Sales & Marketing

Nothing will mark the end of paid search marketing on Google, quite the contrary, they are doing everything to increase the ad-spend. It will change the way websites are indexed and I think it will affect hotel branding. However, changes like this are more about indexing the content in ways that all replies can be given through simple requests to Google Assistant.

I would never have a black or white statement like this. Digital Marketing capabilities and Search in particular are very complex and cannot be isolated to all other digital marketing levers. Saying that Hotel Paid Search Marketing is changing, this is the right statement.

Google has become the greediest toll taker in online travel and wants to make money - in the form of referral fees and advertising revenue - at every stage of the online travel consumer's Digital Journey and its Dreaming, Planning, Booking, Experiencing and Sharing Phases.

Personalisation isn't dead, but its evolution is far from its final form. There are pockets of personalisation occurring today during the customer experience, such as; pre-arrival upselling offers; geo-location and guest segmented pricing strategies, to name a couple of popular trends.

Personalization in hospitality is not only here to stay, but it will become ubiquitous and indivisible part of the guest acquisition, guest services and guest retention. AI and ML powered technologies have already accelerated the adoption of personalization techniques across many industries and are making serious strides in hospitality: guest acquisition, revenue management, CRM, guest services, loyalty marketing, etc.

Notwithstanding media hype, no hotel company has ever truly committed to personalization. Despite the vast amounts of data that we collect and the potential this represents, we as a sector have largely failed to put appropriate systems in place to do anything above mass customization (if even that) of either marketing or customer experience.

I am a firm believer that rate parity for publicly available rates benefits hoteliers in the current “one-to-many” revenue management practices in hospitality, in which hoteliers come with pricing tiers for different categories of guests: corporate transient managed, corporate transient unmanaged, corporate group, SMERF, leisure transient, weekend, etc.

We can certainly ask if rate parity is good or bad for hoteliers, but do we wonder how customers feel about it? Is there a more annoying thing than researching online for an upcoming trip and seeing 8 different rates come up...

Rate parity benefits no one and should have been euthanized a long time ago. Enforcing it ignores each channels' cost of distribution; causes ill-feeling between distribution partners and limits competition resulting in unwelcome scrutiny from competition authorities.

Despite the many questions about its operating procedures and even its added value, OYO is challenging the stagnant thinking that has characterized hotel chains for nearly a generation. Despite claims about their innovativeness, hotel chains, and in particular their outdated, non-performance related, business models have stifled both creativity and change.

OYO Hotels' meteoric rise resembles a great extent the hyper-growth of WeWork. The question is: Is this rapid growth a good thing, especially in a traditional industry like hospitality? I believe Oyo's growth came at the expense of cutting corners, some big corners at that.

Is there a magic bullet out there for hoteliers? is there some sort of techno-wizard that will in a 'poof' eliminate your need for multiple (often futile) integrations and IT resource back-ups? The answer is NO, and thank goodness!

There are easily more than half a million hotels around the world, so there are naturally thousands and thousands of hotel tech suppliers servicing them. At the lower end of the scale, under 50 rooms, there are several suppliers who do indeed provide an 'all-in-one' solution, as defined by the basic requirements of that market segment.

This is not a question about one vendor or multiple or one stop solutions. Hoteliers are confused because everyone tells them a different story about how they are more important than the rest. On top, it is about the inconvenience and extra charges when dealing with multiple vendors.

When I've started to work in the online distribution in 1999 by my boss and guru Pancho Mazza (r.i.p.) told me: the customer on the Internet is transitional. This is still THE thing. Online customer goes where it's better for it, and nowadays it's pretty easy to get informed and compare.

The new arrangement between Marriott and Expedia is very much like the arrangement Marriott has with the GDS like Sabre, Amadeus and TravelPort i.e. as with a technology distribution platform. If you are a travel agency or a TMC, talk to the GDS how to access Marriott's inventory, availability and retail pricing.

If anything, the deal is another step to dismantle the (dangerous) "Them vs. Us" mentality that most hotels still maintain towards online travel agencies. On the other side of the table, Expedia's move confirmed that the OTAs' model is definitively shifting towards the B2B's realm and, as I've been saying over and over again for the last five years, I won't be surprised to see Expedia and Booking shapeshift to SaaS companies in the near future.

Where ABS could be a game changer is in search, recommendations and in pricing. Too many are focused at how this can be a method to sell ancillary revenue, like the airlines did. But the application in hotels could be totally different.

Attribute Based Shopping (ABS) is a good start, but I believe One-to-One Pricing, powered by AI will be the absolute winner for both travel consumers and hoteliers. ABS is already a departure from the current revenue management one-to-many pricing approach, but 1to1 Pricing will take this to an entirely different level.

I love the customer-centred vision at the heart of ABS. The promise of 'infinite SKUs' and stay packages that are experience-led rather than room-led is intoxicating. For many hotels, the digital sophisticates, these new capabilities will likely be put to good use.