A LOOK UNDER THE SHEETS AT THE EVER-EVOLVING RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN HOTELS AND OTAs.
Of the two great innovations that technology has enabled in the hotel business in the past 15 years, only one has been truly disruptive: the rise of Online Travel Agents.
What makes the disruptive innovation of OTAs so fascinating is that they are simultaneously the hotels’ biggest competitor, and potentially their largest online sales channel (for all but the largest chains). The OTAs and the hotels clearly need each other.
Accepting this fact, how can hospitality brands make the most of their online friends-cum-enemies? Read the rest of this entry »
The QUOcast, a podcast about hospitality
Something we’ve started experimenting with recently, a podcast about hospitality. Discussion includes “the death of the brand”, and an interview with Minor International’s Dilip Rajakarier.
I’ve been working on mobile sites for some clients just recently, and this has been informative, if slightly depressing! In a previous post i talked about how little distinction there is between hotel sub-brands. If you look at the mobile space, there’s very little distinction between the main brands themselves. Follow me while i take a look. Read the rest of this entry »
One of the first things that I try to persuade clients about is the need to be able to update their website themselves — there’s no point having to send changes to a webmaster or agency, something that could take days.
Most clients see the value in this, but keeping the content fresh, that’s a different matter.
Why is fresh content important? Read the rest of this entry »
As someone who has been building hotel websites for the last 10 years, i’ve seen my fair share of mistakes — i may even have made some of them in the past! Avoid these issues, and you’ll be on your way to an effective website that persuades visitors to become bookers.
Mistake 1: No Balance
Some sites are all images; other sites are all text with lousy images. Try to strike a balance — visitors have different drivers, needs, and motivations: some will be won over by great images; others may not care, they want the facts. A well balanced site should cater to both of these needs, and appeal to both user groups. Read the rest of this entry »
In Asia, we have a less developed online travel market than in Europe and the US. This means there are no dominant players like Expedia, Travelocity, Orbitz, and Priceline.
The nearest we get to that is Zuji, which is the Asian offshoot of Travelocity. However, this serves limited markets, and under different brands, which doesn’t give it the mindshare of the 4 dominant players in the US and Europe. Priceline has Agoda, but apparently, it contributes only 3% of Priceline’s turnover. (Interestingly, Priceline has Booking.com as well as Agoda, what’s the story with the branding there?) Ctrip is big in China, has a very innovative business model (users can book online but pay offline, which gets round low credit card penetration, and a historical reluctance about online payments), but it has very little reach outside China.
I’m fascinated by booking engines. A few years back i was involved in a large project to build a booking engine for Accor in Asia Pacific, and through all the pain of building a usable, profitable solution from this maze of rates and allocations, with availability stretching 700+ days into the future for 200+ hotels, i was captivated by the complexity and challenge of it. It’s also given me an insight into the crucial role of booking engines in an effective online presence for hotels. Read the rest of this entry »
Too often, setting up and maintaining email is a burden for hotels. Small and even large chains struggle to provide reliable email (it’s not unheard of even for large chains to have email problems that last several days). Even when email is available, spam filtering can be difficult to control — either too much spam (does the world really need so much Vi@gra?) — or too little (customers unable to contact you, agents forced to reach for the fax machine!).
This is a common one. I’ve been building hotel websites for clients for 10 years now, and a common request is to make them multilingual. However, there are 2 particular issues you need to look out for.
Firstly, have you thought about how much it costs to create the copy in a 2nd language? Were you thinking about freelancing it, or getting a member of staff who speaks the language to translate it? Think again. Consider how long you agonised over every single word in English, to get exactly the right copy, the right persuasive tone, that would bring you more bookings. Are you going to get the same perfect, persuasive text in a second language? It costs money to do the job right! Think copywriting in the 2nd language, not just translation. Read the rest of this entry »
Email me
Linkedin
Follow Me
a.nthonygreen 