Exclusive Interview: Updates from the Hotel Marketing Field with Martin Soler

Posted On Jul 2, 2021 By admin With Comments Off

Recently Martin Soler and Sebastien Felix published the 10th edition of the Hotel Marketing Benchmark gazing what the future of hotel marketing braces. This is excellent timing for us to dive a bit deeper into the trends with Martin and learn more revelations. Martin has a long history working in hotels and inn commerce strategies.

Going back 5 years in time and looking at the recently launched standard report, which veers were expected which were completely new development that you did not see coming?

The evolution that had started then and is finally coming to fruition is the drive towards direct reserves. This has been a lot slower than expected as I certainly imagined inns would clear that a big deal sooner. It seems to have taken the longest time for the orders to be addressed global programmes for direct income without upsetting their partnerships with the OTAs. Independent inns have been working on direct revenue strategies for a lot longer.

The advent of meta-search places was a great evolution as it contributed hotels a direct push canal to a super targeted public. What I didn’t see coming was the displacement these websites made to commission-based poses, effectively putting them in the same group as OTAs even if they prefer not to be associated that way.

I was also surprised by how hotel bonds are evolving from being brands and distribution channels to becoming technology and know-how fellowships for the hospitality industry. This is a great move for chains as they have huge amounts of data, know-how and technology so putting that to use with other hotels can only help. It might also assists them centres more attention on their engineering load which in many cases is ageing and not holding up( think of CRS plans like Holidex and TARS which need middlemen such as Derbysoft to handle the server onus of channel management ).

As for completely new developments, one that has yet to become a reality is Artificial Intelligence( AI) powered voice and chat territories. While this is slowly happening it is more than likely that it will take over as the primary territory channel in the near future.

What engineering evokes you the most from all that is happening and why?

Undoubtedly AI powered singer and chat booking is the most exciting upcoming technology for the hospitality industry. The booking experience today is quite pain: between study, likening, booking etc this is a field that is a time and event gunman. I belief the resentment on the research and booking degrees also hurts inns as guests arrive with gigantic hopes( considering the pain they had to go through to book) and the smallest mistake at hotel side is “unacceptable.” Business travelers for example have less of that because they often don’t book their adaptations themselves and if it wasn’t good they’ll ask someone to book elsewhere. They aren’t as emotionally involved in finding and booking the hotel.

With the rise of economical and more efficient technology for inns do you think the marketing challenge has become easier or most difficult?

On the one hand appropriate tools are leveling the playing field but otherwise hoteliers have to learn a completely new skillset to compete with the large bonds and OTAs.

There are two challenges now one from each side: on the one entrust because it is easier to build technology solutions for hotels, there are more tech produces being spawned. This constitutes the question, does this new technology certainly solve a problem? Does the industry need yet another PMS or yet another channel manager? What is the real benefit to hoteliers?

On the other hand at inn statu, because of the increasing number of solutions hoteliers have a harder time finding a solution that fits for them. Add to that the fact that integratings are not easy, the choice becomes increasingly difficult( since the health risks is increasingly high ). So even small-time cheap solutions become gigantic costs formerly you factor in the time and coin is participating in integratings. In summary, yes, the onset of new technology is a challenging issue for inns. But I think the market will find a way to fix that soon.

On the skillsets hoteliers must have to leverage this technology, I don’t think this will affect the fundamentals of the inn business. OTA brand relationships with consumers can’t replace the actual experience of the inn. At the end of the day, hotels are still about the guest knowledge, and it is up to inns to oblige that ordeal astounding, and then make sure others can easily find out about it. It’s the same with chains- while they can create standards, those ordeals still have to be delivered at the belonging stage. Merely general managers and immense personnel can deliver that.

When talking to hotels what common challenges do you meet and how do hoteliers resolving these?

Technology mixtures for inns are still a hard sell in service industries. We have an improbably closed industry that doesn’t allow for easy data transfer between pulpits either due to age-old engineering or hoarding for financial reasons. This is choking the tech vistum in inns and to some degree travel.

I recently read an article about all the AI and Machine Learning toolsets that exists on the market per vertical and stunningly there were none for travelling at all. Yet travel is approximately 10% of the US GDP. We need to open our engineering arbitrarily to whoever wants to connect. I’m not saying free, but open and automate so anyone who wants to build a better tool can come in and do it.

Hotels aren’t technology corporations, they are service companies who take care of beings, so when technology becomes difficult they far removed from it. There are wonderful solutions out there that hotels don’t use because of the complexities and problems involved with desegregations. It’s a huge waste.

On a really simple level, look at hotel websites. These are receipt generating websites, that generate more receipt than countless e-commerce websites. Yet still, hotels have a “brochure website” which link to a “e-commerce website”( the booking device ). No other industry wields that method, at least not when dealing with that various kinds of money.

But that’s because the issues with integrating the booking engine into the hotel website are so high-pitched , nothing actually vexes integrating it except a few extremely forward-thinking hotels.

From your knowledge how do can hotels be smarter on data available and taking action on the data they already have?

I think what hotels need to do smarter is that instead of searching for “the main providers” on the market they need to search for the most open providers on the market. They need a PMS or Booking Engine, or what are you, “thats open” and ready to integrate rapidly at acceptable penalties. This is hard to find these days- did you know that some PMS corporations request inns to pay upward of 5000 USD really to open an account for desegregations? That is a bargain gunman right there.

If they have a provider who is willing to open their API, a inn can easily find someone to build the features they need( if individual applications don’t already exist ). But if they crave the perfectly boasted system that has gradual or few attachments, they’ll probably be missing aspects one day and getting them improved will be unviable.

So instead of conjecture with “the safest and most expensive solution” meditate with “the most flexible solution” and improve information and communication technologies stack bit by bit.

Any prognosis on what we will see in future copies of the Hotel Marketing Benchmark?

It’s hard to say. I think we’re go to hotels looking for implements that dramatically improve the guest event at the human level. Things that will conclude the staff appear magically great at what the fuck is do.

Not too long ago, I moved into a hotel for the second time in about 10 months. It was about 22:00 and I was there for business. I had worked the working day and walked in the night and just wanted to rest before congregates next day. As I came to the front desk a duet was standing there before me doing their check-in and I dreaded the waiting, crowding out forms, reproduction of ID etc( after having properly waited at the airport ). The madam at the breast desk( whom I had never met) gaped up at me and announced me by word, handed me my keycard and off I was. That was a brilliant hotel experience. Not because there was a bunch of technology but because the people managed to make it awesome.

So I think we’ll be seeing a lot more tools that assistance “magically” conclude inn ordeals stunning. Inns is advisable to supernatural, that’s what offsets them who they are.

About Martin Soler

Martin Soler is a former hotelier, a inn marketing advisor and works with hotel technology companies and startups on optimizing makes and commerce strategies to best fit the needs of hoteliers in the most efficient ways.

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