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Think Tank Digital Developments in Hospitality

On April 23^rd I attended the Think Tank “Digital Developments in Hosptality” which was organized by Oneglobe network and the CMH Business School.

We talked about many subjects and had the chance to listen to some nice presentations of people who work for the hospitality sector.

The insights that I gained during this Think Tank can best be resumed as “The Hospitality Sector moves towards the new technologies and will be more and more influenced by the web”

I recognized during this Think Tank that especially Luxury Hotels don't use the web effectively and that they should take the opportunity to modify their homepage in order to appeal more to the luxury customer. 65% of the luxury customers are influenced by the web before they buy a product or book a hotel so the luxury hotels should not only rely on their status but should improve the visual appearance of their homepage and add new features like for example social media which is also used by a large amount of luxury customers.

Here is an interesting example of the importance of social media for luxury consumers.

The other important point that was mentioned during this Think Tank and which was my favourite one, was the influence of hotel review websites on the customers. I knew before this Think Tank that customers were looking for reviews before booking a hotel but that they use it as much that in many cases they read reviews for 8 hours was really knew to me. I think that hotels still not really realize what influence online reviews have for their business. Of course there are many hotel review websites today but hotels should really observe the most important ones like for example tripadvisor and respond to the bad reviews. They can also use the “reviewpro” program which was also presented to us during this Think Tank and which collects all the online reviews and delivers them to the hotels in different categories so that they know what people exactly thought about the rooms, service etc.

Here is an interesting video which shows the importance of answering to online reviews.

Video

The other important fact which was mentioned during this Think Tank was that Mobile Phones play an important role in the hospitality sector of today and will be the future in the hospitality sector. It is not so easy for me to understand this because I still have a basic mobile phone without a touch screen and I can travel or book hotels differently and I don't feel the desire to use a mobile phone to make all my bookings or to see the details of my hotel or the surroundings of my hotel on a small screen. I like the adventure, to be lost in a city, to find the way by myself and also discover places on my own...but as I know myself in one year I will also have a smartphone because it's the future and I will follow the trend. The majority of the people want to have everything very fast and in a short amount of time. On smartphones more and more apps will appear which will propose any kinds of servises which will range from bookings to service deliveries in the hotels. So the hotels have to think of their mobile phone strategy now because to appear on the apps is an additional source to attract some customers.

Watch a video about a smartphone app which enables you to book a hotel.

Video

You can also find this article on the facebook page "Digital Developments in Hospitality" and on my twitter account TJPhilippe !

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http://bit.ly/bwDTaK

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