Nowadays being part of an OTA or continuing to promote the hotel in a traditional way can become as radical a decision as existing or not existing. The Internet has become one of the distribution channels with the highest supply and demand.
by María Cecilia Hernández Ocampo
The business is not changing, it has already changed. There is no doubt about it. There are more and more people who undertake a trip leaving the availability of a hotel in the destination to chance, as well as there are few customers who pick up the phone to book a night without first having taken a walk on the net. The medium that is imposed is the Internet.
Over the years and the positive experiences that have been registered in the universe of electronic commerce, people have lost the fear of making transactions on the network and, with it, have transferred most of their needs to management from the comfort of their homes or offices.
Paying your card fees, canceling utilities, buying shoes or a plane ticket is as easy now as reading this article. It only takes a couple of clicks to book a hotel room.
Until the end of February 2012 the multinational STR Global, had counted a total of 13.41 million rooms around the planet and every day this figure grows unstoppable. How can we not see in it a potential for virtual consumption?
Grouping, segmenting, promoting, "ranking" and selling a hotel was in the hands of the Online Travel Agencies (OTA's), which in Spanish are nothing more than virtual travel agencies, of which hotel agencies are also part: those sites on the Internet from where a user can book a room.
"But deep down they have become more than an agency. Users have come to have more confidence in this type of site than in a travel agent or on the hotel's own website. Well, there opens the opportunity to comment and read the opinions of guests who experienced that destination first-hand, "explains Carlos M. López, consultant of new technologies for tourism companies in Mexico City.
And it is enough to see the growth that this type of business has had in the last couple of years to realize that for a hotel, sometimes, not to make a presence in those places is not to exist for a large part of the population.
"One of the advantages of this type of channel, for hoteliers, is that it is practically autonomous. A good number of people who enter there choose a hotel based on price, advantages, photographs and reviews. So one of the tasks of the business owner is to achieve the greatest number of positive comments that help place the hotel in the top positions of the search, "says López.
But when saying "one of the tasks", tasks that are essential are left out: "The website of a hotel must be clear, clean, with accurate information, intuitive and that has all those elements that usability demands on the internet, from a good SEO to a good management of the virtual community that conforms around the establishment", details the consultant.
Tempting figures
In the world there are 1,970 million Internet users with a growth of 14% in the last year, according to the Ministry of Information and Communication Technologies of Colombia.
To this is added that some of the most recognized sites present exorbitant figures on the number of hotels registered in their "menu": the multinational Booking.com has an inventory close to 230,000 establishments worldwide; for its part, Hoteles.com, which also operates in the global context, has a list of 150,000 hotels. Despegar hotels advertises 140,000 and the Tivago metasearch engine offers a tool to compare the prices of its 576,808 registered hotels. In addition, reviewing information from 2011, it is found that that year TripAvisor reached the figure of 50 million unique visitors per month.
According to María Fernanda Cárdenas, Strategic Communications Advisor of Hoteles.com for Colombia, in this portal you can find more than 6.5 million comments from users who have stayed in hotels, "this is a tool that helps to make a decision based on good sources of information before making a reservation".
Seeing these numbers in a bird's eye view, the reflection comes instantly: "You have to be there, make a presence on the internet and capture that potential global audience."
From OTAs to their own websites
But OTAs are not the only existing online distribution channel. The hotels' own websites have also become a fundamental tool for the promotion and direct sale of room nights.
This medium may require a little more strategy and planning, because first the user must be able to reach the company's website, either through advertising on the internet or in traditional media or by positioning the site in search engines.
According to a study presented in the first quarter of 2012 by IAB, online hotel reservations are taking the lead and are just one point below reservations made through travel agency offices. 12% of people who book hotels do so through an OTA.
Whether it's to do the full search and purchase or just to search and compare prices, the internet is a vital tool in the process of arriving at a hotel.
Álvaro Diago, director for Latin America of InterContinental Hotels Group, says that currently about 70% of hotel reservations are mediated by some action that is carried out on the internet and, in that sense, this has allowed small companies to gain recognition and positions, despite the fact that loyalty is important in this market.
Undoubtedly, the internet has multiple advantages for both hoteliers and end consumers. Experts say that the former can dream of a future without intermediaries and with high reductions in operating and marketing costs, and the latter not only manage to design and plan their trips from home, but can also achieve savings of up to 50% below the general market.
This is what "Victor", the author of the website Vivireuropa.com says when he comments on the viajablog.com article called "online hotel reservations: current trends": "Without a doubt, comparing before buying is the key. It is impressive the savings you can make by dedicating a couple of hours to the search for flights, hotels, and the like. Sometimes I've gotten up to 50% off for continuing to look a little more."
According to the Spaniard Chema Herrero, who is CRS Manager, "in the sector the mistake is continuously made of thinking that several ways of marketing a product are incompatible and that some must be killed so that others come to the foreground. That one should seek the formula of minimizing or controlling the costs of intermediation is evident, from that to that we have to condemn them to disappearance I think there is a distance. I don't know too many establishments that today can do without collaborating with intermediaries, whatever they may be."
On the other hand, another competitor has been treading the terrain of online searches and reservations, it is social networks. Recently, the first application (app) for hotel reservations that works 100% on Facebook was launched.
Mireserva.co is the new app developed by the Colombian company Blog, Inc. at the request of the technology provider Zeus. It is enough that the hotel has a fan page on Facebook and has acquired the hotel system of Zeus to make use of this resource.
As reported in recent days by dinero magazine, this social network has already exceeded 900 million users, more than enough reason to constitute a large market for the tourism industry.
"Booking and selling through a social network like Facebook, which is one of the most users in the world, represents multiple advantages for a hotel organization, including the target audience is much larger and does not have to replace or modify the operating system of the company," says Juan Carlos Otoya, general manager of Zeus Technology.
With the changing profile of the consumer, more and more distribution, marketing and dissemination channels are born that are in favor of savings and seek to reach a larger audience with less effort. The key is not to be in everyone, but to study which may be the most convenient for the objectives of the company.
Numbers to remember
According to a study conducted by Four Pillar Hotels on the importance of social networks in tourism:
- 64% of travelers (excluding North Americans) use social media through their mobile devices while traveling.
- 30% of people who travel for leisure report having used a mobile app to search for a hotel, and 29% to look for a flight.
- 92% of consumers trust media, word of mouth and recommendations from friends and family above other forms of advertising.
- 52% of Facebook users say that the photos of their friends affect when deciding their next vacation.
- 76% of travelers post photographs on a social network.
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