Over-heard at NoVacancy: tweets and chatter from No Vacancy hospitality conference 18 March 2010

Normally it is the end of the year that signals the conference season with TRAVELtech, WebInTravel and PhoCusWright following each other month by month starting in September (note - TRAVELtech is Aug 31 this year rather than usual Sept). But for the BOOT this year the season has started early with adtech, No Vacancy having just wrapped up and Eyefortravel TDS Asia coming up in Singapore on April 28 and 29.

Last week was my first year at No Vacancy. It is part of the same conference stable as Martin Kelly's SearchEngineRoom and TRAVELtech and is targeted at the hospitality industry - all channels - rather than being a purely online or technology conference. I (and others) tweeted our way through No Vacancy under the hashtag #novacancy. Not all of you are on twitter so here in this post are some of the top tweets and quotes I took away from No Vacancy. Here are the the most interesting tweets:

On the market general (Australian bias)

• 2009 hospitality market in Australia according to Dransfield."held up better than expected" "rates down 3%" "revpar down 8.2%". 2010 "good start, expect rate increases" but " lost 40% of capital globally" "another shock could come" They went on "Credit availability + bank conservatism means still shortage of capital" "has hit valuation "av hotel down 20% value"
• Travelclick" gds htl vol in 2009 46mm trans, to 2003 levels". Wonder how much corp bookg decline, how much OTA neg rate growth?

On Online Agents and Intermediaries

• Robbie Cook (Wotif CEO) said "60% of business is direct to site, then organic search, paid is a single digit % of the business". He went on to say that "Wotif saved $2.2mm in costs post travel.com.au business post acquisition."
• Yury Shar Hotelscombined said that "less than 10% of traffic comes from typing in URL direct" "59% of traffic affiliate. Paid 24%, rest organic search" Sam_Linder added in his tweet "@hotelscombined 2 mil visitors pm to 6 mil in last year. Affiliates is primary channel, 15,000 such as skyscanner in uk"
• Latest stats from stayz.com.au "22,400 properties, 270k newsletter subs, 160k bkings/ 650k nts in 2009 (+ 30%yoy)" also advertising revenue

On Hoteliers

• Starwood AsiaPac "2009 -2% in occupancy, -7% ADR for -9% RevPAR in Pacific" "online only channel to grow- branded faster than OTA"
• Starwood "2-3 years to get back to 2007 rate levels" to which robertkcole said "Sorry, Starwood's dreaming if they think it will only take 2-3 years for rates to return to 2007"
• Accor AsiaPac "Occ finished 2009 at 74%. Good but down from all time high in 2007" "price down 6%" revpar down 9%"
• Accor "Online up from 10% of sales in 2005 to 35% planned for 2010" "65% of online sales will be direct up from 50% in 2005"
• Accor "happy with 65% of online business being direct. Won't artificially cap 3rd party distribution or hold back inventory"

Other accom types

• 25-46% of bookings online at "freespirit" (a holiday park/caravan park company). If true for whole sector then parks online larger percentage than hotels

Why social networking was a good move for Sheraton

Received a comment to my post earlier today and decided to reply in a new post.

Here is the comment -" ....how does one expect to make a $$$$ using the sheraton approach ?"

I think there is a huge question mark over the big chain fight back strategy of the same price for every channel and robotic responses to negotiations for rates and availability with trustworthy partners - by that I mean partners that sell through the channels that they tell hotels they will sell through. The hotels have done this to reclaim customers lost to intermediaries thinking that price was the main reason.

I have long argued that the marketing money that the chains are spending to drive people to their websites for just a price based experience is a bad one as it is telling customers to think with their wallets and not with their hearts. Hotel room purchases are unambiguously a part rational part irrational purchase decision. A lot of emmotion goes into deciding where to sleep, who to trust with breakfast and your clothes and which bar of soap smells the sweetest. This is where brand comes in.

I believe that the chains fight back was too much weighted to price and not enough on brand and experience. The movement by Sheraton to a UGC influenced page is a positive step because it is encouraging people to interact with the brand, to share their emmotional experiences and trust in the Sheraton.

You can't look at this as a pure money play by Sheraton but a way for it to encourage its customers to share the brand experience with others and help with the emmotional battle for their money. In the hotel biz if you win the emmotional money battle it is very hard to lose the financial one, especially in the 4-5 star market.

There are a lot of things Sheraton will have to do right in implementing this. They will have to publish the good and the bad and reward both. They will need to give customers a reason to keep returning by keeping the content fresh and relevant. Basically - if you open up your brand to public scruitinity you have to listen to what you hear.

PS - am just looking at the theory, have not tested the Sheraton site that much to see if they have actually executed well. Let me know if you have.

UPDATE - interview here with Philip Charles-Pierre, Director, Interactive Marketing Starwood Preferred Guest, Starwood Hotels (good title) where he discusses the changes to the SPG.com. More PR spin that deep inside story but worth a glance.