By Garen Armstrong

Technology, especially hospitality technology, is constantly evolving so companies in this field must evolve with it. Companies like ours actually provide hotels with the tools they need to run all of their day-to-day operations and also how they can generate additional revenues and save significant dollars.

Companies like ours used to be called “Property Management Systems” rather than PMS, we market what we simply call “Hospitality Management Systems,” which incorporates all technology and Online marketing.  The hotel business even though a “brick and mortar” business it is very much a “Online business”.  If your hotel is not online driving traffic to your website and booking that business then you are loosing business.

The reason Hospitality technology is quickly adapting now as the preferable term to PMS is the shear scale of what the systems can do these days incorporating so many other systems.

PMS is the tree trunk of hospitality technology, and everything else, whether it’s other solutions like sales and catering or spa management or point of sale or quality management, are the branches on that tree.

The more we look at property management systems, the more apparent it is how much they’ve moved beyond their original focus on guest reservations, room availability, check-in/check-out and folio charges, i.e. the basic aspects of guests’ stays while they’re at the property.  Since they now cover so much more of the guest experience, often including multi-property reservations, sales and catering, spa/golf/activities management. Now interfacing with Online Central Reservations systems, GDS/IDS, mobile-booking sites.  It is a single point Hotel Management Suite (HMS) with one point of managing a entire hotel that used to take several systems, and duplicate re-entry of inventory and rates.

Some of the biggest misconceptions hoteliers have about technology is that most
everyone looks at hospitality technology as a cost of doing business. What they don’t realize is that using the latest in hospitality technology can not only make their jobs easier but also help them generate revenues and save significant dollars. Some hoteliers don’t realize the power of technology and how they can use things like activity bookings, gift cards, yielding tools or travel insurance to give them e-commerce tools.

Hoteliers need to be taking advantage of e-commerce through their technology platforms. Whether it is through booking engine or gift cards.

Take gift cards as an example. Research shows 55 percent of gift cardholders need more than one trip to deplete the value of their card and less than 86 percent of gift cardholders ever redeem the full value of their card, which means the money stays on the card and stays in the hotelier’s pocket.

I call it the one-percent advantage, and every additional tool can add one percent to a hotel’s revenues. The more tools you add, whether it be booking engine or loyalty points,  or other tools, can each be another one percent.

The most important way to use technology to build revenues with modern hospitality technology is to data mine the guest lists and clients so that you can market efficiently to.
One thing is to take advantage of their guest histories data and contact list.  It’s your lifeblood and if you’re not taking advantage of it you’re leaving money on the table. You need to be proactive rather than reactive. Are you sending customers targeted mailers? Are you giving them the opportunity to book directly from that mailer with coupon code for a special rate? If you don’t pay attention to guest history, you’ll lose out to hotels that are maximizing the use of technology and perhaps reaching the guests you’re not.

When one looks at the changes in the hospitality software market and what hoteliers can expect in the future from technology we see a lot!

We see Hospitality companies lead tech innovation. Three hospitality companies are in the Top 50 of InformationWeek’s annual listing of the best companies at using technology in innovative ways.

Hospitality companies recognized in the top 250 of the listing in InformationWeek below:
#2 – InterContinental Hotels Group
#41 – Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines
#45 – Pegasus Solutions
#53 – Marriott International
#97 – Travelport
#127 – Sabre Holdings
#128 – Hyatt Hotels
#158 – Best Western International

We are in an exciting time with the industry with travel being one of the largest online segments. With Social media, and mobile capabilities being adapted rapidly, merging the technologies together is the next frontier.

However, the future of the hotel and travel industry landscape isn’t a easily navigated path and if you’re a hotelier and would to optimize your hotel(s) you can reach me at garen@mindspringsoftware.com

…. To be continued.

The Internet is possibly the most significant channel for the sales of your hotel rooms. If not utilized immediately many hotels could find themselves with empty rooms.

The Internet provides hoteliers with formidable access to almost every person in the world who owns an internet connection. This is reach beyond compare and achieving sales online is partly the result of maximized online exposure. The more a hotel room is exposed on the internet (together with content and recommendations) or more so made visible to the market persona (customers!), the more likely it is to be booked.

Listed below are ten gems that detail how a hotel should think about distributing their rooms online. These are some of the tools that would make your distribution approach powerful and formidable.

1) Direct sales – A hotel should have its own booking engine on its own website. Anyone loyal to a hotel brand name would search for your hotel website and would like to book directly with you. The joy of your own booking engine is that the reservations are immediate. On request bookings are as old as fossils and should be avoided.

2) GDS connectivity – If you used to sell your rooms to high street travel agents and tour operators as a part of their package deal I am pretty sure you already work with a GDS system such as Amadeus, Sabre, Worldspan, etc. The beauty of having these connections is that online travel agents connect to them too and now have access to your rooms which could be sold online to their consumer base.

3) CRS connectivity – Many online travel agents are now able to build an XML interface to most Central Reservation Systems. The trick is to ensure that your CRS provider has this capability. It is worthwhile asking them which online agents they are already linked into. Having your CRS connected to an online agent means your rooms are now visible to many consumers who frequent these online channels.

4) PMS connectivity – Most hotels use a Property Management System to manage their reservations. Some PMS systems enable online travel agencies to connect to them using an XML interface. The trick is to ensure that your PMS provider has this capability. It is worthwhile asking them which online agents they are already linked into. Having your PMS connected to an online agent means your rooms are now visible to many consumers who frequent these online channels.

5) Wholesalers / Tour Operators – Wholesalers and some tour operators request hotels to enter their rates and inventory onto an extranet. This database of hotel rates and inventory is made available to many distributors of room inventory. For example HotelBeds in Spain or Gullivers in the UK request hotels to enter their room rates and allotments onto extranets which are then distributed to many dot coms globally. This is a lucrative channel for sales as the room exposure is phenomenal. The more wholesalers you work with the more sales channels you open up to.

6) Extranets with OTA s – Many Online Travel Agencies have the facility to enable hotels to enter rates and allotments directly onto their systems (extranets). Sites such as Expedia provide these facilities. Some of these sites drive most of the room sales online due to their brand name and marketing, and having your property on their sites exposes your room to consumers. It also gives you the opportunity to liaise and negotiate with the OTA on rates and sales.

7) Channel Management Systems – With the use of so many extranets the manual work required from hotels in updating rates and inventory across so many channels makes it impossible for hotel staff to manage the work load and often requires the hiring of more staff. Channel Management systems provide some help in this. They request that hotels enter rates and inventory onto one extranet that updates hundreds of OTAs. Preferential rates for certain OTA s are also possible.

*Aggregators – There are many companies that make it their point to connect to every possible online channel to gather as much hotel inventory as possible and then resell that inventory to any distributor. Working with them does improve your exposure.

9) Call center – There are still many online users who are not comfortable with entering their room requirements online. They insist on calling a ‘person’ and making the same booking over the phone. Having your details available for calls enables this channel of exposure.

10) Being found /  Inbound Marketing – The world of public relations and internet marketing is changing rapidly / dramatically and market indications predict shifts in marketing online. Shifts towards social media, SEO, community building, blogs, article submissions and engaging with online consumers is set to be the new wave in internet marketing. First movers are bound to benefit in this arena and finding yourself internet marketing consultants would prove useful. For example most internet sales today (averaging over 70%) are made via organic search results e.g. via Google search or Bing, by consumers as opposed to other channels.

If you are a Hotelier and are needing help or advice on  any of these Hotel Marketing Strategies or  Hotel Technology Systems or increasing your occupancy please fill out the contact information! Or call: 1-913-890-4940

• Authentic friendliness of the staff
• Amazing location
• Exceptional personal attention
• Impressive original food
• Exclusive service
• Simplicity, no frills
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• Warmth and true hospitality

1. Opensource CMS: For more flexibility in managing the content of your website you should use an opensource content management tool. It will allow you to launch new pages and change structure without depending on your web designer. (Joomla / WordPress / Drupl)
2. SEO: pick your keywords carefully, in your meta-titles and description focus on search behavior and not on product and brand. Sell what your potential guests are looking for!
3. Landing Pages: Pick themes, launch a page for every special offer and market segment or search. Think niche marketing and search engine saturation! Cater to each potential market segment on an individual basis. The long tail of travel seo works!
4. Languages: An easy way to expand your reach. What at the main tourist feeder markets for your destinations? Are you missing any languages?
5. Google Local Business Center: A great way to improve your listing and traffic. Powerful marketing tool which is only just starting to show its potential. The implementation of Google Maps Favorite Places gives you an idea where we are heading.
6. Google Webmaster Tools: Register your site map. Ideally you should have an XML sitemap that pushes your menu structure out to the search robot. If you are lucky Google will pick-up your menu structure and show site links below your URL when people look for your hotel specifically.
7. 
   Click to Call, Chat, Call Back: Be hospitable and available on your hotel website. Assist potential guests to increase the number of bookings. Remember phone conversion is higher than online as it is more personal. So let them call you! You can use a simple service like Skype or look at solution offered by companies like eStara

8. Tourist Guide: Become a travel agent instead of a hotelier. Don’t push your product but sell the destination. Use maps, Google loves this!
9. Events: What is going on in town while your guests are staying with you. Include it on your home page. Make an event section and show it in confirmation emails. No need to do it all by yourself, pull event calendars in through RSS feeds from your local tourist board website or sites like Eventful.com
10. Video: Integrate videos into your website. Shoot your hotel room with your own camera and put the videos on YouTube and list them afterwards on your site. It helps you in 2 ways. We all know pictures say more than a 1000 words. Well videos kind of have a multiplied effect of this. Secondly it is a great SEO move. Make sure you pick your keywords smart in YouTube! Oh yes don’t forget to add the videos to you Google Local Business Center listing.
11. Review Monitoring: Make sure you know what people write about you. You can set-up a control panel for free using RSS feeds from review websites, Google Alerts, Yahoo Pipes and Netvibes.
12. Review Response: Thank everyone that write something about your hotel, positive or negative. They are your guests. Engage and show them you care and value their feedback. Keep in mind potential guests will notice that you are involved.
13. Review Stimulation: Email guests after check-out, ask them to write about their experience on review websites like TripAdvisor or TravelPost and you hotels FaceBook profile. This way they help you to spread the word.
14. Review Recycling: Filter out the positive stuff. You can use Delicious and create a feed you can send to FriendFeed, FaceBook and Twitter. Just like the movie companies on their posters, ‘New York Times says: Best Movie of the Year’. Good thing is, you did not write it! This works, we tried it!
15. Blog: Integrate the hotel blog into your hotel website and become a tourism journalist. Write about interesting and original things. Cover events in your city or destination. Please don’t write about your hotel’ it’s usually boring. Except of course if you have something really original will spark interest. But it has to be really really special!
16. Online PR: Those interesting articles you write for your blog can now be placed on tourism news websites with links to your hotel website. There are also many blog syndication pages. It is one of the most effective SEO strategies. Moreover if you started to get recognized of a provider of great content you will be branding your hotel in the strongest possible way.
17. RSS: Use Feedburner to distribute your blog by email and RSS Syndication.
18. Listing Websites: List your hotel on as many free listing websites that allow you to put in a link to your hotel website. Please do not participate in link exchange. Start with WikiTravel, Yelp, VirtualTourist.
19. Web 2.0 BroadCasting Station: Link all of your profiles from social networks, photo and video sharing websites and book marking website to save time. This way you don’t have to post the same thing over and over again. FriendFeed is the mother of all 2.0 websites. It allows you to link up all the others… You should be on FaceBook, Twitter, Flickr, Delicious, Digg, …
20. Mobile: Start with a simple mobile website so you can be found if people look for your hotel. Have picture and click to call button. Simplicity should do the trick for now.
21. eCRM: Personalized confirmation emails, pr-arrival and after check-out emails work. But again they need to be personalized. Include weather forecast, events during the guest’s stay, restaurant suggestions etc. Step 1 though is making sure your reservations office and front desk is capturing email addresses! Make sure you build a proper DB and develop a plan for implementing a hotel CRM strategy.

After you define a target market, you must work to clarify your ‘desired’ value proposition. Without it, its hard to resonate strongly with customers and can invisibly destroy your business. But what exactly is a value proposition? And how is it different from ‘elevator’ pitches and Unique Selling Proposition’s?

Elevator Pitches & Unique Selling Propositions

Value propositions are often confused with elevator pitches or unique selling propositions (USPs). However its impact on your company’s success is fundamentally different.
An elevator pitch answers the question “what do you do?” Its a one sentence answer that defines your customer and the general area you help them:
“My company provides Hotels efficient property management system and room distribution over the Internet”
An elevator pitch is the foundation of a value proposition; but much weaker.
A USP answers the question, “what makes you different?” And looks like the following:
“We are the only company to that is a SaaS based Property management system with a integrated room distribution for hoteliers”
The USP is another piece of the value proposition, but again it lacks the impact of a strong value proposition.

The Value Proposition

A value proposition is a clear statement of the concrete results a customer will get from purchasing and using your products and/or services. It is focused on outcomes. So as opposed to the above examples, the smart businessperson will always speak in terms of results that products can create or results it produces produces.
A good example might be: “Our products help people leverage the internet to triple their market reach and cut marketing costs in half when launching new products.”

Value As Strategy

Strategy is all about execution of vision with results ending in enhanced customers expectation of service. Since the creation of value is the end destination in business—it is important to establish what your value proposition will be in the future.

First things first in business are to figure out what your value proposition will be to your customers. Hence, the goal is to help improve operational efficiency its time to assess by how much, by tracking and measuring your results. Then talk to your customers and ask them if your plan is based in reality and a viable product.

To roll this out as a piece of your plan, simply state an value goal in your business or marketing plan, e.g. “we plan to reduce Cost of goods sold while improving inventory controls for hotel room distribution while providing business intelligence for your hotel.”

Once you have established your core “value strategy” you will have a measuring stick to measure your efforts. And then you can use your value strategy as a basis for making decisions—whenever you have a choice to make, you can ask yourself, “will this improve our value proposition.”

This holds true if your message is communicated via the Internet through Internet Marketing strategies or in person.

Read more on MindSpring Software Value Proposition Here

Private equity capital drives hotel-property

NATIONAL REPORT–The current economy is being driven by four key trends–globalization, a revolution in communications, technology and consolidation in industry. A new study, “Hospitality 2000: The Capital,” examines these trends in the sourcing, structuring and use of capital in the international hospitality industry. It’s the fourth study in a series under the Hospitality 2000 banner, which defines critical issues the hospitality industry will face in the future.

Roger Cline, partner with Arthur Andersen and co-author of the study, said the intention of the survey was to find out how hotel capital is sourced and what the investor and lender expectations are. Discovering foreign investment trends and technology investments also were goals of the survey.

“I was very pleased with the respondents,” Cline said. “We wanted to make this as much of a global study as possible. It confirmed what a lot of us were involved in.”

“The overall study was a good representation of the market,” said Mark Warner, director for graduate programs and associate clinical professor at New York University and co-author of the study.

The findings of the study:

* Private equity capital drives hotel-property markets, which are the assets themselves; and public capital markets dominate hotel-company financing, which is the operations part of a company.

* Investors and lenders prefer large hotel companies with recognized brands and full-service hotels and resorts more than smaller, limited-service properties and extended-stay facilities.

This piece was very educational on following the money with the commercial lending squeeze going on. It also puts a lot of pressure on the Brands to provide ultimate value now more than ever.  More importantly if you break it down more granular, “investors prefer hotels with Recognized brands.”  Recognized where?

Most all advertising is done online with web 2.0 or Travel 2.0 we will call it.  So this report crystallizes that if you are a large Independent or Boutique your Internet marketing campaign must be paramount in your to-do list.  We at hotel SmartSuite have an act for driving traffic to your hotels website so that you can garner your own hotel bookings!  We do have direct connects to the GDS and IDS channels to provide you better tools the big chains have not to stop there, we have a fully integrated with our web-based PMS.

The Best thing about it is…. You don’t have to be a big chain, big hotel or High-end boutique. You don’t have to have all of the tools.  If all you need is a booking engine and Internet marketing well we can do that. If you want Electronic Distribution we can provide that too.  If you want the fully integrated web-based PMS with full integration of it all we can certainly do that too.

One thing is certain in this market someone is gaining market share and someone is loosing market share.  Lets us help you gain, after all that is where investors are putting their money!