In 2022 our industry was very lucky. The post-pandemic travel demand, fueled by sheer lockdown-induced restlessness, accumulated consumer savings to the tune of trillions of dollars plus government handouts to many trillions of dollars, has fueled the 2022 travel rush.
If there is one area in particular I would recommend hoteliers to focus in this year, it would be gathering zero-party and first-party data from customers. I mean, this should be a priority any given year, but third-party data is getting more difficult to gather since Apple ceased tracking customers on Safari and iOS platforms since 2021.
Hotel marketers can succeed in 2023 by honing messages around the key themes of value and experience, both of which are expected to resonate with high-end audiences seeking a much-needed getaway. For budget audiences, the message should also be about value, but digital marketing needs to carefully consider the channels used in 2023.
2023 will be the year that personalisation on the hotel website becomes more commonplace. Digital marketing hotel professionals will promote the hotel's revenue strategy in order to have a consistent approach on indirect and direct hotel booking channels.
In this series, we go behind the front desk to learn everything from the strangest room service requests to quirky fun facts to the most heartwarming reunions. We pick a new destination and hotel each month to give you the inside scoop.
Frontier Airlines, a budget airline based out of Denver, Colorado, announced an "all you can fly" promotion that offers pass holders unlimited domestic flights, including to Puerto Rico.
Airlines are in a better position to offer this type of promotion as they can recoup incremental revenue via additional fees for luggage, seat allocation and more. Hotels are not likely to be able to charge incremental fees for these types of services, at least not yet.
Unlimited stays? sounds like a great alternative to paying rent! And I guess that's the challenge... the headline offer is great (for PR and buzz) but the restrictions will need to be locked down.What I love about the unlimited-stay idea is it would require a hotel to ramp up revenue from ancillaries and attributes.
It is well known to everyone that Burj Al Arab Jumeirah is an architectural marvel that has put Dubai on the world map. The sail-shaped hotel was designed to become the icon of Dubai; a hotel that reflected the emirate’s past and its future as well as its bold ambition to become one of the most culturally diverse and dynamic cities in the world. The all-suite hotel not only challenges the norms of hotel design but has also redefined the meaning of luxury hospitality in both Dubai and around the world. Dubai's most iconic hotel and a global icon of Arabian luxury, Burj Al Arab Jumeirah is the flagship hotel of Jumeirah Group’s portfolio of exceptional properties, representing a timeless pinnacle of luxury.
The top players in the Middle East and Africa’s hospitality sector were honoured at the Future Hospitality Summit Awards today in the presence of Founding Patron of the Arabian Hospitality Investment Conference (AHIC), His Highness Sheikh Ahmed Bin Saeed Al Maktoum, President of Dubai Civil Aviation Authority, Chairman of Dubai Airports and Chairman & Chief Executive of Emirates Airline & Group.
Bahrain based Al Safir Hotel & Tower has found its perfect technology partner in RateTiger. The 4-star luxury property has been leveraging eRevMax solutions, including RateTiger Shopper for rate intelligence and managing price parity, Channel Manager for keeping rates and availability in sync across all sales channels as well as Booking Engine for keeping brand.com updated with real-time inventory and rates. Reservations from various sales channels get delivered directly into the hotel’s PMS through the 2-way connect, thus helping the hotel drive its online revenue strategies effectively.
In this series, we go behind the front desk to learn everything from the strangest room service requests to quirky fun facts to the most heartwarming reunions. We pick a new destination and hotel each month to give you the inside scoop.
In my view this is a natural progression of leveraging an engaged audience to provide them with greater opportunities. Today most businesses are pursuing a program of amassing a database of contacts and associated behavior to grow their business and extend commercial value.
I have anticipated the major hotel chains to do try and monetize their huge website and mobile app traffic and loyalty membership data for quite some time now. In the past, the membership data was monetized primarily through the cobranded credit cards: Ex.
Curated experiences are always a tricky thing as what is curated today might not be tomorrow and there is a very blurry line between curated to truly benefit the customer vs enahnced curated experiences based on the algorythm pushing "curation".
Rotana has announced the launch of an interactive food & beverage (F&B) platform ‘Rotana at the Table’. The platform was recently introduced on Instagram and shares original content to celebrate the F&B industry.
Consumers like and demand travel companies to offer a one-stop shopping experience. Hence, it is not surprising to see OTAs, Airbnb, and even Google and Amazon strive to provide a “total travel experience.” Everyone in the market wants to become a mega tourism enterprise.
It's a fantastic move by Expedia and Kudos to them for doing it. It will be a nightmare for hotels though as this provides great opportunities but also put hotels against the other OTA´s. We cannot forget that those actions are to drive more travellers to Expedia as well as make money for Expedia across all connection points and data points.
After reading Kern and Murthy's description of Open World, I can't help thinking that this is just a rebrand of EPS. Not sure? Spot the difference: From EPS' website: "Expedia Partner Solutions unlocks the power of Expedia Group for thousands of partners around the world.
Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Tourism has today launched a new program to equip 100,000 young Saudis with the key hospitality skills needed to pursue careers in the Kingdom's flourishing tourism industry.
Held for the first time in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the 116th session was the largest meeting of the Executive Council since the start of the pandemic, with more than 200 participants and 32 countries represented. Members noted that the meeting came at a pivotal point for the sector as it learns from the lessons of the pandemic while at the same time looking ahead to a more sustainable, inclusive and resilient future.
In the lead up to the Future Hospitality Summit (FHS) Saudi Arabia, we asked a number of industry partners how they see the future of hospitality in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
In the lead up to the Future Hospitality Summit (FHS) Saudi Arabia, we asked a number of industry partners how they see the future of hospitality in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
I firmly believe the hotel website is the most underutilized and quite often forgotten hotel asset. Your hotel website - for a single property or multi property brand - allows you to balance your distribution mix so that your property is the least susceptible to seasonality, group cancellations and calamities, or over dependence on the OTAs or any single distribution channel.
The answer first, then the rational. Get out of your own way. It's hard as an individual and near impossible as an organization, but if it is kept in the daily dialog of activities and decisions, it can creep into the results of your actions.
Can the new crop of OTA-like superapps become viable hotel booking channels? Previous attempts by Google (Book on Google), Tripadvisor (Book on Tripadvisor) and three attempts by Amazon to enter the OTA space all failed due to one simple reason: these players were not considered as credible hotel booking channels by the traveling public.
The age-old question that will always remain unanswered until hotel CEOs, CMO, and CROs take their destiny into their own hands. As long as hotel companies continue to invest below 2% of their turnover, in marketing, technological and digital development, data management, data privacy & CRM, they will remain eternally subject to the dictates of OTAs and their outrageous commissions.
For hoteliers, this new crop of OTA-like superapps is merely an extension of their online distribution options. From opaque sites to bedbanks to metasearch and mainstream OTAs like Booking, Trip.com or Expedia, not to mention GDS sales with travel agencies, there are already numerous possibilities.
OTA penetration fell during the pandemic for one key reason: travelers could only opt for local destinations. Due to confinement and travel restrictions in a majority of countries and borders, it was just simpler to travel to local areas and regions.
I believe it is with certainty that OTAs will again built their dominance and more. Covid was like roadworks where travellers didn't travel at all or those who travelled took a detour as the "normal road" was "closed". The market is always right is a sentence often used in trading and it applies here as well.
Storytelling is an important component of Content Marketing for any hotel property, brand, company, or chain. Storytelling should permeate across all Content Marketing formats like website content, social media, PR, blogs, etc.
Storytelling always requires a minimum of 3 aspects: The Plot, the characters and then of course the narrators point of view. The major issue with hotels and brands is that in order to tell the story, you need a story. You need to create it and in many cases we just don't.
It starts with consistency. Many hotel want to jump into content marketing before they have established the basics. Who is their target market? What is their brand message? What are their differentiators against the comp set? The second step, once the above is defined, is audit the content across ALL online channels.