Session 5 - Collex.io and City maps

Collex.io 10-must-go-reasons-to-barcelona

Barcelona City Maps

Session 3 - Wearable

Session 6 - Non traditional collaboration in Hospitality

Augmented Reality vs Virtual Reality - define the difference

Augmented Reality vs Virtual Reality - define the difference 

Augmented Reality

 

Augmented reality is the variation of Virtual Reality. It is defined as the insertion of virtual objects in the physical environment, displayed to the user, in real time, adapted to visualize and handle real and virtual objects.   

Augmented Reality is applied to all human senses, and it provides safe interaction for the user, without the need for training, since it can bring virtual objects into the real environment, increasing and enhancing what he sees in the real world. 

When considering the sense of sight, besides allowing the introduction of virtual objects into real environments, Augmented Reality also allows the user to handle these 3D objects with his hands, enabling an attractive natural interaction in real time with the environment.

Virtual Reality
Virtual Reality is the use of computer technology to create a simulated environment. Unlike traditional user interfaces, virtual reality places the user inside an experience. Instead of viewing a screen in front of them, users are immersed and able to interact with 3D worlds. By simulating as many senses as possible, such as vision, hearing,  touch, even  smell, the computer is transformed into a gatekeeper to this artificial world. The only limits to near-real virtual reality experiences are the availability of content and cheap computing power. The main difference between Augmented reality and Virtual reality is the phenomenon of immersion. The fact is that virtual reality deals with a real inclusion in an unexisting world like a videogame for example when in the augmented reality the environment is real but connected to virtual elements with which the user is interacting.Are guests ready for the Augmented Reality ? In my opinion, guests are ready for the augmented reality because in the hospitality industry it is all matter about immerging in a new environnement. When we book a hotel, we are looking for a welcoming environnement in order to enjoy a unique experience and i think augmented reality can help guests to enhance their stay experience. As example, a virtual room tour can help guests to decide which hotel they want to go and it is also a powerful tool for the hotelier because he can increase the guests experience. Hoteliers use this Augmented Reality as a destination strategy to attract guests in their hotels but at the beginning it could have been considered as a gimmick strategy. Nowadays, guests are expecting these new technologies within the hotel website to be sure to book in the good one.      

Geo-Fencing & iBeacons - New digital tools for Hospitality

Session 2: Webinar - Revenue Strategy Management for Hoteliers

Current situation:

• Strong influence of online reviews on travelers : they pay attention to the bad reviews, to hotels with no reviews, they visit many websites ==> good online reputation results in better performances.
• Importance to engage with the client loyalty, to increase direct bookings 
• Importance of the Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) and the two main groups Expedia and Priceline but their commission is high.
• Their is a significant increase of the intermediaries such as Kayak or Trivago.

What solutions for hoteliers?

• Work on direct booking : lower rates one the hotel website than on the distribution channels, or put the same rate but with exclusive added value such the breakfast included for example.
• Invest on mobile apps because all the OTAs have one and there are more and more mobile users so it's crucial to use each and every tool to be visible
• Be visible online by having parnerships with many distribution websites and not only the most well-known and experiment new bookings methods like through social media
• Work on the guest service, make it personal and offer a memorable stay.
• Work on the e-reputation, analyse the bad comments and learn from your mistakes, respond to all bad and good comments

Case study : OPUS Hotel

The goal is to increase the direct bookings. How this hotel did that ?

• Build a relation of trust and confidence with the customer
• Examples: Triptease which compares OTA rates and Guestfolio with a 10% discount if customers book directly
• Build a stronger relation with tools such as Checkmate
• Build to loyalty to make the guest come back
• ReviewPro: new tool to collect customer data, enhance the reactivity of the hoteliers.

TIPS:

• Keep it easy and simple
• Pay attention to what your guest says
• Don't focus on rooms sales
• Treat everyone like a VIP

Ines ZARGOUNI & Idir BOUALIA

How guest service apps have 'changed the game' in delivery of guest service ?

ALICE APP

A tool for online reputation management

How to use in stay apps for ORM ? 

Business intelligence is one of the key success factor and the features of the in stay apps allow the hotel to understand in a better way the business and then improve it.

The stay apps can generate custom reports for revenue, productivity and usage, it can also compare multiple properties and departments. The use of stay apps audit every action made by staff and guests and create logs about it.

The goal is to connect with the guest on their terms and manage requests on yours.

Who is the investor ?

The investor is EXPEDIA. Alice, which allows hotels to manage and complete guest requests across various service departments with ease thanks to its intuitive host of mobile suite products, announced today that it had closed a $9.5 million Series A funding round.
The round was led by Expedia with participation from Laconia, 645 Ventures, and Neuehouse founders as well. The company has raised $13 million to date.

The benefits ? 

- Costs saving : You can offer a huge number of services without the upfront investment that is why the costs saving is the main benefit. Also, you have the option of relocating the investment towards an initiative that would improve the overall guest experience. Further, you can turn a partner in an additionnal revenue generator by sharing proceeds with the on-demand vendors.

- Understanding of customers needs : the ORM science allow companies to track everything about customers behaviors and the key success of a hotel is to better understand what guests expect from it. What kind of services your guests are looking for ? You can understand better individually the customer experience and then improve your business by offering to them what they really want.

- Relevance of guests behavior : Customers expect to have an immediate access of the whole information about the hotel and it's very important for the hotel to give the feeling to guests that he cares about the guest in a personnal way. This is an added value of your business because the competitors might treat one guest like another one. The goal is to provide guest a whole personnalizable experience, far more complete than just hotel rooms and services.

Why does it matter so much ? 

You can change your ORM by investing in Alice apps for exemple because the engagement made by the brand is to provide a user friendly app with a easy and accurate data collection from guests. This is the heart of the business and this kind of tools seduce hoteliers because they absolutely need it. The Alice app can help hotels in determining their marketing strategy for exemple.

Exemples of how apps + push messaging can proactively deliver to guests 

This kind of application contain a contextual intelligence and it is very important because it will be the key of being proactive with your guests.

How do hoteliers have to think about guest services now ?

Alice app for exemple is like a permanent concierge for itself and guest services is the ability for an hotel to be as close as possible from the guests needs. Hotels might also think how they can use the powerful tool of the app to improve interactivity with their customers.

How it is different from a traditionnal ORM ?

For exemple Alice app enables a hotel to have a mobile strategy with their guests; through native apps, SMS and even web, guests can discover and communicate with their hotels for any service. It places the hotel in the palm of their hand, allowing a guest to engage with a property on their own terms.

How does this change the definition of guest services and satisfaction ? 

It is like a tailor guest services and this change is a generator of customer satisfaction because they'll have the feeling that the hotel better understand his needs and we are going one step further in the relationship between hotels and their guests. Guests are willing to give more information to hotels and hoteliers will be able to work on. Customers are the heart of any business but regarding hotels and the improvement of the guest services customers turn into an ambassador of the hotel.

At what points should hoteliers (businesses) be measuring 'satisfaction' ? 

- They can measure the overall guest satisfaction
- They can improve the loyalty measurement


What is meant by post app economy ?  How will messaging services impact ORM? 

It means an easy engagement because everybody uses a smartphone. The messaging services will impact ORM by creating a high and relevant signal to exploit. The multi channel is a good and alternative model for the development and distribution of a mobile experience.



Thank you ! 

Idir BOUALIA & Inès ZARGOUNI

Hospitality reputation management comparison - Session 1 - Classwork

We decided to compare 2 hospitality reputation management tools called "TrustYou" and "ReviewPro"

What are the features of each company ?

ReviewPro :
- Hotel reputation management
- Restaurant reputation management
- Guest survey solution
- Revenue optimizer
- Destination analytics
- Hotel investment analytics


TrustYou :
- Enhance Google content
- Influence your reputation
- Increase direct bookings
- Improve operations

How do they help the hotel manage online reputations ? 

ReviewPro :
- Exceeding guest expectation
- Increasing the average daily rate
- Increase revenue
- Improve the ranking on review sites
- Outperform your competitors

TrustYou :
- Influence the customers brand image
- Respond and engage by encouraging customers to book

- Uses "TrustYou Stars" and "TrustYou Analytics" to positively influence the meta-reviews

How do they help the hotel to maximize guest engagement ?
 
ReviewPro : 
-  Leverage guest survey feedback to deliver better experiences
- Increase review volume and ranking on Tripadvisor
- By responding to guests feedback

TrustYou :
- By displaying the responses to millions travelers worldwide
- Increase the management of responses and travel reviews

What type of data is offered and how does it help the hotelier ?

ReviewPro : 
- Global revenue index
- Business analysis (ADR, Occupancy rate, RevPar)

TrustYou :
- TrustYou stars
- TrustYou analytics
- Meta-review

Do they have case studies or customer reviews of their own ?

ReviewPro :
- They have 15 case studies for exemple "How a hotel increases revenue & saves costs by managing OTA reviews" and "How a boutique hotel increase occupancy and ADR"

TrustYou :
- They have 18 case studies for exemple "How elite hospitality group is using TrustYou Radar to manage its reputation" and "How BNB hotels uses TrustYou to gain more reviews and customer feedback"

 Do they offer knowledge or learning - What types ?

 ReviewPro : 
- Webinars
- Guides
- Industry reports
- Case studies

TrustYou :
- Case studies
- White papers

- Advises for best practices
- Blog and press releases

Which one would you choose for your hotel, why ?

If we had to choose one for our hotel, it will probably be "ReviewPro" because we think that the tools offered by this company are much more complete. First, you can find a dashboard with the most important data concerning the hotel (guest satisfaction, global review index, competition analysis).
Then you can find "tracking" that allows you to see and check the different comments but also select the comments between the bad, neutral and good ones, the langage, the different sources...
In the third place, there is "Task" that allows to create a task and manage it and set priorities. Then, competition, which allows you to compare your results with the competition. In fifth place, there is "semantic", which allows you to do a semantic analysis of different subjects. It alerts you if someone is writing about your hotel and offers a monitoring of all elements. Finally, you find "search", which allows you to search a key word.

ORM definition

Reputation management (also known as ORM or online reputation management) is the process of assessing the potentially harmful search results that come up with brand name and legal name queries, and then preparing a strategy to take control of those results.
This includes managing at least the first page of results as well as any harmful image results.

Reputation management isn’t strictly the same as vanilla SEO, because it focuses on creating a positive aura around a person / brand without necessarily focusing on driving traffic, as most search-engine traffic does not come via direct brand-name queries.

Reputation management is also an ongoing process, so it includes having a system in place to monitor up-to-date mentions of your name or brand, ensuring that a pristine results page today doesn’t turn into a nightmare tomorrow.

Classwork session 6 bis - Is Sms becoming a service mobile standard let's discuss

I think it's obvious that sms becoming a service mobile standard, because it facilitate the information exchange between a company and its customers. Because i work in the hospitality industry, i'll use it as an exemple : 

Sms are 160 character messages exchanged on mobile phones and it’s the most basic feature of a phone after the calling tool. Everybody use it and it is very useful to send out alters, mobile coupons and other incentives driving consumer loyalty and encouraging repeat bookings.

Guests do not have necessarily a smartphone to sign up for alerts and for receive the offers, also having a 3G (internet) connexion is not mandatory. The key benefit of Sms to the travel is the ubiquity of sms which approach the 100% that mobile can support.

Also, the high likelihood of text messages being read soon after receipt and mobile phones can overtake landline service in many homes. Sms can help companies and organizations in the hospitality sector by disseminating alters and call to actions quickly. It also allow companies to drive traffic and increase revenue.

Keywords can also be used in order to receive the text messages from the choosen company and most consumers have their mobile phone within reach and keep the device always on, they can respond to alerts and offers, to new product announcements simply by respond to this through the sms tool.

The sms also offers a simple and effective way to communicate with consumers when they are in the reservation process for exemple or when they’re making travel plans or taking decisions, the company can drive them easily and influence their decision.
A relevant messaging strategy can add value by providing incentives for participation and streamline consumers travel experience.

Classwork Session 6 - Marriott Travel Brilliantly

The Co-creation tool by Marriott allow guest to give their idea to the brand in order to share ideas between Marriott customers and they're allowed to vote (the brillant count) to select the best idea of the moment.
According to Marriott, it "change travel" because the customers take their part in the Marriott innovation product by giving their ideas to the brand.

The program works as follow : the customer submit his idea through the plateform, then Marriott put it online on the website and other customers are allowed to vote for the best idea. If the customer idea is selected, Marriott will implement it and give to customer an "brilliant" award.

The ideas : One of the ideas which appeal to me is the "Share and earn" technology. Finalist of 2014 brilliant award. I loved this idea because it allows customers through mobile app to give their feedback in real time and rate the service. It is very useful for both the customer and Marriott because guest will not forget something about their experience at the hotel during their holidays and Marriott can accurate his management efficiency within the hotel and also have the ability to respond to unfavorable experiences immediatly.

Marriott decide to select an idea when the idea have the highest rank of votes.

Webinar Assignement

Because i'm studying hospitality my webinar choose was obviously about a subject related to this topic.
After doing some researches on the internet, i found a webinar with the following subject :
"Next Generation Guest Satisfaction"
I think it was a good choice because we learned in MBA1 with your courses the challenges companies has with the generation C and how important it is to understand what our generation and people younger than us expect in order to increase the guest satisfaction.

First of all, the webinar was authored by some professors of the hospitality division of the Cornell University in New York (US). The intervenant are Bill Caroll, senior lecturer at the Cornell University and Michelle Wohl, VP marketing at Revinate.

During the webinar, i tried to understand the relationship between customer value and marketing and identify the fundamental aspects of modern marketing. I think it's important to understand how travel agent provide value for consumers and the webinar describe it well. Also they focus on the effectiveness of search engine marketing, how to use it and how to give flexibility to the pricing strategy.
Therefore, i learned how to react to customers perceptions of fairness regarding the pricing policies and they explained the importance of promotional plans for a hospitality product for exemple.
Finally, they show us how to organize a firm to be competitive on the long term and how to maintain customer value of a product or service.

I think the most powerful tool of the webinar is that allow us to follow a seminar online everywhere in the world and then benefit from the expertise from the best influencers of a choosen topic. Finally, maybe the only weakness of webinar is that is less interactive than face to face seminars and questions & answers are not part of the game. Good point for the webinar, you can watch it again and again. Also, you can easely share with people concerned by the topic.

Please find below the link of the webinar :
http://www.ecornell.com/external-videos/hospitality-webinar-next-generation-guest-satisfaction/

Unfortunately, they didn't put on their website a webinar download tool but is it free and viewable for all. Also, there is any hard copie like pdf document resuming the webinar.

Compare 2 companies that provide mobile apps - classwork - session 5

Comparing StayNtouch & Checkmate mobile apps

StayNtouch :
- Provides a mobile PMS called Rover (can overlay the existing PMS)
- Provides a channel management system and help to connect with distributors
- A very user friendly app (reduce 80% training time)

The mobile app :
- Guest service and housekeeping have mobile access to PMS via a touch-optimized interface.
- Guests can self check-in and out, view room bill and receive upgrade promotions.
- StayNTouch dramatically streamlines operations and increases margins, and revolutionizes how the hotels connect and engage their guests and how guests experience their hotels.

Client : MGM Resorts International

Checkmate :
What is checkmate ? It is a communication platform for delivering guest service.
What are their services ?
Mobile check in, in-stay conversations, room-ready notification, welcome text message,  collect guest feedback in real time,  real-time service recovery, room upgrade, learn about the client before he arrives (when he will come, if he is a VIP client)

Some of their clients : Radisson Blu, Carlson Rezidor...

Comparison :  
StayNtouch provides a mobile booking engine and channel manager to the hotel when Checkmate focuses on the communication with its communication plateform for guest service.
The big difference is that the hotel using checkmate will be more efficient in collecting preferences of the guests and tries to interact digitally but directly with them when StayNtouch will more focuses on the guest service processes and collecting automatically data. 

How has "mobile" impacted travellers' behavior ?
It impacted travellers behavior because the hospitality industry is traditionnally very linked with the human touch in every process of the stay at the hotel. The big difference now is that having a digital touch with the hotel open new opportunities in communication, in the guest service and obviously it will be a gain of time for the hotel and the guest. The guest will appreciate to not have to call the hotel or send an email to request something from the hotel and the hotel will be able to organize the customer arrival more easily. 

Which app provider you would choose for your hotel and why ?
Based on the whole informations from the two mobile apps i would choose StayNtouch because even if it would be great to gather informations and feedback more easily with Checkmate the fact is, giving the best service to the guests is a requirement and StayNtouch works better about improving the hotel services through its app.