Room for improvement: how social and mobile is changing distribution
Sep 30, 2013
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Two-way connectivity is a reality today, and it’s affordable, but the world does not stand still and both hotels and technology providers must keep up with emerging opportunities.
The recent strides made in technology mean that today the focus is on integrated systems, cloud-based computing and the real-time availability and updating of data. All this can mean that a hotel’s distribution and reservations systems are constantly synced based on the latest rates and room availabilities.
For hotel groups, technology that is enabling them to advance their distribution and reservation systems continues to evolve. Clearly, there is a need for stronger two-way connectivity, especially as data demands just get bigger and more intelligent.
Considering the assortment of systems (PMS, CRS, GDS, CMS etc) that hotels have to deal with, it is imperative that these systems communicate with each other. On the plus side, the industry is witnessing meaningful integration among various technology providers. For instance, channel management specialists are working with online travel agencies to meet the requirements of hotels. In the past there have been indications that property management systems have not had the desired connectivity to OTAs.
One of the biggest challenges has been to convert data sent from the OTA to PMS and vice-versa if either system doesn’t have the capability to support the request. To sort this out, the industry has worked out a gateway that manages these discrepancies and where necessary alerts inform the hotel about a particular scenario that could not be processed due to limitations in either system. The adoption of industry standards has improved the situation significantly.
“This [the PMS did not have the desired connectivity to OTAs] used to be a significant barrier,” says Mumbai, India-based Zia Shiekh, CEO and CMD, Svenska Design Hotels. However, today it doesn’t matter if OTAs are on a completely different platform. “So rather than doing time-consuming and expensive system integration exercises with each OTA/distribution partner, the middleware systems do all this for their hotel partners. And the cost is nominal compared to the significant benefits of more efficient distribution and revenue management,” says Shiekh.
EyeforTravel’s Ritesh Gupta caught up with Shiekh to talk technology and how to get to grips with new requirements like distribution through social media.
EFT:Given the variety of systems that a hotel uses in day-to-day operations, it is important that all these systems communicate with each other. Can you share your insights into how this works today?
ZS: Yes, absolutely. Any hotel having these systems operating in silos is giving up valuable opportunity to maximise rates and occupancies and thereby comprising on revenue maximisation.
Today even if the systems are from different companies and platforms, there is enough middleware that can help to keep them synced in real time. This ensures that PMS, CRS, GDS, OTAs, CMS and so on are all talking to each other and incorporating updates based on any transactions that might be happening at any point of time anywhere in the system, whether in the real or virtual worlds. This is a tremendous tool in the hands of today’s revenue managers, making handling so much simpler and efficient for them, not just saving time and effort versus manual updates, but ensuring that the hotels inventory and rates across each room category is accurate and available based on the latest availability and BAR status. Two-way connectivity is no longer a luxury but a very affordable reality, giving tremendous competitive advantages to the properties having this in place.
EFT:What would you like to see improving in distribution technology to extend distribution reach and target incremental revenue?
ZS: A couple of them would be:
Distribution through social media; whether incorporating a booking engine on Facebook or providing real-time rates to sites like TripAdvisor is really the next frontier as bookers are increasingly relying on actual consumer feedback/reviews for their bookings. So rather than having different sites for research-versus-booking, the trend is to do everything in one place. Hotels need to facilitate and actively participate in this change.
Mobile-optimised sites and booking engines have become essential as there is huge gravitation towards using not just smart phones but also tablets and phablets for travel planning as well as booking. Finally, integrating platforms like Google Adwords campaigns into actual booking engine data is very useful in evaluating the success and ROI on different campaigns and initiatives under SEO/SEM.