Last year, we reflected on the counter-intuitive way of looking at growing clusters of businesses as a way of identifying new trends in the industry in “9 online hotel booking trends to watch in 2016 and why”. So, what is new this year and what is likely to take over the imagination of bookers online? Equally importantly what are the changes …
ONLINE HOTEL BOOKING TREND 6 – 2017: Business travel continues to grow, confuse and excite. Everyone gets excited about the still untapped opportunities in business travel, but it is hard to pin down a great revolution. There are some signs, however, that it is beginning to change faster. Here are some reasons why we think business travel is evolving and …
TripAdvisor made itself a fearsome name in the travel industry by capturing, analysing and sharing views and opinions from travellers about hotels. Most leisure travel bookers who shop online visit TripAdvisor before making a final decision on their hotel of choice. Whether it is right or wrong, biased or unbiased, poorly monitored or otherwise is less relevant – the fact …
Hotel loyalty is and has always been a hot topic of debate. However, it’s influence on travel bookers has been equally difficult to estimate. In the age of endless distractions and price wars, how loyal is your hotel booker? And how much hope can you as a hotel pin on promotions and programmes that rely on bookers retaining an element …
Travel to far-flung exotic destinations is considered special by most people. Who can resist the pull of a billboard with a tropical beach destination on a gloomy winter day in Europe? Or being captivated by quaint European cities in the midst of a hot summer in Asia. Whether that visual is a billboard, a TV advertisement or a magazine cover, …
Requirements of family travel can be complex based on the age group of the children. In general, families usually do have to plan more than the average individual traveller to make the most out of a trip. What makes a good family hotel? Space – families require more space than an average sized hotel room which is why apartments have been encroaching …
What influences a traveller’s decision on where to go, which hotel to book and how you do it? Is it your peers or the media you consume? Is it user-generated content and reviews like TripAdvisor? The type of tourist one becomes is indeed shaped by a high level of influence from people we socialise with. So who is a peer? The official …
For your hotel to have a targeted approach, it is important to break down the broader market into key segments usually based on the reason for travel. This, in turn, helps understand the main types of demand, the behaviour of the customer in each segment and also to understand future growth potential. Typically, the broad segmentation for hotels is corporate …
As a first step and before proceeding to identify opportunities in the different source markets, It is important to “really” understand who you are competing with as well as what type of product offerings you are competing for. This combined with an understanding of new supply being planned or added will also help define how aggressive you need to be …
In general, once the decision to take a leisure trip is made, there are three simple decisions involved: where to go how to get there where to stay Yet, the consumer travel planning process can be quite complex, depending on the purpose or occasion of the trip (i.e., a vacation for fun and entertainment versus a visit to a hometown …
While providing great hospitality is at the heart of the hotel industry, achieving commercial success is key to providing it consistently. This requires that hotels dig deep to really understand what drives online bookers to the hotel – and not just follow the pack. Hotel booking behaviour online is hard to predict. However, the factors that influence booking behaviour is slightly …
To best cater to travellers, optimise marketing and increase bookings, hotels need a good understanding of what travellers want and need when making their booking decisions. Is this easier said than done? Studies reveal that “what travellers say is important” towards certain attributes of a hotel often differ from the actual actions they take ie “what travellers do when booking”. …
