Next Gen Hospitality

The world is noticing a phenomenal growth in adoption of tablets and smartphones. For any business, mobile presence is becoming as critical as Internet presence. Travellers are rapidly moving into this mobile age and it is becoming critical for hospitality industry to engage their guests on this new platform and add value to their mobile experience!

According to the TripAdvisor Travel Trends 2012 report, 44% of all travelers will be using their mobile phone as a travel resource in 2012. Deloitte Hospitality Trend 2015 ranks mobile adoption as one of its top 10 game changers in the industry!

Hospitality industry has understood that this is the need of the day. But the biggest question is that, how to leverage this ever growing technology?

The answer is an app that would enable hotels to fully leverage mobile technology by creating their presence on mobile platform as well as offer a revolutionary guest experience.

The app can run on tablets and smartphones like iPads, iPhones, Android tablets, Android phones, Windows phones and other popular platforms. A branded app of the hotel can be downloaded from the respective app stores, significantly increasing hotel’s brand value. The app can be used by hotels to showcase hotel information, amenities, pictures and videos. It can improve marketing, branding, advertising, cross-selling and impulse buying.

A hotel app can revolutionize the way guests interact, view and consume services. Hotels can expose their amenities and services in high quality multimedia formats with stunning images and videos, thereby increasing exposure and usage of hotel services. Guest can access details of all offered services, make service requests, and can also place orders directly from the mobile device. Language, accent, wait time on phone and miscommunication are no longer a barrier for guests to access and enjoy hotel services to the fullest.

With such apps, hotels can present live and up to date information to their guests. Hotels can change the content, menu, images, videos, on the fly. Hotels will never have to face an embarrassment of saying “Sorry, that item (or service) is not available at this time”. Any special events or new offers can easily be added to the app.

Keeping in mind the ever changing nature or technology, it may be a disservice to hotels if they develop their app independently. Changes in platforms, technology, and social networks can lead to increased involvement and costs in developing and upgrading mobile apps. The solution to this problem is use apps developed by professional software companies. There are a handful of software companies that specialize is hospitality apps. Utilizing the services of such companies greatly reduces the time to launch an app and also lowers the overall cost of ownership of the software.

Many leading hotels are already using such apps and have reported an amazing ROI due to an increase in RevPAR ranging from 10-25%. They have reported increases in room service bills, restaurant bills, direct marketing revenues, Internet revenues, cross-selling and up-selling. Some of the benefits that a hotel receives, which will increase hotel’s RevPAR, are Customer Satisfaction and Engagement, Targeted Advertising, Greater Brand Value, Shopping – Merchandise, Local Bookings, Increase Profitability by Cross-Selling, Increase Employees / Operations Efficiency, Reduce Operational / Manpower Costs and a Competitive Edge.

Many consulting firms have predicted that within a few years, most major hotels will have their own mobile apps. Now its up to hotels to decide, whether they want to have the first mover advantage.

 

 

Social Media Election!!!

Interesting infographics showing how much social media has become a part of our life….

Anyone with a Facebook or Twitter account has probably noticed an increase in the number of political postings over the past few years. This is due, in part, to the explosive rise in social media outlets and users. But voters are not the only people who use social media; among politicians, 9 out of 10 Senators and Representatives have Twitter accounts. However, many are starting to wonder if social media is becoming less a reporter of political races and more of a predictor of the results. In Senate races, the candidate with more Facebook friends than his or her opponent has won 81% of the time. And one email sent to 60 million Facebook users prompted an additional 340,000 people to vote in the 2010 election. This infographic illustrates just how politics and social media are affecting each other.

 

Next Gen Kiosks for Hospitality

 

 

Business Development Explained…

Business Development (BD) is an art and not strict strategic sales…

Like a flirt who always keeps looking for a new and stunning chick in town; so is the case with BD guys always looking around for a new clients.

The flirt does best of his stunts and show-offs to impress the new chick; so is the case with BD guys, shows off best of marketing, services benefits and stuns the clients with his comp
any profile.

The flirt then tries to approach his new interest for a positive answer; so does the BD guys gives a cold call approach to his clients.

If it’s a yes, from the most happening chick in town it time to celebrate; so is the case with BD guys one client on board and its time to celebrate.

The flirt becomes a part of happening discussions; so do the BD guys become part of the happening discussions.

This goes on for month or so and the new chick hunt begins; once the client settles down new client hunt begins.

Some of them reply positive and some doesn’t…..well the game keeps going on and on.

Pushing the BD guys for following strict strategic sales approach is like pushing a flirt to try on a girl he is not interested in…

 

Mobile Technology Revolutionizing Hospitality industry…

The world is noticing a phenomenal growth in adoption of tablet and smartphone devices. For any business, mobile presence is becoming as critical as Internet presence. The traveller community is  rapidly moving into this digital age and it is becoming critical for hospitality industry to engage their guests on this new platform and add value to their mobile experience!

According to the TripAdvisor Travel Trends 2012 report, 44% of all travelers will be using their mobile phone as a travel resource in 2012. Deloitte Hospitality Trend 2015 ranks mobile adoption as one of its top 10 game changers in the industry!

Hospitality industry has understood that this is the need of the day. But the biggest question is that, how to leverage this ever-growing technology?

The answer is a “Hotel App” that would enable Hotels to fully leverage mobile technology by creating their presence on mobile platform as well as offer a revolutionary guest experience.

The Hotel App can run on tablets and smartphones like iPads, iPhones, Android Tabs, Android phones, Windows phones, etc. A branded app of the hotel can be downloaded from the respective app stores, significantly increasing hotel’s brand value. The app can be used by hotels to showcase hotel information, amenities, pictures, videos, and other details. It can improve marketing, branding, advertising, cross-selling and impulse buying.

A Hotel App can revolutionize the way guests interact, view and consume services. Hotels can expose their amenities and services in high quality multimedia formats with stunning images and videos, which results in an increased exposure and usage. Guest can access details of all offered services, make service requests, and can also place orders directly from the mobile device. Language, accent, wait time on phone, miscommunication, etc. are no longer a barrier for guests to access and enjoy hotel services to the fullest.

With such apps, hotels always present live and up to date information to their guests. Hotels can change the content, menu, images, videos, etc on the fly. The hotel will never have to face an embarrassment of saying “Sorry, that item (or service) is not available at this time”. Any special events or new offers can easily be added to the app.

Keeping in mind the ever-changing nature or technology, it may be a disservice to hotels if they develop their app independently. Changes in platforms, technology, social networks, etc. can lead to increased involvement and costs in developing and upgrading mobile apps. The solution to this problem is use apps developed by professional software companies. There are a handful of software companies that specialize is hospitality apps. Utilizing the services of such companies greatly reduces the time to launch an app and also lowers the overall cost of ownership of the software.

Many leading hotels are already using such Apps and have reported an amazing ROI due to an increase in RevPAR ranging from 10-25%. They have reported increases in room service bills, restaurant bills, direct marketing revenues, Internet revenues, cross-selling, etc. Some of the benefits that a hotel receives, which will increase hotel’s RevPAR, are Customer Satisfaction and Engagement, Targeted Advertising, Greater Brand Value, Shopping – Merchandise, Local Bookings, Increase Profitability by Cross-Selling, Increase Employees / Operations Efficiency, Reduce Operational / Manpower Costs, Competitive Edge.

Many consulting firms have predicted that within a few years, most major hotels will have their own mobile apps. Now its up to hotels to decide, whether they want to have the first mover advantage.

 

TravelCarma to introduce its Innovation “TravelCarma The eMarketplace” at PhoCusWright’s “The Travel Innovation Summit”, Hollywood, Florida, USA

Nov 2011: Travel Technology provider TravelCarma will be introducing its Innovation “TravelCarma The eMarketplace” at PhoCusWright’s The Travel Innovation Summit on 15 Nov 2011, Hollywood, USA. TravelCarma is an eMarketplace for the offline travel industry. It fulfills the much-needed requirement of the industry, by providing a platform which allows offline and online travel businesses to network and transact freely on their own terms, retain their relevance and brand identities, and get an opportunity to compete globally – all these and more at highly affordable costs.

TravelCarma is a unique blend of Cloud-based Points-Of-Sales (POS) solutions, Inventory & Exchange solutions, and Business Networking Components for travel companies and agents. Points-Of-Sales solutions include agents booking console, web and mobile portals, facebook booking portal with upcoming iOS and Android Apps. While POS helps sell effectively through multiple channels, the Inventory and Exchange solutions helps efficiently manage the supply and distribution. For travel agents, a single contract with TravelCarma allows them to access, manage and control global inventory feeds from multiple suppliers like GDS, wholesalers, etc. TravelCarma offers them freedom to have direct rate agreements with the suppliers. Also they are free to store and manage their contracted inventory (hotels, packages, excursions, etc) on the system. They can choose to display it on their own POS as well as redistribute it on TravelCarma network at the price of their choice. Similarly suppliers, with a single contract with TravelCarma can access the thousands of agents on the network and control pricing to different customers.

The most innovative component of TravelCarma eMarketplace is “Business Networking” – an open social network for travel companies with focus on sales. It allows them to connect with each other on the TravelCarma network thus increasing their reach in terms of sales. They can broadcast their deals, packages, inquiries, and can communicate regarding anything with the network at large.

About TravelCarma
TravelCarma is promoted by Avani Cimcon Technologies – an IS/ISO 9001:2008 certified / CMM level 3, software services and solutions provider having offices, resellers, partners and representatives in US, UK, Argentina, India, Australia, Germany, Malaysia, Thailand, UAE and Aruba. For more than 20 years we have been working with travel companies across the globe and have helped them leverage technology for their business growth. For more information, please visit http://www.travelcarma.com.

Media Contact:
Mr. Hiren Yadav
Sr. Manager – Marketing & Communication
http://www.travelcarma.com
hiren@travelcarma.com
Tel: +919898909214

 

TravelCarma to showcase its Innovation at PhoCusWright’s “The Travel Innovation Summit”

Travel Technology provider TravelCarma has been selected to showcase its Innovation at PhoCusWright’s “The Travel Innovation Summit” on 15 Nov 2011, US. TravelCarma, the sole entry from India, is proud to share space amongst world’s leading 30 innovators who will demonstrate their applications, technologies and solutions which they expect will forever change the face of travel planning, purchasing and memorializing.

In the ever-growing online travel space, travel companies without significant online presence are losing customers, market-share and revenue against their online competitors. TravelCarma empowers these companies by providing them e-commerce enabled complete online travel portals with their own branding and content, mobile and social media booking portals and access to global travel inventory. The pay-as-you-go SaaS model makes the technology available with no upfront investments.

From the technology standpoint, TravelCarma’s innovation – “A Cloud-based Applications Delivery Platform integrated with an Open-Distribution based TravelXchange” provides travel companies with multi-platform POS and distribution of travel content across multiple channels.

After being awarded twice for Innovation (Top 100 Innovators in 2007 & Top SaaS-AppS in 2011), we continued our efforts towards developing innovative products for travel industry. While industry has just started talking about importance of Cloud Computing and SaaS in Travel industry, we have already launched our product on Travel Cloud.

 

Conversion Management ~ Converting Website Visitors into Buyers

Currently, marketers are desperate about increasing their website traffic as much as possible through different means. They are crazy about SEO, SEM, keywords, rankings, etc. and are investing huge in “optimizing” their website for Search Engines like Google, yahoo, etc. for getting top ranking. Increased website traffic seems to be the only objective.

But, is the traffic acquisition enough?
SEO and SEM are still important, but is this enough for successful ecommerce?
What about converting visitors into buyers or the “look-to-book”?

Today more and more of big players are starting to make “conversion optimization” a priority. And from there, are starting to get really smart, targeted and personal with their websites. This method is helping to not only acquire consumers, but to keep them coming back for more. These solutions aren’t making SEO/SEM experts and web analytics gurus obsolete, they are simply the missing piece of the customer experience puzzle, and giving all marketers the greatest bang for their buck.

While conversion management is ramping up to be the next must-have technology (just like SEO/SEM), many brands have yet to shift their time, budget and plans to a conversion management program. It’s not always easy to convince decision makers about the benefits of new technologies, but here are three basic reasons why this can immediately impact your business:

1. Technology is Smarter than You

Let’s face it, you know your website better than anyone. You may think it’s ugly and desperately in need of a revamp. Or maybe, your think your website is a rock star— it has after all received multiple “Best Design” accolades and awards. Either way, subjective opinions have no place in your website strategy—if it hasn’t been tested, there is always room to improve.

Remember a little thing called focus groups? Back in the Mad Men era, these were heavily relied on by consumer brands to understand how their customer thinks, what they react to, what they like, what they don’t like, etc. Today, we still need to understand these consumer insights, but focus groups just aren’t scalable, (or smart), when your traffic efforts are driving thousands, if not millions, of unique visitors per month. Are you going to sit them all down in a room and survey them? No. But your website is the perfect place to discover what people like and don’t like—from buttons, to products, to tone and copy—through A/B and multivariate testing. How your customer proceeds through a search or check-out phase on your site is just as important and the product merchandising plan or their brand perceptions.

The best way to gather insights and start making site improvements with testing is the iterative approach: laying out a plan of what you want to test, why and when; discovering the results and implement the changes over time. Changes as simple as button copy and color in the shopping cart raise purchases by 3-5% in a month’s time. Every site is different, but every site has opportunity.

2. Search Marketing and Web Analytics Need You

Going forward, there is no point in purchasing keywords to drive traffic to an inefficient landing page or website. If it doesn’t convert, it’s not justifying budget spend. Driving traffic to your website isn’t the end goal anymore – Increasing revenue on your website is. And in today’s noisy, competitive market, it’s becoming a more precarious process driving a visitor to your site, capture their attention and convert them into customers. The great news is, all the hard work that your search optimization teams have done over the past few years will provide insights that will help drive and improve your conversion strategies. They have targeted certain types of visitors and customers, products, campaigns, keywords. They have data on what is working and what hasn’t. So it’s time to team up to make everyone’s marketing efforts a successful return on investment.

Testing and targeting once the visitor is at your site is a win-win-win for search, analytics and revenue. When a website is optimized for the customer, most effective content and design elements are used throughout the site, the cost of acquisition through search marketing is driven down, and it becomes easier to convert website visitors into customers. With the excess funds from search marketing budgets available, marketers have the ability to pay for additional keywords and drive more traffic to the site.

3. You Need Recurring Revenues

Testing and optimizing your site is going to provide a better site experience for the majority of your visitors. But after that, it’s time to get really slick by enhancing each individual’s experience with personalized, relevant content. Every individual that your visits the site has a different profile— and every time they visit, you learn more and more about them—what page layouts, tone/copy, buttons, etc. they covert best with, what products they search, what they have purchased, what traffic sources they come from, the list goes on.

With personalization, you’ll be able to not only serve them tailored content in real-time, but predict what they will want next and serve them up offers that they are likely to buy. Not only do these solutions allow you to collect and analyze more in-depth visitor data, but it will help turn them into loyal, recurring customers if the content, offers and experience fit the individual’s needs and wants.

 

Travel & Hospitality websites must focus on usability

Travel companies with accessible websites are far more likely to reach a larger number of customers than their inaccessible competitors. A new research has found that the top 10 travel companies in the UK are not maximising their revenue opportunities when it comes to their websites.

The report says: considering how people consume online information is an important step. People use different devices, may use access technologies, and will have different requirements for the way information is delivered.

Providing information in text (as well as graphical) format, enabling people to adjust text size for reading comfort, and ensuring that it’s possible to use the website without a mouse, all contribute to a more positive experience.

Finding information is often a goal on many websites, and travel websites are no exception. Treating links like sign posts that guide people around the site, making sure that people understand when they’ve made a mistake in submitting a form, and using clear language, will all make it easier for customers to find the holidays they’re interested in.

However, to realise the full potential of accessibility, it’s necessary to look beyond the purely technical. Accessibility works best when it’s part of the fabric of an organisation. Standards such as BS 8878 Web Accessibility Code of Practice in combination with practical goals based on the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines provide a powerful framework for achieving accessibility success. With people cutting back on extravagant holidays due to the recession it is essential that travel company websites strive ahead of the competition and include accessibility and usability as a core part of their digital strategy.