IMPACTS OF COVID-19

The hospitality industry has been severely impacted by the global COVID-19 crisis and while we are preparing for recovery, it will be a long one and it will bring lasting changes in the way we manage and will definitely increase our emphasis on technology.

Today, we see that institutions have been greatly affected by the lack of customers and have had to reinvent themselves in a hurry. In doing so, the majority have seen the inflexibility of their “Hotel Tech Stack” application ecosystem especially the ability to access systems remotely as well as the need for guests also to do everything remotely as well as in the hotel from their mobile device.

Hoteliers were largely unprepared and were caught off guard by a world now driven by data and connected guests who minimally want to find in the hotel what they already have at home. According to McKinsey Canada, the pandemic accelerated digital transformation by 10 years!

TECHNOLOGY AT YOUR SERVICE

Today, hospitality has become a service industry powered by online technologies, mobile, cloud, Internet of Things, artificial intelligence and robotics.

Digital applications have made their way into every department: operations, customer service, communications, revenue management, electronic distribution, CRM and marketing, security, payments, loyalty programs, accounting and even human resources!

New “Best-of-breed” open API applications that automate processes and save valuable time are a strong incentive for institutions to invest in technology and begin or accelerate their digital transformation !

INVEST TO RETAIN YOUR CUSTOMERS

Before the pandemic, the average technology investment was about 4% of revenue. But with customers becoming more demanding, it is necessary to increase technology investments in order to remain attractive and competitive. Gone are the days when customers could be offered a nice comfortable bed with home-like technologies. Customers are increasingly looking for a unique “experience” where digital technology is omnipresent.

LACK OF MANPOWER

Another reason to accelerate the adoption of new technologies is the glaring and persistent labor shortage. The scarcity and rising costs of labor are forcing owners to explore renewed business models where employees walk the customer through the experience and all administrative work is automated with powerful digital applications.

Easy to use, new cloud-based applications will allow:
• Hire entry-level staff and train them quickly
• Increase the motivation of experienced employees
• Reduce repetitive data entry work in favor of automation
• Reduce labor costs
• Increase overall productivity

ACCELERATE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

The only long-term solution is to invest in technologies that can solve workforce issues through innovation, automation, mobility, robotization and next generation digital applications. Despite the difficult times we are experiencing, this is a good time to rethink the way things are done and the technologies in place. Subsidies are encouraging establishments in this process and it is interesting to see hoteliers approaching these initiatives with their staff who are now less busy. This allows them to keep their employees motivated and not to lose them.

AREAS TO FOCUS ON

Here are some areas to focus on in the digital transformation to have maximum impact on hotel operations and customer satisfaction :

• The talent challenge : All initiatives that aim to simplify the work of staff, provide them with better tools, make it easier for them to learn and increase productivity will be favored. With the shortage of personnel, employees are more selective and demanding. Making employees more autonomous and facilitating customer service by putting energy where it makes a difference for the customer creates value and everyone wins.
• Contactless transactions : Customers are now demanding to make their contactless transactions from their PC at home or on their mobile device while they are in town. Apps that offer customers this type of functionality will be popular. Whether it’s to pay on the spot or to open the door, to continue watching your favorite TV series or to work remotely, the offer is there and there is a choice!
• The buying cycle : Traditional sales processes will undergo major changes. Self-service” will become the norm, influenced by large corporations like Amazon. Customers will have to be offered advanced transactional sites, allowing them to create their own stay, event or package and make secure payments online, any time of the day or night.
• Customer communication : The customer will want to communicate with your teams not only by phone or email, but with the medium of their choice: SMS, WhatsApp, Messenger, etc. Mobile applications for customers will therefore have to include all available means of communication in order to meet the needs and maximize customer satisfaction. The use of a CRM has become necessary to ensure a return on investment on marketing strategies and the retention of different customer segments.

HOTELUS CAN HELP YOU

HOTELUS offers various services to hotels in relation to digital transformation : diagnosis, evaluation, support in the choice and implementation of digital applications appropriate to your operations.

Contact us for a free evaluation!

IMPACTS OF COVID-19

The hospitality world was very much shaken by the global crisis of COVID-19 and although we are preparing for the recovery, it will be a long one and will bring lasting changes in the way we manage supply and demand in the hospitality industry. What can we already see coming that wasn’t on the horizon a few months ago? One thing is for sure, technology and the use of software and applications have taken a huge leap forward in the last few months and are more than ever an indispensable asset. Why?

Because they save time, eliminate silos, automate tasks and minimize errors, and above all, maximize the efficiency of existing teams, which are often small or in multi-tasking mode. In reality, most teams have less time and must do more with less, hence the importance of having effective tools.

NEW GENERATION OF CLOUD APPLICATIONS

Older, non-connected RMS systems are out, cloud-based applications (open API) are definitely in. More affordable and offered as subscriptions, they are easy to use, use reliable data from various sources and offer efficient and fast integration support.This is the new generation of players that offer intuitive solutions that deliver ROI in the first year of use. Interconnected applications that use accurate data and ultimately enable better decision making; it’s impossible to imagine working any other way!

THE REVENUE MANAGER 4.0

How has the role of the revenue manager changed in recent months? It’s definitely less focused on a hotel presence because it’s becoming more strategic than ever, uses powerful applications that allow it to quickly analyze trends with real-time data and KPIs.

Strategies were implemented in response to the pandemic: centralizing revenue optimization across properties, working more closely with other departments, and better leveraging data and analytics. “We’ve tried to focus more on the customer journey from start to finish, and then find where we have opportunities to improve the customer experience,” explains Alex Cisneros, senior V-P revenue generation for Red Roof Inn.

Revenue management is no longer limited to pricing, but also includes customer journey analysis. This is a trend we see in many hotel chains. Since 90% of the clientele is at the leisure level, the connection with the digital marketing team is all the more necessary in order to increase the visibility through the distribution channels specific to this segment.

For independent hotels that do not have the possibility to have a dedicated revenue management person, specialized consultants are increasingly called upon to provide support and recommendations to the teams in place according to their needs.

ESSENTIAL RELIABLE DATA

The quality and availability of data and the ability to interpret this information quickly and efficiently has become a panacea for hoteliers. Business intelligence (BI) tools are crucial in order to better manage segmentation, competition, contact points with various clienteles and especially to understand and react quickly when metrics are not going as expected.

No longer do we just want to maximize the average rate based on occupancy, we now need to do analysis to increase RevPAR so that the hotel is open and the bills are paid. “Now everyone needs to see all the different data points at the same time,” says Christen Garb, vice president, Global Revenue Management Operations for the Hyatt hotel chain. “It’s so critical. I think it’s made us better from an analytics standpoint.”

THE REQUIRED COLLABORATION OF TEAMS

Collaboration between the various teams will inevitably be the golden rule for leaders of the future. We’re not just talking about sales, marketing and revenue management, but also other areas such as operations, finance, asset management and real estate. Because these disciplines are all connected and decisions have a direct impact on each other.

THE NECESSARY CUSTOMER COMMUNICATION

Personalizing messages, marketing offers, emails, and newsletters based on patterns that emerge from the data is inseparable from pricing strategies based on product attributes and demand. CRM applications make this connection by enabling you to drive additional revenue by engaging and retaining customers at specific points in their journey to talk to them about what interests them, when they are receptive.

A NEW APPROACH TO FORECASTING BASED ON THE PRESENT AND FUTURE

We are beginning a new era where we rely on the present and the future and not the past to make reliable forecasts. We will not go back to the way things were done in 2019, recent trends will prevail and will continue to evolve. We are using more and more granular data and super-powerful algorithms. Leveraging big data, automation, machine learning and artificial intelligence is literally the future for our industry.

Revenue managers will not be replaced, they are still essential, but modern revenue management systems will make their job easier by allowing for much faster decision making than with older systems. Algorithms will take care of pricing and inventory management and revenue managers will be able to use their creativity and imagination to come up with new and innovative strategies.

HOW TO GET THE MOST OUT OF YOUR GAME?

A revolution is underway, not only for revenue management but for the entire hotel industry! The hoteliers who will thrive after the crisis are those who will be agile, able to adapt and learn quickly and use the technology that is at their service more than ever.

HOTELUS CAN HELP YOU

HOTELUS offers hotel establishments various services related to revenue management: assessment, selection and implementation of applications appropriate to your operations, development of strategies and measurement of results, guidance and coaching.

Contact us for a free evaluation!

SOME REFERENCES

* RMS (Revenue Management System) : IDeaS, GameChanger de Duetto, Pace Revenue, Spot Pilot, Atomize, etc.
* CRM (Customer Relationship Management) : Cendyn, Revinate, LoungeUp, SmartHost, etc.
* BI (Business Intelligence) : OTA Insight, HotelIQ, Scoreboard de Duetto, etc.
* The Revenue Manager Webinar #8 The Travel Tech Channel
* HSMAI & Revenue Analytics White Paper

November 23, 2020 – HOTELUS Digital and LoungeUp SAS announced today that the LoungeUp digital platform is now available to Canadian hotels.

” Our rigorous research and evaluations led us to LoungeUp, a digital platform that is functionally rich, flexible, and well-integrated into the hotel digital ecosystem. With COVID-19, the LoungeUp platform is even more relevant because it enables the guest to do all its transactions on his own mobile, facilitating social distancing. We were convinced by the professionalism, expertise and commitment of the LoungeUp team,” says Michel Poirier, President of HOTELUS Digital.

Start-up of the Welcome City Lab, the world’s first incubator dedicated to tourism, LoungeUp is now a European leader with more than 2,550 hotel installations in 40 countries. Thanks to this solution, hoteliers remain connected with their guests throughout their entire stay and guests can access hotel services with their mobile device. A completely paperless guest journey ensures optimal health security.

“Our discussions with the HOTELUS team confirmed that we had found the right partner for our development in Canada. The HOTELUS team shares our values of listening to our customers, offering quality products and services to Canadian hoteliers,” says Mathieu Pollet, Co-founder and CEO of LoungeUp.

PLATFORM CONTENT

LoungeUp helps tourist accommodation providers increase their revenues and customer satisfaction thanks to the personalization of the guest relation. The platform includes a multi-channel Messaging module, a Guest Portal that can be used in Web or native mode (IOS/Android) and a Guest Profile module centralizing all your data in one place. For more details click here.

BENEFITS FOR GUESTS

Personalized interactions engage the guests and make them feel as welcome as if they were at home. With LoungeUp, everything is well integrated end-to-end and seamless for the guest. With his mobile device, he can among other things, communicate with the staff at any time, obtain information about the hotel and tourist activities in the area, check-in online, obtain a digital key, order all the services offered by the hotel, book a restaurant, order a taxi and review and pay for his stay. LoungeUp is designed in “Mobile First” mode and tailored to the needs and expectations of today’s travelers!

BENEFITS FOR HOTELS

Including powerful technological tools, LoungeUp allows hoteliers to personalize guest interactions, thus improving their satisfaction, increasing additional revenues, and building guest loyalty. The platform’s digital marketing features enable hoteliers to get to know their guests better and encourage them to book directly through personalized offers. With LoungeUp, hotel teams dematerialize all procedures with guests on their mobile devices, thus contributing to the social distancing required by COVID-19 while protecting guests and teams. Hotel staff are more productive, the guest experience is more enjoyable and customer satisfaction increases.

The features and benefits of LoungeUp are numerous. For the hotelier, there is no longer any need for a CRM separate from the operational functions of the hotel. LoungeUp integrates with the hotel’s management system and customer data is centralized and enriched with each customer contact. The hotel’s services are easy to present to the guest and this results in a significant increase in revenue per guest. With the powerful LoungeUp tools, hotel staff has more time to focus on customer relations.

The LoungeUp platform is offered on a monthly subscription basis, with price varying according to the selected modules and the property size.

For more information, visit section SOLUTIONS of our website and contact us!