personal RFID card so tha the room settings are adjusted to preferred lighting, music, temperature and mood. Landlines calls and on-demand blockbusters are offered for free on the top on the free wi-fi. Rates starting from 69€ per night; a range of special offers and dedicated contents from the CitizenM community are offered to discover the city's hippier secrets. The first hotel is opening at Amsterdam Schipol at the beginning of 2008.

4.
Althought the date of the first opening is still to beconfirmed, Starwood's lifestyle brand, Aloft "infused with the DNA of W hotels" should be definitely mentioned, as it promises to "shakeup the lodging industry with urban-influenced design, accessible technology, style and a social atmosphere". Rooms will be designed with loft-like high ceilings, oversized windows and stylish bathrooms; wi-fi and a one-stop connectivity will be provided to link all the conceivable electronic gadgetry to a large flat panel HDTV. Prices will probably be at the higher-end of the affordable chic. The plans for the company are extremely ambitious, 50 development projects have been announced, mainly in the US, or, as their press release states "with locations expected to be anytown/anywhere... ". Anywhere but not in SecondLife, where their much hyped virtual property was shut down some times ago (you can read our post here).

The list should continue, and include other interesting ventures such Nitenite and Qbic up to André Balazs’ hip QT New York Hotel (still reasonably priced at from $175 in the heart of Manhattan)...something is definetely happening.

Why is no-frill chic important? Because it appeals to a very wide range of potential customers, in a contemporary way, far beyond the traditional revenue-management and socio-demographic clusters in which many hotel-chains seem to be stucked...more and more removed from the blurred boundaries of the post-modern society where high income and a taste for luxury goods do not necessary overlap anymore.

Who is addressing the needs of the 35-years old manager who books his travel on the internet, dislikes boring, expensive corporate hotels and looks for a hassle-free wifi connection and free-movies within a sociable, not stiffed atmosphere? Who's talking to the young trendy couple who will recognize the iconic piece of furniture in the room, and still be happy to have some money left from the hotel-bill to go and spend it at the closer sushi restaurant? Who's attracting back the growing audience of chic B&Bs and rented apartments, often located in the very city centres, that welcome you in an informal yet cozy and friedly environment, surprise you with some unespected architectural details, and let you walk in the quiet lobby with you wifi connection on, all at very resonable prices?

And no-frill chic is important because new service standards for reasonably priced-room are being set: most of the mentioned hotel companies offer wi-fi, rain-shower, flat-screen tv at no extra-cost. All of them are very straightfoward in using their websites to clearly explain what to expect from your room and your next stay. All of them seem to be run by modern travellers, with modern travellers in mind.
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Travel industry and Deep Web: exclusive interview with Marcus P. Zillman

Today we are interviewing Marcus P. Zillman, International Internet expert, author, keynote speaker, corporate consultant and one of the most renowned expert on Deep Web, information retrieval and Internet.

Marcus is currently the Executive Director of the Virtual Private Library. He is a member of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, and is also actively involved as an internationally known speaker and author.

Marcus will talk about Deep Web, search engines' future and their relationship with travel industry.

To start our interview...: what is your definition of Deep Web?
The simple definition of the Deep Web is the area of the World Wide Web that is not searched consistently and therefore not readily available to the searcher and researcher. It may be files, databases, .ps documents et. al. that the major search engines are not programmed or have algorithms to search.


Is it possible to estimate the real width of the Web? What's the ratio between Invisible and Visible Web?
I have seen numerous studies and discussions on this that state the Deep Web represents 500 billion pages to 1 trillion pages. I would lean to the higher side as content is being developed at a tremendous rate with blogs, wikis, etc. The traditional web searched by Google and others normally searches in the area of 20 to 30 billion pages depending on you speak to. Now you can see a very large ratio between traditional web and the Deep Web... on the high side 30 billion versus 1 trillion.


The travel industry is extremely affected by consumer generated media. In your opinion, how relevant is to understand and monitor the Deep Web for a travel operator?
It is extremely important for the travel operator to not only understand the Deep Web but know how to work within the Deep Web to discover new knowledge as well as to gain competitive knowledge and learn what the consumer is thinking.
I was a guest speaker at a national travel operator conference in 1995 and told them that the Internet is coming ... the Internet is coming .... and soon consumers would be purchasing tickets direct online!! Needless to say I was not well received but of course I was invited back in two years to show them what they should be doing .... interesting times then and now!


Do you think that search engines accuracy will improve in the next future and that the gap between indexed files and invisible ones will narrow?
Very good question! I would hopefully say yes but in the real virtual world it is more likely to maintain to the same ratio as new types of files and knowledgebases are constantly being developed not to mention all the video and multimedia files types currently being added to the Internet that would fall into the Deep Web.


Do you think that the new Universal Search algorithm will significantly improve Google's performances in terms of its capacity of investigating the deep web?
As the founder of BotSpot and long time bot builder the ultimate goal was and will always be a Universal Search Algorithm! If this algorithm is created and all the files on the Internet are receptive and designed to accommodate the Universal Search Bot then it will allow improved Google's performance in the capacity of investigating the Deep Web... I think we need to be concentrating on teaching folks how to search and how to write search queries first ;-) ... many times search results are based on Garbage In, Garbage Out...


Do you think that a really semantic search engine as powerful as Google will ever appear on the market?
Google has gained significant market share since its inception in 1996 at Stanford. I have seen and continue to investigate a number of semantic search engines as this area is of high interest to me. In fact I have created a special section on semantic web resources in Deep Web Research Subject Tracer Information Blog showing how this area is growing and will be part of the future of searching. Other areas include RDF that allow for significant better tagging to help better identify the content.


One of your most successful keynote is "Searching the Internet in 2007 and beyond": how do you see the information gathering process to evolve in the next future? Will the search engines remain the main doors for information retrieval or will they be replaced by other tools (RSS, e-mail alerting..)?
Searching in the future will be a truly exciting adventure. We will be seeing far more exacting answers with less final scrolling! We will be obtaining information that will be close to 100% relevancy and allowing us to then compare resulting finds to obtain what we truly desire. In my just released publication Current Awareness Monitors, Alerts and Information Traps for 2008 I show all the monitors, alerts and information traps that are available now on the web. The future will even have more of these to keep folks current in their business, profession or special interest! Every travel operator needs to be monitoring for their business name, personal name and competitors name not to mention other special interests area... this should be done now and be part of your on going market intelligence program!


How will users manage the information overload of the Web?
The key to managing information overload on the Web is EDUCATION! I have listed many resources to help overcome the information overload on the Web and they are freely available from my Manage Information Overload presentation resources page.


What are your three top advices for travel operators in order to monitor the online reputation?
You must understand the Deep Web, you must set up bots to monitor your name and competition and you must have current awareness information traps set to bring you the latest information in your field or niched area of your interest/profession!


In this post, "Google Aquires Internet", the author imagines a possible future (2017) for Google, Internet, Microsoft and the others search engines: do you think it could be an insightful article or a joke?
Future articles are always insightful but if one knows and understands the original creation of the Internet (1969) and how the Internet Engineering Task Forces were set up... then one would understand that not one person, not one company, not one country will ever be able to acquire or even control the Internet! We truly live in exciting times where the world has truly become a global economy and the Internet has ignited a global collaboration capacity that has never been seen before in all of mankind!
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