Hotel Blogs by Guillaume Thevenot

Hotel chains new worldwide ranking

The American publication Hotels Magazine has revealed the new 2008 ranking of hotel companies and what they call Sales & Marketing Consortia. The listing is ordered by number of rooms available per hotel group.

The analysis confirms the number 1 position for Intercontinental Hotel Group with 4,186 hotels and 619,851 rooms. The group includes brands like Holiday Inn, Intercontinental Hotels or Indigo. In terms of hotel brands, Best Western maintains it number 1 position with 305,000 rooms.

The Sales & Marketing Consortia list is an interesting one because it reflects how independent hotels have joined consortia. These companies are also called representation companies. They are helping independant hotels to be represented in the online and offline distribution and also be more powerful against hotel brands. For instance, hotels who apply to be part of the Design Hotels brands will have a clear advantage to attract the exclusive travelers generation who aims to find a special hotel whether on holidays or on business. Unirez/Utell (part of Pegasus) is clearly ahead of the game against competitors with 11,282 hotels and 1,381,379. Supranational comes second with 1662 hotels only. It's interesting to note that a lot of these representation companies are European, probably because 80% of hotels in Europe are not branded (the opposite scenario in the USA).

When Hotels Chains use Twitter (part 3 and final)

For the study conducted, I selected only 15 hotel brands Twitter users but I could have picked some more. Sorry if I didn't select yours, it wasn't deliberate from me. I will follow up with another analysis about how independent hotels use Twitter. So let's have a look at the last 5 other hotel chains.
Read Part 1 of this study here and Part 2 there.

The UK hotel chain MacDonald is very active on Twitter. They have more updates than followers. Their dedicated page is simple and sticks to their brand upper class audience. They allow their followers to get special promo offers at their hotels. In fact most of their updates is about pushing the sale of their hotels to Twitter audience. To reinforce their value one of their Tweet says "With over 40 luxury hotels to choose from - exclusive spas, Championship golf courses, AA Rosette dining, we will be sure to please all."

Morgans Hotels has a good readership of more than 2,000 followers with only 31 people they follow. They are engaging with their customers by giving some direct messages to Twitter other users. They also send some links about music preview of what you can hear in some of their hotels. Quite a few DJs are performing in the evening like at The Sanderson in London.  Their homepage is quite funky and reflects the brand image of the hotels.

Omni Hotels is only available in the US with 43 luxury hotels. You can notice that they advertise their Twitter dedicated email address on the left side. Again, you can follow their updates and see how they engage well with their audience "@XXX  - Let us know if we can help you further..." proves again that hotels can use Twitter as an extension of their customer service desk. They recently added 4 people pictures as members of their Omni Twitter account team (more personalized that the screen shot above).

By naming their account MilleniumPR, the hotel chain makes it clear. They are here to push PR on Twitter.Nothing wrong with that. They do engage with people talking about their hotels. Not many updates yet, they probably just started to use the tool. On the left side they list their hotels but you can see only American hotels. This account is indeed only to promote hotels in North America. So what about other continents? 

Ritz Carlton, one of the most respected hotel brand in the industry has also taken a name with PR on it. But the account is more personnalized because it is handled by their Senior Corporate Director of Public Relations - Allison Sitch. She even discloses her email address (quite a brave move knowing how many emails she must deals with everyday...). Updates gives their audience links to interesting articles mentionning Ritz Carlon, pictures on Twitpic.

Check out another article by Christine Kirk on Luxury Hotel Brands on Twitter.

When Hotels Chains use Twitter (part 2)

For the study conducted, I selected only 15 hotel brands Twitter users but I could have picked some more. Sorry if I didn't select yours, it wasn't deliberate from me. I will follow up with another analysis about how independent hotels use Twitter. So let's have a look at 5 other hotel chains.
Read Part 1 of this study here.

Choice Hotels is very much focused on brands exposures and you can clearly see this on their Twitter homepage with all logos listed.  Again, this is another example of how one way marketing works (or doesn't work) meaning Choice Hotels use Twitter to only push information online. They don't seem really interested to follow any body (note 0 following on their page). Twitter is used for Direct Marketing. Also you can see they are still in early stage (only 8 updates).

 
Hyatt does things differently. First of all, their Twitter account is HyattConcierge, so this activity has a purpose on its own rather than being the "Corporate" Twitter page. As you scroll down all the activity going on, you notice they do manage very well the direct messages "DM" with their community. All updates are directly targeted at individual Twitter users. It's a shame we can't follow through what's happening after the DM to the customer, but this looks to me very innovative about how you approach customer service before, during and after your stay. In terms of stats, they have more than 2,000 followers and follow about 1,800 users.

Again, another example of great interaction between the hotel chain and the Twitter users crowd. By using TweetDeck (a Twitter 3rd party application), Joie De Vivre manages more effectively what people are saying about their brand or their hotel property. Also they use the tool to promote their offers from different participating hotels like the $84 rate at the Citizen hotel. They have nearly managed to get 2,000 followers and follow even more Twitter accounts.

The representation company Luxe hotels has always been synonym of trendy, modern, design and boutique hotels. Unfortunately, their Twitter page lacks of imagination and doesn't even respond to brand awareness (you can't read properly their brand name on the left side). However, they have some interaction with other Twitter users and also push some interesting facts and promos on their updates. Again another decent figure of 1,368 followers. They also follow more people.

I was looking forward to see how Marriott was approaching Twitter because of the huge success of their blogging activity with On the Move blog by Bill Marriott. Like Starwood did, they have 2 persons John and Blake who manages Twitter and engage with the audience. Impressively, they have over 9,000 followers and follow 7,600 Twitter accounts. They also sent over 1,900 updates (in one week after this screen shot, they passed the 2,000 mark) on their account!!! With the usage of Twitterfeed, Twhirl, TweetDesk, you can see they have "professionals" managing their Twitter account. Also you can see their updates are not all about promos and responding to customers (example:@GeeEmm The top choice for famous person tweeps most wanted to travel with was....Anthony Bourdain. President Obama was near the top too.)

When Hotels Chains use Twitter (part 1)

No. It's not going to be another article about the pros and cons of Twitter and how you should use it (or not) for your own business or your private life.

Instead, I thought I should give you some heads ups about what I have found so far in terms of hotel brands/chains who embrace the Twitter phenomenon and how each of these chains behave differently with their followers. Also what sort of messages "updates" do they write about about. Is there any interactivity between their followers and them.

For the study conducted, I selected only 15 hotel brands Twitter users but I could have picked some more. Sorry if I didn't select yours, it wasn't delibarate from me. I will follow up with another analysis about how independant hotels use Twitter.

The benchmark study was made with International hotel groups:

Starwood Hotels
Four Seasons
Hyatt
Ritz Carlton
Marriott Hotels
Millenium Hotels
Morgans Hotel Group

but also with hotel "representation" companies / franchisors:

Choice Hotels
Best Western
Luxe Worldwide
Design Hotels

and local hotel chains:

Tiara Hotels (Europe)
MacDonalds Hotels (UK)
Omni Hotels (USA)
Joie de Vivre Hotels (USA

First of all, let's look at what all of them do unanimously.

1. They all have customized their Twitter page to their branding image
2. They all have taken a Twitter account name with their brand name. Some of them I am sure I have been thinking hard about that... when they discovered their name was already taken. More and more we hear that domain squatters have also embraced Twitter as well. One advice, please check and register your brand name on Twitter RIGHT NOW before it's too late. It doesn't matter if you don't use Twitter after. At least you have protected your brand.
3. They all have given a go at "Tweets" meaning they have send Updates (some brands register and then only follow Twitter users)
4. They all have "Open" accounts where anyone can follow their Tweets
5. They all have filled details about their company, their location and more importantly their website URL (nothing beats free traffic)

Let's take a look at individual account now.

 
Starwood Hotels is a bit corporate on that one. They haven't got many updates yet but they have more than 2,000 followers and follow also a lot of users (1,664). All their brands logos are represented on their  page and to make sure consumer don't get duped by squatters, their inform on their bio "Official voice of Starwood Hotels". The account is a bit personnal since we know 2 people (Kevin and Ben) are behind the Tweets. Oh did I also mention that their Twitter name is not Starwood or Starwoodhotels? They preferred StarwoodBuzz. A bit more cool no?

Tiara Hotels, a Portuguese hotel group is very active on Twitter with almost 900 updates, more than 1,700 followers and an outstanding 1,515 Twitter accounts they follow. As you an see, the hotel group manages quite well the "RT" gimmich which is to repeat a Tweet (remember it means an update) that they found on another Twitter account. It is to say, I found this useful Tweet, let's share this with my audience in case they don't follow this user. Also you can clearly see that they interact with their audience. They even thank their 1,800 follower. I still don't understand how they can follow so many users though.

Four Seasons with their very simple page has opted for the "push" strategy in regards of using Twitter. What does that mean is that they only interested to push information to their 2,049 followers. Thet are not really interested to follow anybody (apart from the 5 other Four Seasons accounts created for individual hotels). They sent less than 400 updates and don't have a human person we can relate to if you want to respond to their Tweet.

Best Western, the "world's largest hotel chain" says their bio is taking a similar approach where they seem to follow a lot of their individual hotels Twitter accounts. They only have 677 followers with 139 updates. The best of it is their personnalized page. I really like it. You can see they put some good effort into this.

Design Hotels refer a lot on special deep links of their website if they have any special promo. I believe this is a good way to promote your offers instantly. They have 1,388 followers and follow a good number of peope (272 is a reasonable number to follow in my opinion). I just find their page a bit to dark for me to read. But who cares now? I use Seesmic Desktop !

Results of the survey regarding preferred methods to book a hotel room

A few weeks ago, I have tested and launch a survey on the business social networking site LinkedIN to understand what are the preferred methods to book hotels today.

Thank you to all of you who participated in the survey. Within weeks, you were more than 90 people who did respond to the question. Fantastic results I think for a start.

Here are the results. Click on each picture to enlarge it.

--> Surprisingly, you would rather book through the hotel website with 57% of respondents. This is very good news for independent hotels who still struggle to compete online with giants like Accor or Starwood or IHG. Only 11% of respondents would book hotels offline (phone, through a travel agent).

--> Big companies seem to book more online than small and medium enterprises. 20% of medium companies still call (phone) hotel direct

--> Marketing people like the phone. 50% of them would pick up the phone to book directly with the hotel and 25% would use a travel agent on the streets. Students and teachers will book online at 100%. 66% of consultants would prefer to book with an online travel agent.

--> 20% of respondants were female (does that means a big majority of HotelBlogs readers are male!) and 16% of them would use the phone to book with the hotel

Please keep adding your answer on this survey. The more respondents, the better (you need to be on LinkedIN though).

Ernst & Young and its 10 thoughts

The consulting company Ernst & Young has published its 10 thoughts in 2009 for the Hospitality industry.

Thought Number 3 is about Technology and nothing is mentioned regarding Property Management System, Central Reservation Systems, Global Distribution Systems, Revenue Management Systems.

Instead the article talks about opportunities for an hotelier to advertise directly with search engines like Kayak and cut the middle man. Also, they advise to embrace social networking sites and reviews site. Nothing new under the sun but I think the article has mixed Internet opportunities with technology to help hoteliers to manage inventory, distribute more efficiently his rooms, sell rooms at the right price and so on.

How to reduce labor costs according to HVS Executive Search

Christian Anklin from HVS Executive Search has published a great article that is worth to read.

During tought times that we are living in today, companies usually react with drastic measures of redundancies. According to HVS, redundancies can be avoided by taking other options like hiring freeze, reduction of bonuses, cut in base salaries, unpaid leave, voluntary redundancies...

The article is also illustrated with quotes from Dale Wielgus, a former SVP Human Resources at Sofitel Worlwide who who says "Eliminating jobs is usually one of the easiest and most traditional targets. However, there are other opportunities that must be explored. My personal feeling is that you have to put a number next to each [option] and measure the financial impact."

Another former executive at Hilton International, John Guthrie also gives his rather controversial view on redundancies "Redundancies are often mismanaged in companies. I have seen departments reduce their headcount by three people and not achieve the savings needed to make an impact. Eliminating three mid to junior level positions is sometimes not as cost effective as eliminating the department head (VP level). It is not just about salary, it is about all those additional costs associated with a VP / SVP that are really costly (larger bonus, perks, travel, etc). Companies often do not take a serious look at cutting out the 150k VP but feel good about cutting out mid-managers at 50k."

The last quote comes from the corporate head office of the Rezidor Hotel Group in Brussels "...We have no plans to make anyone in the Corporate Office in Brussels redundant as some of our competitors have already done.". I wonder which other competitors they are talking about...Starwood? Hilton ? IHG? Accor?

Once again, feel free to share your experience on the comment box and let's hope these alternatives options of cutting labor costs can be taken for granted.

EXCLUSIVE - Ryanair chooses Booking.com as their hotel partner

Before 2007, Ryanair was working with Needahotel, a sister company of GTA (part of Travelport today). With Travelport (Cendant at that time) revising their strategy and also the profits of their distribution deals, Needahotel was almost forced to call it a day with their alliance with the Irish low cost airline Ryanair. The cost of distribution was way too high for GTA. Cendant has to even pay €10M to Ryanair to compensate the loss of hotel bookings while the airline was looking for a new partner.

Then in March 07 arrived Expedia. They replace Needahotel on the hotel tab of Ryanair website by providing their hotel content through their white label product WWTE. The contract is for a 5 year agreement and it is a huge achievement for Expedia. Ryanair at that time was expecting to carry over 50M passengers in their airplanes around Europe. I am not too sure what's the % of Ryanair customers who book their hotel on the Ryanair site, but even 10% seemed some very decent qualified traffic.

Unfortunately, that deal fell through last year in October 2008 when Ryanair was having a dispute with Expedia over payment terms. The contract ended in November 2008 consequently and Ryanair was alone with no hotel partner on their website (apart from Hostelword who has been their hostel, B&B, Guest House partner of the airline company). More info on Travelmole, Travolution.

Since then, different hotel specialists have knocked on Ryanair doors trying to win a slot on their website and replace Expedia. I am sure they were queing when the dispute came public in October 2008. Quite a few of us in the industry have their own bet on who is most likely to win the deal. Would it be a merchant model online player (customer prepay hotel booking) or a commissionable model player(customer pays the hotel at check out)? Would it be an American company or a European company? How much commission will Ryanair require this time? 8%? 10% ? 12% 15%...who knows...

Today, it's becoming clear on Ryanair website who has won the RFP.

Booking.com (part of Priceline.com) has won the partnership deal with Ryanair. You can see the website of Booking.com on the Hotels tab of Ryanair site with a simple co branding site.

This partnership makes sense for Ryanair for different reasons:

1/ Booking.com hotel content is relevant and increasing every month with the army of contractors that Booking.com has recruited over the years - 57,000 unique hotels
2/ Their model is very easy and friendly for the end consumer (pay your hotel bill on departure)
3/ Their booking process is super fast and the user interface is one of the best to create a good look to book convertion ratio

...but at the same time this deal could be a bit costly for Booking.com.

How much commission have they given away to Ryanair? Will this impact on their European P&L? Are those bookings will be incremental enough to justify such a deal? Will other distribution partners think to re-negotiate their commission deal with Booking.com?

The future will tells us but one thing for sure is that Ryanair has probably become less greedy in negotiations than they were in 2006 knowing the current economic climate.

Twitter or not Twitter - you choose

The US magazine Forbes has published an article on their website about Twitter. Yesterday, the title of the article was Why Europe is not in love in Twitter and it has been changed to Why European CEOs should Twitter. Strange shift for such a reputable publication.

Honestly, I don't see why CEOs of this world should Twitter. It makes more sense that individuals try this out and see for themselves whether they can benefit from it or not.

At the moment, some travel companies are still trying the online tool without really getting anything out of this. The time will tell.

I don't believe too much in handling customer complaints on Twitter. Hoteliers are already experiencing such a hard time to manage TripAdvisor and Co reviews...

But you should use Twitter to distribute news about your company. New features, new partnerships, new appointments...stuff that could matter to your audience. Stories get delivered much quicker on Twitter than traditional media these days (eg, Mumbai attacks, Plane on Hudson river in New York...)

Why Hotel Chains has integrated an Agents access on their website?

While today’s time is about efficiency and maximization of your workforce, I find it strange that hotel chains like Four Pillars still believe in Travel Agents microsite embedded in their website (usually targeted at consumers).

The UK hotel chain has launched what they call the Four Pillars Agent’s Lounge aiming at attracting travel agents with special offers, incentives competition and other goodies. For some reason, I have never really believed into this web marketing initiative. Agents need to access inventory across the board in a city or region and would rarely browse different hotel chains websites to see what’s best for their customers.

They need to compare rates, hotel room offerings and location on a dynamic mapping solution like Google Maps or Microsoft Virtual Earth. Even though it’s great that hotel chains communicate directly to agents, I believe their should concentrate on loading special rates on international booking systems like the GDS or Bedbanks and leave their website for consumers willing to know more about their properties and eventually book direct.

Does that make more sense?