After the post-Fitur hangover, we recovered our weekly content deliveries with a post summarizing trends in hotel services that we detected in this meeting of professionals from the tourism sector, which this year beat again record. No less than 254,000 visitors and 9,700 exhibiting companies, which is said soon … These figures support the good health of the sector and make effective its recovery.

From our stand, included in the pavilion that brought together technology providers for tourism and hotel companies, we received a number of requests for information about our services, with our PMS and our hotel app being customizable the products that have aroused the most interest.

It is fair to recognize that, edition after edition, the companies that are dedicated to the development and marketing of software for hotels, we find a growing competition. We are aware that the market will continue to grow, and that differentiation will be key. Our positioning is very clear and, if our proposals differ, it is because they are made from the knowledge and experience in the sector to which we are going. As our CEO, Raimundo Vidales, says: “we are hoteliers who make hotel technology, so we know what we are talking about”.

Positioning separately, analyze the type of companies that FITUR meets under the umbrella of Fiturtech helps us to corroborate if we are on the right track. And yes, at the moment we can say that our catalog of services for hoteliers complies with the trends on the mode of travel detected, among which are:

1. More online reservations

That the Internet is the channel of inspiration to travel, to search for information, contrast opinions and find the most competitive offer is something already indisputable. The challenge of the hotels will continue to be to achieve a better positioning and a better online reputation. Achieving this goal will be an increasingly costly task but, fortunately, new solutions , such as those proposed by HotelManager, accessible to hotels of all types to simplify hotel marketing, will not fail to appear on the market.

2. Mobile tourist

Mobile bookings continue to grow at a pace that many hotels have not been able to respond to. With the danger of facing a bubble of new development companies that offer applications for any type of activity, the increasingly wide range of hotel apps sees business opportunities in a polarized hotel sector. On the one hand, the large chains that see the need clearly and have embarked on on-demand developments as part of their positioning strategies and customer loyalty ; on the other, the independent hotels and other types of accommodation, which are starting to worry about staying out of the mobile reservations revolution but do not know where to start.

Other technological solutions that complement the traveler’s use of the mobile phone, such as geolocation, virtual reality or mobile payment systems, underscore the trend of mobile services aimed at the tourist sector. The companies that commercialize these products have also multiplied in the latest editions of Fitur.

3. Online loyalty

Just as tourists’ habits change over time and vary from generation to generation, companies in the sector strive to understand what will be their main clientele in the future: millennials. Loyalty programs as we know them until now will be of little use. New formulas and new tools will burst with force in the market. Once the barrier of knowing the new traveler is overcome, we will have to make the effort to communicate in their own language and offer what they really want at the right time and immediately. For all this we need tools that allow online interaction.

4. Integration of channels and functionalities

Any of the solutions mentioned in the previous points make the integration of channels essential, whether they are applied to the commercialization or the management of the business. We speak for example of management systems compatible with other solutions, which allow to centralize the functionalities of the booking engine , the mobile app , the loyalty program and the hotel manager .

5. Outsourcing of hotel services

The practice of outsourcing will be increasingly common. Not only does it control spending by moving fixed costs into variable ones and reducing labor structures in non-strategic aspects, but it also allows hotels to have specialized professionals, gain in performance and efficiency. From there to find consultants and companies with proven experience in our sector.

As a continuation of last Thursday’s post in which we made an x-ray of the different customer segments and the most used technological solutions for each of them, this week we wanted to analyze the new consumption habits of the guest in business trip, what their needs are and what trends in corporate travel are glimpsed in the short term.

Hotel trends focused on the business client

Professional travel forms a very attractive market for urban hotels. It is a repetitive segment that contributes to mitigate the seasonality of the hotel business, so it is worth analyzing their customs and needs to be able to offer a satisfactory service.

The MICE sector has suffered several years of frozen growth due to the company cuts that brought the crisis. But it seems that the economic optimism of the last year has also affected the travel managers of large and medium-sized companies and that there are already signs of recovery. While it is true that, predictably, it will not be the segment that can afford a higher price increase, the income from additional services ( ancillaries ) opens up a good opportunity to improve the hotel’s revenue . Review and renew the offer addressed to this target is essential to achieve this goal.

This is what large hotel chains are already doing, through their loyalty programs. The personalization of the services offered to the client is a very valuable resource and the mobile technology offers very effective and profitable functionalities.

A trend worthy of being analyzed and considered by hoteliers is the bleisure , which basically consists of combining leisure and business in the same getaway, which can translate into extended days of stay at the weekend, greater profitability per room and in the demand for more varied services.

Technology

To date, travel agencies and intermediaries have made life easier for companies, but as hotel groups have been automating their processes and incorporating technological solutions that allow greater flexibility and customization of the offer and treatment offered to the business customer, the intermediaries have been seeing how their added value is reduced. Mobile and instant messaging and bot chats are accustoming the traveler to an almost immediate response to their inquiries and budget requests. These are features that, well integrated into hotel websites or through hotel apps , help to earn direct bookings.

The next step to the reservation is the guest’s registration. The hotels that, for example, are already working with the hotel app developed by HotelManager, state that the business customer is very grateful for the possibility of being able to identify the traveler and check in early, from a mobile phone and in less than two minutes.

Other technological solutions that contribute to improve the experience of the guest in business trips have to do with the means of mobile and contactless payments , as well as with the integration of payment platforms that automate and centralize the reservation, payment, consultation and settlement processes of expenses (hotel and non-hotel) and generation of invoices.

Extension of services

Regarding the services that will be demanded by business clients, there are classics such as the laundry service or the transport to the airport that continue to be demanded. Business stays extended to leisure – the bleisure of which we spoke before – expand the possibilities of spa and wellness services, as the traveler uses the end of the workday to recharge batteries before returning to routine. By having more free time during the trip, you will also want to go to a good restaurant, attend a show, see a museum, or go shopping, and this is where the role of the virtual concierge or the personalized recommendation function of visits comes in. leisure and culture of the accommodation app.

Facilities and equipment

As for the equipment expected by the new business traveler in a hotel, the most important thing is to be able to offer a good Wi-Fi connection at no additional cost, both in rooms and common spaces. These should be welcoming and versatile, in line with the latest trends in work spaces, clear and ready to have a coffee, work with the laptop and be able to connect without problems the different electronic devices or hold a meeting with a client if it occurs the case.

Hotelmanager launches its new Online Reputation software for Hotels.

More than a dozen hotels start working with the new online reputation software.

If you want to know what your clients think about your hotel and also want to talk with them to improve your product and convert clients into specifiers …

Do not wait any longer, we are at your disposal

Hotelmanager and the Online Reputation

If we ask all the clients of our hotel upon arrival, how did you get to know our hotel? We will discover that 90% of the clients in their booking process and hotel information, visited the comments that other customers left our hotel on different websites.

The Online Reputation of our hotel on the Internet is the mouth that worked and continues to work on a daily basis and which we have always said is the slowest and safest advertising, but now with the Internet the change occurs in the immediacy that they have all the users in knowing what other customers think of us.

Therefore, we must have a Strategy, which should start by monetizing all the comments that exist in our hotel on the Internet and especially in all online portals in which we market our product. Portals such as Tripadvisor, Trivago, Booking.com, Expedia, Venere, HRS, Google +, etc … are the sites where our clients and potential clients seek information about our hotel.

The new Hotelmanager Software monetizes all the comments of your clients in all these portals and many more and presents them in its tool so you can detect the opportunities and threats that your hotel presents and that customers spread, and you can also monetize the opinions that your competitor hotels receive, and in this way develop a Strategy appropriate to your product and your destination.

With the right strategy you can focus your product to your client, discover new market niches, improve the opinions that your customers have of your hotel to improve the positioning in front of your competition and get improve your occupation percentage and average price. Hotelmanager offers you tool and consultancy to develop the right strategy so that in this way you can achieve clear objectives in just a few months, and all for less than the price of a hotel room.

The hotel world is changing. Every day you can see how new technologies and social networks are changing the rules not only of their communication, but also of their own structure. Precisely this is the underlying idea that underlies the concept of the smarthotel, spaces in which new technologies have been integrated not only to facilitate its operation but also to achieve a better result by customers.

What is Smarthotel

The main slogan or idea of ​​this type of space is to automate all possible functions, so that any hotel procedure can be resolved quickly, causing customers to lose less time and services or hotel procedures are not a burden for this .

An app for a hotel seems, in general terms, the most immediate medium. This device is simply used to carry out a large part of the activities or requirements of the hotel. An example is checking on arrival or leaving the building, as well as other orders or activities. This, obviously, could occur through an application.

What do you get with this? Well, mainly, a much more personalized service and greater satisfaction on the part of hotel users. This type of improvements what they allow is the anticipation, not so much the forecast. The difficulty is no longer preparing for what the client may ask for. Now you have to know how to anticipate your wishes and your requests. Offer the customer’s favorite drink before he asks for it. This requires a knowledge of their tastes and their data.

That is, Big Data is something that has to be present, since anticipation is based, precisely, on the adequate knowledge of different data of interest about users and their behaviors.

Mechanisms for the hotel sector

There are different mechanisms or means to achieve this progress, or also that they are already being used. An example is the smart rooms, the domotica of the hotel. Here again, an automation system is perceived, based on which different points or elements of the room are connected to a network and at the same time to the client. Control what is in the bar furniture or the time you expect to wake up. These are just some examples of what a smart room is and how it integrates with the tenant you have. The way to get it is with sensors and connectivity. In turn, the IoT platform would be used to send all the information collected to the general system.

This also responds to a change in the type of people who go to a hotel. The tourist has changed, and it is a reality that we can begin to assume. Expect more connectivity and also a more personal and unique treatment. Therefore, technology and hotel must go hand in hand, so that visitors are comfortable and discover an option to interact in a real way with the space in which they are.

The line that has to be behind this type of measure is that of improvement. It seeks to automate the processes so that they work in a faster and more efficient way, apart from controlling the information in a more precise and accurate way. And, on the other hand, the benefits revert directly to the user, who feels his stay at the hotel as less rigid and much more open to possibilities, changes and comforts.

The evolution of new hotel management systems oncloud, will determine the integration of all systems to achieve the efficiency of the hotel staff in the relationship with the customer … Bigdata, machine learning and PMS should go hand in hand in the next decade.

 Are you preparing your hotel, for the demands of the market in the coming years?

The last quarter of the year is a good time to review your annual hotel marketing strategy, draw conclusions and start drawing a new plan for next year. A little more than a month for Christmas, which coincides with the winter high season of many hotels, it is time to look back, assess errors and successes and propose new objectives, if possible more ambitious than the previous ones, as the The latest data regarding overnight stays published by the INE point towards a progressive recovery that we hope will continue in the coming months.

A chapter that you should resume as soon as possible within your annual marketing plan is the emaling . With the boom of social networks, many experts dared to say that the email was dead. From our experience we can not defend this theory. On the contrary, we think that any hotel should have a well planned and executed email marketing strategy, because email is still a very powerful tool for customer loyalty and a unique opportunity to encourage cross sales.

That’s why we wanted to dedicate one of our weekly posts on marketing and hotel management to emailing, gathering 10 basic tips that would be good to consider when planning your shipments for the next high season:

1. To whom do I send my emails?

We have already talked about this topic in our blog some time ago: that no guest returns to your home without leaving your email. Remember the simple tips we gave you then to collect email addresses from your guests.

2. Respect the rules of the game.

It does not matter what information you plan to send them. Any mass shipment needs the explicit authorization of the recipient. Therefore, when requesting information from the guest, it is better to pre-advise and ask directly what kind of information you prefer to receive.

3. The power of segmentation.

With the answers to the question “what information do you want to receive?” It will be very easy to segment your shipments. For example, there will be guests who care about receiving offers or promotions. Others will prefer to receive corporate news related to your brand. Others will be willing to receive your monthly Newsletters , whatever their content.

4. Do not be weary.

When asking for the customer’s feedback , do not forget to ask about the periodicity in which you would like to receive your information. This data is also very valuable, since from the conclusion you can decide how often to schedule the shipments you have in mind. Two more recommendations in this regard:

– choose a periodicity that you can fulfill. It will not make a good impression if you promise a biweekly newsletter that becomes monthly in a short time because you have not been able to devote more time to generate and prepare the content of the shipment. It is preferable that you increase the shipments as you see results and you can dedicate more resources.

– Do not tire the guest with irrelevant shipments. Remember that the quality is above the quantity in all cases.

5. Content is king.

You will have heard this phrase on more than one occasion … The idea is that you send quality information of interest to the recipients. Do not send only offers. A mix of promotional / corporate / content of interest to the guest can work well. That you do not know the preferences of your clients yet? Well take the email route to ask them to fill out a short questionnaire. That easy.

6. The good, if brief, twice good.

Do not waste your time mounting an endless email. Think about the reading time you usually spend with each email you receive. In the content, go to the point.

7. There’s nothing wrong with being pretty.

Well, no. Especially if you are a Newsletter that has to compete with many others that want to stand out in the recipient’s inbox. It is not that complicated to design an attractive email. There are many free templates that you can take advantage of.

8. Tell me what I have to do.

Sometimes, you are so involved in the text of the shipment that you forget to include a call to action. Before sending, ask yourself: what is the objective of this campaign? In the answer is your call to action .

9. The subject of the matter.

One of the most important parts of your email is the subject line. Think of an attractive, forceful and original phrase that does not fall into the typical expressions of spammers (such as “cheap”, “last minute”, etc.), that is not too long and that summarizes well the content of the email. As you are going to segment the shipment, you can try different subject lines and see which one gives the best result.

10. Test-error and start again.

Check the data related to openings and clicks that you can access if you send a specific emailing program, draw conclusions and continue testing new strategies for your next shipments. You never stop learning with emailing!

The automation of the process of registration and reception of the guests is an advantage for both the hotel and the client. This is stated by the establishments that bet in their day for the different technologies that allow online check-in.

The times in which the tourist was reluctant to provide their data by filling out an online form during the reservation process have passed. Now the sector faces rather the challenge of responding to the immediacy that the mobile tourist demands and still offer an effective, friendly and personalized check-in experience as possible.

The car ckeck in revolutionized the air sector first and was subsequently applied, progressively, to the hotel industry, albeit in a lighter version, as there was concern that automation was not compatible with the reception liturgy of the traveler.

In effect, the experience of the client upon arrival at a hotel is one of the critical moments of the hotel service. And yes, also in this sector you can affirm that “the first impression is what counts”.

To optimize this process, hotel chains and independent hotels have been incorporating different solutions. Let’s quickly review some of them:

• Online booking systems that require scanning the identity document as part of the initial process. The user must scan their ID document by their own means in addition to making the online payment.
• Installation of auto check-in machines, so that the reception space is completely canceled, to the point that the traveler does not interact with any person upon arrival at the hotel. Low cost chains of hotels at the foot of the highway and in the outskirts of cities, such as Formule 1, were pioneers in the installation of these solutions with the purpose of reducing management costs.
• Tactile screens or tablets located in the hotel lobby from which the traveler validates the registration previously processed online.
• Halfway between the figure of a receptionist and a self-check-in machine, there are already hotels that are experimenting with robotics. If Aloft was the first brand to incorporate an android butler to service their room service, there are already Japanese hotels that plan to integrate shortly robots in their reception staff that would take care of tasks that do not provide added value, such as guest identification process.
• Hotel apps that the customer downloads on their smartphone and that allow them to make the reservation of the room and access other additional services that the establishment offers its customers.

Perhaps it is this last option that poses a more authentic, personalized and comfortable check in express experience for the traveler.

In this case, the speed of the check in is guaranteed if the app also incorporates features that allow the identification prior to the arrival of the guest as presented in the video that we have generated for hotels that already use the customizable app developed and marketed by Hotelmanager under the project #nohotelsinapp .

In less than 1 minute, the uncomfortable process of the identification of the client is solved. The hotel can already comply with the requirements of the law and the guest avoids waiting in front of the reception desk.

What do you think of this alternative to offer a really express check in?

What does a guest do since he starts looking for a trip until he makes a reservation on your website? The funnel of hotel room reservations has its particularities and is even more complex than the traditional purchase funnel of an e-commerce. On the one hand, we are facing a highly competitive sector, with a huge offer for almost any destination. On the other hand, the hiring of a tourist service requires a more complex purchasing process, since it is only one part of the preparations for a trip. This fact lengthens the reservation process, especially in those cases in which several people travel and, therefore, intervene in the final decision.

According to an Expedia study, Spaniards visit 4.11 web pages before confirming their trips, with the particularity of being the Europeans that fewer flight and hotel packages hire for fear that the included accommodation is of a quality inferior to that which could be Find it by hiring it independently. To this we must add that, in general, we are few foresighted and we like to take advantage of last minute offers.

The difficult challenge of getting the client to reach our website

Highlighting the hotel offer on the Internet is not an easy task. The SEO and SEM strategy, together with other factors, will influence the search engine positioning that the hotel obtains after the search of a possible client. After that, the barrier of the research and comparative offer phase must be avoided. And if this is not already complex, the route that the user makes to make a reservation encounters other difficulties when the client is already in the home of the hotel, with a much clearer idea of ​​what he wants and almost convinced of the purchase.

Save the obstacles for direct booking

Analyze and be aware of the potential customer’s booking funnel on our website is crucial to achieve the conversion. Any process that can not be resolved in three or four steps is a lost sale opportunity. Hence the importance of making a good diagnosis of the design and usability of the web , both for or for mobile devices.

This, which seems very basic, is a common mistake in independent hotels that once commissioned your website, but after that they have not optimized it. As a result, the potential client finds reserve engines that do not work, prices that are not visible or not updated, surprises of charges “deceptive” or not included in the initial claim offer, which appear in a second and third step of the reservation, discouraging anyone to leave the process, unconfirmed payments … We already told, in the first person, the journalist Miguel Vega some time ago in the post ” The reservation engine of your hotel despair .”

Facilitate the reservation thanks to the analysis of the data (guest data)

To make a good diagnosis of the reservation funnel , you will need to analyze many data related to the traffic of your hotel’s website that can normally be obtained from the administration panel of the same, from your Google Analytics account or another web analysis tool that have contracted:

• Channel of origin of visits to the web (social networks, OTAs, metasearch engines, loyalty programs, other external channels, etc.)
• User activity on the page. Clicks and actions performed.
• Errors arising in the process.
• Moment of abandonment of the reservation.

Corrective measures to achieve the conversion

A good interpretation of all this information will allow you to launch corrective actions and try new conversion strategies. Of course, as long as the user has left some information on the web (email or phone) and has not completed the booking process, we must contact him and find out what happened.

Another relevant recommendation is to offer the user information and support channels in real time , so that he can resolve any incident immediately.

 

Robotization of hotel staff, home automation, Big Data, process automation and digitalization …. The experts’ predictions about the hotels of the future also include news about the way hotel reservations will be made, a subject on which we have focused this post so that hoteliers and professionals in the sector take note and assess the incorporation of the necessary technology.

Self-management of the reserve

The role of traditional travel agencies in terms of what hotel reservations are concerned will have to be rethought if they want to continue developing this activity. The client no longer uses physical intermediaries to reserve their accommodation, since the entire process can be done at the click of a button.

This implies that hotels will have to modernize the booking engine of their websites, optimize online shopping funnel , expand their network of online distribution channels, manage them efficiently, automate processes or include chatbots, among other measures, to respond to the requirement of immediacy of response, which is essential to avoid losing customers on the Internet.

Hyperpersonalization of the offer

The self-management of the trip by the guest poses another challenge: the personalization of the service. The correct exploitation of the data that the client is contributing from the moment he makes the first searches will facilitate the elaboration of personalized proposals not only in terms of room to reservations, but also in terms of the complementary offer as they are already doing from Smartvel .

Multi-channel strategy

A good hotel distribution plan should include multichannel strategies focused on direct sales, which also include actions on social networks , SEO, SEM, emailing campaigns, etc. that cover the entire booking cycle, before and during the time of contracting.

Everything from the mobile

As we have mentioned in previous posts, hotel reservations made from mobile devices continue with a rate of unstoppable progressive growth and it is foreseeable that this trend will not change in the future.

The optimization of the hotel’s direct booking system will therefore be essential as a first step. Also the bet by mobile applications and technological solutions of support that allow the identification of the guest via mobile, the express check-in , the opening of doors, the capture and management of customer satisfaction information and other loyalty actions, such as They can be personalized attention or sending offers and rewards through instant messaging.

Technological innovation applied to the hotel reservation

Even in the experimental period, there are already known cases of success in the use of new technologies such as virtual reality as a claim for the client. The images and videos 360 · will give way to new formulas that allow the traveler to know in advance the experience that awaits him in destination. We are talking about seeing, moving, hearing and even smelling what happens in the hotel facilities and surroundings before making the reservation. Total previous immersion.

In short, it is about taking advantage of the technology and the huge amount of data provided by the traveler who book online to offer a competitive and profitable service for the hotel and unforgettable for the guest.

 

A little more than a month and a half at the end of the year and after the intense day yesterday in Bilbao in which Fernando Gallardo has encouraged us to think big about the future of the professions of which we are dedicated to the tourism sector, we launched this post in which we intend to gather the hotel trends of the nearest future. We do not have a crystal ball, but it is obvious that the consolidation of the technological transformation that the sector has experienced in recent years will further underline the difference between those hotels that are already taking the necessary steps to respond to the needs of today’s tourists – mobile, global, social, collaborative- and those that were blocked wondering if it was important or not to have presence in social networks.

1. The tourist is and will remain mobile

Online shopping continues to grow globally and reservations of airline tickets, restaurants, shows, tickets to museums and hotel rooms are segments where contracting from tablets and mobile devices work wonderfully. This reality will make many hotels with non-responsive websites and without a marketing and mobile marketing strategy stop being competitive. Putting obstacles to hiring from a device of majority use throughout the world does not make sense.

Through the hotel apps, functionalities that make life easier for the guest will be developed, such as express check-in or opening doors using a mobile phone. It seems that wearables do not just take off and the mobile is established as the all-in-one device and inseparable companion of the tourist in his travels of pleasure or business.

2. New payment methods

That all-in-one device will allow us to pay the bill at the end of the stay without having to wait in lines at the reception to pass the bank card. The payment will be made through solutions such as Apple Pay, Google Wallet and many others that will go out.

3. More additional services and greater personalization of the offer

The understanding and exploitation of the huge amount of data that the client leaves on the Internet will allow us to know our guests better than ever. In this way, we can offer you what you really need at the most appropriate time.

Hoteliers will have to have professionals who know how to obtain that data, separate the grain from the chaff and assemble an ultrapersonalized offer that combines accommodation, services and complementary activities, capable of exceeding the expectations of an increasingly demanding and less “impressionable” client .

4. Authenticity of the destination experience

Contending the current client means offering the latest technological equipment and a unique experience that leaves its mark. All this obliges us to offer an exquisite treatment that provides added value and differentiation related to the destination and that brings the client closer to gastronomy, culture and the idiosyncrasy of the destination.

In addition, customer loyalty actions will be essential and, especially, those that encourage comments on opinion portals and social networks.

5. Direct booking will be more expensive and harder to get

The OTAs will continue to take the largest portion of the cake from hotel reservations worldwide, especially those that are not part of large international chains. However, the emergence of new players in the market and the commitment to technology by managers, owners and hotel managers will achieve advances in the share of direct bookings. The mix of direct and indirect sales channels will continue to be the formula used by most hotels.

The digital distribution strategy is one of the biggest challenges faced by tourist accommodation today. On the other hand, there are particularities that differentiate the digital distribution among hotels, hostels or tourist apartments.

The steps taken by a user to decide the destination to which he will travel and the services he will hire will be extended in time up to 90 days and consult on average about 35 specialized websites . This scenario implies that tourism companies and destinations must expand their vision of digital distribution towards a product strategy that includes all the phases through which the user passes to the purchase decision.

We live in a market where you no longer compete only for the quality of the services, but also for the quality of the experience when buying and consuming them.

Seminar on enhancing the direct booking of hotels and tourist apartments

One more year we collaborated with the Chamber of Commerce of Malaga to organize a day to discuss this and other issues that have to do with the process of choosing and managing channels for tourist accommodation.

Next May 10, Sextaplanta and Chamber of Commerce of Malaga organized a seminar to discuss the integration of the dominant channels of the distribution of tourist accommodation with the direct channel.

The seminar will be given by the managing partner of Sextaplanta, Javier Ortiz and the strengths of the seminar will revolve around the distribution channels that provide the most value according to the type of accommodation. We will talk openly about how to take advantage of the visibility gained in the OTAs or discuss how to strengthen the direct channel and the funnel of the reserve.

The seminar will be held at the headquarters of the Chamber of Malaga at Calle Cortina del Muelle, No. 23, on May 10, from 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.

• For registrations access the website of the Chamber of Malaga