Lucky Bear Yacht

Maï-Maï 2: South France big game fishing charter Mediterranean Sea sport fish... Maï-Maï 2: South France big game fishing charter Mediterranean Sea sport fishing, French Riviera : tuna fishing, bluefin tuna, swordfish, white marlin, ... - Bernard Lacosta (Maï-Maï 2) - Google+

ILTM is starting today!

Meet us at Spot 28 right in front of Palais des Festivals, Cannes during lunch time and after 5 pm. We are pleased to welcome you on our luxury yacht and share with you a drink !

For more details: [email protected]

ILTM Cannes | Palais des Festivals et des Congres | November 30-03 December 2015 - ILTM ILTM, 5 - 8 December, is the leading ‘by invitation only’ event for the global luxury travel community, held annually at The Palais des Festivals et des Congrès, Cannes.

Lucky Bear can't wait to welcome you on our Luxury Yacht during International Luxury Travel Market (ILTM) in Cannes this year and from Monday 5th December!

The owner Mr. Jean-François Ott, General Manager Danilo Iovieno of Smetana Hotel (Pachtuv Palace) and the team would be happy to introduce you to our Ott Collection and share with you a welcome drink.

Meet us at Spot 28 right in front of Palais des Festivals, Cannes

Contact us for more details at [email protected]

http://www.luckybearyacht.com/

Lucky in Corsica and St Tropez july 2016

Enjoy live like a Billionaire...Rent Lucky Bear Yacht for your-self and friends.
Great time to enjoy Monte Carlo, Corsica, Sicillia, Malta,Sardenia.
Let us know, captain will be prepared!
www.LuckyBearYacht.com
www.PachtuvPalace.com
www.HotelMatching.com
www.RedCrox.com

Arriving to in style on Lucky Bear Yacht!

Arriving to in style on Lucky Bear Yacht!

The new tools to empower (back) hoteliers through innovation HotelMatching.com

This is our third and last post observing the current hotel industry situation as we continue within the mobile age.
http://ow.ly/Zb32B

The new tools to empower (back) hoteliers through innovation

Last Thursday, in our hotelmatching.com blog, I was sharing my analysis on the consequences of the mobile revolution and the rise of AirBnB, and listing success conditions for hoteliers to be at the spearhead of their new digital environment. It’s all about personalizing hotel choice and guest experience now, thanks to these new technologies that are both revolutionizing the hospitality industry and bringing it back to its roots.
Rich guests profiles
The contemporary travelers, led by millennials, expect personalization and, to that purpose, accept sharing data or answering questions but only once! Then “the system should know whom I am”: no more static questions, credit card number, etc.
Increasingly, app users have been enriching their Facebook account with useful personal information so that they can sign in to numerous apps, whether it is dating, events matching and now traveling. Apps like HotelMatching even provide the opportunity to build a profile through several social media accounts, with LinkedIn, for example filling ‘business travel information’ compared to Facebook’s ‘holiday & breaks’ mode.
Then there are clever questionnaires. Besides the static questionnaires for the most demanding and motivated travelers, dynamic questionnaires are today enhanced by Artificial Intelligence which adapts questions to the existing profile information.
Lastly there is history. History of navigation, requests, booking, history of stay and history of post stays (feedback and reviews, the former being a possible automatic source for the later).
It is important for hoteliers to choose tools that integrate all information and do not separate in silos such customer information. HotelMatching.com does cover search, booking and stay. Revinate or Guestfolio focus on hotel guest data management. All these products operate well with new generation operating system tools, such as Mews or Roombler, cloud based and with mobile use, where all customer data is gathered together and accessible by all hotel staff.

New tools for the better rather than for the worse
A number of useful, needed new tools are being introduced by hoteliers to meet these new expectations of clients. Mobile online check in and check out, which exists for such a long time in the airline industry. Mobile key (through a code) is also an innovation designed to make clients gain time. E-concierge, automated payment solutions, linked reviews and on-demand entertainment all have been created and introduced in the past couple of years.
But let’s be aware there is risk with digitalization tools where no staff (human) is involved. The client becomes ever more anonymous, depersonalized, leaving the hotelier in a low-value role of “key giver- key receiver”. Those travelers looking for human contact and local experience are widely targeted and acquired by AirBnB.
This is why those tools must be used in a global new environment together with other new tools that actually bring personalization and innovative new services to their clients. Among them the most important are:
• Chat tool. It sounds dead simple but chat has many advantages: the fact that it can be automatically translated, the immediate answer, the written flow that is tracked, etc. Chat is plebiscited by customers and it is much better for management.
• Geo localization. Not only are guests increasingly willing to share personal data to get personalized service, more and more guests are ready to share geo-localization. Imagine, say for a resort, the power to know that guests are on the beach rather than in the pool, that a group is on its way, etc. Better service, better allocation of resources.
• Artificial intelligence is also the new El-dorado, treating meaningless Big Data into smart data. The real revolution here is with self-learning algorithms that can be taught to sort, classify, rate data, and cross check, or ‘match’ it like HotelMatching.com.
• Virtual concierge/e shop/guide. If the hotel is the ‘church in a middle of a village of services’, a lifestyle provider, then it must provide tools to connect to its inside and outside environment like hotel personalized apps provided by companies such as HotelCloud, or HelloScout.
But new technology also brings personalization to low cost, limited service hotels who can integrate food delivery service (like Deliveroo) or laundry delivery services, further distinguishing them from limited services B&B. The HotelMatching app in its next round of product development will deliver just that, besides all the existing above tools.
New marketing tools too
A treat to one person can be a nuisance to another. For example: marketing mails for hotel events during the day can trouble guests, if they travel for business but enchant them, if on a break…
Push messages
Push messages to targeted audience with targeted content will therefore play a role in increasing bookings. Especially in the early stages of travel planning, targeted content can help drive search and purchasing decisions. As mentioned by Tnooz, “Some companies have found that when a relevant, personalized ad is displayed, there is an eight times greater click-through rate than for an un-targeted ad, and customers are eight times more likely to engage with an ad to buy a ticket or package”
Social media leverage
Offering ease of use, extra services, new and personalized guest experience, hoteliers can really capitalize on the impact of user generated content – reviews, social media check-ins, comments, and ratings – and in turn use these positive affirmations to drive bookings. Tools like HotelMatching or Guestin offer hoteliers an automatization of these processes, notably transforming quick and easy customer feed-back into automatically computed reviews filed by clients.
And more efficient operating structures
New tech based personalizing tools do not mean, like before, more staff investment or more costs. On the contrary, mobile based operating systems allow you to know where your customers are and develop flexibility and multi-tasking savings, for example with F&B staff costs. Or, as already described, on integrating external services if you are a limited service facility. The written line increases communication and accountability of staff ALL staff (including housekeeping, bell boys, waiters, not only concierge or front desk) who all become part of the guest service. For example housekeeping can personalize a room in terms of standard equipment, minibar, and temperature setting with no additional time involved.
A single service on-demand platform like HotelMatching reduces costs and creates new revenue opportunities. Increased guest satisfaction translates into more repeat business, more direct bookings, better visibility thanks to guests back and reviews. Also, more revenues from the rooms (ex. minibar) or on-site facilities (for ex creating temporary sales point for say a football match). HotelMatching is emblematic of a new generation of hotel tools aiming to change travel industry from the age of e-booking to the one of AI matching and personalized travel.
About HotelMatching.com March launch at ITB Berlin
How can we fundamentally improve the travel experience? How does a Traveler find a hotel that really matches him and avoid one he dislikes? Can you be known and treated like a returning customer from the very first stay?
We are launching HotelMatching.com, a break through travel platform, which personalizes search & booking per individual room, and, during the stay, multiplies enjoyment and experience uniquely tailored for each Guest.
We combine deep profiling of both travelers and hotels and sophisticated algorithms to produce personalized solutions to Travelers: first for searching & matching, then, during the stay, for proposing fully personalized experiences.
In an explosion of supply and demand, both Travelers and Hotels have to stand out!
To learn more, come visit us at ITB – Berlin (9 – 13th March) and see our stand at Hall 6.1/160a and don’t miss our presentation on Thursday 10th at 2:00pm-2:30pm at the “Lab” in the eTravel section.
See you there!

http://hotelmatching.com/blog/?p=123

La révolution mobile pour les hôteliers : nouveaux acteurs, nouvelles opportunités et nouveaux risques.

Dans mon article posté lundi (www.hotelmatching.com/blog), nous analysions les conséquences de la première révolution internet, confisquée par les agences de voyages en ligne, la dépersonnalisation de la relation entre les clients et les hôteliers, qui risquent aujourd’hui d'être les victimes désintermédiées du processus de réservation.

TripAdvisor & Co.

Outre les OTAs, les agences de voyages en ligne, un nouvel acteur puissant est apparu : TripAdvisor. Dans un monde en ligne submergé d'informations et d’offres, les voyageurs doivent pouvoir faire un choix. TripAdvisor – comme tous ceux qui lui ont emboîté le pas (Yelp, etc.) – s’est imposé comme le principal outil de notation dont disposent les voyageurs pour juger de la qualité d'un hôtel ou d'un restaurant. Et cela marche : les gens ont tendance à faire confiance aux avis trouvés sur le Net : les opinions exprimées se sont rapidement transformées en une arme puissante dans les mains de millions de voyageurs. Peu importe qu'un certain nombre d'avis aient été des faux (certes, les sites ont essayé de corriger cela), que de plus en plus de robots génèrent automatiquement des critiques positives, que des maîtres-chanteurs menacent de générer des mauvaises critiques (et que cela arrive parfois), ou que certains payent pour figurer en haut de la liste. Même les utilisateurs bien intentionnés peuvent avoir toutes sortes de préjugés ou de goûts qui, tout simplement, n’ont rien à voir avec les vôtres ! Il n'y a pas de goût homogène ! De plus en plus de voyageurs expérimentés ont cessé de faire confiance aux avis trouvés sur le Net et ne se fient plus qu’à leur propre jugement. Tout comme Google et Yahoo, TripAdvisor s’est transformé en une énorme OTA en offrant une méta-recherche toujours aussi coûteuse aux hôteliers.
Même s’ils sont sujets à caution, les hôteliers doivent continuer à tirer parti – à un niveau individuel –des avis exprimés sur le Net. Ils peuvent désormais utiliser des outils semi-automatisés qui donnent aux clients satisfaits la possibilité de répondre à des enquêtes simples, de manière à générer automatiquement des critiques positives. HotelMatching est l'un de ces outils. De plus, les critiques peuvent être très utiles en tant qu’«outils de contrôle collectif », plus qu'en tant qu’« outils de sélection ». Quand des milliers d’avis concernent un lieu donné, les informations peuvent être recoupées. Quand des dizaines de commentaires signalent qu’une « piscine » est un simple whirlpool bath ou qu'une vue « sur jardin » donne sur un mur, la technologie moderne entre en jeu. Il est alors possible de vérifier et d’évaluer les informations statiques fournies par les hôtels ou les agences de voyages en ligne et d’effectuer un choix personnel mieux ciblé. Par exemple, HotelMatching utilise les avis comme d’autres « big data » non pas en tant que données de référence mais en tant que moyen d’effectuer des vérifications croisées.

La révolution numérique mobile

La deuxième vague numérique concerne l’« économie à la demande » découlant de la croissance spectaculaire de l'utilisation des Smartphones. Elle met désormais à la disposition d’un grand nombre de personnes une puissance de calcul bien supérieure à celle des ordinateurs de bureau, et le boom du Cloud donne accès à beaucoup plus de données et à une capacité de traitement démultipliée. Le voyageur moyen peut désormais concevoir son propre voyage ; les réservations sur mobile ont doublé l’année dernière, et elles représentent désormais 23% du total des réservations dans le monde entier. Notre voyageur peut aussi avoir des réponses immédiates à toutes sortes de problèmes opérationnels qui, dans le passé récent, n’étaient que plus ou moins réglés par des produits standardisés. Nous parlons ici d'un nouveau type de voyageur, sachant tirer parti des nouvelles technologies et qui souhaite une « expérience utilisateur » plus personnalisée et plus efficace.
De fait, plus de trois clients sur quatre se sentent frustrés lorsque le contenu d'un site Web apparaît et n'a rien à voir avec leurs intérêts. Pour les voyageurs modernes, la surabondance d'informations est une gêne et une source de frustration grandissante.

De plus en plus de gens veulent être reconnus en tant qu'individus. Quatre voyageurs sur 10 sont prêts à partager leurs informations dans l'intérêt de la personnalisation. Aux États-Unis, 50 millions de personnes ont rempli un formulaire sur un site de rencontres en ligne. Connaître leurs clients, avoir accès à leurs préférences donne évidemment aux hôteliers la possibilité de fournir un meilleur service à la clientèle et d’avoir ainsi des clients satisfaits qui sont plus susceptibles de revenir. En même temps, comme pour compenser un mode de communication plus dépersonnalisé, la révolution mobile a apporté un essor à l'économie dite « collaborative », dans laquelle les gens partagent des produits et des expériences loin de la marchandisation et de la pure consommation induites par l'avènement d'Internet.

Et qui a mené cette deuxième vague numérique ? Ce n’est ni un hôtelier, ni une OTA, mais ...

Les leçons du succès d’AirBnB

AirBnB, objet de tant de critiques et de commentaires, a émergé comme l'un des concurrents les plus puissants des hôteliers et des OTAs. Le succès d’AirBnB n'est pas dû au hasard : cette start-up – qui n’en est plus vraiment une - a apporté aux voyageurs de réels progrès et des innovations dont les hôteliers doivent absolument s’inspirer.

AirBnB a grandi sous l’impulsion de la génération Y ou « enfants du millénaire », versés dans la technologie, à qui elle proposait, plus qu’un nouveau mode d’hébergement, des prix abordables pour des logements uniques et faciles à réserver. Pour la plupart des membres de cette génération, le processus de réservation classique d’un l'hôtel était laborieux. Compliquée par les exigences techniques, l'expérience utilisateur – qui sur les OTAs n’est vraiment positive ni pour les clients ni pour les hôteliers – a été difficile à adapter aux mobiles. AirBnb, qui est une application plus Mobile que Web, a apporté simplicité et facilité au processus de réservation (« trois clics suffisent pour réserver »).
AirBnB a apporté une deuxième innovation technique : les clients peuvent communiquer directement avec les hôtes sur l'application AirBnB. Une telle communication est encore un tabou pour la plupart des OTAs (notamment pour des questions liées au paiement de commissions). Une troisième innovation, partagée avec Uber et d'autres nouveaux acteurs importants dans le domaine des applications mobiles, a consisté à donner désormais crédit non seulement aux avis, exprimés par les seuls clients après un séjour (leçon à retenir, TripAdvisor ...) mais aussi par les hôtes. Ainsi, les hôtes (c’est-à-dire les hôteliers) peuvent choisir leurs clients et éviter ceux qui sont peu soigneux ! Enfin, comme TripAdvisor, ils ont créé un réel environnement convivial à la destination (guide, conseils utiles, etc.)

La combinaison de ces innovations a été un succès, faisant de AirBnB une « communauté d'utilisateurs et d’hôtes », appartenant à l’« économie collaborative » et constituant un « réseau social de commerce et d’échange ». En mettant l'accent sur la communication, la collaboration et l'expérience d'accueil (« Bienvenue à la maison »), AirBnB fournit exactement ce que les agences de voyages en ligne et certains hôteliers ont négligé : une véritable expérience humaine, locale et personnalisée.
Ainsi, avec la capacité de commercialiser spécifiquement des chambres (ou le plus souvent des suites) et un niveau de commission de 3%, il n’est pas étonnant qu'un nombre croissant d'hôteliers se laissent tenter par AirBnB pour écouler une partie spécifique de leur inventaire.
Les 6 conditions du succès numérique
Le succès d’AirBnB est à la portée des hôteliers ! Six conditions doivent être remplies pour réussir la mutation à l'ère mobile :
1) Facilité d'accès (mobilité, convivialité)
2) Gain de temps (recherche, réservation, enregistrement, paiement, commande, etc.)
3) Facilité de communication avec l'hôtel (pas d'intermédiaires, pas de barrière linguistique, outils de chat écrit)
4) Possibilité de créer et de faire vivre aux voyageurs une expérience unique et personnalisée
5) Davantage de services et des services plus personnalisés.
6) De plus en plus de partage des installations et des services, ouverts à tous (ex. facturation de réunions à l'heure pour les non-clients).

Une fois que vous avez pu réunir les avantages concurrentiels ci-dessus, marketez le ! Les hôteliers devraient promouvoir leur originalité et leurs arguments de vente essentiels auprès des voyageurs, sans avoir à se plier aux normes imposées par les OTAs ou les méta-moteurs de recherche...
Les hôteliers ont aujourd’hui une chance historique de repositionner et de commercialiser leur hôtel comme un pôle unique de services dans un environnement dépersonnalisé, « l'église replacée au milieu du village ». Après tout, sur les 3 dernières conditions du succès numérique, les hôteliers sont mieux positionnés, avec leur infrastructure existante (équipements, services) que les propriétaires individuels sur AirBnB.

Les hôteliers peuvent répondre à toutes les conditions ci-dessus à ce challenge digital en utilisant des outils technologiques intégrés novateur tel que HotelMatching.com. Il existe aussi un certain nombre d'autres outils ou de modules indépendants qui permettent d'atteindre ce but. Nous les détaillerons dans notre article posté lundi prochain. À plus t**d !

http://hotelmatching.com/blog/
The mobile revolution for hoteliers: new players, new opportunities, new risks.

With my post on Monday (http://hotelmatching.com/blog/?p=75) I was giving some thoughts about how hoteliers with their older generation ‘silo’ tools, couldn’t know their guests, and why the first Internet age and the ruling of OTAs had depersonalized the relation between guests and hoteliers, who run the risk of being disintermediated from the booking process.

TripAdvisor and co

Besides OTAs, a new powerful player has emerged: TripAdvisor. In an online world overwhelmed with information and choice, Travelers need to select. TripAdvisor and its followers (Yelp etc.) have imposed themselves as the main rating tool for Travelers to judge the quality of an accommodation or a restaurant. People tend to trust reviews for their selection. The so-called “review” turned into a powerful weapon in the hands of million of Travelers. It didn’t matter that a number of reviews proved to be fakes (the sites have tried to monitor that, yes), that more and more robots are generating positive reviews, that blackmailers threaten to generate negative reviews (and sometimes do) or that advertisement makes you move up closer to the screen. Even well intended users are susceptible to all sorts of biases or just tastes that are not yours! There is no homogeneous taste! More and more experienced travelers have stopped trusting reviews as for their own personalized choice. Now TripAdvisor, just like Google and Yahoo, have transformed to a kind of OTA by offering an expensive meta-search to its visitors and members.

Today hoteliers should continue on an individual level to leverage on reviews, and as twisted as they are, they can use semi-automated tools allowing happy customers fill out simple surveys to automatically generate positive reviews. HotelMatching is one of them. Additionally reviews are very useful as a ‘collective checking tool’ rather than a ‘selection tool’. The fact that there are thousands of reviews on a property allows to verify information. If dozens or hundreds of reviews dismiss a swimming pool as a mere whirlpool bath or a garden view as a wall view, then modern technology can check and rate the static information provided by hotels or OTAs for more accuracy in the personal choice. For example, HotelMatching uses reviews among other Big Data as a cross check, not as reliance data.

The mobile digital revolution

Following the web emergence, the second digital wave came recently with the ‘on-demand economy’ resulting from the rise of smartphones, which now provide far more computing power than the desktop computers, to far more people, and the boom of the Cloud, giving access to far more data and processing. The average Traveler can now design his own trip: mobile booking has doubled in the past year and now represents 23 percent of the total bookings worldwide. He can also find and expect immediate answers to all sorts of business problems previously solved by standardized packages. We are speaking about a new type of traveler, technology friendly, who expects a more personalized and efficient user experience.
In fact, ¾ of consumers get frustrated when website content appears to have nothing to do with their interests. The overwhelming amount of travel information is now creating an inconvenience for modern day travelers.

More and more people want to be recognized as individuals and 4 out of 10 travelers are willing to share their information in the interest of personalization. In the US, 50 Million people have filled a matching profile on an on-line dating agency. Knowing their Guests, having access to their preferences for hoteliers obviously means providing better customer service, creating satisfied customers, and guests more likely to return. At the same time, in balance to a more depersonalization communication mode, the mobile revolution has created a rise in the so-called collaborative economy, where people share products and experiences away from the commoditization and pure consumerism implied by the first Internet age.
And who has been leading this second digital wave? Not an hotelier, not an OTA, but…

The lessons from AirBnB success

AirBnB, subject of so many critics and comments, has emerged as one of the most powerful competitors to hoteliers and OTAs alike. AirBnB success had nothing to do with chance; they brought real progress and innovations to Travelers that Hoteliers should absolutely take inspiration from.
AirBnB grew on the back of tech savvy Millennials bringing affordable, easy to book and unique lodging options. For most Millennials, the hotel booking/stay process has been complex, unsmooth. The user experience, jammed with technical requirements, is not the best either for the guests or the hoteliers and used to translate with difficulty on mobiles. AirBnB, which is more a mobile application than web, has brought simplicity, smoothness (“3 clicks away from booking”) to the reservation process.
A second technical innovation that AirBnB has brought is that Guests can directly communicate with Hosts on the AirBnB application, which is still a taboo for most OTAs (notably for commissions sourcing issues). A third innovation, shared with the Uber and other new main application players, has been to give credit to reviews, done only by Guests who stayed in (learn TripAdvisor…), and now also by Hosts. Hosts (read Hoteliers) can chose their Guests and avoid the careless ones! Lastly, like TripAdvisor, they created a real destination environment with guide, useful tips, etc.
The combination of these innovations successfully made AirBnB a ‘community of users and hosts that belong to the ‘collaborative economy’ , and act as a ‘social market network’. By emphasizing on communication, collaboration and host experience (‘welcome home’), AirBnB provides exactly what OTAs and some hoteliers have neglected: genuine, local, human experience, personalized experience.
And with the capacity of marketing specifically rooms (or most often suites) and a 3% commission level, no wonder that an increasing number of hoteliers are trying out AirBnB for specific inventories.

The 6 conditions to digital success

The AirBnB success is accessible to hoteliers! There are 6 conditions for hoteliers to succeed in the mobile age:
1) Ease of access (mobile, user -friendly)
2) Gain on time for searching, booking, checking in, paying, ordering …
3) Easy communication with the hotel (no intermediaries, no language barrier, written chat tools)
4) Ability to create and deliver unique, personalized experiences to the travelers.
5) More services and more personalized services.
6) Share facilities and services ever more to all (ex. meeting by the hour to non-guests).

Once you gather the competitive advantages above, market them! Hoteliers should promote their originality, their key unique selling points to Travelers without having to fit the standards imposed by OTAs or Meta search engines…
Hoteliers have a historical chance to reposition and market their hotel as a unique pole of services in a depersonalized environment, as ‘the church in the middle of the village’. After all, on the 3 last points, hoteliers are better positioned with their existing infrastructure than individual owners.

Hoteliers can meet all of the above conditions with one integrated tool such as ‘HotelMatching.com’ but there are number of other tools or separated modules that achieve that. We will detail them in our next post on Monday. See you then!

Risques et opportunités de la révolution digitale pour les hôteliers

http://ow.ly/Z1TUs

Jean-Francois Ott and HotelMatching.com are looking to technology to increase personalization in the hospitality industry.

http://ow.ly/YSA3L

"From the risks of digitalization for hoteliers to the opportunities brought by new digital tools"

I have been a hotel investor, developer and manager for over 15 years. In many countries. I have seen some changes indeed. I was running a 3 billion real estate assets company and I had a dedicated CEO running our hotel business. I didn’t see, and he didn’t either, the nature of the changes modifying our hotel business environment. A year ago I personally bought back one of my first hotels in Prague and I came back to the hotel industry as a small independent hotelier. I want to share what I have witnessed with you; what I have found is lots of struggling around the new and already old recent digital tools available to hoteliers, new intermediaries, new hotel competitors and new clients.

I have witnessed simultaneously both an acceleration of the velocity of change in the travel industry and a frightening hotel immobilism, a blockage of the ‘static assets’ that hotels are by definition.

To understand the issues and the opportunities that I see, I think it is useful to discuss the 2 steps of the digital revolution and their implications for hoteliers separately.

The first internet age

The first internet age which came at the turn of the millennium has basically been a democratization of travel, mostly airplanes and hotel booking. Travel made easy. It was first a blessing for us hoteliers, by bringing more clients and easier access to large markets and communities. But it has overwhelmed hoteliers and engulfed a number of us in a vicious circle of dependence whereby we lost the ‘relation to customer’ and, as importantly, the management of the ‘relation to prospects’. To be provocative, it seems we increasingly end with the wrong clients in our properties. And are guests getting a better service than before?

Depersonalization

The most obvious manifestation of our industry struggle is the crisis of depersonalization related to the evolution of global on-line players, especially On Line Travel Agents (OTAs), which have squeezed many traditional Travel Agents (TA’s) out of business. However TA’s had a specific position in the traditional ecosystem of travel. They had their very own industry role in providing in depth knowledge of their clients, their families, businesses. They were often the ones to choose the best hotels for the guests and tailor-made their stays, in other world: they were matching supply and demand according to trip purposes, budgets, clients profile and a hotel in a specific location. Even better, specifically for vacation trips old fashion TA’s would be recommending a destination. Clients were relaxed, they trusted their supplier adviser, and they had the TA as buffer with the hotel. Hoteliers knew who was coming to their property, they were ready, and in many cases they knew the client before he even showed up.

Disintermediation

The monopolization of the on-line world by OTAs at the expense of TAs and hotels has resulted in the industry limiting their focus to only few tangibles: price, stars, ‘the look’, and now, the reviews.

OTAs have smartly driven out hotels from the on-line marketing and booking process. Hoteliers welcomed this bonanza of new bookings at pure variable costs and progressively outsourced their sales and marketing… Up to a point that OTAs took over the relation to the client with dedicated customer e-mails which go through their system and disconnect the natural line of communication between hotel and a guest.

In the meantime, a lot of hoteliers continued operating obsolete, closed hotel systems keeping them away from guest knowledge and interaction. Most existing hotel management systems and notably guest management systems, and have been stacking up single-purpose functions designed for individual departments, Housekeeping or F&B are often not connected to the reservation system. The tools built are under-used. Staff accountability is limited. The result is a lack of anticipation of customer service as hotel staff can only react late when the guest is already on site…

For the guests, beside the road warriors and high end frequent travelers (we will talk about them later), the online offers, discount, private sale, have resulted in building naive expectations based on misleading information about hotels, their facilities and offers. Digitalization has cut them from a counterpart, hence little or no personalization of the product or service. This results in a potentially disappointing experience due to taking some or every compromise in order to get the ‘best deal’ backed by the so called ‘best price guarantee’. And they get addicted to it like being addicted to playing the lottery.

Hoteliers reactions

Hoteliers have fought back some way or the other. To preserve or increase their margin, some levelled down the level of service to keep their bottom line margin, the right thing to do but for a few of them but damaging for a number of others. Most of us converted to yield management. But by shooting always for the highest price possible at a time, the profession in general lost customer loyalty: higher price was met by more promotion hunting. With ever more yield management i.e. price variations for the Guest, the notion of "Quality for Price" is disappearing. Hoteliers also turned to direct marketing on social networks. But while regaining control of one’s image is a must, the search for "Likes" and followers on social networks cannot replace true customer feed-back and real communication for improving services.

Can this trend be reversed? Yes! The second digital revolution, based on mobiles, profiling and Artificial Intelligence, can be a real blessing for hoteliers and travelers alike, although it comes with new players and new risks of its own because it makes us take risks. We all know there are no real rewards without taking risks.

The DNA of hoteliers is fundamentally set on client satisfaction! Hoteliers will embrace the new venture of matching the right clients in their hotel, they will use the tools that allow them to personalize the product and service for dozens of nationalities, ages and cultures. Personalization, positive experiences are what contemporary Guests expect and they are smart enough to make the effort it takes to help the hoteliers in achieving that goal.

More in our next blog on the ‘’… to the opportunities brought by new digital tools”.