Sebastien Bazin's straight talk and 4 more stories
SEBASTIEN BAZIN, STRAIGHT TALK
If there's one hotel chain CEO that isn't afraid of talking about the industry's issues it's AccorHotels' CEO. Being on the investment side and moving into operations gives a pretty candid view of the scene. Busting a few myths and recognizing the weak points as well as the strong points. These are the type of interviews that actually help the industry and if you haven't read it, you should.
TRAVEL TECH'S "HIDDEN" PROBLEM
While I'd classify this article as a rant, it shows how frustrating it is for entrepreneurs to work in travel and hotel tech. And that is a huge problem for our industry and for guests. If we can't open up to innovative minds the industry will not evolve. The biggest successes in travel (Uber and Airbnb) happened because those entrepreneurs worked bypassed the industry. We must make it easy for new ideas to grow in order to help our industry survive.
AIRBNB VS. HOTELS
What annoys me about the discussion on Airbnb being a threat to hotels is that the reaction by many hoteliers it to try and lobby them out of existence. That is, possibly, the worst solution one could imagine. Personally, I think Airbnb is positioning themselves in that space as a red herring because their real competition is OTAs. There is a demand for what Airbnb supplies, period. Airbnb was just better at answering to that demand. As hoteliers, it might be a better idea to exclusively use Airbnb for 6 months and find out what they do better, and what they do worse. And then innovate.
ADVERTISING ON SOCIAL IS COST EFFICIENT...
Advertising on social media is something that more marketers are interested in. But possibly for an odd reason. Not because of amazing ROI, because the market is still less competitive than search advertising so the costs are interesting enough to put more budget into it. I tend to agree with that as social advertising is not nearly as directly efficient as search - but now is a good time to be there.
TRENDS FOR 2017 WERE SET IN 2016
To predict what will happen next, look back at what happened before. The last two "Best of Hotel Marketing" analysis show an interesting evolution for our industry. While it doesn't say what will happen it shows what the problems are that we as an industry are trying to solve. And those very problems are opportunities. Is building yet another "direct booking" solution the real issue? Or is the real issue the fact that hotel distribution isn't a solved problem?