trends in the hotel & travel booking industry april 2014
TRANSCRIPT
Trends in the Hotel & Travel
Booking Industry
Hamutal Schieber | April 2014
Introduction
• The purpose of this presentation is to present the major industry and
consumer trends affecting the hotel industry, specifically with regard
to online booking.
• Main subjects that are covered are:
1. Market trends
2. Competitor activity on the digital sphere
3. Hotel strategies used to encourage direct booking.
Technology: Online and Mobile
Travel consumers want:
• mobility,
• flexibility
• easy real-time access to information
Consumers expect seamless connectivity allowing them to access the content they want when they want it across all platforms, and also increasingly expecting seamless transitions between different platforms.
The introduction of smartphones represents one of the most significant technological developments in recent years, and it is having a major impact on the travel industry.
Source: Euromonitor International, PWC, IHRA
The travel consumer is leading the way in driving technological change.
Social & Sharing
Peer-To-Peer Travel
• Vacation Rentals are driven by technology, which breaks the geographic boundaries.
• It is also motivated by consumers’ desire to explore locations, live thriftily without giving up adventures, and travel with family.
• The advent of websites such as Airbnb.com, Homeaway.com and Flipkey.com helped shift predominantly offline sales towards online, which may explain the bulk of their growth rather than stealing share from hotels.
Reviews & Referrals
• Customer reviews on websites
• Friend referrals incentives
Open Innovation & Co-Creation
Booking websites and hotel brands engage consumers and tap them for insights
Social Media and the Collaboration Economy have influenced the traveling
industry with several prominent trends:
Technology: Online and Mobile
• PhoCusWright estimates that by 2015, mobile will account for one- quarter of U.S.
online travel sales, driving $US40 billion in revenue. In Europe mobile will account for
one fifth of bookings by 2015.
• Nearly two-thirds of US internet users researched travel via digital channels in
2013, according to eMarketer.
• mobile sales are forecast to become more and more important in the
upcoming years.
The Online Consumer Journey
• Most consumers consider the
web to be important for travel
research and planning – but the
web is also a fundamental
source of inspiration for new
travel.
• Our research shows that the main
tools used to inspire consumers
by booking competitors and hotel
brands, are Social Media sites
email marketing.
TripWatch – Offers customized e-mail alerts on the
specific hotels, attractions and destinations requested
by the traveler, in the first personalized, time-sensitive
e-mail newsletter for trip planners.
Content Marketing • Websites use social media and content to drive more consumers to the
platform.
– Most social media platforms are used to inspire and encourage
consumers to book a vacation.
– Blogs and contents on the websites are used to guide the consumer,
add value, and position the brand as a lifestyle advocate.
The Airbnb website utilizes
a prominent content
strategy. The site serves as
a “marketing consultant” for
people wishing to attract
more guests.
Other Contents include city
guides, guided tours,
promotional videos, stories,
etc.
Open Innovation & Co-Creation
• Marriott has launched a co-creation
platform, which encourages the
submission of ideas for new hotel
technology, style and design.
http://travel-brilliantly.marriott.com/
Hotel brands, as well as
booking websites, are tapping
consumers in order to come up
with innovative and mostly
effective, products, services
and solutions.
• Orbitz.com has launched Orbitz Labs,
a new site that tests experimental travel
tools and features to improve the online
shopping experience and lets
consumers give ideas and feedback
directly to the engineers and technology
experts developing new products and
services for the website.
Social Media Integration
• More and more websites offer a personalized
experience to users who are logged-in
through their Facebook or other Social media
profile.
• Tripadvisor had spent a fair amount with Facebook
to promote the “Cities I’ve Visited” application and
get Facebook-connected users because that fuels
its personalization effort and the “Wisdom of
Friends” initiative, so that if you’re signed in through
Facebook, you get a lot better experience on
TripAdvisor “and that proved its worth in terms of
better engagement, better monetization, and just a
better, more sticky experience for that Facebook
connected user.”
Traveling Trends
• According to a Google
2013 study, travelers seek
value and comparison shop
with increasing frequency.
Business travelers prioritize
convenience and prior
experience.
• Yet, leisure and business
worlds are blending – 57%
of business travelers
plan to extend a business
trip to include leisure
time, and 43% of
business travelers plan
to research or use peer-
to-peer sharing
alternatives.
• According to PWC Study, Europe remains
the world’s largest tourism region and in
2013 international tourist arrivals globally
grew by 5% to reach a record 1,087 million.
• Europe benefited the most from this growth,
receiving 29 million more arrivals than in
2012, a 5% gain.
• Central and Eastern Europe (+7%) and
Southern and Mediterranean Europe (+6%)
performed particularly well and Spain
welcomed a record 60.6 m international
tourists last year, 5.6% more than in 2012.
• Russia and China were Europe’s largest
source markets in 2013.
• Business travel is expected to be a major
travel driver in Germany, UK and France.
Traveling Trends | Luxury
• Luxury travel recorded a significant recovery after the decline experienced in
2009, with luxury hotels and premium air travel growing by between 5% and
10% per year over 2010-2012.
• Luxury travel is evolving, with authenticity, experiential travel and sustainability
becoming increasingly important, especially in the traditional luxury travel
markets.
• PwC consumer research into the 2014 travel intentions of 10,000 Small Luxury
Hotel Club Members shows most expect to be at least as well off as they were
in 2013 and 44% expected to be better off in 2014.
• Luxury guests have fully embraced technology and SoLoMo (social, local,
mobile), with social media playing an important role for luxury brands in order
to create engagement, receive valuable feedback and gain loyalty.
• According to The Affluence Collaborative research group, 72% of the wealthy
are active Facebook members, and they increasingly use Twitter.
Source: Euromonitor International, PWC
Metasearch / OTAs
• A metasearch display is an interface that
shows hotel or flight availability and pricing
information from multiple sources, without
requiring the user to visit another website.
• Travel metasearch engines and online travel
agencies (OTAs) are becoming more popular,
as travel “lookers” seek out one-stop shops to
compare different brands, products, packages
and prices early in the purchase funnel.
• To compete with the growing success of
booking sites, OTAs created or bought back
many of the currently existing booking sites.
examples are Expedia that owns Hotels.com
and Hotwire; Orbitz that owns HotelClub and
CheapTickets and Priceline that bought back
Pegasus’s Travelweb.com. Priceline acquired
Kayak in November 2012, and soon after,
Expedia, Inc. moved to acquire European
metasearch leader Trivago.Source: eMarketer
Expected growth at Kayak.com, the
metasearch market leader in the US
OTAs Vs. Hotels
• The relationship between the OTAs and hotel operators has been the subject of
wide debate in the industry.
• OTAs have aggressively focused on hotels to provide a higher share of their
revenues as the commission from selling flights has declined, and they have
tried to attract consumers by reducing the cost of booking as much as possible.
• Hotel operators are concerned about losing control over inventory and pricing to
OTAs. Hoteliers feel there is pressure to enter into long term contracts without
exit clauses at rates that they believe are not always commercial.
Source: Deloitte, Google Trends
Independent hotels are much more impacted by
OTAs than are Chain Hotels. While Chain
Hotels have a balanced percentage of
reservations made from OTAs and their
website, the reservations for Independent
Hotels through OTAs are higher than the ones
made through their website.
As a result, hotel companies have invested in
developing and marketing their own websites.
Some hotel companies like Marriott are even
imitating OTAs by offering flights and car hire
online.
Hotel Strategies
• Analysts expect to see the development of a more collaborative
approach: hospitality companies can take advantage of large OTA
investments in technology and marketing to achieve common
benefits for both. • Roomkey.com is a direct booking
hotel search engine – an initiative of
global hotel chains in response to the
increasingly stronger role of electronic
distributers.
• Roomkey.com was founded by large
hotel companies (Choice Hotels
International, Hilton Worldwide, Hyatt
Hotels Corporation, InterContinental
Hotels Group, Marriott International,
Wyndham Hotel and Best Western
International) with the aim of cutting
down distribution costs and as a
counter to Google. On this Website,
travelers can search for, book and
compare hotel room prices of leading
hotel brands.
Metasearch Engines Strategies
Tripadvisor practices diversification both
organically and through M&As, in order to
build presence in platforms which react to
different consumer needs. As such, the
company has also covers Vacation Rentals
with the same review and rating systems as
hotels.
Tripadvisor also blurs the line between
metasearch engines and OTAs, with actual
OTA-derived price comparisons.
The research was conducted by: Hamutal Schieber
Schieber Research | Market Research & Competitive Intelligence
www.researchci.com | [email protected]
Thank You