Should Hotels Consider Resuming Google Ads and Other Search Campaigns? - PhocusWire

After the brutal shock to the travel industry due to the coronavirus crisis, the vast majority of hotels stopped or questioned all their investments in online marketing, mainly Google Ads and metasearch.

This decision made a lot of sense given the severity and exceptional circumstances of the moment.

Investment fell 80% in the second half of March, compared to the first half, and 90% when compared to the same period in 2019 - figures that correspond with those in a Cleveland Research report.

They illustrate the huge concern that hotels face and new variables to consider that did not exist before:

• Cash flow. In the current situation, one of the objectives of any company, including hotels, is maintaining the highest possible amount of cash. The vast majority of investments in online marketing are paid in advance and that is a problem now.

• Uncertainty. Most hotels have no idea yet when they can reopen. They have tentative dates that are pushed back as the days go by. It is impossible to forecast if the gradual reopening of hotels will start in June or September. Given this great uncertainty, how can we risk investing in a model such as CPC (cost per click) without a guarantee of conversion and that, above all, those reservations will not be cancelled?

• Profitability. Many hotels anticipated that their campaigns would not be profitable in this situation and, when facing this, the best thing is to pause it all.

Zoom now worth more than American Airlines ,Expedia ,Hilton combined

Teleconferencing app Zoom is now valued more than the market capitalization of three billion -dollar travel and hospitality companies in the US .As of April 17,Zoom had a market value of American Airlines ,Expedia and Hilton stood at $ 34 billion .

It gained over$200 million daily users in March during worldwide lockdowns.

Access Point Financial Launches “Navigating Hospitality Finance 2020” Information Resource for Hoteliers Facing Changing Market Conditions

 Access Point Financial, LLC (APF), a leading direct lender and specialty finance company focused exclusively on the hospitality industry, announced the debut of a new online resource entitled, "Navigating Hospitality Finance 2020," 

The informative four-part series is intended to help hotel owners and investors with an interest in hospitality to plan their best financial strategies during changing market conditions brought on by the Coronavirus (COVID-19) global pandemic and its direct impacts on the hotel industry.

The informative four-part series is intended to help hotel owners and investors with an interest in hospitality to plan their best financial strategies during changing market conditions brought on by the Coronavirus (COVID-19) global pandemic and its direct impacts on the hotel industry.

Hoteliers and investors have a lot to consider in developing effective short- and long-term financial strategies

To help our clients better assess their respective situations and navigate the recovery, our goal is to be a responsible partner and provide impactful resources and tools to ensure their ongoing success.

The first edition of the four-part "Navigating Hospitality Finance 2020" series explores the changes to terms and conditions that lenders have implemented during the crisis.

Automating hospitality in times of social distancing

The global COVID-19 pandemic has brought the travel and hospitality sectors to a halt. The calls to enact social distancing measures mean no more travelling or meeting friends at pubs or restaurants. The consequences are devastating for airlines, hotels, events, restaurants etc. and result in closures and job loss around the world. Although governments have taken various measures to address these, we can expect consumers to remain cautious when interacting with others, thus continuing the negative impact beyond t he end of the crisis.

 Giving a careful consideration to immediate and long-term impacts of the pandemic and social distancing measures on overall consumer behaviour and business continuity, integrating automation into service operations could help addressing some of the issues around safety and access

Attitude Change

 In this period of isolation, we are witnessing how people change behaviours that long have been taken for granted: shaking hands or standing closely next to somebody to order drinks at a bar

Importantly, having limited mobility and restricted access to services while in lockdown may bring about felt needs for automated services and self-service technologies. Some consumers may get used to ordering meals online or through an app and opting for 'click and collect' or delivery for other shopping needs.

Beneficial Automation

As suggested here, key to implementing automation in travel and hospitality is ensuring that the technology will bring value and benefits to the industry and its people. We have seen cases where robots and other automated machines can help with the operational upkeep of buildings and facilities. Hotels employ robots to sanitise rooms and common areas, freeing staff from risk of contamination

With the likes of World Health Organisation (WHO) implementing chatbots to spread information about COVID-19, businesses can use similar conversational agents to engage employees and customers while they are on lockdown

Responsible Adoption

Looking into the future, the emphasis should be about responsible adoption of automation, whereby technologies augment people in delivering what the businesses do best: hospitality. As outlined here, adoption of automation in the travel and hospitality sectors should be balanced with priorities to invest in people. Perhaps while letting the robots handle things at work, we should give employees opportunities to up their digital skills at home, but only if they wish to.

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Marriott International Notifies Guests of Property System Incident

Hotels operated and franchised under Marriott’s brands use an application to help provide services to guests at hotels. At the end of February 2020, the company identified that an unexpected amount of guest information may have been accessed using the login credentials of two employees at a franchise property. The company believes that this activity started in mid-January 2020. Upon discovery, the company confirmed that the login credentials were disabled, immediately began an investigation, implemented heightened monitoring, and arranged resources to inform and assist guests. Marriott also notified relevant authorities and is supporting their investigations.

Although Marriott’s investigation is ongoing, the company currently has no reason to believe that the information involved included Marriott Bonvoy account passwords or PINs, payment card information, passport information, national IDs, or driver’s license numbers.

At this point, the company believes that the following information may have been involved for up to approximately 5.2 million guests, although not all of this information was present for every guest involved:

• contact details (e.g., name, mailing address, email address, and phone number)

• loyalty account information (e.g., account number and points balance, but not passwords)

• additional personal details (e.g., company, gender, and birthday day and month)

• partnerships and affiliations (e.g., linked airline loyalty programs and numbers)

• preferences (e.g., stay/room preferences and language preference)

  Marriott is sending emails to guests involved. Marriott has also set up a dedicated website (www.mysupport.marriott.com) and call center resources with additional information for guests. The call center resources can be reached by calling the numbers listed on the dedicated website. The email sent to guests and the website also contain a list of steps guests involved can consider taking and information about enrolling in a personal information monitoring service that Marriott is providing.

Hospitality Sector Teams Up Online to Help During the Crisis

The hotel and lodging industry has been pulling together online resources to help each other and their communities during the coronavirus crisis.

Helping re-purpose beds for medical use may be the most obvious possible way to help. A new tech platform launched earlier this week can make the matchmaking process easier between lodging operators and local emergency efforts. Owners of a property can make beds or buildings available by using an online form to specify how they’re willing to help. Cloudbeds has worked with Sabre, Marriott, and RateGain and others on the effort.

Hotels for Helpers, in the Netherlands, is a booking engine offering discounted rooms for those in need, in an effort joined by tech provider Mews.

A new reservations portal provides accommodation to healthcare workers at no cost in Lisbon and Porto, Portugal. It’s called Rooms Against Covid, and GuestCentric Systems and HiJiffy created it.

Oyo Hotels & Homes said it would open the doors of its more than 300 hotels in the U.S. to offer free stays to doctors, nurses, and other medical first responders who are helping in the fight against coronavirus.

ONLINE RESOURCES FOR OPERATIONAL SURVIVAL

The hospitality sector also has to heal itself from the wounds of travel bans and the economic crash. Here’s a roundup of some of the hotel and lodging sector resources of note:

Travel tech company RateGain has put together a “Better Tomorrow” resource page to help hoteliers with insights into lessons to learn from Asia. The page draws partly on resources from the trade group Hospitality Sales & Marketing Association International (HSMAI), which has its own online resources, too.

Workers who have lost their jobs and are struggling with mental stress can turn to the U.S. site Restaurant After Hours for links to resources. In Canada, Service Hospitality, a non-profit association for workers, has created a Covid-19 resources page

For more information please visit on below mention side :

https://www.cloudbeds.com/covid-19-hospitality-helps/

https://servicehospitality.com/coronavirus-guide-for-hospitality/

Tribute Portfolio Continues to Grow Its Global Family of Hotels. First Outpost in Frankfurt, Germany

Tribute Portfolio, Marriott International’s newest collection of characterful independent hotels, continues to expand its European footprint with the opening of Gekko House, the brand’s second hotel in Germany and first in Frankfurt. The 128-room urban-designed hotel is situated in the heart of Frankfurt’s up-and-coming Gallus district known for its converted warehouses and factories, which is now home to eclectic music venues and theatres. Frankfurt-based Morgen Interiors led the design, creating a captivating urban aesthetic reflective of Frankfurt’s open-minded culture whilst inviting spontaneity and fun, inspired by the hotel’s motto, ‘life is crazy.’

It is set to be a hot spot for both guests and locals alike with its characterful and cosmopolitan design, sincere service, and lively ambiance at their Chicago Williams restaurant and bar

Radisson Red Brand Expands Into The Middle East At Dubai Digital Park

A hotel that hates the ordinary and loves the different. Welcome to Radisson RED Dubai Silicon Oasis, the latest property in the Radisson Group’s rapidly expanding portfolio across the Middle East.

Located at Dubai Digital Park, Dubai’s first ever smart city project built with the latest AI and IOT technologies, It brings RED’s forward-thinking style to the desert. The brand presents a playful twist on conventional hotel stays with a culinary hangout with a casual feel and a buzzing social scene. Using integrated technology and bold design personality,Hotel comprises of 104 contemporary designed rooms, eight suites and 59 apartments made created with millennials in mind.

Signature dining outlets Foodtruck Lobby and DELI double up as social hubs and on the ground floor OUIBar + Terrace delivers a casual chic dining space with live sports screens plus and an alfresco area. Additionally, the RED Roof bar offers guests a day to night hang out – from evening sundowners to morning stretching for sunrise yoga. The hotel also hosts 10 state-of-the-art conference rooms and a multi event space of 600sqm, to cater for up to 600 guests. With all these amenities, guests have endless opportunities for switching effortlessly between business and pleasure.

Radisson Hotel Group Announces Global Plan For A Future With Reduced Single-Use Plastics

Radisson Hotel Group will implement bulk amenity dispensers across all brands by the beginning of 2022, replacing small bottles for common bathroom products. This action will remove 57 million miniature amenities from circulation, avoiding the use of almost 500 tons of plastic annually and has a global commitment to #refusethestraw, ensuring plastic straws and plastic stirrers are no longer used in its hotels by 2021 and eco-friendly alternatives will be offered to guests upon request.

Radisson Hotel Group’s initiatives demonstrate the commitment and solidify its participation in the International Tourism Plastic Pledge

The Group is also running a series of innovative pilot projects in various locations, with the aim of finding new ways to drive plastic reduction globally. These include:

• In all the Group’s properties in India, a roll out of Commercial Reverse Osmosis Water Filtration systems to provide in-house bottled water and avoid the use of PET water bottles.  

• In Bangladesh, Radisson Blu Chattogram Bay View is piloting a similar installation and is replacing PET water bottles by in-house filtered and bottled quality water.

• To cut down on the use of 39,000 plastic water bottles in the average hotel each year the Group offers unlimited filtered water to guests. This is already in place in selected hotels such at the Radisson Blu Hotel Manchester Airport, UK, and the Radisson RED hotel Brussels and Belgium, additionally, guests are offered reusable Radisson Rewards water bottles

• In addition to making Radisson Meetings 100% carbon neutral, the Group is constantly striving to phase out single-use plastics in meetings and events across its portfolio and has already achieved this in over 200 of its hotels, with the aim to roll-out this initiative to other properties.

Raffles Udaipur to open by the end of 2020

Hannaford , Vice president, Commercial, Accor India and south Asia .He said, “For Accor India, we have two hotels in pipeline in 2020. In March, we launch the Grand Mercure Bengaluru at Gopalan Mall. In the last quarter, we will be launching the much-awaited Raffles Udaipur towards the end of the year.”

Other properties coming up in the next two-three years include Raffles Jaipur, Fairmont Mumbai Sahar, Novotel Mumbai International Airport, Novotel New Delhi City Centre, Novotel Bengaluru City Centre, Ibis Bengaluru Hebbal, Ibis Mumbai LBS Road, Ibis Mumbai CST Road and Ibis Styles Goa Vagator.

When asked to comment on India as a top source market for Accor, He said, “India is considered one of the most important markets and this is the reason we are introducing our iconic brand, Raffles here; and continue to launch multiple hotels every year.

“Indian guests spend on hospitality experiences and this is evident at the global level as well. In terms of hospitality, India is a sleeping giant and has a great potential to become one of the best countries for the travel and tourism sector.”

800 Room Grand Hyatt Hotel Coming to Miami Beach

Hyatt Hotels Corporation (NYSE:H), Terra Group and Turnberry announced plans for a new 800-room Grand Hyatt hotel in Miami Beach, Fla that will be managed by Hyatt. Slated to open in 2023, It will offer elevated experiences for leisure and business travelers alike. Its prime location adjacent to the Miami Beach Convention Center, which completed a $600 million renovation last year, offers visitors convenient access to the city’s most anticipated tradeshows and events.

The 17-story hotel will be situated at the intersection of 17th Street and Convention Center Drive, within walking distance of the Atlantic Ocean beachfront, Lincoln Road Mall, New World Symphony, The Bass Museum and The Fillmore Miami Beach. The hotel development is being led by David Martin of Terra and Jackie Soffer of Turnberry and will be a joint venture between the two development companies.

The new hotel will become only the second Grand Hyatt property in Florida, joining Grand Hyatt Tampa Bay.

Hotel features are expected to include 12 floors of guest rooms offering expansive views of Miami Beach, two floors of meeting spaces and ballrooms that will complement the Convention Center, a resort-style pool deck with panoramic views, and limited retail space that will activate the district at street level. An elevated skybridge will enable event attendees to move freely between the hotel and Convention Center in a climate-controlled, art-filled corridor.

The project’s resiliency and sustainability measures include storm water management and reuse, flood risk mitigation, and the use of solar power – all of which are designed to ensure operational continuity during weather events.

Hospitality M&A deals to exceed $ 800 million in 2020: HVS

Hospitality consultancy firm HVS expects mergers and acquisitions in the hospitality space to exceed $ 800 million in 2020, besides a revenue per available room growth in the range of 4.7%-5.4%.

HVS India Hospitality Industry Overview 2019, the company states the hospitality sector witnessed an over 31% growth in brand signings during the year with approximately 171 new hotels entering the branded hotel market and an additional 53 being rebranded.

“2019 was a remarkable year for hotel transactions which witnessed transactions worth Rs 4937 crore compared to just over Rs 535 crore in the previous year

HVS expects the first half of 2020 to be relatively muted, led by the Coronavirus impact on the global markets and ongoing economic headwinds that are expected to last until March 2020.

As per the HVS report, the India wide revenue per available room grew by just over 4% in 2019. The 2019 revenue per available room at Rs 3967 is still lagging the peak by 27.8%.

Average rates grew by approximately 2.9% in 2019 while the occupancy rate was 66.2% in 2019 vis a vis 65.4% in 2018.

HVS stated that domestic brands with their aggressive growth strategies have overtaken international brands in terms of brand signings for 2019. Though, they continue to sign smaller format hotels with average keys for domestic brand signings being almost half of their international peers.

As per the HVS report, IHCL, The Fern Hotels & Resorts, Clarks Inn, Intellistay Hotels and Marriott International were the top five operators in 2019 in terms of brand signings by properties.

Goa and Bengaluru remained the top markets for brand signings. Increasing supply poses a concern for the Goa hotel market performance in the near future, as per the report.

Zomato Successfully Tests Its First Meal Delivery Drone

Gurugram-based food delivery and restaurant discovery platform Zomato has taken the next-generation tech leap with its first successful attempt at food delivery via Drone.

The test, which was conducted using a hybrid drone, had a fusion of rotary wing and fixed wings on a single drone. Zomato claims that the test drone was successfully and seamlessly able to cover a distance of 5 kms, in about 10 minutes, with a peak speed of 80 kmph, carrying a payload of 5 kgs.

Comcast Business launches X1 for hospitality

Comcast Business launches X1 for hospitality, a program that brings the features and personalization of the video platform to hotel guests. The Four Seasons Hotel Philadelphia at Comcast Center will include X1 in each of its 219 guest rooms when it opens this winter.

“X1 is simple and user-friendly allowing guests to navigate and discover the programs they want to watch. With the voice remote, finding a channel, show or movie is now as easy as the click of a button and a simple voice command,” Four Seasons Hotel Philadelphia GM Ben Shank said in a statement.

Smart Bathrooms!

The newly launched AI Smart Room will fully embrace voice control technology @ IHG China

IHG (InterContinental Hotels Group) announced that InterContinental Hotels & Resorts has collaborated with Baidu to introduce the next generation of intelligent hospitality. Smart Rooms, which are powered by artificial intelligence, are expected to improve and redefine customer hotel experience in China’s hospitality industry. From now on, guests staying at InterContinental Beijing Sanlitun and InterContinental Guangzhou Exhibition Centre will be amongst the first to enjoy the AI Smart Rooms. A total of 100 AI powered Club InterContinental suites will be available at InterContinental hotels in gateway cities and key destinations across China within the year. 

Customised for InterContinental Hotels & Resorts, the AI solution is developed by Baidu’s DuerOS Platform. It integrates AI technology with hotel operations, and this is supported by hardware upgrade and cloud service. Unlike traditional guest rooms, the newly launched AI Smart Room will fully embrace voice control technology to deliver a more natural human-computer interactive experience. For instance, guests will be able to freely switch settings between work and leisure modes, and enjoy a more convenient and seamless room service experience. This solution will also further fine-tune the current backstage management system, including customising information and resetting devices, making hotel management a simpler task. 

Lin Wang, Vice President of Marketing, IHG Greater China, commented: “IHG has always been at the forefront of innovation. We are thrilled to be pioneering in the hospitality industry, and exploring the various possibilities of future experience with our guests. Millennials are particularly sensitive to technology, often seeking new things to try. The AI Smart Room will undoubtedly be extremely attractive for them, paving the way for a new level of modernisation and consumer satisfaction. We will continue to make use of cutting-edge technology in hotel service and facilities in the future, and we hope this will further strengthen customer awareness and appreciation of smart technology. Meanwhile, we will provide more efficient operation and management services to our hotel owners.”

Jing Kun, General Manager of Smart Living Group, Baidu, commented: “With its well-rounded service functions, DuerOS continues to empower partners of various industries, and contributes to ecological data sharing. It is an honour to work with InterContinental Hotels & Resorts, a world renowned luxury hotel brand with over 70 years of history, and to jointly launch our solution for intelligent hospitality. This presents an exciting and dynamic change to future user experience.”

IHG and Baidu inked a strategic partnership on AI development last November. Since then, the hospitality industry has witnessed a new wave of exploration in this field. The application of AI has gone beyond smart homes and automatic driving, and now marks a new milestone in the hospitality industry. In the future, IHG and Baidu will continue the exploration and innovation in intelligent hospitality solutions, creating more smart options and experiences for guests.

TAP Coin Takes Hospitality Industry to the Next Level

HOOCH, the first blockchain-based hospitality subscription app to bring real-world experiences and rewards to the market, plans to embed the TAP Coin (TAP) Wallet in all HOOCH member apps at the public launch and release of the decentralized TAP crypto-utility token.

“TAP Coin is designed with brands and hospitality companies in mind. It’s more than a utility token. TAP Coin is your ticket to the best in restaurants, bars, and nightlife culture around the world. Additionally, we believe our approach to data is incredibly innovative and will change the how data is bought and sold. It’s really the first time that consumers have been able to monetize their data,” HOOCH CEO Lin Dai said.

Amazon’s Alexa for Hospitality, just say 'Alexa, Check Out'!

Amazon officially launched Alexa for Hospitality together with Marriott International, which said it's bringing the new feature to about 10 of its US locations over the summer, including Charlotte Marriott City Center in North Carolina and Marriott Irvine Spectrum in California. Alexa for Hospitality will also be available to other hoteliers by invitation only.

"We want to strip away the things that might create unexpected surprises or bumps in the road and create as seamless an experience as possible," Jennifer Hsieh, Marriott's vice president of customer experience innovation, said at the demo, mentioning

Alexa's new ability to check you out of your room so you won't have to stop by the front desk.

Rausch said Alexa for Hospitality will allow hoteliers to customize their Echo speakers to each property, allowing them to provide guests with local restaurant and attractions recommendations and specific information about the hotel, like pool and gym hours. Amazon also developed a new back-end system to help hotels manage a whole fleet of Echo devices.

Amazon will soon allow people to connect their Amazon accounts to their hotel Echo speakers, letting them access their Audible audiobooks and music services including Amazon Music, Spotify, and Pandora. The devices will disconnect from a guest's account at checkout.

see more at https://www.amazon.com/alexaforhospitality

KEYPR Launches KEYPR TV, the Most Advanced Casting Solution in Hospitality

Los Angeles, CA – KEYPR®, the technology company whose enterprise cloud platform is the leader in guest experience and hospitality management, is announcing its partnership with Nevaya, the go-to TV cloud entertainment company for hospitality, to create KEYPR TV. The new feature allows guests to stream content from their personal mobile devices or KEYPR's in-room tablets to hotel TVs, with no app downloads, required sign-ins, or overly-complex access codes.

As evidenced by the shift in how consumers are increasingly engaging with mobile and digital content at home the trend is also being pulled into hospitality. According to Zenith Media, nearly one-quarter of all media consumption across the world is mobile today and aggressively growing. This highlights a massive opportunity for hotels to increase guest satisfaction by adopting mobile-friendly content technologies.

Accor Hotels starts facial recognition trials in Brazil

Accor Hotels starts facial recognition trials in Brazil The French hotel chain is investing further in the technology in a bid to enhance guest experience.

Selected guests of the hotel's loyalty program will be the first users the new technology at a Pullman hotel in São Paulo.

Under the trial, guests are able to register at the desk or an information pillar at the reception then use facial recognition to access the room, therefore removing the need for keycards.

According to the company's vice-president for information technology for South America at Accor, Erwan Le Goff, the aim of the project is to offer more personalization and therefore a market differentiator for the brand.

"We realize this technology is a big market differentiator and will be utilized by the sector in the years to come. For that reason we decided to roll it out to improve our guest experience," the executive says.

"The purpose of the project is to improve the way we serve [guests]. Whether it is by giving more control or speeding up the check-in process at our hotels, we always strive to make everyone feel welcome, " he points out.