The Week, That Was – August 2019 Week 5

In five minutes or less, keep track of the most important news of the week, curated just for you. We present to you hand – picked news on latest industry perspectives and some general updates. Read on!!

Booking.com and Expedia are growing in very different ways

eRevMax partners Expedia Group and Booking Holdings reported total revenues of $11.2 billion and $14.5 billion in 2018, respectively. Moreover, both the company’s revenues have grown at a similar CAGR of 19% since 2016.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2019/08/26/booking-holdings-and-expedia-are-both-growing-steadily-but-in-very-different-ways/#7515a5d21f04

A blockchain to reconcile hotel commissions

Travelport working with IBM, BCD Travel and three hotel chains—has created a minimum viable product solution that uses blockchain to reconcile the commissions hotels pay travel management companies.

https://www.businesstravelnews.com/Distribution/A-Blockchain-Way-to-Reconcile-Hotel-Commissions

Learning from the past: Cutting rates hurts everyone

An analysis of how quickly hoteliers responded to other hotels dropping rates in their competitive sets during the recession shows no one comes out a winner.

To have a better idea of what a potential downturn could mean for the U.S. hotel industry, it’s worth observing how hoteliers behaved during the last one.

http://hotelnewsnow.com/Articles/297755/Learning-from-the-past-Cutting-rates-hurts-everyone

How Google’s machine learning technology can ace up the travel industry

The technology of machine learning is benefiting almost every industry but the most significant modification can be seen in the travel sector. Interestingly, tech-giant Google is making a major shift into the travel industry while enabling customers to book air tickets, hotels, and packages. It is also aiding customers in accessing stuff which they might have never come across on their own.

https://www.analyticsinsight.net/googles-machine-learning-technology-can-ace-travel-industry/

Reach out to us for your connectivity needs to make the most of your online revenue- https://goo.gl/3gKUJZ

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The Week, That Was – August 2019 Week 4

In five minutes or less, keep track of the most important news of the week, curated just for you. We present to you hand – picked news on latest industry perspectives and some general updates. Read on!!

eRevMax announces strategic partnership with Indonesian hotel technology provider HUNTECH

Indonesian hotel technology solution provider Huntech has signed a strategic partnership with eRevMax to offer RateTiger as a preferred channel manager to its affiliated properties. The agreement makes Huntech the official provider of RateTiger Suite, the industry’s leading distribution platform with smart channel connectivity, market intelligence and revenue management capabilities.

https://bit.ly/2TXjYgl

Hotel sourcing in 2020: What’s really changing?

Some companies have made headlines recently by declaring traditional sourcing models dead. However, there are still some practices that will remain the same, according to CWT. There are exciting changes coming to the sourcing world in 2020 including new rates worth exploring, tools that will make data collection and analysis easier, and methods that will improve negotiations.

https://news.carlsonwagonlit.com/blog_posts/hotel-sourcing-in-2020-whats-really-changing-85618

18 ways to boost hotel bookings

Net Affinity shares 18 tips together that will help you get more bookings and, in turn, more revenue.

https://blog.netaffinity.com/18-ways-to-boost-hotel-bookings-and-get-more-revenue-2/

Google wants industry-wide standards to balance privacy and ads personalization

Google is seeking to navigate a middle path that balances privacy and user control over data and personalized advertising, which the internet has become increasingly dependent on.

https://marketingland.com/google-wants-new-industrywide-standards-to-balance-privacy-and-ads-personalization-265951

How hoteliers create, monetize the guest experience

The hotel industry is in an era where experience matters most to guests, which is why it’s important for hoteliers to find ways to create great experiences from the travel search phase to hotel arrival while making those efforts profitable.

http://hotelnewsnow.com/Articles/297681/How-hoteliers-create-monetize-the-guest-experience

Social preferences of young business travelers

Hilton Hotels & Resorts released new survey findings uncovering the travel highs and lows for young professionals, ages 23-35, who attend meetings while on the road.

The survey revealed that while young business travelers prefer a buzzing social environment and in-person interactions during regular work hours, they would rather spend their evenings on their own.

https://lodgingmagazine.com/survey-reveals-social-preferences-of-young-business-travelers/

What’s next for Google’s expansion into vacation rentals?

Google is constantly improving its offering, so it wouldn’t be a stretch to imagine that Google could open up the Book on Google addition of Hotel Ads for rentals.

https://www.phocuswire.com/google-vacation-rentals-whats-next

How should my hotel market to “Bleisure” travelers?

Travelers, on average, are adding on 2-3 days of leisure travel on top of a business trip, resulting in more revenue for a hotel and filled inventory on days where occupancy slows down.

https://screenpilot.com/2019/08/bleisure-travel/

Reach out to us for your connectivity needs to make the most of your online revenue- https://goo.gl/3gKUJZ

Thanks and have a good day!

 

 

 

The Week, That Was – August 2019 Week 3

In five minutes or less, keep track of the most important news of the week, curated just for you. We present to you hand – picked news on latest industry perspectives and some general updates. Read on!!

Business Travel in Europe on the rise: Are you ready?

According to American Express Global Business Travel report, the spend on business travel in Europe in 2019 is expected to grow by over 4.3% making it a focus area for hotels. Here are some suggested channels you need to have in your distribution mix for landing more corporate bookings.

Read More : https://lnkd.in/fUZJ_sv

Today’s empowered traveler views the travel experience holistically

They demand high-quality experiences, competitive pricing across the value chain and expect to be recognized and responded to in real-time according to their preferences or concerns.

https://www.intelligentcio.com/eu/2019/08/13/technology-making-travellers-more-demanding-in-summer-travel-season/

How travel marketers can capture the “momentary market”

Digital transformation has reached a saturation point. Which is why travel marketers should view each opportunity as if it’s an individual market – a momentary market.

https://www.phocuswire.com/travel-marketers-momentary-market

Booking.com expands payment options in quest for “connected trip”

The company is making progress in its vision to create a “seamless, holistic system that gives and does everything for the traveler and makes their lives easier and gives value to them.” The new system apparently allows Booking.com to accept payments in the name of the hotel. That way customers can select the payment method they prefer, removing part of the friction, according to the company’s CEO Glenn Fogel.

https://www.phocuswire.com/Booking-Holdings-q2-2019-earnings

Google My Business launches “Hotel attributes” section

Hotel owners with verified hotel listings can edit their services and amenities in the “Hotel attributes” section of their Google My Business account. By default, Google provides a summary of your hotel’s amenities that customers can view from Search and Maps. Now you can edit this information in your dashboard if you find any of it to be factually incorrect.

https://support.google.com/business/answer/9177958

Reach out to us for your connectivity needs to make the most of your online revenue- https://goo.gl/3gKUJZ

Thanks and have a good day!

Business Travel in Europe on the rise: Are you ready?

Despite Brexit and uncertainty over economy in EU, business travel outlook in Europe remains strong. According to American Express Global Business Travel report, the spend on business travel in Europe in 2019 is expected to grow by over 4.3% making it a focus area for hotels. As with the global trend, business travelers want access to best rates and personalized content in both online and offline channels and along with seamless booking experience.

With smart phone being a necessity for today’s traveler, corporate travel has moved to the online space. More and more business travelers now prefer flexibility to search and book accommodation specific to their personal tastes. Over 60% of business travelers in the UK, France and Germany use a mobile device to shop for or book a flight or accommodation. In this article, we look at channels you need to have in your distribution mix for landing more corporate bookings.

HRS

HRS, Germany’s family run online travel agency focusing primarily on business travel, has been steadily keeping its position as the leading booking portal in the region. HRS Group, which controls Germany’s most popular OTAs – Hotel.de and HRS – the Hotelportal, caters to more than 5 million booking customers – over 70% of which are corporate travelers. HRS’s has exclusive contract with over 350,000 hotels — many of which don’t participate in traditional booking channels — gets negotiated rates and HRS’ exclusive corporate discounted rates give them an edge with business travelers. The company provides services to 400 large corporates and more than 385,000 small and medium enterprises. Hotels registered with HRS or Hotel.de can publish their rates and availability across all group platforms.

RoomIt by CWT

An average of 100,000 hotel rooms are booked on RoomIt each day by business travelers. Originally launched with a focus on small to midsize businesses, Carlson Wagonlit Travel’s hotel distribution division RoomIt now caters to large corporates as well, with nearly 1 million providers, including apartments.  The data-driven technology behind RoomIt delivers a one-stop-shop experience with all the rooms, rates, amenities, loyalty bonuses and features necessary to enhance the travel experience. The platform is 100% fenced, and hence corporate clients can access it only through specific login, making it closed for metasearch and public environment.

Egencia

Egencia is the corporate travel solution from the Expedia group. Offering personalized experiences, the channel caters to nearly 2 million business travellers in companies of all sizes. The TMC which initially focused on air travel has been steadily increasing its hotel inventory, which has resulted in a surge in the hotel room-nights booked through the platform. Earlier this year, Egencia rolled out a two-way messaging app through which hotels and travelers can communicate with each other. It is also leveraging Expedia’s relationship with hotels to provide business travelers access to special rates once they’ve booked their flight.

As hoteliers, are you ready to tap into the booming corporate travel market? Are you connected to these channels and keeping them automatically updated with rates and availability on a regular basis?

Reach out to us for your connectivity needs to make the most of your online revenue- https://goo.gl/3gKUJZ

Is your hotel using an efficient room rate comparison tool?

Download our complimentary e-book  on how to leverage pricing for profit optimization

Hotel revenue management relies heavily on accurate market intelligence. Being aware of competitor price movements and change in their distribution strategy is important for any hotelier to stay ahead of competition of multiple sales channels.

Given the perishable nature of hotel inventory, it is important to optimize room pricing such that it is in sync with market demand and is attractive enough for potential guests to make a booking. Hotels today offer multiple room rates for different room types – so tracking these different room-rate combinations across your competition manually can be a herculean task and hence arises the need for an efficient and automated rate shopping tool that can fetch you rates in real-time for apple-to-apple comparison.

With the current range of price intelligence solutions available in the market, hoteliers are spoilt for choice. To assist with your decision making easier – we present our complimentary e-book – ‘Shopping Matters – The Power of Real-time Hotel Rate Intelligence’ that will help you to know more about –

  • Importance of real-time rate intelligence
  • Understanding the marketplace to fine-tune your rate strategy
  • Why rate shopping tool is crucial to your profit optimization

Download the ebook today – https://www.erevmax.com/travel-solutions/erevmax-shopper-rateintelligence.html

The Week, That Was – August 2019 Week 2

In five minutes or less, keep track of the most important news of the week, curated just for you. We present to you hand – picked news on latest industry perspectives and some general updates. Read on!!

Estonia based luxury hotel recommends RateTiger as the best OTA channel manager

The prestigious Villa Ammende in Estonia has recommended RateTiger hotel channel manager by eRevMax for managing its online sales channels effectively. The property has been using RateTiger’s cloud-based channel manager to streamline its online distribution and has seen significant improvement in efficiency resulting in minimizing overbookings and reducing workload.

https://bit.ly/2M6LMhl

Are you ready to lead the hotel pricing game? Download our Rate Shopping ebook today

Our recent discussions with hoteliers and revenue managers revealed their struggle with getting the pricing strategy correct and how constant undercutting by competitors are eating into their profits. We came up with an ebook on why hotel rate shopping and price intelligence is important along with some real-world example of hotels using relevant tools to stay ahead of the competition.

Presenting our ebook – Shopping Matters: The Power of Real-time Hotel Rate Intelligence. Get your free copy today – https://bit.ly/339DJ8I

Google My Business changes hotel categories

Google had been restricting newly verified listings the ability to add old categories for the past month, yesterday they removed them all for currently verified listings.

https://onlineownership.com/changes-to-hotel-categories-in-google-my-business/

Four online travel agency myths to stop believing now

Online travel agencies developed in the early to mid-1990s, gradually becoming one of the first great internet success stories of the tech era. Turns out OTAs are just as powerful for hotels as they are for travelers. But, unfortunately, OTAs suffer from some image problems amongst many hoteliers, often due to misconceptions or misinformation about how they work. Let’s explore four popular myths about OTAs that our industry keeps falling for over and over again

https://www.phocuswire.com/Four-online-travel-agency-myths

Europe: RevPAR jump can’t prevent GOPPAR slip

In a clear example that revenue and profit aren’t always aligned, RevPAR at mainland European hotels attained a high for the year in June, but GOPPAR fell.

https://www.hotstats.com/hotel-industry-trends/revpar-jump-cant-prevent-goppar-slip-across-europe

Ten hacks to instantly maximize your direct booking revenue

Joe Pettigrew, Director of Revenue Maximization at Starwood Capital Group, shares ten helpful hacks that your hotel can apply today to enhance revenue through direct bookings.

https://triptease.com/en/watch-ten-genius-hacks-to-instantly-maximize-your-direct-booking-revenue/

Expedia TravelAds: How power users maximize their results

Expedia’s TravelAds solution is unique in that your ads don’t show unless you have supply for the travel window that the shopper is looking to book. And, if your ads do show but the travel shopper doesn’t click on them, you don’t pay. So, these ads are a low risk way to reach a targeted audience ready to book. Additionally, TravelAds help hotel revenue and marketing managers book rooms without sacrificing their average daily rate (ADR).

https://blog.advertising.expedia.com/travelads-with-expedia-group-always-on

Connect with us for your connectivity needs to make the most of online revenue-https://goo.gl/3gKUJZ

Thanks and have a good day!

The Week, That Was – August 2019 Week 1

In five minutes or less, keep track of the most important news of the week, curated just for you. We present to you hand – picked news on latest industry perspectives and some general updates. Read on!!

eRevMax expands in the Middle East through technical partnership with Intimus PMS

Hotel connectivity expert, eRevMax has completed 2-way integration with Intimus PMS while offering hotels a wider selection of technical partners in the region. Hotels using Intimus PMS and RateTiger – LiveOS solutions can now manage their online distribution easily from one place removing all manual efforts.

https://bit.ly/2T0M5e2

The true cost of not protecting customer data in travel

For years now, the hospitality business has shared Big Tech’s addiction to customer data. Rather than sell it to advertisers, however, hotels and airlines traditionally use it to personalize travel experiences. Hotels – in particular luxury hotels – collect customer data to build detailed guest profiles, which can include personal preferences, from room, pillow and favorite cocktails, to potentially more explicit guest information.

https://www.phocuswire.com/GDPR-hotel-customer-data

What every hotelier must know about EU’s payment rules

Just as hoteliers have become used to GDPR, another piece of European Union legislation, the Payment Services Directive regulations, known as PSD2, is set to go into effect.

http://hotelnewsnow.com/Articles/297360/What-every-hotelier-must-know-about-EUs-payment-rules

Rise in Mobile Bookings in Middle East Creates New Online Travel Competition

The Middle East traveler has been going digital across all touchpoints of the travel journey, fueling a surge in the online travel market that is projected to reach $15 billion by 2023 across the region. That will mark an increase of 140 percent from current levels, according to research company Mena Research Partners.

https://skift.com/2019/07/23/rise-in-mobile-bookings-in-middle-east-creates-new-online-travel-competition/

Hotel chains demonstrate common B2B eCommerce website blunders

Hotels can earn customers’ loyalty by providing better personalized recommendations that understand their individual price/value tradeoff.

https://go.forrester.com/blogs/hotel-chains-demonstrate-common-b2b-ecommerce-website-blunders/

Amex GBT forecasts modest hotel rate increases for 2020

The Hotel Monitor 2020, published by American Express Global Business Travel, predicts that hotel prices in most key cities will experience only modest rises in 2020.

https://www.hospitalitynet.org/news/4094362.html

Online presence high priority with independent hotels

Trends in how people, and brands, consume and process information online are driving digital marketing strategies for independent hotels. It’s important not only to have an online presence but also to have the proper digital footprint, sources said.

http://hotelnewsnow.com/Articles/297313/Online-presence-a-high-priority-at-independent-hotels

What you need to know about Google Ads’ “Store / Hotel Visits”

Google came out with another way marketers and hoteliers can measure the performance of campaigns through Store Visits or for hotels, Hotel Visits. Hotel Visits can measure whether or not users actually visited your property. Google uses cell towers, wifi signals and more to tell whether or not you’ve actually visited a property and you aren’t just staying next door or across the street.

https://screenpilot.com/2019/07/what-you-need-to-know-about-google-ads-store-visits/

How San Francisco boosted Chinese bookings by 30 percent

Outbound Chinese visitors represent an increasingly important part of San Francisco’s tourist model, constituting 23 percent of international tourist spending in 2018.

https://jingtravel.com/san-francisco-grew-chinese-bookings-30-percent/

Connect with us for your connectivity needs to make the most of online revenue-https://goo.gl/3gKUJZ

Thanks and have a good day!