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Top Hospitality Industry Trends for 2014

Hospitality industry is constantly evolving and always trying to stay one step ahead. In an industry where change is the ultimate word, keeping up to date on the latest trends in hospitality technology – is a daunting task for hotel owners and operators. Everything from in-room entertainment to guest service management to effective use of social media is becoming a challenging task. The hospitality industry saw a lot of exciting things happening in 2013 and some that would continue to impact business are highlighted below –
Mobile: The Game Changer

Mobile phone has radically changed the world – 62% of the world’s population is using mobile phones. Hospitality is no exception to this revolution, in some cases leading the way. It is the new face of computing as devices such as tablets and smartphones have revolutionized the way we interact with technology. The rise of mobile users have impacted business strategy and changed guest behavior largely. There has been a myth that mobile phone has the minimal impact on hospitality industry but as the smartphones and tablets become critical tools, the myth has been thoroughly laid to rest. Now nearly 45% travellers travel with two or more devices and 7% of bookings are done through mobile phone which is continuously increasing.
2014: The Year of Meta-search

With the grand entry of TripAdvisor and Google in the metasearch space the whole hotel distribution scenario has drastically changed. Modern travellers believe in competitive shopping. According a survey by eMarketer– a guest visits minimum six sites before he makes any booking decision. One of our recent infographics on meta-search shows that Kayak processed over 1577 million queries in 2013 and TripAdvisor receives 260 million monthly unique visits to its website. The dominance of meta-search engines will grow rapidly in 2014 as these sites are becoming mainstream in hotel distribution space.
Free Wi-Fi

Research studies show that 85% travellers believe Wi-Fi in hotels should be free. Nowadays the only thing that guests would prefer over a complimentary breakfast or free parking is Wi-Fi. Modern travelers are hyper-connected and do not have patience for poor internet connection in hotels. Your hotel should facilitate free Wi-Fi so that business travellers can check their emails and take online conference calls, while leisure travelers can use the internet to communicate with friends and family or enjoy music. Poor internet connection is one of the most common complains and something that you should save your hotel from. So if your hotel provides free Wi-Fi service to guests, make sure that the speed of the internet is not irritating them.
Word Of Mouth

As we increasingly live our lives online, we’re finding that not only are there major downsides to all that social media over-sharing—but we may have little control over the way we appear on the internet. According to a new eMarketer report, the Worldwide Social Network Users in 2013 was 1.73 billion i.e. one in four people were connected through social media. And by 2017, total global social network audience will be 2.55 billion. TripAdvisor is the largest source of hotel reviews having 150 million reviews and opinions covering 3.7 million accommodation providers. Considering there are millions of reviews written each day across a plethora of different platforms, the internet has the power to influence one’s decision making process. So managing reputation be it through social media or replying to the guests directly through reputation management tool will become increasingly important.
Guest Service

Guest service is an inseparable part of the hospitality business. However changing consumer tastes has led to higher expectations and hotels need to live up to these. Travellers today do not want to feel like they are in a corporate setting when they are staying at your hotel – they would rather prefer an environment where they can interact with people and receive personal attention. Eye for detail is an important aspect that hotels need to focus on and ‘wowing’ guests with impeccable service is something that every hotel is striving for. You need to identify what you can do to make your guests’ stay unforgettable to win over their loyalty.
Behavioural Change of GenY

The travel industry is riding a wave of change. An unpredictable economy and fast-paced technological advancements have caused 21st century travellers to shift their behaviour dramatically. These travellers prefer to interact with hotel staff through technology rather than picking up the phone. About 40% of guests at a hotel select iPad as their communication device to connect to a hotel and plan check-in time. So what do guests want? Well, it could be a long list starting with – free Wi-Fi, automated check-in / check-out and multi-use lobbies that encourage guests to socialize among various other things. This new segment of traveler is no longer looking for white-linen service, hotel boy to carry their luggage up to their room rather to check-in online to bypass the front desk.
Home Away From Home

When travellers enter a hotel, they look for a home-like ambience. Hotel companies need to be able to offer high quality guest service alongside seamless communication and comfort to every guest. To achieve this, a hotel needs to have its back-office set in a way such that everything moves to clock-wise precision. And this starts from the time the guest researches your hotel to making the reservation, the actual stay and post stay feedback. Everything needs to be managed efficiently for a well-rounded experience for the guest.
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HMH Partners with eRevMax to Improve Online Sales for its Hotel Portfolio

Hospitality Management Holdings (HMH), a Dubai-based property management group, has announced that it plans to expand its portfolio with five new hotels opening this year alone, which has meant an urgent need for a rate and inventory management system to ensure all properties, both old and new, are digitally standardised. HMH CEO Laurent A. Voivenel was familiar with RateTiger Suite via word of mouth (WOM) marketing, and has recently completed integration with the software that allows for two-way real time ARI updates for all properties which meets the group’s growing demand for efficient and effective management systems. HMH anticipates that RateTiger Suite will boost revenue whilst being simple to execute.


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Infographic: eRevMax predicts 2014 to be the year of Meta-search

Previously, hoteliers have primarily focused upon direct marketing and OTAs, but there’s a new player in terms of hotel channel distribution and it looks like it’s here to stay. Meta search is proving hugely popular with the younger generation who, with perhaps tighter budgets than their older counterparts, are more cost conscious when it comes to travel. There has been a 13 percent increase in meta search traffic in the past year alone, with meta search websites such as Kayak processing almost 1600 million queries annually. It is widely suggested that hoteliers begin to amend their marketing strategies to include meta search in a more prominent role.


To access the full infographic, click Meta-search 2014 – It’s here to stay

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Hyatt certifies eRevMax as the Preferred Channel Manager Partner

Luxury hotel chain Hyatt International has recently endorsed eRevMax’s RateTiger, citing it as the most cost effective, efficient and beneficial ARI system for assisting Hyatt properties across Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia to meet their individual objectives whilst still maintaining the high standards associated with the Hyatt name. Along with Hyatt properties themselves, Hyatt franchises and partners, such as Hyatt Place, Hyatt House and Hyatt Residence Club will all be encouraged to implement RateTiger to manage their online availability, rates and inventory. Hyatt’s endorsement of RateTiger comes as more international hotel chains are opting for comprehensive systems which not only manage ARI, but also guest satisfaction and research.

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FITUR to witness TigerTime by eRevMax

Earlier this year, eRevMax hosted its signature TigerTime at the FITUR International Tourism Trade Fair in Madrid in associate with World Independent Hotel Promotion (WIHP) and Ostrovok, Russia’s largest accommodation provider. Recently eRevMax partnered with WIHP to offer metasearch services to the hotels in to help hoteliers generating more direct bookings. At stand 8B19 Martin Soler of WIHP presented how can hotels lessen their dependency on OTAs by connecting to metasearch sites.
TigerTime by eRevMax is the perfect platform for hotels and OTAs to present their value proposition to a varied set of attendees. It helps them to showcase how hoteliers and OTAs can benefitted from advanced XML connectivity and how they can reach out to the diverse client base. Apart from being a great branding exercise, this platform put them directly in touch with key decision makers who can understand the value of networking.
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eRevMax predicts hotel online distribution trends 2014

As technology advances and the world of social media expands, more and more travelers are turning towards smart phones and tablets to book hotel rooms. eRevMax, the leader in hotel online distribution and channel management solution has released an Infographic “Online Hotel Distribution” to provide hoteliers with upcoming trends backed by relevant data.


Travelers who book hotel rooms online are increasingly equipped with smart phones and tablets. The infographic shows 7% of all bookings were generated from mobile and tablet devices in 2013, and this trend will grow by another 20% this year. In 2014, hotel bookings through mobile will contribute over $26 billion.


The eRevMax study sheds light on how metasearch sites realized a 13% increase in 2013. Google Hotel Finder, TripConnect and Trivago are becoming a driving force in hotel online distribution as 60% of travellers shop by comparing rates on these sites. To shift market share from the OTAs to direct bookings, hoteliers should utilize metasearch sites as a part of their overall distrbution strategy as it offers better search experience and allows the traveller to find the lowest prices available online.

Bookings from OTAs surged ahead with a 12% rise in Q3 2013 and now stands at 13% of overall bookings in North America. It also shows that 33% of all bookings take place at the brand’s website, an increase of 5% in Q3 2013. eRevMax suggests hoteliers work with OTAs to increase revenues and implement reputation management solutions for quick responses to their guests.

Another important tip by the hotel solutions provider is to leverage the billboard effect, defined as the increase in offline bookings of a property when it is listed with an Online Travel Agency (OTA). An experiment conducted by Cornell University observed that one of the participant hotels experienced an impressive 14% increase in direct bookings when it contracted with an OTA. Besides, Average Daily Rate (ADR) increased by 1.5% during OTA listing of the same property. 

In this world of social media, SEO and analytics, failure to adopt digital platforms in their marketing strategy is suicidal for hotels. The data shows that 81% of tech-savvy travellers find user reviews important, while 49% travellers book hotel only after reading reviews. Nearly 21% used Facebook to search for hotel information at least once while 14% of travellers use the Facebook platform to book a hotel room. Hence, it is imperative that hotels take social-commerce seriously. 

To access the full infographic, click Infographic: Online Hotel Distribution 2014
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Bourbon Hotels & Resorts uses RateTiger for rate and inventory management

Bourbon Hotels & Resorts, one of the major hospitality players in Brazil, has signed up eRevMax to increase their online business penetration and revenue. “RateTiger will help Bourbon Hotels & Resorts have complete control over revenue management. They will be able to identify the best producing websites, while also improving the relationship with channels that have a lower commission.” said Jan Murza, VP-Sales, Americas, eRevMax International.

Online travel is growing at over 18% in Brazil, and expected to cross USD 20 billion by 2014, as the leisure tourism sector gets a huge boost from international tourists visiting the country for the FIFA World Cup. Ten properties will be using RateTiger Channel Manager to increase online sales by ensuring real-time room availability across all distribution points through automatic adjustment from pooled inventory.


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The Curious Case of Guest Reviews

Being a part of the industry, hotel reviews are something I always take with a pinch of salt, especially those making extremely negative remarks in online reputation sites.  However, the internet is a place for opinions and if many more people join in the chorus to say negative remarks about the property, then I would rather give it a miss than taking a chance on a booking. But does that really mean that it is a bad hotel?  

Truth be told, if more people are not happy with the property than are happy, then there must be something wrong with it. Guests express their dissatisfaction when they have bad experience. The first lesson of the service industry is that customer is the king, and in this age of hyper-activity in the internet, they rule.


As simple as coffee makers
I worked in a hotel where a decision was made to pull off all the coffee makers from the rooms.  Management decided that it would save money in the long run because they would be cutting the cost of replacing and stocking this one guest amenity and could focus time and money in other areas.  There was a café in the lobby and so at check-in, guests were given a voucher to use at the café.  You would think the problem was solved. Well, not quite!

Guests began to leave negative reviews not only on travel sites, but also through the hotel’s internal guest feedback form.  It seemed that one amenity affected their entire stay and made them question the worth of the room.  To appease the guests, rate adjustments had to be made; additionally they were provided complimentary coffee from the café.  Our ranking on TripAdvisor went down because our competitors continued to supply coffee-makers in their rooms and so guests felt they were getting more for their money.  Another decision was made by the executive team and coffee makers were placed back in the rooms so that we could recover from the guest backlash.  

Unknowingly (or maybe not) guests have placed themselves at the decision-making table of most hotels!

Stitching it together
As revenue management evolves, it is getting away from simple rate management and is now incorporating customer relations and social media into its strategy. The more satisfied guests you have, the more likely the guest is to return and spend more money, as well as telling others so they will visit and spend money as well. Hence reputation has a positive correlation with the hotel’s overall Average Daily Rate (ADR) and revenue. The time has come for the revenue management department to work hand in hand with the marketing department.

A recent survey by Laterooms.com suggests that 90% of travelers would avoid booking hotels labelled as “dirty” in online review sites. Sure, the situation might not be as bad as the guest made it seem, but the hotel cannot prevent the reviewer from expressing his/her opinion. However the beauty of online reputation sites is that most will give the hotel an option to respond. And the hotel needs to do just that – Respond! More so for negative reviews!

As an hotelier, facing these challenges can be a nightmare, especially when it hits you out of the blue. Therefore, it is essential to take an analytical approach to understand your strengths and weaknesses as per your guests and take a cohesive approach to address these issues. However since guests share feedback on various review and travel sites – all this valuable information lay scattered and unstructured. It is here that online reputation management tools play a big role in consolidating these guest reviews and provide them to hotels in structured reports. Usually, these tools pull guest feedback from various review websites including Qype, Holidaycheck, Yelp, Expedia, Facebook, Twitter etc. 
Data is then compiled together into review reports which include guest details (as it appears on the site) along with their feedback and the rating they provide to the hotel. eRevMax, the company I worked for has its reputation management tool – RateTiger Review, which uses sentiment analysis to understand the guest’s emotion towards various aspects of the property. Keywords relevant to the properties are then identified, and ranked based on their popularity, frequency of mentions, and guests’ sentiments towards that category.

In other words, semantic analysis gives out a snapshot of what’s right and what’s wrong with
the property. For the hotel, it serves as a measurement of guests’ perception against intended brand positioning. For the marketing team this analysis provides a key insight into guests’ preference, which will help them customize their promotions to have a direct resonance with customer sentiment. From the operational perspective, you now know the areas you need to address the most. For instance, if a hotel continuously keeps getting comments that their rooms are outdated and uncomfortable; this is an indication to the management to invest in renovation to ensure guest satisfaction, as well as attract new guests.  Guest review analysis works hand in hand with rate, occupancy, RevPAR and channel performance to provide hotels with the overall picture, and efficiently use Price Quality metrics to make strategic rate decisions.


Managing your feedback
The explosion of social media has made it almost impossible for hotels to ignore online reputation. According to recent studies, one third of consumers will not book a hotel room without first reading reviews first (Laterooms Survey, Nov 2012). Reviews with a rating on 4 – 5 generate more than double the conversion compared to a review with 1.0 – 2.9 rating on Expedia. Hotels that have a higher guest score typically will have better placement on the travel sites.  A better placement on the travel site means more bookings.  More bookings mean a higher room rate, and eventually higher revenue for the hotel.  


Take the example of Slovenia based LifeClass Hotels & Spa, which has experienced a surge in repeat business by developing a post-stay, guest engagement through online guest review websites. Each property assesses the information and responds to guest reviews from social channels like Facebook, Yelp, etc along with those associated with sales channels (like Booking and Expedia) multiple times a day. “We have been actively monitoring guest reviews of our properties as well as those of our competitors. RateTiger Review has helped us to respond pro-actively to negative reviews, and address our product offerings,” observed Alen Milosevic. This has resulted in 30% revenue growth in 2012.

What’s more, an improved ranking has a positive correlation with direct booking. For 4C Hotels in London, pro-active guest engagement has resulted in a 5% increase in direct booking. “Whenever we see a negative posting, we action a proper investigation to find out what went wrong. We don’t make the same mistakes as before, we are able to identify them and address them,” says Asad Zaheruddin, General Manager at the hotel.

A strong visible position on guest review websites indicate that your Price Quality Index is working well, that will enable you to make the right pricing decisions based on RevPAR performance.  This will allow the hotel to flex their rates based on a number of pricing strategies depending on booking levels. However, there are no short cuts. It is an evolving process that has to start today! As we move towards the age of consumer controlled brand conversations, hotels need to integrate customer feedback into their business approach and strategy planning.

Revenue management was always a game of chess and now even more pieces are being added to the board. By staying actively engaged with guests, hotels can ensure a more consistent and loyal base. Are you listening?


Authored by Rose Adegite, ex-Revenue Manager; adapted by Aparna Bhattacharya, PR Lead at eRevMax.

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Spain’s largest hotel complex to drive online revenue with eRevMax

Marina d’Or Holiday Resort has selected eRevMax for optimizing revenue through effective online distribution. All seven properties in the complex will use RateTiger Channel Manager for rate and inventory management across third party channels. “RateTiger will help our properties connect to a significantly higher number of important channels, managing them all from one user-friendly interface and streamlining our distribution process.” said Jorge Juan Iranzo, Revenue Manager en Hoteles Marina d’Or.

Located in Valencia, Marina d’Or Holiday Resort has five hotels in 3, 4 and 5 star categories along with two serviced apartments consisting of over 2150 rooms with capacity for 7000. RateTiger will help Marina d’Or Holiday Resort to manage the rate and availability distribution process, boost exposure to online booking channels globally and drive down the cost of booking acquisition.
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Jumbo Tours reports 21% increase in online bookings

Leading B2B International wholesaler Jumbo Tours has enhanced its distribution technologies following a two-way direct XML integration with eRevMax for its brands Jumbonline and Jumbobeds. “Thanks to the direct connectivity, many more hotels have migrated to the XML. Since we completed our 2-way XML connection, the bookings in eRevMax distributed properties have increased by over 21%. As a result we have achieved a huge improvement in our sales and distribution targets.” said Franco Bracotto, eBusiness Director of Jumbo Tours Group.

The improved data flow now offers better room package promotion planning and distribution on Jumbonline and Jumbobeds. Hotels can leverage Jumbo Tours for improving market reach as the travel site offers services to tour operators from around the world and has a turnover forecast of over 1,800,000 passengers for 2013 with its brands Jumbonline and Jumbobeds.

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