Category: Hotels and Resorts

It is essential to hoteliers that customers have an enjoyable guest experience, not only at the hotel but online. You want to provide the best guest experience even before they set foot in your hotel. It all begins with their experience online. Here are three qualities your website should have to ensure a smooth yet fantastic guest experience.

Make Sure Your Website is Mobile-Friendly

With today’s advanced technological advances, researching a hotel before booking is as standard as scratching an itch. You can learn so much from a hotel just by visiting their website. But what if you’re not at the office or in front of a desktop. The percentage of travelers that are using mobile devices in comparison to an actual personal computerwill continue to increase. With a large number travelers adjusting to their smartphones and tablets to hop on the internet, it is crucial to have a mobile-friendly website. If you’re a hotel, your website should be mobile-friendly all across the board. Responsive navigation bars and images, as well as fast loading times. You want your potential guests to have all the information they need in the palm of their hand before making a decision.

Be Active On Social Media

Hoteliers who are not logging in daily on social media are missing one of the largest target audiences. Social media tends to be a hub of information and inspiration for travelers. With the hotel in mind, it is important that all the information on the website and social media channels are accurate and consistent. This creates a sense of trust. When a guest visits a different search engine or directory on the internet with your hotel business name on it, they’ll know it’s reliable information. Make sure you have someone answering any instant messages you might receive. Missing a single communication could be the difference between having a stay and giving it to your competitors. Treat your potential guests as if they have already booked at your hotel. Customer service is critical in the decision-making process, and it shouldn’t stop on social media.

Provide Helpful Information to Tourists and Newcomers

Where there’s a hotel, there’s a tourist. If a hotel does not have traveler information such as trying to get there from the airport or a guide to the surrounding neighborhood, say bye-bye to those potential guests. It helps to have city guides, maps, and brochures of all places in the local area. The guides could also include ways to get around the area. They can consist of distances of specific attractions/restaurants from the hotel and a weather forecast so that they will be aware of the weather conditions during their stay. Significant events should always be mentioned in case they’re looking to make plans or do something special during the trip. Get in touch with the professional mobile app development company and get best hotel mobile app for boosting the profit of your business.

A recent study by McKinsey and Company showed that global spending on experiences like concerts, amusement parks, eating out, and traveling has grown more than 1.5 times faster than spending on personal consumption, and about four times faster than spending on goods. This emergence of the experience economy is a trend that hotels and other hospitality businesses should leverage for higher revenue and improved brand loyalty by providing exceptional experiences. 

In the last year, India had about 10.56 million foreign tourists, and reported about 1.68 billion domestic travelers in 2017. The largest growing segment of these travelers are millennials, and that is because of a few different reasons. In comparison to previous generations, millennials tend to have a much larger overall awareness of the world and a much higher disposable income as well. More so, millennials are much more likely to spend on experiences over basic services.

Guests are constantly seeking great experiences with every hospitality brand they interact with on their travels.. Participants in the hospitality industry that fail to design and provide engaging guest experiences won’t be able to measure up to modern guests’ expectations.

In order to design and create such experiences, hotels and other hospitality participants will have to embrace and implement new and innovative technology platforms that will allow them to manage and create end-to-end experiences for guests. More so, these experiences will need to be comprehensive and tailored to the specific travel intent of each guest.

Even with the disruption of OTAs, hotels are still a space where guests still expect the hotel to act as the service provider and personalize their journey and experience. Hotels should take advantage of the ability to establish direct relationships with guests in a market where in addition to OTAs, Google and Amazon are becoming increasingly interested.

Hotels need to constantly improve and reinvent their core offerings and identify possible reasons if and why their guest experiences are not matching up to expectations. In order to stand out in the experience economy, hospitality businesses need to ensure the highest possible levels of guest satisfaction and embrace technology for personalization and constant analysis of guest reviews and feedback.

Some experiences can only be had in certain destinations. A traveler can only experience Oktoberfest in Germany, or can only take a picture in front of the Eiffel Tower in France. Hospitality businesses need to explore ways to ensure that guests have the serendipity of discovering these new experiences, all while keeping them engaged on their platform without them having to search for those experiences elsewhere. Hotels need to help their guests with area advice, available excursions and events in the area by partnering with non-competing travel operators to be the single source of guest experiences and add ancillary revenue while beefing up the guest experience.

Travelers have now started creating their own travel experience instead of being passive consumers. Consequently, hospitality businesses need to provide guests with platforms that serve hyper-personalized options for guests to create their experience from. These platforms will allow for delight in the guest journey, and will ultimately build brand loyalty and add revenue to hotels.

From tailored guest-centric experience packages, access to mobile concierges or in-room smart technology, hotels need to create experiences for guests that supercede mere service, or a product like a comfortable room.

Guests are constantly searching for new places and platforms that will allow them to have memorable and unique experiences they can share with friends and family. Not paying attention to rising trends in this new experience economy could prove to be the downfall of many hospitality businesses, unless new technology and innovative guest experiences become a core part of guest management.

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Each year new trends emerge that can change the fortunes of global hoteliers very quickly. Just like clothes, music, and art, certain destinations can go in and out of style – and in again – over time. Travellers discover a new ‘it’ destination or follow gradual societal shifts and all of a sudden some places are more popular than ever while others are wondering why results have dipped.

Trip Advisor always has its finger on the pulse when it comes to traveller behaviour and has identified what the preferences for travellers to the US will be in 2019. While the following destinations may not receive the highest volume of travellers, they’re the locations TripAdvisor expects will be heavily on the rise next year.

Here’s the top five.

1. Kapaa, Hawaii

Meaning ‘solid’ in Hawaiian, Kapaa is a small town nestled at the base of Nounou Mountain on Kauai Island. It’s very tourist friendly with a diverse array of hotels, shopping centers, and restaurants. The Kinipopo Shopping Village is a favorite for its fun eateries and small keepsake shops.

TripAdvisor recommends travellers visit:

• Kauai Path
• Sleeping Giant Trail
• Kauai’s Hindu Monastery

2. Waco, Texas

Waco was settled along the Brazos River, halfway between Dallas and Austin. Only the 22nd most populous city in the state, it has many charms for the visiting tourist.

TripAdvisor recommends:

• Waco Mammoth National Monument
• Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum
• Magnolia Market at the Silos

3. Wilmington, North Carolina

Wilmington is a beautiful port city in southeastern North Carolina. Established along the Cape Fear River, it’s also minutes away from nearby beaches. With an historic downtown riverwalk, there’s a lot to love.

TripAdvisor recommends:

• Airlie Gardens
• Historic District
• Riverwalk

4. Bend, Oregon

Only 21 miles from RDM airport, Bend is a natural playground for families and adventure travellers. Hiking and fishing along the Deschutes river, mountain biking and skiing at Mt. Bachelor are among the favourite activities.

TripAdvisor recommends:

• High Desert Museum
• Newberry National Volcanic Monument
• Deschutes Brewery

5. Boulder, Colorado

Situated a short distance northwest of Denver, Boulder is a city that sits in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, 1655m above sea level.

Boulder is famous for its association with American frontier history and for being the home of the main campus of the University of Colorado, the state’s largest university.

If you’re a hotelier in these regions, now is the time to ensure your distribution strategy is optimised to capitalise on the increased traffic from interstate and international travellers. Market on as many online travel agents as you can and run promotions and packages on your website around the most popular attractions and sights.

A concierge service app is a software product which serves as a personal assistant app in hospitality industries if you want to know more details please contact us.

I’ve lost count how many hotels I’ve stayed in. Hundreds, for sure, and on every continent except Antarctica. From beach-side resorts in St. Kitts to a grand, soaring high-rise in Tokyo, to a castle-adjacent treehouse on the north coast of Scotland, I’ve stayed in some truly lovely places. I’ve also stayed at dilapidated dives in Vegas with rusty faucets and rugs so thin you could see the concrete underneath. The memory of the latter still makes me itch.

Over the years I’ve come up with a set of tips and tricks I use in every hotel, from 5-star to wear-your-shoes-in-the-bathroom-star. They range from a little peace of mind and a reduction of annoyance to maintaining a bit of safety and health while traveling. Starting with …

The remote is gross

What is touched by everyone but rarely cleaned? A quick swipe with some baby wipes or a damp (not wet) hand towel should help a bit.

20°C is 68°F

Need to set the thermostat in your room anywhere outside the US? Twenty degrees is a good place to start.

Be skeptical of drinking glasses, especially if the hotel lacks a restaurant

Generally, drinking glasses are cleaned after every guest. Generally. If there’s no on-site restaurant, though, how are they cleaned? By hand presumably, but how well? Give them a rinse and a sniff, at least.

Don’t put your luggage on the bed

Bed bugs are gross little vampires. Like mosquitoes, but worse. Putting your luggage on the bed can give them a free ride to your next location … like your house. The luggage rack might not be a good option either, since it’s usually close to the bed. Your best bet is to put your luggage in the bathroom and then give the bed, rack, and chair/sofa a close look. Also, don’t assume that just because hotel is super posh it won’t have bed bugs. They might have more means to get rid of the problem, but it can happen anywhere.

Long cables for your phone, or a travel power strip

As the number of devices needing to charge increases, the number of outlets available in hotel rooms … stays the same. I’ve stayed in new hotels with zero easily-accessible plugs. Mind blowing. Wirecutter, the New York Times company that reviews products, has options for long Micro-USB, Lightning, and USB-C cables so you can plug in and still, hopefully, use your phone from the bed. They also have a pick for a travel power strips so you can plug multiple devices into that one outlet you found behind the bed.

Yes, you can take the little shampoo bottles. No, you can’t take the robe.

Some hotels give the remaining soaps to charities like Clean the World. It’s worth checking if they do, as perhaps that’s a better use of the remaining soap than getting lost in your luggage or forgotten in your home medicine cabinet. Many hotels are moving toward large-bottle dispensers, both as a cost- and Earth-saving measure.

Lock, latch, and put out the do not disturb sign

Housekeeping comes early. Exactly 100 percent of the time I’ve wanted to sleep in and forgot to put out the sign, housekeeping wakes me up. In how many languages do you know how to say “come back later, please?” For me, when woken from a deep slumber, a croaky none.

Enabling the safety latch also lets you open the door to see if it really is management knocking while preventing said knocker from unexpectedly opening the door fully. Exceptionally unlikely, sure, but why take the chance?

Take a picture of the safe code

Even if you just use your birthday or something memorable in the moment, take a picture of the number you program into the safe.

Laundry is expensive

I travel for months at a time. I do laundry about once a week. At an expensive laundromat in Paris I paid 7 euros, or about $10, for a load of all my clothes. While trapped at a hotel in Fiji during a typhoon I paid $10 for each pair of underwear.

You should definitely pack light enough that you’ll need to do laundry on any trip longer than a week. Some hotels, and nearly all hostels, have inexpensive laundry facilities on-site or nearby. The staff will usually help you find a place. There’s always washing in the sink too, which is free if you have the time.

And lastly … Stay in a hostel instead

I’ve spent the majority of nights during my extended travels of the last 5 years in hostels. Hotels can be great, but they’re invariably expensive. Hostels probably aren’t what you think, and can be a great way to save money and meet new people.

A concierge service app is a software product which serves as a personal assistant app in hospitality industries if you want to know more details please contact us.

Forget those predictable poster reprints. Some properties have begun to push the boundaries of what it means to be a hotel with great art.

Procuring and exhibiting art in all forms has been synonymous with the hotel experience for several decades now, with both luxury and midlevel brands highlighting local artwork and museum-quality pieces rather than predictable poster reprints.

Guests like it: In a 2018 survey conducted by the nonprofit organization, Americans for the Arts, 72 percent of respondents said they enjoyed the arts in “non-arts” venues including hotels.

Art-centric hotels are popping up in many cities, including the ART in Denver and the upcoming Hall Arts Hotel in Dallas, hoping to attract a new breed of clients who want to be surrounded by sculptures, video installations, paintings and mixed media.

But of late, some properties have begun to push the boundaries of what it means to be a hotel with great art.

Actively Supporting Artists

Artists once depended only on galleries to showcase their work and be “discovered,” but more hotels now actively seek and support new talent in that role.

“We didn’t want to commission art merely for the purposes of decoration,” said Carson Glover, vice president of brand marketing at The Peninsula Hotels. The company created the “Art in Resonance” program, highlighting midcareer artists whose works were unveiled at the Hong Kong property in March.

“Nurturing the artist is an aspect that is so often lost in the business,” he added.

For the first installment of “Art in Resonance,” the American sculptor Janet Echelman created a netlike sculpture whose shape constantly changes with the wind. The Australian-born artist Timothy Paul Myers hand-wrapped everyday items like cups, saucers and chairs in red felt, creating a site-specific sculpture called “Alizarin” that stood out in the neutral tones of the lobby. And Shanghai-based MINAX architects created a modern version of the traditional Chinese teahouse using 999 pine and bamboo wooden pieces.

“For over twenty years I found myself making these large environmental installations that I can’t afford to build on my own,” says Mr. Paul Myers. His work and that of the other artists will travel to other Peninsula locations over the next few years, much like a museum exhibit.

Prices start from $650 at the Peninsula Hong Kong per night inclusive of taxes and fees, based on double occupancy.

Rotating Exhibits

Two contemporary art collectors, Laura Lee Brown and Steve Wilson, opened The 21c Museum Hotels in 2006 in Louisville, Ky., with a vision to save the downtown.

The hotel has amassed more than 3,000 works, now spread over public areas, lounges and rooms, and exhibits are open to the public 24 hours a day, seven days a week. In this aspect, this group of museum hotels — opening its ninth location this year — operates differently than a traditional gallery, which typically has more restricted exhibit hours.

The brand also co-curates exhibitions with museums like the North Carolina Museum of Art with the mind-set that hotel art does not necessarily need to take the place of gallery art.

After the film and video artist Christina Zeidler took over the Gladstone Hotel in Toronto, Canada, the 37-room boutique hotel began holding rotating exhibits annually as well as live events. Artists also helped with the interior design of the rooms.

“Artists are given free rein to think about the design of the furniture, window coverings, wallpaper or wall treatment,” said the exhibitions director Lee Petrie, who explains that apart from the permanent room art, the hotel shies away from commissioning anything. They believe continuously changing exhibits are draws for repeat visits.

Room rates at the 21c Louisville property start from $200. Rates at the Gladstone start from around $239 per night with a breakfast discount and free cocktail if you book directly on their site.

Murals

Installing murals has become an increasingly popular way for hotels to spice up room design.

In Philadelphia, the artist King Saladeen grew up as a “super inner-city, super low-income kid,” and became the first artist-in-residence at the new Fitler Club, a “work/stay/play” destination. His gym mural is hard to miss; he used house paint, acrylics and spray paint to create “a burst of energy to stay motivated,” he said.

Rates at the Fitler Club start at $450 for a King-size room; there is a monthly membership to use the club and workspaces from $225.

Philanthropic Efforts

As funding for the arts is always a struggle, some properties have taken to raising contributions in more creative ways.

Saint Kate, the Arts Hotel that opened in Milwaukee, Wis., in July, invited local artists to each design and decorate its “Canvas” rooms. Each Canvas room stay has a percentage of proceeds donated to organizations including The Milwaukee Repertory Theater, Artists Working in Education and even a local radio station.

Rates range from $209-$459 depending on weekday or weekend check-in; choose the room type with study access for breakfast.

Large-Scale Installations

Suzi Cordish, who runs more than 70 properties under the Live! Casino & Hotel brand, proudly displays her personal art collection in her hotels. Of late, she’s put her energies into more large-scale installations and supporting emerging and midcareer artists.

She commissioned the Brooklyn-based Chris Doyle to create an animated moving image called “Games of Skill and Chance” on a 9-foot-tall, 40 feet-wide screen at the Maryland Live! property.

Mr. Doyle said that rather than focusing his energies on trying to raise capital, he had peace of mind and free rein working with the hotel. In this instance “the cost of making the video wall was far more expensive than the artist fee,” he said.

The Mexican artist Bosco Sodi created a 16-foot-tall, eight-feet-wide “Blue Pangaea” painting that hangs in the library of Hotel Matilda in San Miguel del Allende.

“If the hotel is a good hotel and you (as an artist) are in a position of putting your conditions with this kind of installation, that helps because a lot of people will see the work,” Mr. Sodi said. Make it easy for your customers to book, make requests, and enjoy their vacation with a user-friendly online concierge app.

In an increasingly saturated hospitality world, flagships offer innovative designs, services and amenities.

The W New York in 1998 was the epitome of cool. It was the first property of the W Hotel brand, then part of Starwood, now Marriott, and boasted rooms with silver couches and mirrored ceilings. The lobby was designed to act as a lounge. The pool was called a wet deck. The presidential suite was titled an “E WOW” suite — Extreme Wow. The W was the most playful hotel around.

Twenty years later the brand has built shinier, more attention-grabbing flagships. One, W Dubai – The Palm, opened in February. Guests are greeted by Orsoni glass tiles that reflect the sun, and then sleep in guest rooms with walls designed to mirror the sea and Arabic lyrics written graffiti style. They eat at the celebrity chef Massimo Bottura’s first restaurant outside of Italy.

In the world of retail, flagship properties have always been big in every sense of the world. At Nike’s in New York, visitors can design their own sneakers. At the Microsoft flagship in London, they can play the latest Xbox games in a gaming lounge.

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In an increasingly saturated hospitality world where hotels must compete for attention from clients and investors, Flagships give operators the opportunity to put on a show, offering innovative designs, services and amenities.

“The flagship Apple store in New York is bigger, more modern and offers more services than the local Apple store at your mall,” said Barak Hirschowitz, president of the International Luxury Hotel Association. “Similarly a flagship hotel will be in the best location, is usually larger, and offers more bars, restaurants and services than other properties within the brand.”

Like the W Hotels, many brands that have longstanding flagships are replacing them or creating newer siblings. The Ritz-Carlton is building a new flagship in New York City with less formal restaurants and local design elements. It will open in 2021 and most definitely steal some attention away from the old one.

By the end of 2020 Crowne Plaza will introduce six flagship hotels, the brand’s first. To date, the company has 426 properties and 119,494 hotel rooms across the world.

In Hamburg guests will check into rooms with separate places to work, play and sleep. In Paris they will be able to browse local art on the walls of their lobby.

“These properties will elevate our entire estate,” said Eric Lent, a senior vice president at IHG, which owns the chain. “They give our guests a first-look at where the brand is going.”

“They represent places where we can innovate, test, and learn,” said Mr. Lent. A few of these flagships will test out circadian lighting in guest rooms to see if it results in sounder sleep.

Other brands want their flagships to be places that attract attention from key clients and investors in busy markets.

Simon Naudi, the chief executive of Corinthia Hotels, decided to make its London property his flagship because of its prime location (The group has four openings in the pipeline in Dubai, Bucharest, Moscow and Brussels, so it has a lot of choices.)

“We are proud of what we have achieved in London, and we want as many people as possible to experience it,” he said. The Corinthia London has the largest spa in London, along with a new restaurant by Tom Kerridge, a chef made famous when his pub, The Hand and Flowers, received two Michelin stars.

At some of these properties guests might not even know they are staying at a flagship. They might just think they are in a darn good hotel.

Of course, there are the brands that hold tight to tradition and still believe their flagship should be their original property, the place where standards were set.

Foiz Ahmed, president of Quadrum Hospitality Group, which owns Arlo Hotels, wants his new properties in Miami, Washington, D.C., and Wynwood, Fla., to take after his first property in New York’s Soho neighborhood. It has trendy dining areas that change seasonally (think ski chalets in the winter and gardens in the summer).

“We’re always trying to emulate what we have at our flagship, because it’s proven successful,” he said.

The Hoxton, a hipster brand based in London, has new hotels in Chicago, Portland, Ore., and soon Los Angeles. Still, it tapped the Williamsburg, Brooklyn, location, the first on the North American continent, as its beacon. The brand gambled on introducing a retail store and a sprawling rooftop bar there. These ideas worked, so the location gets rewarded with the flagship status.

Then there are the hotel groups that believe even the idea of a flagship goes against the current zeitgeist.

Autograph Collection Hotels refuses to name a flagship property because it wants each of its hotels to stand out, the company said.

“We believe today’s travelers are collecting hotels like a foodie would collect a restaurant,” said Sarah Lipton, a senior director of global brand marketing for Autograph. “It’s hard to pick out one because it’s about getting unique experiences at every single one.”

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Shoulder season — just before and after peak summer travel time — is when you’ll find warm temperatures, smaller crowds and deals.

Summer vacation may be coming to an end, but savvy travelers know that the best time of year to book and take a trip is starting. Shoulder season — the months just before and after peak summer travel time — is when you’ll find warm temperatures, smaller crowds and deals on flights, home rentals and more. Here’s a primer on how to take advantage:

What is shoulder season?

Many travelers may have heard of the term shoulder season, but don’t know exactly what it means.

“Shoulder season is a travel industry insider term that refers to the two times of year that ‘shoulder’ the summer months, especially May, September and October,” Kelly Soderlund, communications manager of the travel booking site Hipmunk, said. “The weather is still warm, and prices really start to decline.”

Travelers can expect lower prices as well as fewer crowds. And while they risk an increased chance of inclement weather, temperature drops are often minimal.

“At many U.S. beach destinations, the average temperature drops about 1 percent between August and September, while price drops are much more dramatic,” Melanie Fish, public relations director of VRBO, said.

Ms. Soderlund recommends approaching the Caribbean with caution, or at least keeping a careful eye on hurricane season.

How much can I save?

“The biggest price drops are in the most popular destinations,” Ms. Soderlund said. “And we see the biggest drop-off of visitors right after Labor Day.”

Data from Hipmunk, shows an average 18 percent decrease, compared to the summer months, in fares this fall for international flights departing from the United States.

According to Hipmunk, airfares for international flights departing from the United States are, on average, 18 percent less than they were this summer. Travelers looking to head to Nairobi, Venice or Shanghai could save 37 percent on flights, and a similar price drop — 34 percent — was seen for flights to Milan and Hong Kong. Domestic flights drop an average of 9 percent.

Hotel prices plunge as well, according to Hipmunk, with rates dropping around 50 percent in destinations ranging from Santorini, Greece, to Myrtle Beach, S.C.

VRBO data shows comparably significant price drops for home rentals. Last year, average nightly rates in Ocean City, N.J., dropped 29 percent between August and September, and 25 percent in Cape Cod. Travelers to Europe saw lower rental prices in Edinburgh (33 percent decrease), Nice, France, (24 percent) and Barcelona (21 percent).

Ali Killam, a consumer trends spokeswoman at Airbnb, recommends researching specific destinations to get the best deals.

“Prices tend to rise during local school breaks and holidays,” she said. “Since different destinations around the world observe different school breaks, take some time to learn more about the area’s academic and cultural calendar before booking.”

When should you book shoulder season travel?

Ms. Soderlund recommended booking international travel at least six weeks out on the busiest routes. Domestic flights tend to be cheapest about three months out.

The best way to capture these deals: Keep an eye out for fare sales and set price alerts for multiple airports. It’s worth researching new routes that may have opened up, like a new direct flight from San Jose, Calif., to London.

Whether booking flights, hotels or houses, Ms. Killam recommends making sure your trip falls firmly outside of high season.

“If you depart during high season but return in shoulder season, you likely won’t get the best price,” she said.

Where should you go?

Ms. Fish suggested travelers consider popular beach and mountain destinations throughout the United States, or places that are “typically associated with summer vacation.” And those always-popular international destinations, like London and Paris, have lower fares as well (though the price drops are not so stark).

[Here are eight destinations where you can stretch your summer beyond Labor Day.]

Of course, keep in mind that shoulder season months have their own spikes — typically around events or holidays.

In case of popular events, think about hitting a lesser-known destination, Ms. Killam recommended.

“One of our trending destinations for fall is Halle, Germany — a great alternative to Munich during Oktoberfest,” she said. “And Regina, Canada, which has some of the best and brightest fall foliage, is a great alternative to pricier New England foliage hot spots.”

Maintaining a degree of flexibility can be a boon in taking advantage of shoulder season travel, and, said Ms. Fish, is now easier than ever.

“Technology allows us to do jobs and stay connected even if ‘official’ lazy days of summer are over. Combine that with less-crowded destinations, even if it’s just for a weekend — it’s a delicious recipe for travel.”

Concierge apps can also help you get last-minute deals, keep track of your rewards programs and increasing direct bookings. Please feel free to share your experiences, tips and ideas.

Amateurs cut rates to fill hotel rooms. Pros take more sophisticated approaches, such as coordinating to stimulate demand from the most profitable customers.

Some hotel operators — MGM Resorts, RLH, Omni, Radisson, and Melia — have been fine-tuning their efforts at setting rates for rooms, upgrades, and other services. They’ve been leveraging a growing prowess at automation and cross-department teamwork to set prices for maximum profit.

A case in point: MGM Resorts International has aimed to add tens of millions to its bottom line this year from enhanced revenue management.

MGM Resorts intends to focus more on reserving space for its most profitable customers —namely, gamblers, convention-goers, and leisure travelers who book directly. It can do that by targeting promotions to people who are more willing to spend on food, drink, and upgrades.

The Human Problem

Other hotel groups are also retooling their revenue management approaches in ways that focus less on technology and more on how teams operate.

Reflecting an industrywide move, RLH, owner of the Red Lion brand, is breaking down the silos between revenue managers and sales and marketing leaders.

This year, RLH is reorganizing its structure. It wants its revenue managers and sales and marketing decision-makers to act more in tandem, such as by sharing data and analytical tools.

The historical problem is that teams can have conflicting goals, tools, and incentives, and they often don’t share data.

Revenue managers tend to focus on price-setting. Sales and marketing teams typically look at stimulating demand, such as by running email marketing campaigns or advertising on search engines like Google.

In a change, many hotel owners are insisting on greater cooperation among the teams. For example, rather than cut room rates, a hotel could use outbound sales and marketing efforts to grow demand in other ways.

Radisson has worked this year to improve its revenue management effort. The Sweden-based hotel group has in the past year adopted a new third-party software system and centralized the decision-making for using it at offices in London, Stockholm, and Frankfurt.

Radisson’s goal is to leverage expertise, ensure consistency, and take taking advantage of guest data it collects from many points to measure promotion effectiveness.

Until now, hoteliers have mainly set rates for rooms. But computers now enable it and other hospitality companies to fine-tune its revenue management down to room type and length of stay. This year InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) began using software from Amadeus to start offering so-called attribute-based selling, which recognizes that not all rooms are alike and, thus, deserve different prices.

Independents Looking for a Level Playing Field

Revenue management technology is, for the first time, scaling down to the level of a single property.

“What we are seeing is an unprecedented level of interest and action being taken by independent hotels around pricing and forecasting decisions,” said Vivek Bhogaraju, director, revenue management platform solutions at Expedia Group.

If you remove the traditional barriers of adoption, such as by not requiring trained revenue management analysts and instead empowering hotel managers to make data-driven decisions, independent hoteliers are up for a fight, Bhogaraju said.

Tech Vendors Eye an Opportunity

Companies that sell software to help with revenue management are salivating at the prospect of increased sales.

In theory, the market potential is large for software that automates some parts of rate-setting.

Only 4 percent of the world’s 600,000 hotels use revenue management software, Skift Research estimated.

If you include tools like Expedia’s Rev+ rate guidance service, only 16 percent of hotels worldwide use revenue management tech, said Skift Research. For more context, subscribers can read Skift Research’s The Hotel Revenue Management Landscape 2019 report.

Several mid-size hotel brands have been taking action.

For example, Omni Hotels and Resorts has adopted a new revenue management system, which it hopes will be able to understand the total value of meetings and events segment at its 60 hotels and resorts in North America.

Model Talk

Revenue management may seem it ought to be a table-stakes skill. But it has historically been a tough problem to crack.

Critics say much of the hotel industry in the U.S. is dominated by chains who tend to want to own their guest data. So they tend to build in-house, centralized revenue management environments. That stifles some innovation on the vendor side as the total addressable market remains small.

It can be hard for a hotel to move from one provider’s system to another. The switching cost is high because a lot of business process logic gets baked into systems. So vendors tend to go after operators and management companies that haven’t picked a new system yet.

That’s not to downplay industry competitiveness. A brief list suggests the dynamic: Duetto, for example, has in the past two years lost Red Lion, Denihan, and others. Rainmaker took Sands Macau from IDeaS.

Two other issues that have held back the industry have been poor data quality and poor data integration.

In the late 1990s, IDeaS began building software for hotels. It found that hotel systems often couldn’t share accurate transaction data with it. IDeaS created a workaround to extract insights about customers. But its forecasts suffered.

“The design mistake sent us down a wrong path and cost us a few years of development time,” said Ravi Mehrotra, president, founder, and chief scientist at IDeaS. IDeaS discovered it must insist on obtaining full transactional data. It also found it must clean up that data before using it.

The lessons helped put IDeaS into a market-leading position today.

“Everybody talks about machine learning, or operations research, or about general purpose models,” Mehrotra said. “But model quality matters the most. How well you model hotel supply and demand is an issue I don’t hear discussed.”

Many New Products

Today, IDeaS, Infor’s EzRMS, and Duetto are the sector’s frontrunners. Accel-KKR-owned Cendyn’s acquisition of Rainmaker this month may lead to a fourth powerhouse.

A few months ago, SHR (Sceptre Hospitality Resources) launched a revenue management system called Wave RMS. SHR hopes to cross-sell the system to its base of customers that use its Windsurfer central reservation system. SHR has also become integrated with DerbySoft, a distribution service that helps hotels distribute rates and inventory via 280 connections to online travel agencies, wholesalers, and tour operators worldwide.

Hoteliers will favor systems that let them reduce low-value tasks, such as pulling reports and manual keystroking, said Duetto CEO Patrick Bosworth. “They also want more actionable insight into their data.”

But it takes time for hoteliers to trust automated systems. In a test, Melia Hotels International has been setting rates on auto-pilot at six properties. It’s still evaluating the accuracy.

A Revenue Strategy Approach

Hotels are finding it’s not enough to get revenue managers and sales and marketing teams to talk and coordinate with each other more often. They need broader insights into the true cost of each method it uses to get a guest.

“Rate optimization alone will not be enough,” said Cindy Estis Green, CEO and co-founder of Kalibri Labs, another hotel vendor. “The legacy tools that have been in use for 20 or 30 years are not going to be adequate to meet the demands of today’s digitally dominated market.”

Green said her company focuses on the profit contribution of each method a hotel uses to draw guests. Earlier this year, Kalibri Labs launched a product called Hummingbird.

“We generate competitive sets for each rate category or each market segment, such as corporate, online travel agency, government, and group,” Green said.

“We look at the half-dozen or so hotels that have transactions that match most closely with your hotel,” Green said. “Then we generate ten market segments for weekends and ten market segments for weekdays.”

The company says hoteliers, owners, developers, brokers, appraisers, and major brands use its data and related tools, which go beyond Hummingbird. But it declined to give details.

“Rather than thinking about which hotels you compete with, we help you think about who has the business you want to go after and that could be gotten without inflating your bottom-line costs,” Green said.

The Hummingbird tool is unlike any traditional revenue management system. Whether the product will be a market success remains to be seen. But its approach represents a change in how hoteliers are thinking about broader issues.

“We point hotels to demand that is coming into the market and that looks like business that would be a match for your hotel,” Green said. “We show you which competitors are getting that business, how much it’s worth, what channel it’s coming through and when, and whether you need to dial up your sales effort or dial up your paid search or dial down your pricing to get it.”

In 2017, investors valued Kalibri Labs at $33 million during an investment round that included Shiji Group.

It’s difficult to judge how well Kalibri Labs’ tools work. Hotel chains like InterContinental Hotels Group that have worked with the company have been quiet about their views of its new Hummingbird product.

Stimulating Demand

Duetto has raised $143.2 million in funding since its founding in 2012, which has afforded a lot of research and development spending. But it hasn’t yet become like a Salesforce-type success in travel.

Hoteliers have remained reluctant to try some of the tech industry’s new automation. Many hotel groups have only begun to plow investment into years-long efforts to merge disparate data sets.

Some well-known industry names like MGM Resorts are taking intermediate steps. Some are trying to think more strategically about planning and resource allocation. They’re figuring out which mix of technologies will best determine how much they should spend on marketing and for which market segments and when.

Other hotel companies are honing their tactics, too. Tactical changes include more efforts to optimize a hotel’s direct sales activity. Hoteliers are focusing on the channels that provide the most cost-effective returns.

In the next year, many industry eyes will study the changes pioneering hotels have been making. Expect wide imitation if their efforts pay off. A concierge service app is a software product which serves as a personal assistant app in hospitality industries if you want to know more details please contact us.

Industry standards put the average hotel marketing budget at about 4 to 5% of the property’s total revenue. That’s a nice starting point and marketing certainly is a necessary expense (and one that can deliver pretty awesome ROI), but what if you could get some of your exposure for free?

Social moments are a low-to-no-cost way to connect, engage, and convert, but they won’t just happen. You have to know how to give this phenomenon the room — sometimes literally — it needs to flourish.

What is a Social Moment?

A social moment is basically a snippet of an experience that ends up on social media. That definition makes the entire concept sound almost accidental, like a byproduct of a really good time, but in reality these moments are highly curated, highly orchestrated, and potentially highly profitable.

Anytime someone takes a picture in front of your towering flagstone fireplace and posts it on Instagram with hashtags likes #hotelname, #AspenGetaway, and #SkiCation, or does a Facebook Live of your newly refurbished spa-like bathrooms, that’s a social moment.

These moments could come courtesy of experts, celebrities, popular opinion, friends, or the average Joe who just knows how to conjure up shareable content.

Power of Social Proof: Using Social Media for Hotels

Whenever someone books a room in your hotel and says they found you because of someone else’s social media post, that’s social proof at work. It’s the 21^st-century version of word of mouth except it comes with pictures and people can click through from an influencer’s post and find your site in mere seconds.

• Approximately 65% of the population can be categorized as visual learners
• Customer testimonials are rated 89% effective, the highest of any type of content marketing
• Visual content is exponentially more likely to garner social media shares
• Nearly 90% of consumers say they trust online reviews from strangers as much as they trust their friend’s recommendations

The desire to have a good time is contagious. People love aspirational marketing, and social proof is the epitome of putting dreams on full display.

Creating a Social-Friendly Environment

No one wants to take a picture or videotape a tour of something ugly. To give your hotel a chance to shine, you need to set the scene with mood lighting, interesting décor, eye-catching architectural elements, and the staff to help it all come together.

A social moment could be:

• Two friends making faces in your mirrored elevator
• A short video of guests decorating your annual lobby Christmas tree
• A celebrity couple taking pictures in your hot tub and sharing them with followers
• A sponsored tweet talking up the grub at your new on-site restaurant

Organic social posts cost you nothing. Sponsored posts and influencer partnerships could cost you a free stay or thousands of dollars, it all depends on the situation.

Social Moments in Action: The Brands Who Are Doing It Best

At Chef José Andrés’ Las Vegas restaurant Jaleo, delicious, creamy croquettes are served in a shoe, a choice that has led to countless social media posts featuring the quirky vessel.

The artsy vibe of Ace Hotel’s downtown Los Angeles location makes it one of the most Instagrammable hotels, and guests don’t hesitate to take advantage.

We Work, a co-working company with some 400 locations in 26 countries, is killing it on Instagram thanks to a feed featuring 90% user-generated content. People love being part of the company’s community and that translates into social proof incarnate.

Putting together an “Instagram hot spot” increases your chances of gaining online traction, but most social moments come about organically and you may be surprised at what guests decide to feature.

Focus on creating incredible experiences for everyone who walks through your front door and the social proof will follow. If you are in search of best concierge app then please contact us and know more details about it.

So, you have completed the mobile app development and planning to proceed to the next stage, which is launching it. But just wait for a minute! Have you done a proper and thorough research on your target audiences before releasing the app? If yes, then you are on the right track and if not, then first you have to identify who your potential customers are and then go ahead on the way.

Well, don’t take the research work casually because your ultimate aim is to get more users on your app. In fact, one of the studies reveal that about 14% of the startups failed to get any user attention because they ignored users and indulged in poor marketing strategies. All this happened because they did not know properly about their target audiences.

This is the age of sternest competition where you have no room for creating an error. Once the users churn your app, he would barely return back again. So, why should offer such an opportunity. You may have a great app idea and you think that could entire large number of customers, but let the audience decide whether that idea is really unique or not.

You can get familiar with the taste of the users only by conducting a research. So, first you have to take some time out and decide firmly on your potential users. In fact, it will also help to save much of your time and money and developing the app would rather be uncomplicated.

How Identifying your Audiences Can Prove Useful

Well, as said that if you define your target audiences in advance even before starting to develop the app, it could prove highly beneficial.

• It improves the chances of achieving success becomes higher.
• In addition, it will allow you to add the app features and functionality according to the needs, taste and preferences of your audiences.
• Apart from that, it will also help to develop the optimum monetization scheme and prepare the best app specification.
• It also allows you to launch an effective marketing campaign.

The Initial Steps of Conducting Research on Target Audiences

Today millions of people are using Smartphones and various gadgets, having an access to N numbers of apps on both Android and iOS platforms. The consumers are looking something exclusive and unique in apps.

For instance, if we take about the eCommerce apps, then according to one of the surveys, 85% people want to avail discounts on products similar to the ones last purchased. So, it would be more suitable if you divide your findings into two parts; general understand and secondary market research.

The General Understanding

In the general understanding you get to know the first nerve of your audience and you actually gather knowledge on the initial lines of market. For instance, if it a grocery app, then your target audience would include almost all people belonging to different age groups.

However, since grocery shopping is largely associated with homemakers, your specific focus would be on women living in a particular region or state. But you cannot say that only women are your potential customers as men, students and others also use the app to buy items.

Secondary Market Research

Well, in the secondary market research, you have to go with a broader prospective and approach as it is a deep exploration. You must not forget to keep your eyes intact on the competitors and give special attention on people who would use the app more than others.

Taking the grocery app example, you should concentrate on how often people order products from grocery app and what are the common items they buy, what is the popular mode of payment etc. You also have to consider the app reviews and ratings as well.

Converting your Marketing Strategies More Effective

Hiring the Services of Marketing Agency

If you go to the Google, you would come across a number of local and offshore marketing agencies who are willing to offer their services to the client. You just to contact the professionals, explain what kind of app you have and pay their chargers.

The big corporate houses can afford the price but for startups and small business, it could prove costly.

So, Why Not Adopt the Cost-Effective Method

Well, the best option is choosing the market research strategies that won’t pinch your pocket at all. To tell you more, there are a number of ethical and reliable websites and online statistics available, which could prove to be more than handy.

When you search on the Google, you would get across many such as the Statista. It contains most valuable information, stats and other figures related to mobile apps, markets and revenues etc.

You can draw a lot of info from there. Similarly, you have App Annie, which also provides important numbers on marketing insights. A lot of other websites offer figures and stats on different app categories.

The Google Adwords or Google Trends will help you in getting familiar with who are currently online and what they are searching at present. For instance, if you find they are specifically searching for a particular product, you can add that into your category list. Then, there is Reddit that assists in figuring out what the target audience actually wants.

Understanding the Demography, Behavior and Audience Lifestyle

Well, you want to set best output from your efforts through research then you have to understand the demographics, lifestyle and behaviors of your audience.

It is important to identify their gender, age, location and culture. This becomes more imperative if you have a travel or a restaurant app.

Conducting Surveys

In surveys, you directly go to your audience and ask about their preferences. Well, there are different ways in which you can conduct a survey.

• The first is combining landing page with Facebook advertising. In this method you develop different pages for different types of target audiences and connect them to a landing page, which contains the details of your products and services. It has a purchase sign-up button with some images. You want to see which audience group clicks more on button.
• The second is the combination of interactive prototype and survey where an interactive app prototype is created to draw the traffic and contains a survey about the likes and dislikes of users.
• In the third method, you have to combine mobile MVP with the actual feedback of the user. You can opt for this procedure if you have gathered lots of info about your potential customers. Here you can develop an app MVP with a few features and collect the feedback from a few groups or communities. You can also submit your app to different review groups.

Some other Marketing Strategies to Follow

Additionally, you can also follow some other effective marketing strategies to research your target audience for app. These include:

• Building the app monetization policies and advertising.
• You have to get connected to the focus groups and hear more clearly what your audience wants.
• You can take the help of bloggers and social media platforms where you can promote your app idea just to know if the audiences also feel the same way as you do.

Conducting Research on Competitor’s App

Well, you also have to research on your competitor’s app besides figuring out the taste and preferences of your potential customers. The first step is of course finding and analyzing who are your actual and strong competitors.

For instance, in case of cab booking app, you have to compete with Ola and Uber, apart from other cab service providers. So, the next thing is deeply studying and understanding the features and functionalities of Uber or Ola. Then you have to analyze which important features and designs are missing out in your app.

It is essential to go through the app ratings and reviews of the users in deep. Read the comments carefully. What’s the view of users regarding the app’s speed and performance? Does it resort to crashes?

All these vital information will help you in doing a SWOT analysis, which means identifying the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats for your app. You can develop an app, which is more specifically driven towards the target audience.

Conclusion

The research and exploring the market before planning to develop an app is a viable strategy to follow if you want to survive the bitter getting competition. It is through an extensive research results, that you can lay the foundation of a robust concierge app that will gain popularity in the app store.

It is very difficult to predict what actually the audience wants as their preferences keep on changing at frequent intervals. But at least, if you have done the homework beforehand, you can present a better product to the potential customers.