Six leading in-room hotel technology trends in 2024
In the last few years, hotels heavily focused on technology to improve the guest stay. From Wi-Fi to smart TVs, hotels are constantly using in-room hotel technologies to make their guests’ experience better. If you see Forbes’s roundup of the world’s best hotels, you will find most of the hotels featured in the list are the ones who did up their technology game big time. In-room hotel tech makes staying easier for guests and saves you big money on operations. Also, you give your guests a reason to come back to your property. Are you also keen on incorporating the latest technologies into your hotel rooms? We got you covered. Here in this piece, we will cover all the major in-room hotel technology trends in 2022. Six major in-room hotel technology trends in 2023 There are many in-room technologies that hotels worldwide are testing, so we will not focus on in-room hotel technologies that are just being tried out of fad. Here we will focus on technologies with contextual significance trending this year. And these are technologies that did work for other hotels in the industry, offered value in terms of positive feedback from guests, increased revenue, improved approval ratings, etc. So, without further ado, let’s look at these top six breakthrough in-room hotel technologies, which could be the norm in the future. Web-Based Room Service Apps Making back-and-forth calls to hotel room service is mostly an awkward experience for guests. Hotels are now removing the calling barrier by using web-based applications to process all room service requests. The web applications run smoothly on both smartphones and personal computers. They make the delivery of this app even more effortless, which involves no human involvement. They place QR codes at the most accessible space that guests scan to access the whole app. And start placing their requests, food orders, tracking, room cleaning, and all other ancillaries. Smart Voice Controlled Thermostats Ideal room temperature enhances the quality of sleep. Experts say 18.3 is the best temperature to sleep at, but it varies from guest to guest and their home geographies. But what hotels can do is they can offer the best thermostats to guests. So, now hotels are placing smart voice-controlled thermostats, which also have touch screen functionality. Robo Services To maximize guest privacy and minimize human involvement in in-room services, hotels are employing robots to manage and transport laundry. Also, robots are delivering snacks, moving around the tables, and all other similar exercises which would actually require a human Smart Showers The Smart showers are automated and can directly sync with the in-room touch screen devices. Guests can set the temperature of the shower before even entering the washroom. The Smart showers are extremely helpful for the elderly and children who need these adjustments done by someone accompanying them. These showers also have temperature adjustment keypads and displays. The showers also consume less water and energy than conventional geysers and running water setups. The experts in the hospitality industry predict that these showers will become mainstream in not more than 15 years. Customer Support Videos A report suggests that guests favor customers support in the form of videos (live or recorded). Along the lines of the Smart menu, hotels are now facilitating video chat support through QR codes. In the service section, guests get a link, which directly connects them to customer support over a video chat. The chats enable guests to get their issues resolved in real-time. And if needed, request for an in-person visit. In-room Interactive Screens Traditionally, guests tend to use their own devices for casual internet browsing. To add vow factors, hotels are either placing interactive computing screens or providing tablets to the guests. It also gives hotels an excellent opportunity for product placement and upsell in-hotel ancillaries. Recommended: What is loyalty SAAS solution | Know different vendors in the travel market The hotel technology trends mentioned above tell a story of how the industry per se is shaping. In times to come, you will see hotel hotels using more in-room technologies. The reasoning behind it is simple- as most people will have smart technologies in their homes, so they will seek a stay that is not too different from their homes. And offers them a more connected experience. Therefore, if you introduce the technologies we discussed now, you will have the beginners’ advantage.
Sentiment Analysis: What it is and how it can transform your hotel guest experience
Think about the last time you booked a hotel. How much did you research on Google, Instagram, and Facebook before making a purchase? Or how many times did you read hotel reviews on TripAdvisor, Google, and Expedia to book the hotel confidently? It’s natural to perceive other’s experience with the products or services you are about to invest in. In this digital age, there has been a surge of online reviews, guest ratings, and review apps which has empowered shoppers to make an informed booking decision. In fact, a TripAdvisor study says 81% of people frequently or always read reviews before booking a hotel. To survive the intense competition in the travel space, any online travel business must focus on reviewing sentiment analysis. Understanding how your customers feel about your product offerings or services will help you tailor your products and services according to your customer’s needs. In this blog, we will break down sentiment analysis on guest reviews and how it can help travel companies enhance their products and services. What is sentiment analysis? If you ever wrote an online review of a hotel, commented about a product, or replied to brand surveys, then you have been through sentiment analysis. Sentiment analysis or opinion mining is a technique to analyze textual data and interpret the sentiments behind it. With a mix of statistics, machine learning, and natural language processing (NLP), algorithms can identify and classify a reviewer’s feelings, thoughts or judgments into positive negative neutral Most of the guest reviews on TripAdvisor, Google, Expedia, Yelp, etc., help travel businesses to understand their customer’s feelings about their travel products and offerings. However, sentiment analysis is not only to understand guest’s or customers’ feelings (for example, “the stay at this hotel was fantastic“). Data analysts are also interested in facts (for example, “the room didn’t have Wi-Fi”). Any data that displays the pros or cons of the hotel stay is relevant to the business’s growth strategy. Why is sentiment analysis of guest reviews essential? Analyzing guest reviews about their hotel stay allows hoteliers and travel agencies to learn what makes their guests happy or dissatisfied. This analysis can enable travel companies to tailor travel products and services based on their guest’s needs. For example, a guest review could be, “The front desk communication regarding check-in was pretty bad and disappointing.” NLP-based sentiment analysis can label such reviews as negative and help brands take actionable steps to reduce dissatisfied guests. Sentiment analysis can help hotel businesses, OTAs, and tour operators understand the following: How guests feel about the hotel property Hotel amenities that guests enjoyed Hotel amenities that need improvement Hotel operations that need improvement Hotel brand perception amongst guests This methodology gives a holistic understanding of improving your overall offerings and enhancing your guest experience. Sentiment analysis for guest feedback Once you have decided to incorporate sentiment analysis into your business, it’s time to identify the best sentiment analysis tools in the market. Sentiment analysis tools help to determine what to look for in customers’ text, such as reviews, social media posts, surveys, etc. The ML-based sentiment analysis tools perform more than scanning positive, negative and neutral keywords. The process involves data collection data processing data analysis data visualization Let’s decode a guest’s review of Ritz Carlton, Atlanta on TripAdvisor. Here’s how sentiment analysis AI breaks down the textual data into smaller sections: “I mainly travel to Marriott properties and have stayed at and enjoyed Ritz-Carlton properties around the world.” “I can say was really a disappointment.” “Mediocre amenities, fair service, multiple items in need of repair or replacement, fair service and average food.” For each section, a sentiment is assigned. The first sentence is positive, while the second and third sentences are negative. Overall, the sentiment analysis identifies this comment as negative. Now, the decision maker can understand what their guest feels about their brand and respond accordingly. What are the benefits of sentiment analysis on guest reviews? Online guest review sentiment analysis can help travel businesses in the following ways: Identify and understand real-time insights on how customers feel about your business Sentiment analysis provides upselling opportunities Analysis and processing of large dataset to enhance your travel products Enhance hotel operations and staff performance to deliver better guest experience Helps detect the intent behind the guest reviews Accurate and unbiased results Conclusion When it comes to understanding guest experience, the key is to look out for guest feedback. By using sentiment analysis to review guest feedback on your travel business, you can focus on areas of improvement and create better guest experiences. Sentiment analysis is not a one-time effort and needs continuous monitoring. It helps decision-makers find the real value of their business among the customers. So, if you want to understand your guest’s emotions and how they feel about your brand, then it’s time to incorporate and invest in sentiment analysis tools and take your guest experience to the next level.
40+ Different Hotel Content Attributes That Users Check Before Booking a Hotel
At a time when the majority of hotels are booked online, consumers try to find answers to their questions – what’s the pet policy, if smoking allowed or not, what are the pool hours, is there an in house restaurant – the information is nothing but hotel content and it should be accessible in minimal time because it takes only milliseconds for a user to switch to another website. While losing customers to competition because of operational inefficiency is something that you’d never want as an online travel business. Then, how to solve this conundrum? Can widening the set of attributes you display on your website solve this? Let’s find out! When the range of questions coming from consumers is widening, the set of answers you provide on your website should also widen. Although it’s understandable that data coming from multiple distribution channels is too cluttered to be displayed on websites. And keeping the hotel content data up to date all the time is another big challenge. To solve all the issues mentioned above on one platform, you need a dedicated master tool. A tool that maps the maximum number of attributes, so you can answer maximum customer queries upfront. There are Hotel Curated Content tools in the market that map up to 40+ attributes, allowing travel businesses to create sustainable travel businesses. These tools mostly run on AI/ML algorithms and keep your hotel content up-to-date with minimal human intervention. This empowers you to tell your best story to your potential customers. Now, let’s have a deeper look at how these 40+ hotel content attributes take form once mapped by a hotel curated content tool: Hotel Name: Online travel businesses work with multiple suppliers, and too often they end up mixing the hotel names, which creeps doubt into customer’s mind, and results in canceled or missed bookings. Top mapping tools use AI/ML algorithms to find out the correct name of the hotel and help you list accurate hotel names on your website. Property Type: Giving the consumer clarity about Hotel property types, such as – Motel, Resort, Villa, etc. attracts more customers, because when customers come online to book a hotel, they already have a property type in mind, if they don’t get the matching property or not enough clarity about the property type, they are likely to leave your hotel listing. Images: When it comes to hotel booking, images are key decision drivers. Hotel Curated Content tools provide image content through its network of exclusive hotel media content providers to make your hotel content completely ready for listing. Star Rating: With more customers going online, putting across their opinions on their travel experiences, star rating becomes very critical to establish the legitimacy and the quality of a property. Products like Hotel Curated Content map star ratings and provide strong social proof to properties. Email: To facilitate a smooth post-booking experience a Property’s email address is a very crucial denominator. There are scenarios when a user wants to connect directly to the hotel with their special requests, email addresses come very handy in those situations. Curated Content Tools accurately extract email addresses of properties from your suppliers’ data and add them to your hotel content. Geocodes: At a time when everyone owning a smartphone has access to GPS technology, not providing accurate geocodes can be very counterproductive for any travel business. Curated Content Tools add accurate geocodes to your hotel content by leveraging highly efficient AI/ML algorithms. Address Line1: Usually property addresses have two lines, to avoid any missing important address data, the hotel content mapping tools capture the full address in its natural form and list the first line of address in Line 1. Address Line2: Detailed location information of a property comes in Line 2 of the address. Country Code: HMC Tools map Country Codes provided by the International Organization for Standardization to avoid mix and match of country names in the content. Supplier Name: When you take services of multiple suppliers, you must know the name of the supplier providing that hotel. Supplier Hotel Id: You get access to a consolidated list of property IDs provided to you by your suppliers. Recommended: Hotel Data Duplication: How To Solve The Growing Challenge For Hospitality Industry City Name: Name of the city where the property is located. State Name: Name of the state where the property is located. State Code: Code of the state where the property is located. Zip Code: Zip Code of the area where the property is located. Country Name: Name of the country where the property is located. Latitudes and Longitudes: Latitude and Longitude of the property to get precise direction and location of the property. Phones: Property’s phone numbers. Fax: Property’s fax number. Website: Property’s official website address. As Hotel Content plays a very crucial role in the booking process, with a quality Hotel Curated Content tool, you can easily list all the aforementioned attributes properly on your travel website. And put your travel business in a position that allows you to present your best story to your potential customers, and also take your conversion numbers up north. Vervotech is a leading Hotel Mapping and Room Mapping API that leverages the power of AI and ML to quickly and accurately identify each property listing through the verification of multiple parameters. With One of the industry’s best coverage of 98% and an accuracy of 99.999%, Vervotech is quickly becoming the mapping software of choice for all leading global companies operating in the travel and hospitality industry. To learn more about Vervotech and the ways it can enhance your business in the long run contact us: sales@vervotech.com
Four smart ways to build a solid hotel positioning strategy
When traditional hoteliers would think of branding, they would get a unique logo and put it almost everywhere, from adverts, to the front desk and the uniforms of their staff. Boom! They would believe they did an excellent job branding their hotel brand. They probably did because only a handful of players had the wherewithal to do branding. However, now digital has democratized access to advertisement channels. Not only your core competitors but a player who just entered the market can challenge you and eat a fair amount of your business. So, how do you stand out in a crowded market? For that, you must position yourself uniquely. Once you figure out your positioning, all critical functions of your business, like Marketing and Sales, will be able to leverage that to sell your hotel brand effectively from a better vantage point. Hotel positioning is creating a unique, differentiated image or identity for a hotel in the minds of consumers to make the hotel stand out from its competitors. Hotel brands typically achieve it through marketing, branding, and developing unique amenities and services. For example, a luxury hotel might focus on its elegant decor, fine dining options, and high-end spa services to attract wealthy, discerning travelers. On the other hand, a budget hotel might focus on its convenient location, affordable prices, and basic amenities to appeal to cost-conscious travelers. Another example of hotel positioning could be a hotel that positions itself as a family-friendly destination, offering kid-friendly amenities and activities, such as a pool, a game room, and a playground. This type of hotel might target families with young children as its primary customer base. The goal of hotel positioning is to create a clear and compelling image of the hotel in the minds of consumers. And to differentiate the hotel from its competitors in a way that resonates with its target audience. There are many ways you can achieve it. Here we talk about four strategies that can stand out in today’s market and help you create a unique proposition for your hotel business. Turn the table When you find nothing on the table, turn the table. Yes, turning the table can establish yourself as a unique brand. How? By turning the table, we mean thinking unconventionally. When everyone is looking to introduce some breakthrough, you can focus on the ordinary and position it as a luxury. How will this work? Only some people want everything. And there are a lot of people who want basic things right. Find the essential things not many in the industry sell, but you do. Like there are many corporate travelers who already have had enough of luxury, all they want is an experience that is close to the comfort of home. Rather than selling them the luxury of hotels, sell them the comfort of home. Create blue ocean By creating a blue ocean, we mean creating a whole new category altogether. One step ahead from “turning the table.” The way OTTs brought live sport on the internet. Once you can redefine a category, you redefine a market and the competition. You will have the first-mover advantage, and everyone else will play a catch-up game. Couple-friendly hotel was a blue ocean someone, pet friendly for others. You can create a category, something like “toddler-friendly” hotels, and be a leader in that market. Get one past one To do a lot better, you don’t necessarily need to do a lot. When we say, “get one past one,” we mean thinking about the number one in your industry and finding out what’s that one thing you can do better than them. Find that UNIQUE spot of differentiation, and market it. Or maybe copy it as well. Nothing’s wrong in love and business. Be anti-establishment Today if you glance over social media, you will find everyone is anti-something. It’s true for your industry as well. That means people are telling you to be what some of the best players in your class are not. Gather that data about the established players in your industry and find the category that allows you to be the best “anti-establishment.” Here, you have your differentiation. Be a hero in your class by not doing what heroes do. You can do this by active social listening, observing the adverts and messaging of bigger brands, and finding the areas that travelers detest. Once you find that sweet spot, tailor a perfect anti-establishment messaging, which will help you garner the support of those individuals who don’t like the identity of certain brands, and there is a high chance they will switch to you. Recommended: Six Leading In-Room Hotel Technology Trends In 2023 By following these four smart strategies, you can build a unique and compelling hotel positioning strategy. Remember, the goal is to differentiate yourself from the competition in a way that resonates with your target audience. With the right positioning, your hotel business can stand out from the crowd and attract more customers. Vervotech is a leading Hotel Mapping and Room Mapping API that leverages the power of AI and ML to quickly and accurately identify each property listing through the verification of multiple parameters. With One of the industry’s best coverage of 98% and an accuracy of 99.999%, Vervotech is quickly becoming the mapping software of choice for all leading global companies operating in the travel and hospitality industry. To learn more about Vervotech and the ways it can enhance your business in the long run contact us: sales@vervotech.com
What are hotel search patterns? And how can you optimize them to users’ intent?
People have multiple biases when they come online to book or browse hotels. It is because they all have an abstract image of the experience they are going to have in a property. And their biases affect their search inputs. We call them hotel search patterns. As a travel business, hotel search patterns can go against you as well. Suppose if the search results are too far from customers’ original imagination, they are likely to drop off your website. There are many other ways it can go wrong for you. We will deal with those scenarios further in this piece. For now, let us stick to how you can make sense of these hotel search patterns, and how you can make them favorable for you. As an online travel enterprise, you already have data on what your audience is putting in your search box. Also, your suppliers provide you with data like hotel ids, airport codes, location codes, and alternate location codes. You can use multiple combinations of supplier data to display relevant results against a variety of search queries. Now, the question that might pop up in your mind, how you refine those search results. So, next up, we address the question for you with solutions. Four ways to refine hotel search results There are several methods and approaches that you can use to derive refined search results. Here we will walk you through four primary and proven techniques to fetch the most refined search outcomes. Radius based approach In the radius-based approach, you decide on a standard radius against all potential hotel search queries. And account for all the geotags within that standard radius. This approach helps travelers find the relevant hotels, precisely in the area towards which they already have an inclination. Hence, you maximize discovery and help your conversion chances through a radius-based approach. The approach is good for use cases like searching on zip codes or specific points of interest like ‘Statue of liberty.’ Polygon based approach The polygon-based approach helps you cover a broader spectrum of locations. Let us understand with an example: Suppose there is a search query for a city. With the polygon-based approach, you can account for latitude, longitude, and geotags of the entire periphery of the city. The above exercise will ensure you do not miss out on any property against a search query. The approach is good for use cases like searching on zip codes or specific neighborhoods. E.g., Southeast Austin. Matching location IDs with hotels As an online travel website, sometimes you want very granular control over which hotels to be shown when searching for any specific location irrespective of the geographical boundaries of the location. For example, while searching hotels in Paris, FR, you want to fetch the hotels from Montreuil which is one of the nearby localities the core of Paris city. To cater such hotel search behaviors, you must build your own location content database from multiple location content sources like preferred supplier location content, third party services like Google, TomTom, Four Square etc. Then you can map/tag the set of hotels against every location in your own location database. In short, we have a very customized and controlled mechanism to show the hotels for every location. This approach helps you display relevant search results when the consumers are not particular about the hotels but specific locations and attractions. The approach is best not only for use cases city-based search but also when you are searching for hotels by point of interest, airports, stadiums. E.g., Times Square. New York Use provider specific location Ids As we know, most of the leading hotel suppliers have their location content and they have optimized and customized the search results for different regions or cities. So, instead of re-inventing all those search engine nuances, you can leverage their location content directly on your platform. The obvious pre-requisite is to have the formal agreement to access that location content. This approach works best when your supplier strategy on your platform revolves around a few specific suppliers. How can you optimize hotel search results to relevance? So far in this article, we have discussed customer biases and potentially how they can affect hotel search patterns. We also examined how you can refine your search results using different techniques and methods. Now, we come to optimization, how you can optimize your refined search results to relevance. We are listing a few recommendations for you, and it is not an exhaustive list. But these optimization methods or recommendations give you a great chance to make your search results more precise and relevant. Personalized searches You can make your search results relevant straight up by displaying personalized results. It is an excellent technique to offer quick value to recurring customers. You already have data about what they like, the frequency, the budget ranges, preferred hotel amenities, etc. You can make it easier for them the moment they enter a query in your search box. Top selling properties In general, travelers are risk averse when it comes to choosing a property. They are more likely to go with properties already doing well and have recently offered value to their guests. So, displaying top-selling properties in response to search queries could be a great proposition for your business. Review based searches It is the age of proof of concept and social proof. As we mentioned previously, to minimize the risk or the likelihood of an unpleasant experience, travelers trust the experiences of past travelers and their feedback. So, displaying high-rated properties in response to hotel searches can make the drill easier for you visitors. Supplier specific properties The data you get from your suppliers is not linear in terms of quality. You can identify the suppliers that deliver a better look-to-book ratio and tie only their data to your search box. Recommended: Leading Hotel Mapping Tools in 2022 Conclusion! When travelers come to your website and search, the last thing you want is that no
Hotel Mapping Dilemma: Inhouse vs. Outsource, Which Is Ideal for Your Travel Business?
Establishing a travel business is a monumental task. From financial planning, developing a website to creating business partnerships, a travel business requires a great amount of resources, energy and finance. To stay afloat in the competitive marketplace, it is important to invest in the right technology for your business. While travel companies invest in administrative software, marketing software, revenue software, etc., hotel mapping technology is the most overlooked factor for a successful business. Hotel mapping is a process of aggregating hotel properties from multiple sources to avoid duplicate and inconsistent listings. Duplicate or inconsistent hotel data arises when OTAs or travel businesses opt for multiple channels such as suppliers, wholesalers, bed banks, GDS, etc. In the current ecosystem, various travel businesses that sell accommodation either opt for an in-house hotel mapping team or outsource. Having an in-house team gives you better control of your business decisions, communication is smooth, sensitive business information is secure within the team. However, insourcing has a fair share of drawbacks with it, such as: 1. Lack of mapping expertise 2. High cost of maintaining a mapping platform 3. Delay in onboarding new source or supplier 4. Slow time-to-market 5. Lack of good quality data Why Travel Businesses Must Outsource Hotel Mapping? Outsourcing uses external specialists to perform specific tasks that the company doesn’t have the availability or budget to do in-house. These tasks, such as hotel mapping and room mapping, are time-consuming or tedious and the goal is to free up your resources to focus on more revenue-generating tasks. If you are wondering if outsourcing is only for big players in the market, then it is not so. Technology has transformed the travel ecosystem and made outsourcing accessible to small and mid-size businesses. According to a recent Deloitte study, the primary reason why organizations outsource is to improve process efficiency and standardization, followed by cost reduction and business value. Post-Covid, companies now want to focus on enhancing their existing offerings and value outsourcing specialists to help them. Another major factor for outsourcing work is to elevate the way they do business and enhance their overall speed to market. Some of the pros of outsourcing hotel mapping services are: Economical Access to mapping specialist Faster time to market Brand loyalty Untap new foreign markets 1. Economical One of the major reasons for outsourcing any service is cost savings. When you outsource a mapping provider, you eliminate the cost of hiring new employees. A benefit that’s mostly overlooked is outsourcing eliminates employee turnover costs, medical insurance compensation, holidays, etc. Outsourcing indirectly helps your business grow steadily and ensures your core team is focused on revenue-generating tasks. 2. Access to mapping specialist When you outsource a mapping service, you collaborate and have access to a talented pool of experts without any geographical limitations. An outsourced hotel mapping provider that works with a diverse set of customers guarantees a high level of expertise that’s needed in their product offerings. Whereas, with an in-house team, you are limited by talent. Research revealed that 78% of businesses worldwide feel positive about their outsourcing partners. When you work with a mapping specialist, you stay ahead of your competitors and you can continue delivering the best customer satisfaction. 3. Faster time to market The key to successful product development is quickly getting a quality product to the market. By outsourcing, you have dedicated resources well-equipped to complete tasks at the utmost speed. This will help you launch new products ahead of your competitors and even boost innovation productivity. Infact, external collaboration with a technology company increases your R&D efforts and product innovation. 4. Brand loyalty It can be a financial strain and time-consuming for travel businesses to put together industry-leading mapping support employees. But with an outsourced mapping provider, you can gain the most refined product that will give your customers the type of service they will keep coming back to. This will enhance your brand loyalty and give you an edge over your competitors. 5. Untap new foreign markets To continue having a strong foothold in the travel industry, companies need ways to establish their presence way before their competitors. When you outsource a mapping provider, you get immediate access to their extensive database data insights, which will help you launch your products in a new market with ease. Clearing the Dilemma of Insourcing Vs. Outsourcing Hotel Mapping As a decision-maker, it is important to ask yourself- Can your in-house team achieve what a team of mapping specialists can? If yes, then you are working in the right direction; if not, then it is best to outsource. We suggest investing in mapping experts who understand your challenges and business. It would be best to opt for credible mapping experts with a proven track record of industry and technical expertise. Also, it is essential to select the mapping vendor that offers you the highest level of mapping quality. This will help you deliver the utmost booking experience to your customers. Furthermore, it is important to communicate clearly with your outsourcing partner to meet all deadlines on time, and you and your partner are on the same page. To maintain steady growth and productivity, we suggest finding an ideal balance with a mix of in-house employees focused on core business activities and outsourced resources for niche technology such as hotel mapping. Outsourcing a hotel mapping provider has a lot of potential- from access to the experts to brand loyalty- and businesses of all sizes can definitely invest in outsourcing hotel mapping and notice how quickly their business flourishes.
Is Bliesure the Future of Business Travel?
Business travelers are returning faster than the industry predicted. Global Rescue reports about 60% of business travelers had at least one multi-day domestic business trip by July 2021. And nearly one-third of those travelers also flew internationally. Still, the complete rebound of business travel is a little too far, and it will take time. At the same time, this emerging trend of Bliesure is pulling loads of employees back on the roads and in the open air again. The mental makeup of the Millenials, the new generation, is a strong reason why Bliesure Travel is taking off. They are not taking vacations – time off from work, which is why they are burning out faster than their older peers. Also, businesses are now gradually understanding – virtual meetings could be an alternative to face-to-face meetings, but they cannot replace them. Personal interaction is still the most effective way to build and maintain professional relationships, nurture trust, and drive your company’s growth. That said, let’s first understand what is Bliesure and what makes it different from conventional business trips. What is Bliesure? Bliesure is an amalgamation of business and leisure, allowing employees to add vacation days to their business trips. It’s basically a business trip with an additional leisure component added. There are two ways to chalk out a Bliesure trip: add leisure days at the start or end of a business trip; it’s good mostly when traveling alone or in a group. Another way for Bliesure is to take friends and family on the trip, where you take time off every day to do leisure activities, and the company fully sponsors it. The Bliesure as a concept is not new; it has been around for some time now. The significant difference is now when the travel industry is recovering from the slump of the pandemic; marketeers are fuelling this term. But it does not anyway limit the potential of Bliesure as a concept. Organizations can use bliesure to attract a good talent pool, offer it as an additional employee benefit, and it can play a significant role in employee retention. How Can Bliesure Transform Business Travel? Apart from the benefit that businesses and organizations can drive from bliesure, bliesure travel opens heaps of growth opportunities for the travel industry. Let’s look at three leading ways the travel industry can take advantage of the Bliesure buzz: 1. The Bliesure Messaging Messaging is essential; you can’t sell what you can’t publicize. So, travel businesses need to create packages for Bliesure and start reaching out to the planners, which are still in the early booking process. Alternatively, travel businesses can directly reach out to business travelers. Start the messaging process by educating travelers about the concept of bliesure. Send educational content, run ads or launch a full-fledged marketing campaign to target business travelers who might be interested in the idea of bliesure. 2. Cost-Effective On-Trip Offerings For business travel, it’s mostly planners, in-house or third agents that make all the booking arrangements. And the agents prefer to book room blocks for sales meetings and conferences to get competitive rates. The business travel planners and agents always try to get maximum travel benefit on corporate rates, and they are very price-conscious. So, you cannot sell them, which goes even slightly above corporate rates. But you can always sell cost-effective on-trip offerings that make your venue more appealing. And convince them how you can make the leisure part more enjoyable for their travelers. 3. Value Addition on Experience Once you are able to convince planners and agents, they will do free marketing for you. While you need to understand the limitations of Bliesure travelers, they can only extend their trip for a few days, not weeks. So, you have very little time to make their Bliesure experience worthwhile. Recommended: Five Emerging Technology Trends in Travel Industry Every four out of five business travelers spend about five hours figuring out – what they can do once they are over with business obligations. That’s where the opportunity lies; you can incorporate athletic activities, water sports, special meals, hiking, and biking into your package. And sync these activities with travelers’ business obligations. Supposedly, they can enjoy these activities if they have a day off during the trip. Else, they already have extra days for the leisure part of their bliesure trip. Make sure you inform the planners of every activity. As mentioned earlier, they will do free marketing for you. Because they also have to justify their choices. The Bliesure might not be a new phenomenon. Still, it has great potential to boost the travel activity in its new avatar when so many Travel and Marketing companies are pushing it in the public eye. And it can potentially become a new norm for business travel.
7 factors to choose the right hotel mapping provider for your travel business
Picking the right hotel mapping provider has become a necessity for every travel business. Since most travel companies rely on a multi-supplier strategy for sourcing accommodations, there is a possibility to have duplicate data on your platform. Hotel mapping removes duplicate and inconsistent hotel data and enhances the customer booking experience. While you can rely on your in-house team (which can be costly, and complex), there are mapping experts that can take away the complexities and let you focus on your critical business functions. So how do you choose a hotel mapping provider? Let’s get started. 7 Evaluation Criteria When Choosing Hotel Mapping Vendor Once you have decided to outsource a hotel mapping provider, you will want to evaluate the options different providers offer and look at how they would support your business goals. Here are seven primary evaluation criteria for selecting a mapping vendor. 1. Customer Support Commitment to customer success should be an important parameter to look for. Software projects with the newest technologies such as natural language processing (NLP), machine learning might encounter unanticipated challenges. Since most mapping providers offer automated and advanced technology-based mapping solutions, it is important they have a quick turnaround time on escalations. Ask questions to your mapping provider about What is their response time for queries? What form of support will you have access to, such as if you would get chat-based support or access to a dedicated resource. Accuracy Accuracy is another essential parameter when vetting hotel mapping providers. Inaccurate mapping can lead to bad mapping, which can cost travel firms revenue loss if customers cancel their reservations owing to bad mapping. An ideal hotel mapping provider must offer the highest level of accuracy in terms of accurately mapping the data that will help every travel business to develop a customer-centric platform. Various hotel mapping providers leverage the latest technology such as AI, machine learning, and natural language processing (NLP), which ensures unmatched accuracy. 3. Mapping Percentage Next factor to consider is mapping percentage, which means how much hotel data gets mapped by your hotel mapping provider. A travel agency must vet the mapping provider based on this factor and check if they map 100% of the hotel data given by the supplier or Bed Banks. For example, if your hotel supplier is Expedia, then your mapping provider should map 100% of hotels from Expedia across other suppliers for you. 4. Coverage Consumers love options, and travel agencies work with multiple suppliers to offer a plethora of hotels to their customers. So, the next factor to focus on is mapping coverage. You must vet your mapping provider on how many suppliers do they have already integrated within their platform. You have partnered with the right hotel mapping provider if they cover and map all the hotels given by the suppliers. 5. Reliability Next important criteria to vet for is how reliable is your hotel mapping provider. While most SaaS businesses claim to deliver high-quality services or products, it is important to assess through their existing client feedback. Reach out to the vendor’s customers and ask questions- How long have they been their client? How responsive is their customer service team? How has the provider addressed their queries and needs? Collaborate with a provider with a proven track record and read about their customer success stories, testimonials, and reviews. You definitely don’t want to work with a business whose software is slow, buggy or has security issues. 6. Speed It would be best if you evaluated a hotel mapping provider on how fast they can deliver accurately mapped hotels and rooms. The faster the mapped properties, the quicker you can start selling them. This will also directly impact your customer booking experience, as your customers will get the freshest, up-to-date hotel data on your platform. Look for a hotel mapping provider that can deliver mapped content at the earliest (say 1-2 days) without compromising quality. 7. Ease of integration In addition to making your product readily accessible, it’s equally important to ensure that your mapping API can be easily integrated into booking engines quickly and efficiently. Focus on making more integration options available to your customers, research the issues they face while integrating your product and try to ease out their pain points. A hotel mapping vendor is essential for every size travel company that wants to stay agile and avoid investing in large amounts of capital for advanced technology like AI and machine learning. If you are in the process of choosing a hotel mapping vendor for your business, thoroughly vet prospective providers using the key factors mentioned above. The right hotel mapping provider can bring an impactful business change to your company and help you focus on what matters the most- your customers.
How Can IATA Travel Pass Help Countries Reopen Borders?
The world has not yet wholly rebounded from the social and economic impact of the pandemic. And it’s high time for countries to reopen borders with no restrictions and smoothly facilitate international travel. The International Air Transport Association IATA started an initiative called the IATA travel pass, which allows countries to confidently reopen borders without any mandatory quarantine. It’s a digital health pass, and it will be available to all nations for free. A recent press release from IATA says the development of IATA’s digital travel pass is in its final stage. As countries use testing to limit Covid-19 importation, verifying all the testing and vaccination information becomes critical. And IATA travel pass solves the same problem statement by creating an infrastructure for easy flow of information among governments, airlines, labs, and travelers. Before we get into the intricacies of how the Travel Pass will work, let’s first understand the initiative and what it aims to achieve. What is IATA Travel Pass Initiative? The primary objective of the IATA travel pass initiative is to provide a digital infrastructure to countries that allow them to re-open borders without any quarantine. The travel pass will have accurate information on passengers’ health status. And the travel pass will work on a two-way mechanism that helps both passengers and governments. For passengers, IATA Travel Pass is a mobile app where they can find all the information regarding what tests results they need to produce, where they can get the test, and methods to verify vaccination status before their travel. Also, with the IATA travel pass mobile app, passengers can directly share Covid health information with governments in a secure and discreet manner. Recommended: Five Emerging Technology Trends in Travel Industry How does IATA Travel Pass Work? As we mentioned earlier, the whole initiative of free IATA Pass revolves around providing a one-stop solution to all stakeholders that facilitate travel in the post-pandemic world. Now let’s quickly understand how the travel pass initiative helps these stakeholders at different levels. Governments Governments of the countries using the Travel Pass will get unified and authenticated data of tests, vaccination status, and the identity of travelers to confidently open borders and thoroughly scrap post-travel quarantines. Aviation Industry Airlines will get an efficient information distribution mechanism, which they can use to inform their passengers and potential travelers on test requirements. Also, verify if a passenger meets the mandatory requirement for travel. Covid-19 Test Labs IATA authorized test labs and centers will have a single source mechanism to send test reports and vaccination certificates directly to the passengers. Also, they will be to process passengers’ data confidentiality. Travelers With the help of the Travel Pass App, passengers will be able to create digital passports. And they can also verify their vaccination and test result in real-time and check if their “Digital Passports” meet the covid travel norms of their destination. Recommended: Is Bliesure the Future of Post Pandemic Business Travel? As countries with the likes of Singapore, Qatar, Malaysia, Switzerland, and 60 other nations are already using the IATA Travel Pass on a trial basis, it’s going to be a monumental tool to bring back international travel to the level pre-pandemic times.
The New Traveler Needs
Travel and Hospitality are not only one of the most basic service industries in the world but also one of the oldest. Ever since the inception of civil thought processes, we humans have always aspired to traverse our lands beyond the horizon no matter the challenges or the risks involved in the same. This is perhaps the greatest achievement of human beings as a race – being able to leave a mark on the lands that they set their foot on may it be the most distant islands, the highest mountains or the moon. It is necessary for the Travel and hospitality industry to look after modern travelers needs. Therefore, it’s safe to say that travel and hospitality will always be one of the core industries that influences all other spheres of human intervention. Fast forward to the 21st century, rapid developments in communication technology has enabled the world to come together in a manner that was quite unprecedented before. The farthest corners of the Earth have opened up as potential destinations due to the emergence of new markets and communities. With modern travelers having far more diverse needs than that of our ancestral counterparts, the travel and hospitality industry must be able to mould itself to cater to these growing needs and enable the expansion policies of modern businesses and communities alike. To properly understand the needs of new travelers, it is first necessary to define the modern traveler. So, who is the modern traveler? What sets these travelers apart from travelers back in the day? To properly answer this question, let’s take a look at the different types of travelers that we come across today! Based on behavior, motivation and psychology, we can more or less divide modern travelers into the following five essential types: The Plugged-In Traveler: Young millennials who are knowledgeable about their surroundings and prefer to plan trips independently rather than through travel agencies or agents. These travelers are progressive, tech-savvy and are well-versed with the road to make the most of the journey rather than the destination. The internet and the smartphone play a key role in their travel plan as they tend to more or less rely on these for all their needs during their trips. Digital Detoxers: These new set of travelers tend to live ‘off the grid’ while on holidays in an attempt to disconnect themselves from the growing pressures of their regular lives. They tend to rely on physical modes of transactions such as cash, book local transports to move around and take in the local culture as much as possible. However, they do rely on the internet and modern facilities during the planning stage of the trip. Adventure Seekers: Thrill seekers and adventurers are quickly becoming one of the leading groups of travelers. These travelers tend to travel around 4-5 times a year and prefers niche destinations to regular ones. Highly susceptible to word-of-mouth advertising, these groups of travelers are being increasingly targeted by travel agencies through alternative travel packages. They are open to new ideas and are not averted by danger as much as regular travelers. Family Holiday Makers: These travelers are extremely limited on time and therefore rely on third parties to plan and book their trips for them. They tend to travel more during on-seasons and are quite lenient when it comes to expenditures during their trip. Travel agencies target this group heavily since they bring in the most profits. Old-schoolers: The older age groups make up this segment. They are usually 45+ and not as tech-savvy as the other groups mentioned on this list. Old-schoolers are generally targeted through offline marketing campaigns such as print media and television as they do not spend extended hours on the internet. As it can be seen from above, modern travelers are extremely diverse depending on their needs and modes of travel. It is therefore mandatory that modern travel agencies or businesses working in the travel and hospitality sector understand the wide spectrum of needs and wants to be put forward by these groups to develop or incorporate essential technologies that can fulfil them effectively. Keeping that in mind, let us look at some of the needs of modern travelers, the things that they expect from travel agencies or entities involved in the trade: Efficiency: The ability of the travel agency or hospitality provider to cater to the needs of the travelers as efficiently as possible without wasting time. Modern travelers tend to be quite constricted on time and need to adhere to strict schedules, so the services must be provided to them as quickly and as efficiently as possible. Accessibility: A modern travel agency or a hospitality provider needs to be accessible to travelers worldwide. As technologies advance, people are relying on a plethora of them to cater to their everyday needs. Some might use online transactions, some might prefer cash, some might use UPIs for all their needs. Travel agencies and hospitality providers must make all of these facilities readily available to all groups so as not to lose out on potential customers. Visibility: A modern travel agency or hospitality provider needs to be visible to their target audience. With newer and emerging markets on the rise, the competition within the industry is also increasing exponentially. Therefore, travel agencies and hospitality providers need to make their services as visible as possible to potential customers. Optimizations on their marketing front such as SEO, SMO and digital marketing are only some of the ways that these companies in the industry are trying to make their services more visible to modern travelers. However, studies have also shown that businesses cannot rely solely on online presence alone. A proper visibility campaign should take into account both online and offline strategies to ensure maximum effectiveness. Affordability: As discussed above, different groups of travelers travel on different budgets. Therefore, travel agencies and hospitality providers must develop packages keeping in mind these different budgets. To target the maximum groups of travelers, packages need to be as diverse as the target
