TRENDING
CHOICE ’ S
Choice Hotels International , among other hotel companies and OTAs , has been using Google ’ s hotel booking option , Book on Google , since October . The reservation is handled by the hotel , meaning the guest receives a confirmation from both the hotel and Google once they book , without leaving Google ’ s site . ( A percentage of the booking fee goes to Google , but it ’ s lower than third-party sites ). HOTELS spoke with Choice Hotels Chief Commercial Officer Robert McDowell .
HOTELS : Why was this a good fit for Choice ? How has it been performing ? ROBERT MCDOWELL : From our perspective , the next wave in direct booking is really about customization and
GOOGLE PLAY
By CHLOE RILEY , ASSOCIATE EDITOR
personalization , so we ’ re very focused on meeting the customer where they are , whatever channel they prefer , and using the most personalized and relevant approach … We continue to be very pleased in terms of the revenue , the percentage of our clicks coming through as well as the higher-than-average conversion rate we ’ re seeing through the channel as well . ( McDowell declined to give specifics .)
H : Any learns so far ? How is the experience on the user end ? RM : So far , we have not gotten any complaints from consumers , either through Choice or Google . We believe it is a very seamless experience . Obviously , Google has just launched this in October and they continue to sign up other hotel chains and suppliers , so my expectation is the product will continue to evolve over the next several months . But right now , we have not seen anything but really good , seamless transactions between us and our consumers .
H : What ’ s the long-term play ? RM : The hotel distribution landscape continues to evolve and change at a pretty rapid clip . We work very closely with all our distribution partners . If you go back to when TripAdvisor launched Instant Booking , we were the launch customer there as well . From the Choice perspective , we look at how to be innovative in this space and really sort of ensure that we get our product onto the right channels in the right locations to ensure that consumers that are searching for Choice Hotels or a segment like this , that we ’ re putting our brand in the right position .
THE DEATH
OF THE
BUSINESS PLAN
Contributed by BILL BARNETT , FOUNDER AND MANAGING DIRECTOR OF C9 HOTELWORKS , THAILAND
Getty Images
Walk into a general manager ’ s dank office , and high up on a bookshelf sits a massive , dusty business plan . The time has come to end the useless legacy of the process best summed up as “ things we do because it ’ s just something we do .” Hotels by nature are not innovative places . There was that genius moment when a long-forgotten housekeeper figured out that folding the end of a toilet paper roll would make it look luxurious . Overall , hoteldom is a pretty repetitious regime .
Asking hotel management to create a forward-looking strategic business plan , often in the middle of the year , that dictates how or what to do some 12 or 18 months later is nonsense by any stretch of the imagination .
Yes , some components of the plan have some relevance to listed companies ’ fiduciary requirements . We have instant access to trends , customer feedback and engagement , and the world is sprinting ahead , while some lagging hotel executive is still trying to find out what went wrong . Aren ’ t owners better served with hoteliers creating daily strategies and understanding the market that exists , and not a segmentation table from a year ago that has gone completely off the rails ?
Don ’ t tie up a quarter of a year doing this inane rain dance in the middle of a drought . Create a dynamic , interactive , tech-led tool that allows thoughtful changes and meaningful metrics .
The time has come to relegate the annual big book pain in the ass to history . Or better yet , recycle the print into toilet paper and knock yourself out folding those edges . The effect will be just about the same .
12 hotelsmag . com March 2019