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| Hospitality Today | June / July 2016
Egon Zehnder’ s Hicham Sharara said:“ It is critical that hotel groups use big data and customer insights to ensure that their new concepts resonate with their target demographics. The proliferation of new concepts – from lifestyle hotels, to budget options, to wellness offerings- continues apace: three-quarters of our respondents highlighted proliferation as having a major impact on the hotel industry in the years ahead.
“ Globalisation underlines the importance of off-property engagement: groups have to inspire and attract new travellers from growth markets. This means building digital teams that are agile enough to harness and use local platforms to create content and engagement that is lively and relevant to local tastes. The winners in the new global travel market will be those who can balance global brand standards and control with delegated and nimble local teams.”
But hotel groups’ ability to fight off the OTAs increasing influence require bold new approaches to leadership and identifying talent- only 30 % of respondents felt that their company had a talent pipeline in sync with the new commercial environment.
The study highlights five key talent questions for the decade ahead:
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How to build a digitally savvy leadership team – A major focus is needed on developing commercially minded technology and digital leaders. But hiring a couple of digital stars won’ t work: the entire leadership team must have the insight to drive digitization of everything from customer experience, to branding, to sales and marketing, to revenue management and cost control. to ensure your business thinks globally and acts locally – Groups need to create clear guidelines on how to use local channels to engage with customers. This is particularly true in emerging, growth markets, many of which have strong local digital platforms; customer perceptions can shift very quickly in these markets and need careful management. to create strength from diversity – When recruiting, groups need to look well-beyond their industry to sectors driving digital engagement, such as consumer goods. They should also question the sector’ s traditional leadership path, which still sees‘ on property’ experience as fundamental in executive roles. to keep your talent fresh – Talent development must involve strong exposure to the new functions driving the‘ off property’ experience. It’ s time for the industry to encourage the development of a new hybrid form of digital-savvy, globally experienced top talent. to reconfigure your Board – Hotel groups should be courting people from disruptive technology players. Once installed, these Board members can serve as‘ talent magnets’, reassuring their peers that the traditional industry is embracing digital-based growth strategies.