Booking is the keyword

The article "Booking is the Keyword" deals with the importance for hotels to have their own websites. Indeed, they enable these type of businesses to attract bookings. However, these only work if they are efficient; this means being "search engines friendly" (the website has at the top of the major search engines), being appealing to internet users (eg. they should grab attention and attract the potential customers by giving the right informations at the right places so that the internet user doesn't get lost or invaded with too much informations he doesn't need, as well as include a booking form that is secure with instant confirmation).

Yield management is about reaching the right customer, at the right time with the right product through the right channel. Indeed, if those channels fail to give the customer satisfaction, why shouldn't the product?

Nowadays, more and more people book their hotel rooms on-line. Websites have therefore become major informative and selling tools. In the sense that most people use search engines to find a product, or a hotel for instance, if this one doesn't come up when typing in certain keywords than, once more, this channel is a failure.

The other issue that is raised in this article concerns the attractiveness of those websites. If this one doesn't instantly provide the internet user with the information he is looking for than he will just look for another hotel. This implies that the configuration of a website is key to making people book online.

Moreover it has to be easy to use in order to not loose a booking.

This article demonstrates that having a website is worthwhile but if it is not thought throught properly, it is of no use. All the different stages dealt with above have their importance in succesfully turning a potential customer into -a- customer. They do make a difference on whether potential customers are to book or not.

Nevertheless, even though it is perfectly understandable that it is the job of a website to ease the booking process, how can hotel position itself at the top of a search engine site when most of the key words are likely to be the same when one is looking for a hotel in Tokyo per say? Do deals exist between hotels and google for example?

Expedia rewards "Early Birds"

The article "Expedia rewards Early Birds" tackles Expedia's new product. The firm has decided to offer special discounts (up to 20%) for all those who book their 2007 holidays early. Reservations, which also include Expedia's most popular offers, can be made during November for all kind of vacations from January the 1st till August the 31st 2007. The article also underlines how closely Expedia works with its partners in order to produce the "best possible deals" in terms of prices. The offer is also supported by an advertising campaign runned in the national press.

So let's sum it up from the customers' point of view. They have now been used to book their holidays on the Internet for several years. Until recently, they have been educated in the sense that they will get cheaper rates if they bought last minute. For example, with the "Eleventh hour", they got used to just schedule their holiday time and buy a cheap ticket to go somewhere, even if the destination was very random. However, it was a bargain. They have therefore been used to not plan at all.

On the other hand, with this type of offer, customers will be encouraged to plan in advance, and sometimes even do long term planning, if they want enjoy budget flights and hotels. To re-use the words of the article, planning becomes "rewarding".

For the hotels and all other Expedia's partners there are many advantages. Indeed, they will be able to know in advance their level of occupancy and therefore forecast their costs in terms of food, staff and inventory. They will also be able to level their demand with other offers if they see that their occupancy rate is not high enough for a particular period. Finally, they will propably welcome more customers than usually during off peaks periods.

The strategy is therefore clear: bargains increase demand and allows hotels and airlines companies to fill their inventory whole using a larger price structure panel. However, aren't the 3rd party travel sites asking too much of their clients by making them change their purchase behaviors so often? Don't the customers feel lost among all those offers?

Budget airlineshave transformed tourism in Europe - Stockhom feels the effect

The article "Budget airlines have transformed tourism in Europe - Stockhom feels the effects" deals with the example of the Sweedish capital whose over night stays have rised by 10% per annum since Ryanair has decided to fly there. Indeed, this text underlines that from 3 million low cost passengers in 1994, there were 107 million in 2004. According to Chris Martin, Senior President of JonesLang LaSalle Hotels, this has had 3 effects:

- A push effect: cities like Barcelona, Stockholm, Budapest or Prague have seen a strong increase in tourism some years after the introduction of budget airlines in their local airports.

- A pull effect: a decrease in demand for rooms from the locals as they also started flying cheap as well

- A derived effect: the number of hotel suppliers and the demand for rooms have rised in secondary airports where Ryanair flies such as the Stansted airport for instance. (It is situated in the Great Britain's capital outskirt)

So what are the consequences in terms of Revenue Management for the hospitality industry?

It seems that now everybody flies cheap from the middle-class people to managers, from students to the elderly. Budget airlines travelers do not take into account their comfort during their journey anymore but the price that it costs them to go from one point to another. Price has become primordial. Since there is no more one kind of customer segment flying, I can imagine that it is very difficult for hotels to tackle efficiently those travelers and attract them as they hardly have any information about them. Since those travelers are so different, how can hotel managers know what price those potential customers are ready to pay for a room?

Therefore, how do they manage the bookings of their rooms? If those travelers do not book their hotel beforehands, how can they know how many customers they can expect? This also has a consequence on the cost of staff and other purchases such as food and beverages.

One can also suppose that since low cost airline travelers are very sensitive to price, they might just decide to go off for a week end and take the cheapest ticket on line, regardless to where they will end up. This means that the price of an airplane ticket on a budget airline website will have a major impact on the number of travelers who will choose a destination. For example, if Ryanair decides to rise the ticket price to go to Stockhoolm, will there still be that many tourists in that city? This will also automatically have a perverse effect on the local hospitality industry.

Another question that can also be raised is to which extent advertisements about a country or a city to which Ryanair flies, attracts potential customers for a week end? This is to say how can one know why a destination has been chosen rather than another? Is it just because of the cost of the airline ticket or do external advertising also have a role to play in the way low cost travelers choose their destinations?

Book your once-in-a-lifetime experience here

The article "Book your once-in-a-lifetime experience here" (retrieved from http://travel.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,10295-2430803,00.html on November the 5th of 2006) deals with the novelties traveling web-sites are now introducing. Not only are they offering the possibility for their customers to easily book a flight, a hotel or a car but they now include what they call "travelling experiences". This means that their customers can also sign-up for travel excursions, tours, trips or experiences (even before they go) such as, for example, a helicopter trip to go wine-tasting in South Africa or swimming with dolphins in New-Zealand.

Isango is one among a few other web-sites such as Black Tomato or Viato that offer these kind of products. There are no credit card fees when booking and refunds or exchanges are acceptable at no charge 3 days before the reservation had been made. Isango proposes over a 1000 products and plans on adding to it a 1000 more each month. Its employees work closely with the local suppliers in order to make sure of the quality of the product.

This article demonstrates that travelling sites are tackling the customers earlier and earlier. They attract them with exciting activities and tempt them to buy at a very early stage. From a revenue management point of view, it allows the local suppliers to enlarge their channels of distributions, knowing beforehands the number of customers they will have on which date. They are hence able to forecast their needs according to the demand and consequently controlling their costs.

I can imagine that there surely is a market for those kind of products as people have less and less time to organise their trips. Moreover, it saves them from the hassle of searching for activities at the local tourism office, travel books or other internet web-sites (indeed everything can be found on the same web-site!!!). From the customer point of view it allows them to maximise their time and making sure they will enjoy their holidays. Moreover they can do group activities without having to be with the same group during their vacation. However, is there any space left for spontaneity then?