Spirit of Innovation Award
May 8th, 2012 § Leave a Comment
Spring Conference Registration Now Open
March 9th, 2012 § 1 Comment
Grab distribution by the horns with your colleagues at HEDNA’s Spring Conference, 5-7 June 2012 at The Hotel Melia Castilla in Madrid, Spain.
Learn. Network. Be Inspired. Don’t miss this exciting and innovative conference. Click here for all the details.
We’ll see you in Madrid!
Knowledge, networking & more in Montreal on 23 February
February 16th, 2012 § Leave a Comment
It’s a brand new year. Start it by giving your staff the hotel electronic distribution knowledge it needs to make 2012 a success.
Do you want your staff to have a more thorough understanding of electronic distribution? Are you an experienced executive in search of a refresher course? Interested in a unique networking opportunity? Attend HEDNA U Montreal!
HEDNA U 1.0 covers the history and workings of electronic distribution. Hotels and other travel companies are sending their employees to HEDNA U 1.0 to gain an understanding of the hows and whys of the industry.
HEDNA’s full-day seminar covers the following:
- How the electronic distribution system functions
- How the internet has opened up electronic distribution and changed its dynamic
- How Facebook, Twitter and other social media will impact electronic distribution
- AND how you can use mobile technology to your best advantage
Time for HEDNA Winter 2011 Wrap Up
December 8th, 2011 § Leave a Comment
Holy Grail: Give Them Something to Talk About
John McAuliffe (VFM Leonardo) encourages hoteliers to tell a story in order to ensure that the consumers find hotels which speak to their needs and preferences and which are not just differentiated by price.
- Stories trump content
- Let go – stories are decentralised – let’s give the hotels the opportunity to tell their stories
- Be ready – for new channel, new devices, and new ways to consume and create stories
All Things Google – Rob Torres – Managing Director Travel
Rob tells us how Google is trying to improve the travel cycle and make planning trips easy and simple.
3 Digital Trends
- Search is more intense and more relevant
- More social
- More mobile 17% of hotel queries in 2011 is mobile
Spirit of Innovation Award 2011
December 7th, 2011 § Leave a Comment
HEDNA’s Spirit of Innovation Award Goes to HotelTonight
LAS VEGAS, NEVADA, December 7, 2011–HEDNA, the Hotel Electronic Distribution Network Association, announced HotelTonight as the recipient of its 2011 Spirit of Innovation Award. The presentation was made during HEDNA’s Winter Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada.
HEDNA’s 2011 Spirit of Innovation award recognizes a key travel innovator that is driving the industry in a new direction. During the “Meet the Innovators” session, the five nominees presented to attendees, who then cast their votes to recognize the best innovation in travel and the hospitality industry.
Just shy of a year old, HotelTonight is a 100 percent mobile service that provides consumers with access to available hotel rooms at special rates for that evening, said Sam Shank, CEO of HotelTonight. Content is optimized for the mobile experience and the site makes it easy to decide on a hotel room in various US locations based on the three to six offerings for that night. HotelTonight’s customers are impulse bookers, said Shank, with 91 percent of customers booking a hotel they’ve never stayed at before. The company partners with hotels and takes commission on any transactions. It expects to expand internationally in the near future.
“We’re extremely honored to receive recognition from an esteemed organization like HEDNA, which is providing real solutions for the travel industry” said Sam Shank, CEO. “With HotelTonight, hotels can offer mobile consumers impulse rates without jeopardizing their revenue or brand management objectives. Consumers win by getting unmatched deals at fantastic hotels.”
In addition to HotelTonight, four other innovators presented to the Winter Conference attendees. They were Adam Goldstein, co-founder and CEO of Hipmunk, Inc.; Gautam Lulla, COO of TravelTripper; Chris Patridge, executive vice president and co-founder of Backbid.com; and Eytan Seidman, co-founder and vice president products of Oyster.com.
“The Spirit of Innovation Award honors the trendsetters who are moving our business forward and providing innovative means to make it easy for consumers to book travel,” said Melanie Ryan Owens, HEDNA president and Vice President with Orbitz Worldwide. “HEDNA would like to thank all the innovators for sharing their visions with us.”
Point counter point session
December 7th, 2011 § Leave a Comment
Standardisation or Non-standardisation of Content
A point to counter point discussion on the age old debate of whether content needs to be structured and standardised or should be non-standardised.
The debate is being moderated by Anne Cole – Wyndham Hotels
Joining her are:
Lionbridge Technologies – Kathleen Bostick
Pegasus Solutions – John Owens
I guess you all know what Pegasus does so no need to describe that. Lionbridge are a language translation services company. Their customers include the major Fortune 500 companies. As Kathleen puts it, “Localisation is Content” and what could be more localised than language.
Janice Diner – Pioneer Facebook Builder
December 7th, 2011 § Leave a Comment
Once again Janice was excellent and once again WAY TOO MUCH for your correspondent to take notes, so I have just listed a few bullet points.
Some numbers about Facebook
- 100 million likes per day
- 350 million users
- 20 million times a day people install fb apps
- 250 million photos are uploaded a day
Facebook commerce
Travel and shopping are the most social activities we do
Booking engines imbedded within Facebook.com and not moving the user to the brand.com
Facebook platform for mobile
If you are developing apps for Facebook you need to consider mobile as being a major factor
Facebook credit
Zynga sell 38,000 items a day using fb credits
Shop Kick is a product that allows you so that when you check into a place they will add credits to your Facebook credits
Facebook location tab
You can register every bricks and mortar location on Facebook location so that people can check it. It is free to register the locations
Good examples of how this is implemented are Walmart and Starbucks
Facebook likes/open graph beta
Allows 3rd party application to include arbitrary actions and objects. You can now replace the word “like” with another verb and attach it to a noun, bought, want, love, etc. This move to open graphs is helping us move from the wisdom of crowds to the wisdom of friends. So that rather than measure a place by the TripAdvisor general comments, one uses the TripAdvisor comments from your friends. On airbnb.com they estimate that the customer was 85% more likely to book if they had a recommend from a friend.
Consumers what do they want – Henry Harteveldt of Atmosphere Research
December 7th, 2011 § Leave a Comment
In his presentation Henry identified three factors that he believes are going to define hotel business in 2012
Uncertainty
The economies are still in a delicate state and therefore there is a high degree of uncertainty in the upcoming year.
Fragmentation
Consumers are brand neutral deal focussed. 7 in 10 guests have no sense of brand loyalty.
When asked they said that in 2012
- 57% were intending to focus on basic accommodation
- 45% said that they would let their budget dictate destination
- 40% are prepared to trade convenience for savings
A typical guest will use more than 24 websites to research their stay.
3 in 10 of guests are using flash sales sites.
Immediacy
Guests have fortified themselves with digital devices and will be increasingly using tablet devices and other equipment. 37% of hotel guests who don’t have a tablet intend to buy one.
Travellers are twice as likely to own a tablet as the regular consumer.
Mobile is the gateway for hotel and ancillary interactions.
Typical iPhone user has 40 travel apps.
Meet the Innovators
December 6th, 2011 § Leave a Comment
These are the guys who have presented their innonvative ideas today, it was a great session! If you weren’t here check out their websites.
Adam Goldstien – Co-founder & CEO Hipmunk
Gautam Lulla – COO TravelTripper
Chris Patridge – EVP Marketing & Co-founder, Backbid.com
Eytan Seidman – Co-founder & VP Products, Oyster.com
Sam Shank, CEO, HotelTonight
Curious about Guest Reviews? Natasa Christodoulidou (California State University) and Brian Payea (TripAdvisor)
December 6th, 2011 § Leave a Comment
Natasha talked about a recent study into reviews on TripAdvisor that she worked on. This study is being published in Journal of Hospitality Marketing and Management. Online Consumer Reviews over 3,000 reviews were analyzed. The results of the review are too numerous for your author to collate, but the results look very interesting.
Brian Payea who is Head of Industry Relations at TripAdvisor gave a quick insight into his role and the developments within TripAdvisor. Brian talked through the facilities that are built into TA to assist the hotels is digging into patterns in their reviews, understand the sort of people that are reviewing, and how to benchmark against other property’s reviews. The growth in use of Trip Advisor on mobile indicating how important it is to the traveller and Brian encouraged all the hoteliers to ensure that their mobile presence was of a high standard. He also explained that management responses are becoming are becoming increasingly important to the travellers. Surprisingly still only 7% of bad reviews have a management response.
