GUESTCENTRIC | Feature February 2015

February was a very busy month at GuestCentric! We launched a group of new features that will definitely make it even easier to manage and enhance your property online presence. We are also very glad to announce that GuestCentric joined BLLA’s 2015 Advisory Board and that we are at the first edition of Hotel 2.0 in Brazil. And if you are in Lisbon for the weekend, come and visit us at BTL. Enjoy our monthly newsletter.

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New integration with Opera/Fidelio

GuestCentric just launched a new Property Management System (PMS) integration with Opera/Fidelio. All hotels that have the myFidelio service can now integrate with this PMS.

The Opera/Fidelio PMS provides all the tools hoteliers need for doing their day-to-day jobs, such as handling reservations, checking guests in and out, assigning rooms and managing room inventory, accommodating the needs of in-house guests, and handling accounting and billing.

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Visit GuestCentric at BTL 2015

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Since Wednesday, February 25, GuestCentric team is at BTL 2015, in Lisbon. The event is taking place until Sunday, March 1, and we would love to have your visit.

Find us at stand #2D25 and check our new features and meet our team. Feel free to stop by at our stand or make a meeting appointment by sending an email to
marketing@guestcentric.com.

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GuestCentric at the 1st edition of Hotel 2.0 in Brazil

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After several editions held in Europe and in the US, Hotel 2.0 is taking place for the first time in Brazil.

Pedro Colaco, CEO of GuestCentric, is one of the speakers at the event and addresses the most recent digital marketing strategies for hoteliers meet the increasing demand from online travelers.

After Sao Paulo e Brasilia, the next editions will take place in Curitiba on March 3, and in Porto Alegre on March 5. For hoteliers, the event admission is free upon prior registration.

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GuestCentric joins 2015 Advisory Board of BLLA

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We are pleased to announce that Filipe Machaz, VP of Global Business Development of GuestCentric, was appointed for the 2015 Advisory Board of the Boutique and Lifestyle Lodging Association (BLLA).

The BLLA is the first association created to unite and raise awareness of the world’s independent boutique & lifestyles properties, small brands, collections and the suppliers that sustain them.

“GuestCentric has been a valuable member of BLLA over the years and we are pleased to add Filipe to our board”, said Frances Kiradjian, CEO and Founder of BLLA. “Our technology members, like GuestCentric, help us to expand the knowledge-base on hotel digital marketing, combining it with BLLA’s best practices. This will definitely enable our members to empower their brands online and capitalize on new trends that travelers search for”.

Read the full history here.

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Amazing improvements on the Image Link gadget

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At GuestCentric we are always working to offer the best web experience to our customers. We just made a few improvements that will make the Image Link gadget work even better.

• Longer descriptions: with this new feature, now it is possible to use up to 400 characters (spaces included) in the description of an Image Link.

• “Same window” by design: now, when creating an Image Link, it is setup as internal and opening in the same window.

• Translation Tool: when translating pages the Image Link won’t be shown in the tinyMCE editor; now, all the Image Links (along with website links) can be translated in Tools > Translate links.

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New Subscribe/Unsubscribe pages

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GuestCentric just released a feature that will enable hoteliers to have a more personal approach with the guests.

Now, our clients have two new pages available: Subscribe Newsletter and Unsubscribe Newsletter, where they can personalize the Banner and edit the Page introduction, the Sidebar (if applicable) as well as the new features of SEO per page and Personalized Permalink.

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Customize the Permalinks of your website

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his new feature will enable you to personalize even more your property website. Now it is possible to give a different name to a URL, with a new field in website pages: Permalink. It can be found in every page (existing or new) under “Page setting” collapsible panel.

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Optimize your SEO and rank higher on Google

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With this new feature, your SEO website has a powerful tool to rank the highest on search engines like Google.

Now it is possible to define SEO Title, Description and Keywords per each website page and thus being unique. The new configuration can be found in every page under “Page SEO” collapsible panel.

 You want to know more contact to Us!

By GuestCentric

 ©2015 GuestCentric Systems | 104 West 40th Street, Suite 400 New York NY 10018

GuestCentric | Features 2015

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In the first newsletter of 2015 we are very excited to bring you some news from GuestCentric! And if you are in Madrid for the weekend, we have a special invitation for you. Enjoy our January newsletter.

The 7th most read article on Tnooz in 2014

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At GuestCentric we love to share our insights about the hospitality industry and help hoteliers grow their business.

That is why we are very happy that the article “Why TripAdvisor has a chance to eat the lunch of Booking.com”, by Pedro Colaco, our CEO, was ranked as one of the top ten most popular articles on Tnooz in 2014!

If you missed it, you can read it here.

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Visit GuestCentric at FITUR 2015

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Since Thursday, January 28, GuestCentric team is at FITUR Madrid 2015. The event is taking place until Sunday, February 1, and we would love to have your visit.

Find us at stand #8A36 (hall 8) and check our new features and meet our team. Feel free to stop by at our stand or make a meeting appointment by sending an email to info.hmits@gmail.com

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Miami Beach Boutique chain of 15 hotels joins GuestCentric

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We are very pleased to share with you that the South Beach Group, which boasts a collection of 15 boutique hotels in the heart of Miami Beach, has chosen GuestCentric as their booking engine provider for all their properties.

“It took only seven days since our first contact with GuestCentric to having the complete system up and running, integrated with Siteminder and generating direct bookings at one of our properties. Once it was running, we were convinced GuestCentric was the right solution for us”, said Lauren Koston, Online Image and E-Commerce Director of the South Beach Group.

Read the full history here.

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Set new User Roles on GuestCentric platform

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Our customers “make a wish” and we make it real! This new feature is the result of your requests.

Now it’s possible to create Users Roles and restrict access of users on certain areas of GuestCentric platform. The Users Roles can be set on from Administration menu, in the Setup area. There you will find the five default Users Roles created:

▪ Administrator

▪ Reservations

▪ Revenue user

▪ Social Media

▪ Website User

All roles can be edited and changed, except the Administration role that has access to all areas of GuestCentric platform.

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By GuestCentric

 ©2015 GuestCentric Systems | 104 West 40th Street, Suite 400 New York NY 10018

TripAdvisor Tripconnect helps hoteliers cut dependency on booking intermediaries

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Posted on Thursday, 02 April 2014 | By GuestCentric Blog

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Having recently come back from quite a few trade shows and customer visits, and having spoken to tens of industry experts, I felt compelled to write this article about an idea that I have been sharing with our hotel customers and my industry friends for a while, but that I want to share with the industry at large and put out to debate.

The idea is simple: Tripadvisor’s Tripconnect is the first real challenger to Booking.com’s dominance and is the first step to get hoteliers back in control of their online distribution channel.

Let me explain how I came to this conclusion.

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Hoteliers feel trapped

There is a mounting sentiment among hoteliers that hotel booking intermediaries like Booking.com and Expedia are getting stronger by the day. Online Travel Agents (OTAs) are massively outspending hotels in online marketing and customer acquisition, and their aggressive online and TV campaigns are driving consumer traffic to their websites, away from hotel’s official websites.

Booking.com is by far the most assertive player marketing hotels to consumers, having racked up significant advantage in all online promotion techniques like Google Adwords and other foms of PPC (pay per click) or re-targeting and re-marketing. This marketing aggressiveness has turned Booking.com into the dominant hotel OTA in Europe and is already making significant dents in North America (see Alexa ranks of OTAs below). Hence, the attention of many hoteliers is on Booking.com and how to decrease their dependency on them.

Figure 1- Alexa rank of some of the top OTAs

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Commission checks have doubled and continue to rise

Specialized hotel OTAs do not only outspend hoteliers, they also seem to be outsmarting hoteliers with strategies to drive prices down and commissions up.

Prices are kept low by increasing available accommodation inventory with speciality lodging (bed and breakfasts, serviced apartments, hostels) and even thousands of individual apartments that can be rented on a daily basis.

Commissions are kept high by having as many players as possible bidding “to be on page 1”, where a massive percentage (some say 80-90%) of all transactions happen.

According to a spot check at some of our customers, we estimate that over the last two to three years average commissions paid by hotels to OTAs in markets like London, Barcelona or Lisbon have gone up from 20% to 30%. These changes, tied to a stronger dominance of OTAs, represent an almost doubling of the commission checks that hotels pay to OTAs on a monthly basis.

 Even “prime beef” is fair game now

In secondary markets the rise of the OTAs sales channel, and massive OTA spend in online advertising has created significant value: an increase in sales opportunities and therefore increased occupancy.

In primary markets or seasons where occupancy is guaranteed to be high, the rise of the OTA sales channel has had a negative impact in hotel operations profitability. There have been little strategies that hotels could run to protect their “prime beef” from being partially taken over by the OTAs, especially with clauses like “price parity” and “last room availability”.

The meta-search promise

The rise of hotel OTAs as vertical search engines for hotels is also due to the fact that consumers are getting tired of a messy hotel search experience.  Numerous studies by Google show that travelers visit tens of sites before booking accommodation.

Entrepreneurs, seeing the opportunity to improve the same search experience, launched specialized search sites that compare prices on several OTAs to guide consumers to the best possible deal, including the one on the hotel’s website (Meta-search). Some of these sites, like Trivago, have experienced massive success due to  an aggressive TV ad campaign to drive traffic to its website.

While growingly important contenders, these sites still attract relatively little traffic when compared to hotel OTAs (see figure 1).

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Figure 2 – Alexa rank of booking.com vs. trivago.com and roomkey.com

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Enter TripAdvisor Tripconnect

When TripAdvisor launched Tripconnect back in October 2013, it was positioned as a service that “allows TripAdvisor Business Listings subscribers to participate in Hotel Price Comparison and to drive direct bookings from TripAdvisor to their own property’s website.” So, nothing different than Trivago or RoomKey, right? Wrong.

TripAdvisor is the first truly viable platform to generate a massive amount of direct bookings. TripAdvisor can help hotel brands compete with the OTAs for their bookings mainly due to two factors:

• The massive volume of users it already services on a monthly basis. According to TripAdvisor, over 260 million unique users plan travel on TripAdvisor each month. That’s over 6,000 unique users looking at hotel reviews every second of every day.
• The target audience is already highly engaged with your brand. They are already looking at your hotel’s reviews!

To provide some market context on the opportunity, take a look at Figure 3. TripAdvisor is truly the #2 website for hoteliers. It is the only one that gets close to booking.com in terms of traffic (ranks #208 vs. booking.com’s #125), it  outranks Expedia (#519) and blows fellow meta-search Trivago or RoomKey out of the water by 50 times! This is the sort of sales opportunity that hotel brands should participate in.

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Figure 3 – Alexa rank of TripAdvisor vs. booking.com, trivago.com and roomkey.com

If this is PPC, won’t the OTAs just outspend hotels again?

So, TripConnect allows hoteliers to bid on their own page. But OTAs are already listed on TripAdvisor’s PPC programs, and have gained significant experience on bidding over the years. Moreover, TripAdvisor’s business listing is considered expensive for many hotels. Managing PPC also adds to the list of tasks and budget line items in already cash- and resource-strapped independent hotels.

TripAdvisor has been running special pricing programs for hotels that sign up now. And bid management has been made very simple by TripAdvisor. So, all-in-all, if you want to cut your dependency on booking intermediaries, this is as good as it gets for now. And driving direct traffic is just the beginning.

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This is just the beginning

With TripConnect, hotels now have a tool that allows them to be creative and compete with the OTAs based on total value offered to the consumers. I foresee that most price parity and last room availability clauses will be questioned. Hotels will drive special deals (e.g. free WiFi, 10% discount for Club sign-ups) that will test price parity clauses to the limit. And for high season, some hotels will be able to close out OTA sales and keep TripConnect open – and only their direct website prices will appear on TripConnect.

So, expect some backlash from the OTAs. But now you may have someone with clout on your side – TripAdvisor.

Is it going to be just TripAdvisor and Booking.com?

The point of this article is to regain control of your distribution, not to move your reservations from Booking.com to TripAdvisor. In addition, Google has slowly (but surely) been incorporating smarter hotel meta-search into its products. It started with Google Hotel Finder, migrated to Google Local Business and is now being increasingly displayed in native Google Search (the hotel carousel is just one example of such integration). Expect Google to become a more significant player in Meta-search in the coming 12 months.

To regain control of your distribution I believe you need to divide and conquer: i.e. you need to make sure you have a balanced distribution strategy, with a few OTAs, a few Meta players and a lot of direct bookings. To do so should require little extra work, as you can leverage reasonably priced technology solutions that provide seamless integration with these channels.

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Conclusion

2014 is the year of meta-search due to TripAdvisor’s TripConnect. TripAdvisor, due to its scale, is the first viable alternative to drive significant bookings away from the OTAs. By being able to participate in the travel planning process of 260,000,000 travel planners every month, hoteliers will be able to start balancing OTA vs. direct bookings and begin to get control of their online distribution channel back.

But it’s not magic: it has annual fees, marketing costs, and requires smart revenue management. Nothing you cannot deal with.

To help debate strategies for hoteliers that want to cut their dependency on booking intermediaries I have launched the LinkedIn group “Cut Your Dependency”. Hoteliers, Wholesalers, OTAs and meta-search people are welcome to participate and instill debates in this new forum.

By GuestCentric

 

 The All in one Hotel Revenue Generation and Marketing Multi Device Hotel Booking Engine, Revenue Management, Channel Manager, Automagic Mobil and Social  Marketing, Websites and More… | See all Feature Here! and contact to info.hits@gmail.com

Consider to invest in the Dominican Republic, Panamá,, Belize, Puerto Rico, Aruba, St. Croix, Virgin Island, Turk & Caicos, Costa Rica, México, Florida or any other country in Central América or Caribbean Island Portugal and Spain just contact TIEB, we want offer you the best way…  For Contact!  

             

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Related articles

• Los GDS Integración del Negocio Turistico | Hospitalitas.com
• Intermediación hotelera: Control de Costes |Hosteltur.com
• Responsabilidad de los servicios de Marketing y Posicionamiento | Hoteljuice.com
• Los GDS Vs. Internert y los Canales de Distribucion | Universidad Tecnologica Equinoccial

Otros Artículos

1. Mitos del Revenue Management  | HMM 2.0
2. Las OTAS ayudan a la Venta Directa del Hotel | HMM 2.0
3. OTAS versus HOTELES a la hora de Negociar | HMM 2.0
4. ¿Que tan efectiva es su estrategia de Social Media? 21 de Julio del 2011 | HMM 2.0
5. La cara oculta del “Marketing Digital” y el “Inbound Marketing”, como herramientas de ventas  | HMM 2.0
6. ASTORE SHOPPING MALL | BEST DAILY DISCOUNT SALES ONLINE | The best Daily Amazon.com Discount

 

Disadvantages of GDS

Posted on Thurdays,  25 de Julio 2013 | Hotelogix

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There is always a negative side to every positive. Flowers need rainy days to grow. Those same flowers need to get cut to appear in a beautiful bouquet. And for the many positives global distributions systems provide, there are drawbacks to consider as well.

A GDS can be an asset, but there are many hotels that chose to seek bookings through other means. With the uncertainty of the travel industry, many properties are looking for ways to cut costs and with a high ticket price, GDS’s are often one of the first to go. Some of the most common reasons hotels chose to opt out of using a GDS are:

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1.  Money. The price of GDS’s alone is a deterrent for many properties. As a growing business, your funds may be better invested in other areas of your property.

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2.  Priorities. Retaining customers is more important than bringing in new ones. Making sure that guests are comfortable with clean rooms, abundant amenities and a welcoming staff should be your first order of business.

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3.  Industry stagnation. Despite their ability to connect agents with properties, it is ineffective if neither party uses it. A HotelHub bookings report showed that there was no growth in GDS hotel bookings in 2011, while non-GDS bookings saw growth. Hotels that don’t use a GDS get bookings through hotel aggregation sites or direct bookings, which are tried and true methods.

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4.  Declining audience. One of the benefits of a GDS is that it catches the corporate traveler segment, but business travel growth is slowing. Businesses use travel agencies to book hotels and air travel, which a GDS is good at catching. But after tough economic times, a company would rather solicit one hotel chain to gain leverage in negotiating lower rates.

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5.  Controversy. Many airlines have rallied against GDS’s, claiming that the fees are unreasonable. US Airways sued Sabre and American Airlines sued Travelport in 2011 for antitrust violations, claiming that GDS’s were monopolizing the business travel market. Non-GDS platforms have grown after the clash of airlines, opening up availability to properties that do not use a GDS.

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There isn’t just one way to do things these days. A GDS isn’t the only answer to managing bookings and some properties are finding that a GDS is not right for them. There are plenty of options – and while none of them may be perfect, one of them will be right for your property.

Fuente: Hotellogix

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 The All in one Hotel Revenue Generation and Marketing Multi Device Hotel Booking Engine, Revenue Management, Channel Manager, Automagic Mobil and Social  Marketing, Websites and More… | See all Feature Here! and contact to info.hmm2.0@gmail.com

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Related articles

• Los GDS Vs. Internert y los Canales de Distribucion | Universidad Tecnologica Equinoccial
• Los GDS Integración del Negocio Turistico | Hospitalitas.com
• 10 Razones para usar Amadeus GDS y hacer que su negocio crezca | Amadeus1a.com

Otros Artículos

1. Mitos del Revenue Management  | HMM 2.0
2. Las OTAS ayudan a la Venta Directa del Hotel | HMM 2.0
3. Diseño modelos de negocios para web turísticas | HMM 2.0
4. ¿Que tan efectiva es su estrategia de Social Media? 21 de Julio del 2011 | HMM 2.0
5. La cara oculta del “Marketing Digital” y el “Inbound Marketing”, como herramientas de ventas  | HMM 2.0
6. ASTORE SHOPPING MALL | BEST DAILY DISCOUNT SALES ONLINE | The best Daily Amazon.com Discount

Tecnología del hotel Tendencias que estan Revolucionando la Industria

HMM 2.0 Published on Agust 06, 2013 by  Hotel Industry Magazine

A medida que las reglas aplicadas al turismo avanzan a un ritmo imparable, a muchos hoteleros les cuesta mantenerse al día con todos los cambios que suceden a su alrededor, cuanto menos prever cuáles pueden ser las tendencias que revolucionen su negocio en los próximos años. Este artículo señala seis aspectos a los que todo hotelero deberá prestar atención de cara al futuro si quiere mantenerse al día:

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1. La nube y el SaaS (Software as a service). El software como servicio ofrecido en la nube, aunque como proceso ha vivido una adaptación tardía al sector turístico, puede generar en un corto plazo de tiempo el 85% de las consultas de los hoteleros sobre adquisición de nuevos recursos de gestión. En primer lugar, porque promete una reducción de los costes al no implicar una instalación física en la organización. En segundo lugar, a los hoteleros les atrae la idea de no tener que preocuparse por resolver problemas relacionados con sistemas y externalizar todo ese trabajo.
2. El entorno mobile. Los smartphones y tablets han cambiado el modo en el que interactuamos con la tecnología. El turismo no es una excepción en esta ámbito. Es más, en algunos casos está liderando el camino. Para grandes cadenas y hoteles independientes, el móvil se ha convertido en un elemento fundamental para mejorar su servicio al cliente.
3. Las redes sociales. El social media ha tenido un impacto crucial en el turismo. TripAdvisor se ha convertido en la principal fuente de información a la hora de reservar un hotel al mismo tiempo que redes como Facebook o Twitter van ganando fuerza en el sector poco a poco.
4. Sistemas personalizados. Los usuarios esperan que su experiencia en su viaje sea cada vez más personalizada y adaptada a sus necesidades. Esto implica una creciente cantidad de datos que recibimos acerca de sus preferencias y gustos. Todos estos nuevos datos deben servir al hotelero para poder ofrecer esa experiencia personalizada.
5. Integración. Los hoteles desarrollan diversas funciones que van más allá del alojamiento, como la organización de eventos o servicios complementarios, tales como spas o campos de golf. Normalmente, cada servicio funcionaba de forma independiente, pero esta política es cosa del pasado. Integrar todos estos sistemas facilitará la gestión global del hotel y le facilitará un entendimiento más completo del cliente y del revenue por huésped que puede obtener.
6. Globalización. En el siglo XXI, los hoteles se ven obligados a adoptar nuevas formas de gestión para sobrevivir en entornos y momentos económicos adversos. En este aspecto, los hoteles –especialmente las grandes cadenas– miran a la internacionalización de sus productos como una salida fundamental de cara al futuro.

Fuente: Hotel Industry Magazine

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 The All in one Hotel Revenue Generation and Marketing Multi Device Hotel Booking Engine, Revenue Management, Channel Manager, Automagic Mobil and Social  Marketing, Websites and More… | See all Feature Here! and contact to info.hmm2.0@gmail.com

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Related articles

• Las 6 Tendencias Tecnologicas que estan Revolucionando el Turismo | EspoHotelB2B.es
• Tenologia en las Habitaciones Revoluciona la Industria Hotelera| Vidayestilo.terra.com.mx
• Las 8 Tendencias que revolucionaron el Turismo en Internet| Maestrosdelweb.com
• Aplicaciones para Mobiles y Redes Sociales Revolucionan el Turismo | Tendencias21.net
• | Guestcentric.com/blog
• Google el Gigante que revoluciona el Turismo | PulsoTuristico.com.ar

Otros Artículos

1. Marketing de Impulso | MLM  |  HMM 2.0
2. Las OTAS ayudan a la Venta Directa del Hotel | HMM 2.0
3. Google’s Promoted Hotels opens the bidding war | HMM 2.0
4. 8 Cool Marketing Campaigns Using Facebook Places | HMM 2.0
5. ¿Que tan efectiva es su estrategia de Social Media? 21 de Julio del 2011 | HMM 2.0
6. GuestCentric customers awarded 11 innovation and hotel website design awards  | HMM 2.0
7. ASTORE SHOPPING MALL | BEST DAILY DISCOUNT SALES ONLINE | The best Daily Amazon.com Discount