Branding at a Crossroads
Today, a brand must appeal to the psyche of customers to make a connection. For example: many senior travelers want hospitality and service above all. The core seniors market does not typically care for technology. They don’t like answering machines, PCs and automation. Younger travelers, in contrast, like casual and tech-friendly hotels with convenience, where food and drinks is a priority. They prefer to stay in hotels that have the look, feel, and comfort of their own homes.
Targeting a market niche start at the design stage.
Starwoods created the ‘Aloft’ brand for the young entrepreneur market and designed its hotels to include a bar, a food and beverage center offering fresh bagels, fruits and drinks, an outdoor area serving light meals, a fitness center with swimming pool, wireless Internet access property-wide, and flexible meeting and function space. Guest rooms have 9-foot ceilings and oversized windows, a signature bed, a work space with an MP3 docking station, and a flat-panel TV. Bathrooms are furnished with Bliss amenities and walk-in oversized showers. Starwood plans call for 500 Aloft to be open by 2012 (average daily rate: $100 to $125).
Brands for Small Island Hotels
Small hotels often don't have the opportunity to rebuild for a market. Nevertheless, the market for differentiation is strong and the small hotel is often sought out, particularly in Europe, where chain brand penetration is low (i). Small hotels can tap into the booming market for Boutique hotels, where uniqueness and character are preferred over big brand names. Differentiation and personality are the key.
Building a strong brand requires use of all appropriate channels, but too much reliance on the OTA channels can be have very negative side effects. Choice hotels discovered it had created a monster by building up its business with Expedia. In re-negotiating its contract with Choice, Expedia suggested that its brand was more important and that Choice just had no option but to abide by its rules and demands. The widely known secret is that OTAs don’t want all the hotels in the world, so many are going to get left out. Its wise to be direct!
Brand Integrity in the OTA Channel
We have seen chain hotels make great progress in building their own brand marketing and direct business, reducing their dependence on the OTAs, like Expedia. (81% of bookings to major chains are now direct). The Chains understand that reliance on OTAs is not good for Brand integrity.
Brand Integrity is a measure of the cohesiveness of the brand message and your ownership of it. This integrity is influenced by your message and how you present it, the medium/channels you use, what you promise and what is expected.
Your brand is your differentiation & your personality. How you market will influence your relationship with guests, their loyalty and your ownership of both the brand and the business.
See more on The Medium and the Message.
First be clear and then be seen
Branding requires being clear about your market and your USP and putting this across in words and pictures, with the right emotion and the right process in the right place. Next, get the message out with an appropriate call to action on all advertising, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and with appropriate exposure on the right marketing channels.
Shoppers need a reason to remember you and to return to complete their shopping experience. Create stickiness and be in true shopping channels, like Barbados.org, BarbadosVacationSpecials.com and BarbadosHolidayThemes.com, where shoppers can add you to their shopping lists and compare options. Shoppers must be able to visit your website and take action on interest; get a quote, save it or buy at any point.
The AXSES Travel Shopping Network is unique in its ability to provide easy access to your website at many strategic decision points. AXSES also provide many POS opportunities with bookable-maps, bookable-ads, bookable-banners, bookable-lists, etc. (click here for details). In fact, the entire AXSES network is bookable, every advertisement, listing and link is or will be driven by arcRes Tourism Bookings & Reservations System.
Branding with fair pricing and revenue management
A recent Cornell University study shows that travelers are confused by hotel pricing and often see it as unfair. This is not good for your brand! Many hotels now offer travelers a choice of rate plans and full disclosure. Many chains offer best rate guarantees.
We recommend that you manage rates and expectation with loyalty programs and special group pricing. Travel shoppers want to act (get a quote, save it, add it to a list, buy it) when they are ready, and they want to know they are getting a fair price.
AXSES is now introducing a new collaborative marketing solution, where we help tourism suppliers use technology to brand and market their products, get exposed and close more direct sales!!
For more information on how you can build and sustain your brand - please contact iclayton 'at' axses.net
More about AXSES: see
http://axses-travel.com | arcRes Marketing
i. The brand penetration index that measures the percentage of hotel rooms that belongs to a flag out of the total capacity, is over 70% in the US, while France is the market with the highest brand penetration index in Europe, with less than 30%.
Showing posts with label Speciality Channels. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Speciality Channels. Show all posts
Friday, 22 January 2010
Monday, 2 February 2009
Social Net
A Social Net Primer - how to use Facebook in your travel business
Obama has 5 million support Friends on Facebook - it helps him get his message out and stay in contact. Spurred on by his successful use of social media, more and more businesses are using, or wondering how to use Facebook and similar social sites.
In December 2008, AXSES began a project to use and evaluate the technology and the network. In the first week of this exercise, Kathy-Lynn Ward became a fan of Jennifer Figge, who is attempting to be the first woman to swim the Atlantic, from Africa to Barbados. Jennifer's manager contacted us through Facebook and AXSES put him in contact with the Barbados Tourism Authority (BTA). The BTA launched a similar Facebook project shortly after.
So we have to say it has value from a business perspective for tourism. It's hard to get to grips on just how to optimize it in a positive and socially acceptable way.
But we are beginning to see that the network and the technology can be a significant resource. The key is to shift thinking from a marketing perspective to one of helping and sharing. It's a good shift, and one that many companies are practicing without being on the Social Net.
Here is how it works: You sign up and then go about inviting Friends, who invite Friends, who invite more Friends to become your Friend. The Friends can become advocates and clients. Start using it, but be warned, it is addictive!
The first thing to learn is that if you want to be successful, don't choose your friends - just accept all that apply, that way it will grow. I don't do that well - I like my privacy, so I am careful who I approve.
Next, learn to create pages to describe, in pictures and words, your company and/or some of your products. Post it to your profile so it is visible to all that check to see who you are.
At AXSES, we created pages for the Barbados Tourism Encyclopedia (BTE) (http://Barbados.org),
http://BookingsBarbados.com, http://BookingsStLucia.com and http://BarbadosBoardwalk.com as a photo gallery, to name a few.
I say we did this, meaning that our people did. Facebook is personal, so a real person, not a company, is expected to create a Facebook account. They may then add pages, photo galleries, groups and make comments which can be sent to others. Facebook pages can be about companies and products. In fact, we made the mistake of setting up a profile for the BTE page and, in fact, there are advantages (more detailes to follow). It seems many companies also made this mistake! But for visibility on access, a page is superior; a profile is private and will not be picked up by SEO, whereas pages may.
Facebook groups may be formed to discuss topics of interest and share news and happenings. They are a good way to network and keep up to date and in contact. It's similar in a way to the thing they call a Wall, where all can post messages to be read by others who look at your Wall. Sort of like graffiti. Groups are more focused and you can create multiple topics. In the St. Lucia group, there are discussions going on about Amy Winehoue, as well as the new St. Lucia Marketing strategy. Unlike Pages groups, they are not open to the public; they are only accessible to Facebook people and you have to belong to the group to participate.
Margaux Daher, an AXSES Associate from St. Lucia, has taken the lead in creating links and sharing insights on the St. Lucia page and the St. Lucia group we created. Her friends have joined the group and now others are joining. It's not generating business but it is away to communicate and share.
Kathy-Lynn, always thinking of our hotel and travel clients, established RSS feeds which grab Holiday Specials off our bookings services and display them on the respective Facebook pages. Anyone who looks at the page can see a Special on offer.
Facebook's pages, photos, videos, events, invitations, discussion boards, Walls and messaging, as well as Flash and numerous applications, give us a very rich platform for a travel dialogue and e-commerce. It has potential for hotels and tourism operators.
We have already deployed arcRes Booking Engine on Facebook. Our next step is to integrate clients information on Facebook, to link in our travel network with special applications built on our travel platform.
4 million people use http://Barbados.org each year. If they choose to become a Friend or Fan of our Facebook page for Barbados, they will see all the Barbados.org posts, news and specials, all in one place. It will give us a useful way to communicate with travelers in a social way, on their terms, and with not in-your-face advertising.
Our next step will be to investigate how best to help hotels use social networks (more later).
According to eMarketer research, Social network users made up 41.2% of the US Internet population in 2008. 60% of Internet users are consumers of all user-generated content.
eMarketer estimates that 115 million people use the social media.
By 2013, the total number is expected to be over 154 million.
It's growing because its easy to use, appears to be more credible and it's free!
(Credit: Compete.com)
Resources:
see Jason Falls on FacebookBrand Page Best Practices/
Facebook Population
The Rush to Social Networks
Obama has 5 million support Friends on Facebook - it helps him get his message out and stay in contact. Spurred on by his successful use of social media, more and more businesses are using, or wondering how to use Facebook and similar social sites.
In December 2008, AXSES began a project to use and evaluate the technology and the network. In the first week of this exercise, Kathy-Lynn Ward became a fan of Jennifer Figge, who is attempting to be the first woman to swim the Atlantic, from Africa to Barbados. Jennifer's manager contacted us through Facebook and AXSES put him in contact with the Barbados Tourism Authority (BTA). The BTA launched a similar Facebook project shortly after.
So we have to say it has value from a business perspective for tourism. It's hard to get to grips on just how to optimize it in a positive and socially acceptable way.
But we are beginning to see that the network and the technology can be a significant resource. The key is to shift thinking from a marketing perspective to one of helping and sharing. It's a good shift, and one that many companies are practicing without being on the Social Net.
Here is how it works: You sign up and then go about inviting Friends, who invite Friends, who invite more Friends to become your Friend. The Friends can become advocates and clients. Start using it, but be warned, it is addictive!
The first thing to learn is that if you want to be successful, don't choose your friends - just accept all that apply, that way it will grow. I don't do that well - I like my privacy, so I am careful who I approve.
Next, learn to create pages to describe, in pictures and words, your company and/or some of your products. Post it to your profile so it is visible to all that check to see who you are.
At AXSES, we created pages for the Barbados Tourism Encyclopedia (BTE) (http://Barbados.org),
http://BookingsBarbados.com, http://BookingsStLucia.com and http://BarbadosBoardwalk.com as a photo gallery, to name a few.
I say we did this, meaning that our people did. Facebook is personal, so a real person, not a company, is expected to create a Facebook account. They may then add pages, photo galleries, groups and make comments which can be sent to others. Facebook pages can be about companies and products. In fact, we made the mistake of setting up a profile for the BTE page and, in fact, there are advantages (more detailes to follow). It seems many companies also made this mistake! But for visibility on access, a page is superior; a profile is private and will not be picked up by SEO, whereas pages may.
Facebook groups may be formed to discuss topics of interest and share news and happenings. They are a good way to network and keep up to date and in contact. It's similar in a way to the thing they call a Wall, where all can post messages to be read by others who look at your Wall. Sort of like graffiti. Groups are more focused and you can create multiple topics. In the St. Lucia group, there are discussions going on about Amy Winehoue, as well as the new St. Lucia Marketing strategy. Unlike Pages groups, they are not open to the public; they are only accessible to Facebook people and you have to belong to the group to participate.
Margaux Daher, an AXSES Associate from St. Lucia, has taken the lead in creating links and sharing insights on the St. Lucia page and the St. Lucia group we created. Her friends have joined the group and now others are joining. It's not generating business but it is away to communicate and share.
Kathy-Lynn, always thinking of our hotel and travel clients, established RSS feeds which grab Holiday Specials off our bookings services and display them on the respective Facebook pages. Anyone who looks at the page can see a Special on offer.
Facebook's pages, photos, videos, events, invitations, discussion boards, Walls and messaging, as well as Flash and numerous applications, give us a very rich platform for a travel dialogue and e-commerce. It has potential for hotels and tourism operators.
We have already deployed arcRes Booking Engine on Facebook. Our next step is to integrate clients information on Facebook, to link in our travel network with special applications built on our travel platform.
4 million people use http://Barbados.org each year. If they choose to become a Friend or Fan of our Facebook page for Barbados, they will see all the Barbados.org posts, news and specials, all in one place. It will give us a useful way to communicate with travelers in a social way, on their terms, and with not in-your-face advertising.
Our next step will be to investigate how best to help hotels use social networks (more later).
According to eMarketer research, Social network users made up 41.2% of the US Internet population in 2008. 60% of Internet users are consumers of all user-generated content.
eMarketer estimates that 115 million people use the social media.
By 2013, the total number is expected to be over 154 million.
It's growing because its easy to use, appears to be more credible and it's free!
(Credit: Compete.com)Resources:
see Jason Falls on FacebookBrand Page Best Practices/
Facebook Population
The Rush to Social Networks
Saturday, 17 February 2007
Strategy for Small Travel Solutions companies
This article was inspired by my visit to the travel Technology Show 2007.
See previous blog
At AXSES we believe that ultimate control of distribution rest with the travel operator. That means the hotel, activity and rental company supplier.
Hotels have encouraged distribution dominance by offering huge discounts to tour operators in exchange for guaranteed bookings. At the same time the distributors had marketing clout and could afford the technology that consumers demanded (on line booking, dynamic packaging etc). In a fragmented global market, distributors emerged as the place to shop.
The tour operators set their own rules and resell price. Prices in distribution were thus often much lower that the hotel published rates. As competing distributors try to match rates the pressure on hotel profitability is intense. Often a hotel that would not meet a requested price would be dropped. In this agressive distribution driven market, the hotel Brand was eroded and rates fragmented.
The large hotel chains have moved effectively to take back control with Best Rate Guarantees and by offering consumers the service (technology) they demand. (on-line costing, bookings, packaging). Thanks to technology, operators have increased and continue to increase their influence via direct bookings and by greater clout in managed distribution pricing and inventory.
At the same time “travel consumers are exchanging more information and exerting much greater influence over online content - from travel blogs to social networking, they are driving change” (source).
Travelers prefer to deal direct(1) and the core technology that is driving this trend is Field Management Systems and small travel application developers and integrators play a large part in delivering these solutions.
Consider AXSES portal clients like Intimate hotels of Barbados. The Intimate portal is managed by Portal-keeper.com and arcRes-CRS (central reservations Systems) these solutions are fully integrated with GDS and with the hotel bookings and (bookings-expert.com) and Property Management System http://axses-innkeeper.com.
In this senario the small hotels can manage the rates and inventory on the Intimate Hotels Barbados Portal as well as the GDS. The technology they use not only powers Intimate in Barbados but at least 10 other channels that are vital marketing forces for Barbados and the Caribbean. The next step is to add full channel management extending to sites like Expedia, Travelocity and all 40,000 IDS sites.
Notes
1. PhoCusWright 2005: "In fact, more than twice as many online travelers (36%) believe that the supplier-direct channel provides the best customer service compared to 15% who choose the online travel agency channel. Even offline agencies, which are coveted for their personal touch in a technology-driven world, did not fare as well, with 33% claiming they provide the best customer service". ....more
See previous blog
At AXSES we believe that ultimate control of distribution rest with the travel operator. That means the hotel, activity and rental company supplier.
Hotels have encouraged distribution dominance by offering huge discounts to tour operators in exchange for guaranteed bookings. At the same time the distributors had marketing clout and could afford the technology that consumers demanded (on line booking, dynamic packaging etc). In a fragmented global market, distributors emerged as the place to shop.
The tour operators set their own rules and resell price. Prices in distribution were thus often much lower that the hotel published rates. As competing distributors try to match rates the pressure on hotel profitability is intense. Often a hotel that would not meet a requested price would be dropped. In this agressive distribution driven market, the hotel Brand was eroded and rates fragmented.
The large hotel chains have moved effectively to take back control with Best Rate Guarantees and by offering consumers the service (technology) they demand. (on-line costing, bookings, packaging). Thanks to technology, operators have increased and continue to increase their influence via direct bookings and by greater clout in managed distribution pricing and inventory.
At the same time “travel consumers are exchanging more information and exerting much greater influence over online content - from travel blogs to social networking, they are driving change” (source).
Travelers prefer to deal direct(1) and the core technology that is driving this trend is Field Management Systems and small travel application developers and integrators play a large part in delivering these solutions.
Consider AXSES portal clients like Intimate hotels of Barbados. The Intimate portal is managed by Portal-keeper.com and arcRes-CRS (central reservations Systems) these solutions are fully integrated with GDS and with the hotel bookings and (bookings-expert.com) and Property Management System http://axses-innkeeper.com.
In this senario the small hotels can manage the rates and inventory on the Intimate Hotels Barbados Portal as well as the GDS. The technology they use not only powers Intimate in Barbados but at least 10 other channels that are vital marketing forces for Barbados and the Caribbean. The next step is to add full channel management extending to sites like Expedia, Travelocity and all 40,000 IDS sites.
Notes
1. PhoCusWright 2005: "In fact, more than twice as many online travelers (36%) believe that the supplier-direct channel provides the best customer service compared to 15% who choose the online travel agency channel. Even offline agencies, which are coveted for their personal touch in a technology-driven world, did not fare as well, with 33% claiming they provide the best customer service". ....more
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)