Augmented vs virtual reality Session 4

Map Session 5

A Food & Drink Map by rebecca pourtout

Non traditional collaboration

Wearables Session 3

Geo fencing Session 2

ORM Session 4 Visme Link

Session 3 Alice App

SESSION 3

ALICE APP

The major investor in Alice App is Expédia one of the most popular travel agency on the web. Alice App is a service management system but it doesn't well rooms on the opposite of Expédia. The fact that an online agency invest in a service management app is a major breakthrough as now the distribution is merging with hotel operations in order to face the evolving consumer behavior.

By pushing messaging, hoteliers are able to communicate directly with guests by using sms and so get their intention more than if they were using apps that are not necessarily checked during the day. All the conciergerie services can now be done as soon as the guest request is made. The concierge Caen fulfill a need using direct message. The notions of location or time are pretty much dissapearing because of the instant communication. By using apps inegrated with direct message, hoteliers can manage requests pre stay, in stay and off property as well as integrate guest activities and profiles for future requests.
So now hoteliers have to think of guest service as very personnalized services because of higher expectations from their guests. The traditionnal ORM are used to manage the reputation of the hotel by analyzing the online reputation and the guests satisfaction of your hotel in order to improve guest service. Now it's not only to manage reputation but it sur more to focus on your right customer and provide them the services they want precisely. It involves contacting the guest prior to stay and most importantly to use the most used way of communication which is messages. Messages are now taking the lead over the several social networks available on the web.
It involves that now a guest service is a personnalized service that has been thought in advance for each one of the guests. Satisfaction is the feeling that the guests has at the moment he receives the service so it should be measured at the moment the services is fullfiled. The use of after stay satisfaction quastionnaires is now not any more relevant because in order to keep your customers, all requests should be adressed at the Time it happens.

Alice App and CheckMate.io share sole similarities bu the main différence is the fact that CheckMate is mainly focusing on direct communication with customers. It's a plateform that allow all staff members to get précise information on each guests, share those informations with the other  and contact directly the guest using messages. It's a plateform entirely dedicated to direct message to customers.

The post app service economy is the idea that the use of the apps is declining as direct message such as sms or snapchat, WhatsApp, wechat are much more used and popular. Sms is the most used way of communication and we use it all day throughout the day. We are constantly connected to each other using text messages. On the opposite, we are not as consumers constantly ckecking apps. So hoteliers using apps to contact their guests may face à high rate of non responses. The messaging service Will impact ORM as text messages are really difficult to control. So now the challenge for hoteliers is to find ways to control their reputation while as the same Time use direct messages with customers that are not necessarily easily controllable because of the privacy of the Channel.

Webinar ORM Session 2

SESSION 2 WEBINAR: REVENUE STRATEGY MANAGEMENT FOR HOTELIERS

By watching this webinar I learn some facts about the importance of guests’ ratings when deciding prices.

First the reviews are one of the most important element that drive guests in their booking decisions. More than half of the consumers won’t make a reservation if there are no reviews because reviews appear as being references among customers. And because the offers of hoteliers are more and more numerous and similar, the reputation of a specific hotel can make the make the difference among all of its competitors. An increase in reviews can lead to in increases in occupancy and in RevPar for a significant amount.

Furthermore, the revenue management is essential for hoteliers as it defines which service to sell to the different kind of customers and at the most profitable price. But because the increasing numbers of distribution channels and online reviews, the revenue managers are facing difficulties to manage and forecast the rates. The hotels are spending more and more on guest acquisition and retention because of the volatility of the demand. This phenomenon impacts a lot on the total revenue.

Then in order to keep businesses profitable while acquisition costs are rising, hoteliers could use some techniques such as:

• Integrate digital marketing processes in the guests purchase decision
•  Make sure than previous customers made good reviews about the hotel and so focus on guest satisfaction before, during and after the stay
• Anticipate customers’ demand by offering them as much choice as possible when they are booking rooms
• Focus on increasing direct booking by focusing on guest services offered at the hotel and offering incentives
• Use metasearch to adapt to new trends
• Update your online websites as often as possible
• Get out of your comfort zone and create new services that will lead to the attraction of new demands
• Replace the RevPar by the ProPar to focus more on the profitability of the rooms and not only the revenue

Finally the most important things today is to diversify across several channels of distribution, take into account the acquisition which is higher and higher and finally listen to the customers in order to create services that would create guests loyalty and that would also make a hotel stand out among the competitors. 

ORM Comparison Session 1

Marriott Travel Briantly

Webinar Assignment

Webinar: Connecting with Travelers to Drive Direct Booking & Loyalty
Presenter: Daniel E.Craig founder of Reknown
Link: Webinar
Slide deck: Slides

By attending this webinar I learned really important notions and tips on how to increase customers' loyalty. More and more people are now booking online by using travel agencies and OTAs that are not looking for customers' loyalty. So hoteliers now want to get back direct booking and guests' loyalty.
Here are the notions and tips given in the webinar that seems to me the most relevant and that need to be taken into account in order to drive direct booking and guests loyalty:
- focus on guest service that can't be done by online travel agencies
- create contacts as much as possible to drive loyalty
- mobile booking has double in the past year
- SMS communication has increased dramatically over voice communication
- it's essential to be close to the guests and engage communication
- use multiple forms of expressions
- extend personnal touch
- a better communication is synonymous of greater guest loyalty
- engage communication before the guest's arrival
- connect during the stay and ask guests how thay want to communicate
- use software that create widget on your website that gives to the customer the travel agencies' prices for the same chosen dates
The first benefits from attending the webinar is that you get precised information about a specific subject which is developped in details by someone who has great knowledges in the subject. Another benefit is that the webinar is interactive thanks to the slidedeck so you get more involved as if you were reading the same information in a book; it catches the attention of the audience.
If I had to organize a webinar I would use more visuals on the slidedeck and also some videos to illustrate the sayings.

Homework for Session 6 Hospitality Social Media

Mobile App Session 5

Session 4 DudaMobile Website

Mobile Website Hotel Cheval Blanc St Barth

DudaMobile Website 

The current mobile website of the hotel is really beautiful but I though that there were not enough information and only pictures. If you don't know the hotel you can't really know what kind of services they are offering unless you go on their non mobile website. So I put the minimum words as possible but I tried to give some additional information to the mobile website users while at the same time keeping the website thumbable. 

Influencer Campaign Le Meurice

Influencer Campaign

Homework for Session 3 Influencers

Why influencer marketing can benefit a hotel, or restaurant, or spa better than "traditional marketing"?

In the hospitality industry, customers make choice on what places offer but also more and more about the reputation of the place made by previous visitors. An influencer is one of those people that can provide living or personal feedbacks on hotels, spas or restaurants. An influencer could be more efficient to promote hotels or restaurants by reaching the right segment of customers because he is part of the audience and so he has more ability to know the demand of the clients, what they are looking for exactly. Furthermore, an ifluencer is more listened by the people than traditional ways of advertising. Nowadays wee are constantly on social media and we like as consumers to interact with people that have knowledges about a certain subject and with whome we can interact directly. And because an influencer could be well-known personnality, people might want to go to the same place as same and they might by more encline to believe their opinions or advices about a specific hotel or restaurant. Finally an influencer may have a huge network of followers that would spread the information about an hotel or a spa and so they would promote it in a much more efficient way than traditional marketing.

Session 2 Canva

Facebook Cover

Session 2 Word Cloud

Session 1 Exercice 2

What attracts Gen C to these properties and why?

Virgin Hotel
Virgin Hotels tend to attract generation C by changing the ideas that we have about hospitality. They want to break the usual process that each client is going through when they go to an hotel. The designing of the Room is made around the most important place for young generations: the dressing room. The services offered are made the easiest as possible as generation C doesn't have Time to lose. For example the internet doesn't require and code as in other hotels You might have to go to the reception to get a code and There is often connection problems.
The website of the Chicago Virgin Hotel is made like a social media website. There are lots of similarities with for example Pinterest with squares getting You through each service that the hotel offers. There are lots of pictures and the leastleast text as possible. Each Word used has been chosed to make an impact on the young generation.
The hotel offers all the basic services but adapted to generation C to create easy social experiences: check in and check out can be made at any time, as I said before There is no internet connection code,  There are social Hours and the drinks are at the same price as everywhere to promote social meetings. They also have developped their own mobile application and also The Know which allow the guests to give their preferences to the hotel's employees for their future stays.

Radisson Red
This hotel has developped a concept based on super modern design in order to attract the generation C in particular. They have included social spaces for people to meet and open spaces to promote meetings among people. The hotel is full on new technology in the rooms, in the common spaces and the top high technology features in the meeting rooms. The hotel wants to attract the young generation by focusing on the technology, the app and the almost futuriste features with a reference that they have used everywhere inside the hotel: the red color that would work as a point of reference for the hotel. They have instaured a way of life inside the hotel and they state directly on the website that they want to be different.
The hotel website has the least features as possible so the young generation won't be overwhelmed by too many informations. Sobriety is the concept they have used: lots of pictures and short texts and sentences. You roll the on the website as on a mobile phone screen.
The hotel provides an application, meeting event studios,a bar with food and drinks and spaces to meet, play and be social. They offer social experiences to the clients thanks to all the features that are made to meet and interact with the others.

Session 1 Exercice 1

How do the digital touchepoints differ from country to country? 

We can see on the graph that when we compare the large food industry between the US and France, we can notice that social channels play the early role before the purchase. We can find some reasons for that. The food is basically purchased based on the taste and with whom we are going to share it. So it's why social channels play the main assisting role in the purchase decisions. Another reasob is the fact that the food is a vital element that we need to purchase and so it's the one that we don't really make research on it; we just bought it because we have to in our society.
But then along in the customer journey to purchase, the Americans take more times before using generic paid search may be because in France, customers are more likely to compare the food products from one brand to another so we search earlier in the process our choice for food products alternatives.
And it's also quite different between France and the US regarding the channel that have the final influence on the consumer. The Americans will make their final decisions based on emails; so they need an influence from the seller directly adressed to them. Whereas in France, we will make a last search and on organic one because we want to make our own opinion on the product and the one provided by brand or generic paid search that come earlier in the process and which don't necessarily provide totaly true information as they have been paid and often based on advertissements.


How the digital touchpoints differ from industry to industry? 

I decided to compare two different industries in France that both concern the peoples' spare time. 

We can see on the graph that the display click channel plays the role of giving awareness for travel and leisures & hobbies products. The reason is that those products are not everyday life products and we got aware of them for most of the time without necessarily looking for them. For example we see on ad on the internet and finding it interesting we will click on it. Another reason is the fact that large businesses in those industries need to attract the attention of the customer among the competitors. And then early in the process, there is the impact of the social chanel because we will refer to our relatives to get advices or knowledges. But after that travel and leisure & hobbies differ.
The journey to buy travel products is equally sequenced between the different touchpoints except from the last because you plan a travel so you have deadline and then before deciding to invest in it to take your time to make the final decisions. After the social impact you will make generic search to compare and so you will be impacted by the email that you could exchange with travel agencies for example. The last channel to play a role is the brand paid search because you will look up for detailed information about your brand choice. 

Regarding the leisure & hobbies, there is a big gap in the journey purchase before using referral chanel to get advices from your relatives. The searches appear at the end because leisure & hobbies are more about what you like and what the others think is the best as they might do it with you. It's not an investment like travels. 

Off the various touchpoints, how many does a typical hotel use to convert lookers to bookers?

A lot of people are lookers regarding hotels because as consumers we are looking for the best place for the smallest price. So to convert a looker to a booker, a typical hotel should use three touchpoints: referral, email and social because it establishes a closest contact between the business and the hotel. 

Which touchpoints are most important for a hotel to employ and why? 

The email touchpoint is crucial for a hotel in order to have a direct contact with the clients regarding all the reservation details of the feedbacks. Referral is crucial as a hotel can get, through customer satisfaction, new clients thanks to recommandations from those satisfied. Then hotel must employ brand paid search because people often chose something that they already know so if the hotel is part of a group for example, customers might get to this hotel and not the one next to it because they are loyal to this brand. And for the well known hotel, this touchpoints is essential as they will appear on the top of the search page. 

Example of touchpoints 

Generic paid search 

Brand paid search

How many screens (devices) can people use in the decision journey?

As we live a technological environment we can use the following screens: mobile, computer, tablet, television, cinema, on screen advertising for example on the street.