Most problems are relative to property management and issues arising from essentially what is a lack of professional property management policy and/or implemented house rules that set the standard of conduct relative to that property. I respect a lot of holiday home owners don’t want to be property managers but ultimately find themselves as owners of the property having to deal with and resolve short term tenancy issues.

As an owner of several holiday homes i don’t get involved in property management issues anymore and that’s because as i have a property manager in each region with a specific set of house rules to hand out to each person upon check in, these are also laminated on the wall in each significant entertaining area to ensure even visiting guests cannot escape from reading them.

Click here for an unedited version of my house rules that have proven to work! I suggest any home owners looking for inspiration about what needs to be written and included in their house rules reads the PDF.

Here are my top reasons you should give free Wi-Fi at your hospitality or tourism business;

• A recent survey by Hotels.com reported that free Wi-Fi is a must when choosing a hotel room and that it is now the primary in-room and hotel perk that they will base their decision around.
• 31% of those surveyed by hotels.com said they expect free Wi-Fi in a hotel now.
• People are more likely to mention and talk about your business on social media if they are given the opportunity to connect easily with free Wi-Fi.
• You’ll encourage roaming sales people to use your cafe or bar for meetings with people that live locally and will probably come back.
• Everybody knows how inexpensive internet is, by charging your customers; they know it’s just another way for you to make more money on top of their coffee.
• It can encourage people to stay in your cafe or restaurant for longer & spend more money.
• If you don’t, you’ll be put to shame by the Canyons Resort in Utah in the US, who have managed to offer free Wi-Fi from Canyon to Canyon covering its entire hotel, meeting space and ski fields!
• You’ll also be behind this little town in rural Otago that offers free Wi-Fi throughout the whole main street. (It works; I used to drive straight through!)
• By adding a landing page you’ll encourage more people to Like your brand on Facebook, Follow you on Twitter or check-in on FourSquare.
• The technology to set up a secure free Wi-Fi spot is now very affordable & the ongoing costs minimal.
• You’ll actively encourage new customers.
• If they can run to the cost of offering free Wi-Fi on buses and planes, why can’t you?
• You stop the complaints from people who expect it.
• Giving something for free will make you feel good inside.
• Most importantly, because your clients wants it!

If you oversee the website of an RTO or DMO why not try adding ‘places you can access free Wi-Fi’ to your home page. It will be great for your visitors and a compelling incentive for your operators to start offering it!

Do you offer free Wi-Fi at your business? Do you plan to during 2012?
Do you run a travel site? Do you let people filter by properties that offer free Wi-Fi?
Do you look for places with free Wi-Fi as a consumer? Would you like to see more places offer free WiFi?

I’d love to hear your thoughts as a business operator and as a consumer.

As always, if you enjoyed the blog post then please share it on Twitter and let other people have their say too!

The concept of being on call directly to guests 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, was perhaps the area that I hadn’t thought would be so intrusive, particularly considering I’ve always been on call. It struck me half way through my ‘motelier’ experience, that the main difference was that when I was called in my positions at hotels, it was almost always a member of staff ringing – not the guests themselves. I couldn’t help but feel that the guests were waiting for me sit down before coming to ring the reception bell, and sod’s law, it was always the best bit of the film I was watching or right in the middle of dinner. I quickly discovered why my friends had MySky!

The diversity of work also caught me off guard. Whilst I was a General Manager of a hotel, I felt that I was a jack of all trades, helping to jump in the restaurant when needed, covering reception or even stripping beds if need be. What I had never really considered was that other than the food and beverage areas, the diversity of skills and duties was very similar. The only difference being, where in a hotel you have a number of team members to fulfill these roles, in a motel, bluntly, you don’t.

Another significant difference that really struck me was how lonely you can feel. In a hotel environment, there’s always someone around, whether it be a guest or another member of the team. In fact, one of the things that I miss most about working within a hotel is the social aspect of the work environment and role. Other than checking in, perhaps borrowing a DVD or seeking advice of where to visit, I hardly saw the motel guests at all!

After a couple of years of regularly conversing with a number of friends who own motels, as well as providing consultancy to a few too, here are a couple of my top tips to those running a motel style accommodation business;

• Look into getting a reservation system and channel manager, if you’ve not already got one. With all the things you’ve already got to do, don’t be wasting your time manually checking in to Wotif every time you sell a room. For a very little outlay each month with companies like Seekom, ResBook or Strait PMS, you could be saving yourself a lot of work!
• Take a day off. Make sure you find someone who can give you a day off every week or a short break regularly. With the amount of hours you work and the constant pressure of being ‘on-call,’ it’s important you give yourself a break. Not just for your sake, but for your guests too – the last thing anyone wants is a tired and grumpy host when on holiday!

I’ve stayed in a number of motels across New Zealand and received amazing service from friendly moteliers, through to the rudest from some of the most un-friendliest. I think you’ve got to be someone quite special to pull of being a good motelier. After just a few days in the shoes of a motelier, I can assure you, it’s really not my calling!

Upon moving to New Zealand I remember pondering as to where the division between hospitality and tourism begins and ends. Thinking back I think these thoughts may have been prompted by having to classify your ‘sector’ on Linkedin. Coming from the UK, I would suggest that as a hotelier or restauranter you would have almost certainly consider yourself part of the hospitality industry; however in New Zealand I would many hoteliers would consider themselves part of the tourism industry.

In the past few weeks, I have again been contemplating the relationship between tourism and hospitality. This time the catalyst for these thoughts has come through my recent participation as a panelist in the Brand and Marketing seminar at The Restaurant and Bar Show. One of the key themes around seminars at the Restaurant and Bar Show was the Rugby World Cup and in particularly how restaurants and bars can make the most out of this fast approaching event. Of course many of the seminars were tailored towards what you can and can’t do in terms of the strict licencing of the RWC brand, ours was more orientated towards ways to promote and market your business as well as using the opportunity for brand awareness.

Upon speaking to Auckland Restauranter and fellow panelist, Luke Dallow, it became clear that both of us wanted to ensure what we delivered gave advice and thoughts around branding and marketing that would flow on beyond RWC 2011. Within the run up to the event, I conversed with a number of restaurant and bar owners. There is a clear distinction between those restaurants in key tourist resorts like Queenstown from those in destinations that rely more heavily on local traffic, such as Dunedin. Those in tourist resorts often seem to heavily promote themselves, whilst I would suggest that many outside of these areas don’t market themselves well, if at all.

Interestingly, for a large number of restaurant and bar owners outside the main tourist hotspots, I see that the Rugby World Cup has simply acted as an awakening, encouraging them to realise the potential in the tourism market. Whilst I understand that not all restaurants will receive a large number of tourists, there are certainly some low cost ways that these businesses can ensure they are, at least, on the radar of passing tourists.

For restaurants and bars who may not have seen themselves as a tourism operator until now, a good starting point is to contact your regional tourism organisation. It is important to know that the set-up of regional tourism organisations differs across New Zealand, with some being membership based, some being funded through your rates and others you may have to pay for services. You can find their details of your regional tourism organisation by following this link.

Here are a few ways that they may be able to help you;

• Connect you with marketing groups
• Advise you about the tourism market in your area.
• List your restaurant or bar to be listed on their website.
• Providing training and updates.
• Adding you to their databases, so you receive updates and information on upcoming opportunities.

What I’ve come to realise is that by putting a label on your sector, sometimes you may be closing doors. By embracing that your business is in the tourism and hospitality industry, you could well be seeing more people through your door! With around 2.5 million tourists visiting New Zealand yearly, the 85,000 visitors for the Rugby World Cup is the tip of the iceberg; don’t let the Rugby World Cup be the be all and end all for your restaurant or bar, use it as the prompt that helped you to realise the potential in international and domestic visitors.

I hope you found this blog post useful and as always please feel free to leave your own experiences or any comments. Make sure you rate the blog so I know whether you found it helpful. If you did – retweet it, to share it with others.

Dunedin has a wide and diverse offering of attractions and tours available to visitors, with so much to see and do. Having such a broad variety does have its down fall however, with many visitors staying only one or two nights, often people are unsure how to spend their short time. Members of the St Clair Beach Resort reception team regularly get asked what the ‘must do’s’ are for Dunedin – a hard question to answer with such a broad range of product. A question made easier through those businesses that package – and package well.

A product that the reception team have no problem in selling is Monarch Wildlife Cruises and Tours. John and Jenny Milburn, the owners of the Monarch have packaged a number of tour itineraries based around their core product – a cruise on the m.v. Monarch.

Yes, there are plenty of other good tour companies in Dunedin working with multiple products – so why have I highlighted Monarch as a good example? A professional operation, good products and a good reputation is always a good start, however I feel that there is a number of other reason’s why our reception team reaches for the Monarch leaflet first.

Range

As someone selling an attraction or tour, you don’t want to overwhelm the person with too much information at once. Often you don’t have too much time with the guest, but within this short time you want to ensure that they are going to get the best out of their experience. The last thing the guest wants is to be given too many options, but at the same time they want good recommendations.

Monarch offer four different tour packages, with an array of additional options including trips to a number of other notable attractions in the city. Whether the guest is looking to see Albatross or Penguins, visit Larnach Castle, check out the world’s steepest street, see the sights of the city or all of the above – an option is available right there in that three-fold brochure.

This makes the brochure a high contender when you are picking up just two or three for the guest to peruse.

Consistency & Regularity

When recommending a trip or tour, the last thing you want is a last minute cancellation, or any uncertainty that the tour will be available. Guest satisfaction is everything, no one wants something out of their control to impede on their guests enjoyment. Having to reach into a filing cabinet or log-on to a website to find out what days the tour is running is also very frustrating, often putting off the seller yet again.

As a consumer I understand the disappointment of unclear operating times and last minute cancellations only too well. A recent experience of this kind was late last year, when my partner and I stayed on Stewart Island. Like many tourists we had checked out all the activity websites before we departed and planned to book on arrival, only to find that all the tours had minimum numbers that were not going to be fulfilled at that time of year – resulting in a very quiet and disappointing three days for us.

Again, on this section the Monarch scores full points. They run multiple trips a day, everyday, with no risk of cancellation.

Ease

After you’ve made your recommendation and convinced the person that the trip or tour is right for them, you have to seal the deal as quickly as possible. All to often I see agents or sellers of product spend a cringe worthy amount of time explaining the logistics of travel and parking, followed by a root around in their draw for ten minutes trying to find a dusty voucher book which leads on to a phone call and another 5 minutes of writing the ticket out. The easier you can make the booking process for the agent, the more likely the sale and ultimately the better it is for you.

A few things that you can do to speed this up:

• Online availability and instant confirmation set-up through a channel manager is by far the quickest and easiest way for an agent to book. At St Clair Beach Resort we have recently signed up with Whyte Water for the RTBS system who promote an easy to use booking system for accommodation providers, avoiding telephone calls and voucher writing – an all round winner.
• Until you have this set up try having a quick phone option clearly displayed on your correspondence to your agents that tells them which option to choose on the phone, rather than hearing the 21 options.
• Send out availability for your attraction/tours to accommodation providers by email regularly. You should make sure it is going to reception to ensure it doesn’t just get deleted. (This will also help keep your product fresh in the minds of your agents. You can also fill distressed inventory through special offers.)
• If you are sticking with voucher books, make sure these are small and easy to complete.

The Monarch are currently investigating real time booking systems, however their current system is still straight forward with their leaflets giving clear information about pick up times and directions, leaving only a short phone call and voucher completion. No issue with explaining parking as with each of the packages we promote the guest will be picked up and returned to the hotel door for no extra cost.

Commission and worth the up-sell

As an agent or on-seller of tourism product, you will of course want to know that the activity or attraction offers commission. If you are the person selling the attraction or activity you will want it to be worth your while selling the product – in other words that the value of the ticket is a good amount. Like many accommodation operators, St Clair Beach Resort offers its reception staff an incentive in the way of commission. One of the main reason they’re encourage to sell a Monarch package is because they know the commission on a $100 or $200 package is quite considerable and hence worth their while spending the time recommending and up-selling to the guest.

Since being here in New Zealand, I have spoken to many smaller operators who find it difficult to attract the business of accommodation agents or information centre’s. For many the problem will be their low ticket cost, packaging with other attractions or transport companies often helps increase business in this case – although it must be remembered that you might have to give better discount to the company pulling the package together to make it worth their while.

Packaging and building in an allowance for commission of your product is the key, without the relevant incentive it is very hard to on-sell your product.

I hope you found this blog post useful and as always please feel free to leave your own experiences or any comments. Make sure you rate the blog so I know whether you found it helpful. If you did – retweet it, to share it with others.

In the past few days I’ve been creating accommodation packages for St Clair Beach Resort, in a move to freshen up our website and give more options to our guests, hence the prompt for writing this blog post.

Some of the key benefits of packaging are:

• The ability to leverage off the publicity or promotion of an existing product or event – this can be through web links, search engine results and often brochures too.
• You are offering a broader range of marketable products around your core business – accommodation. Remember that not many people will travel for the experience of staying with a particular accommodation!
• You are supporting other businesses plus ensuring that your guests depart with a great experience of your city and of course, your accommodation.
• Getting media attention for a hotel can often be hard, many hotels use packages as a great way to attraction good PR. (The Langham , Auckland is very good at this!)
• Increased length of stay and spend, not only good for your hotel but also the local economy too!

So, you understand the benefits behind packaging, but who should you package with? Three popular ways to package are;

Events

Whether it be Warbirds Over Wanaka, ID Fashion here in Dunedin, the V8 Supercars in Hamilton or Wellington on a Plate, we have some great local, national and international events right across New Zealand. There are a few different ways that packaging around events can work…

• Approach the organiser directly and investigate whether they would be interested in partnering with you, ultimately it’s all further exposure for the event.
• If you think the event is going to be a sell out, you could always buy the tickets and sell them within an accommodation package. Just be careful of the risk however, if it doesn’t sell out you might have a lot of space to spread out at that concert or event!
• You can create a package around the event, with transport or themed extra’s in the room for those people who have already got their tickets.

It’s also worth noting that the event doesn’t have to be on your doorstep, one of the packages I was involved with at Gleneagles, was a trip to the Edinburgh Tattoo. For those of you that aren’t too familiar with Scottish geography, Edinburgh is an hour from Gleneagles – the key is to make the journey part of the package experience too!

Activities and Attractions

Creating packages with local attractions or tour operators is always popular – working together in this way quite often helps your local attractions sell their higher end products whilst giving you the added benefit of a longer stay.

Rather than reinventing the wheel, have a look at what is going on around your local area and see what packages operators are offering. Don’t create yourself more work than you have to. We have been offering a self-created package, called Discover Dunedin at St Clair Beach Resort for more than one year. Although very popular, this package is not the easiest to book with 6 different operators, welcome letter and the issue of variable rates from some of the attractions too.
We will shortly release a wider range of accommodation packages utilising existing packages created by local tour companies along with additional extras like breakfast and arrival gifts in the room. As well as the traditional tourist attractions, packaging with golf courses, dining outlets and spa’s is also very popular too!

Don’t just think that creating these packages should be for large hotels – check out the website of Eichardts Private Hotel in Queenstown – they’ve created two distinct packages around local attractions.

Internal Packages

If you have a restaurant, golf course, casino or spa on site, make the most of it and create accommodation packages around these features too. It again, will help to guarantee the in-house spend before arrival.

One business that packages internally very well is SkyCity Auckland, who create packages around many of their internal products.

A couple of points of advice when you are putting your packages together:

• Don’t think that you always have to discount every element of the package to make it attractive. Many consumers like to book packages because of the ease of doing so, the safety of knowing someone else is looking after the arrangements or even because of its exclusivity. Don’t lose money where you don’t have too…try adding value rather than reducing revenue!
• Airlines, travel agents and wholesalers are always on the look out for the potential to package. Rather than doing all the leg work yourself you can always suggest the idea of packaging you product for an event or particular attraction to your contacts at your RTO or preferred wholesaler.

So you’ve got the perfect package, but how do you promote it?

Your own website is always a good start when promoting your packages but make sure your load them into your on-line booking inventory, anything that makes your package easier to book with encourage your potential guests.
Once loaded on to your on-line booking inventory make sure you distribute it through your channel manager so that people can book it using third party website like WOTIF or Expedia. (If you are doing this remember to make sure you take into account the commission rate.)  
You can also create the package on NewZealand.com and link it to your relevant article, this way people can book directly on your site, directed through the TNZ site – a great new feature that is working very well for us.  It may also be worthwhile checking with your RTO whether they promote packages on their website or through your local I-Site.

I hope this blog post useful and as always please feel free to leave your own experiences or any comments. Make sure you rate the blog so I know whether you found it helpful. If you did – retweet it, to share it with others!

To many the changes to this act seem obvious to affect hotels, restaurants, bars, café’s and taverns, however it is also important to remember with changes to special licences and off-licences the changes could also effect wineries, ferries, airlines, gift shops, special events, festivals as well as entertainment and sporting venues. The changes to this bill will have effects right across the tourism industry.

I would very much recommend you visit the HANZ website, where there is more in-depth information on what the reforms could mean to different licence holders, giving you information on how to write a submission – http://www.hanz.org.nz/industry/alcohol_reform_bill.html

I have completed the submissions from our three licenced outlets, which highlighted a number of areas resulting in significant loss of revenue, extra staffing hours through the changing of procedures and additional costs through increased fees.

Many of the industry colleagues I have spoken to recently have not yet put in a submission – many unsure whether they will. If your business will be affected by these proposed changes I strongly recommend that you make a submission – ultimately that is the reason for this process. Submission close on 18th February – make sure you have your say!

Being very market focused, it was obvious that it will never be a popular decision to surcharge; however as someone that also has responsibility over the finances of the business it just doesn’t add up, not to.

At one of our outlets, we work on a 32% staffing cost. We don’t have enough staff to only have members of staff that don’t usually work that day, work (Especially when Christmas fell on the weekend!) We want to continue providing a high level of service, so I will not under staff our restaurant, hence we have no real option but to pay the time and half plus a day-in-lieu. Suddenly our staffing cost becomes 80%, leaving no room for our food/beverage cost or our overheads (of which we have many!)

When discussing our stance on this highly controversial issue with my management team, I had a mixed response…some said ‘let’s close,’ others said that we should spread the costs over the year whilst others suggested putting a 20% surcharge in place.

Rather than helping, I felt that this discussion had raised even more problems rather than solutions! As with most other regions, here in Dunedin we have those that choose to surcharge and others that decide not to. I can understand outlets with low staff costs and an increase in business on these day’s choosing not to surcharge, but for us neither is a reality.

Closing is not an option, we are a hotel and must be open for our residents – so why not be open to external guests, providing a service to our regulars and other visitors to the city.

To spread the costs across the year seems most logical, however with eleven public holidays and a number of other dates that are observed adding to the bill…it are a large expense to spread. You also have to ask yourself, is it really fair to add this cost onto the bills of everyone else throughout the year?

With most restaurants and cafés choosing to surcharge, most consumers presume there will be a surcharge. If we made a decision not to surcharge, it then bodes the question how do you let guests know? To those businesses with a high foot traffic simply putting a sign up would probably suffice, but what for the rest of us?  Perhaps I could follow in the footsteps of those who choose to advertise the proud fact that they don’t surcharge. To me this seems even barmier as this then adds to your cost of public holidays yet more!

I feel that the decision we made was a fair one, we charge a 15% surcharge on public holidays – not opting to follow the 20% trend of other contemporary dining restaurants. We ensure that any guest that reserves a table is aware of the surcharge from the outset, we display clear signs on our external doors and have a footnote on our menus throughout the year.

This way we are remaining open when many are not, ensuring we fulfill our responsibility to our regulars, residents and tourists. We communicate this to our guests clearly and thus leave it at the discretion of our patrons as to whether they choose to dine.

One year in, yes, we still get those who are unhappy with our stance, however these days tick over nicely and best of all – I have now come to peace with the decision we made to surcharge.

But we have to recognize that  online customer reviews are part of the future of the accommodation industry. Part of your future.  To help you understand the shift change, here is a list of some good articles on research into this user-generated content business. Most of the research is American based so not always directly translatable to our market – however it does give a good indication of where we are headed.

Brand Republic: Online reviews key to purchase decisions.

“..84% of respondents said they were more likely to check online for reviews before making a purchase than compared to 12 months ago.” Read the full article.

Hotel Marketing: Expedia’s Jennifer Davies on user-generated content and booking conversion

“..users look for authentic information that doesn’t appear too skewed towards the positive or negative…” Read the full article.

Bizzare Voice: Power of Word of Mouth.

“Most word of mouth is positive. Across all of Bazaarvoice US clients, 80% of product ratings are 4 or 5 stars out of 5. Across all of Bazaarvoice UK clients, 88% of product ratings are 4 or 5 stars out of 5. (“J Curve,” Bazaarvoice and Keller Fay)…” Read the full article.

Forbes: The upside of Bad Online Customer Reviews.

“eBags is among the only 50% of online retailers that offer online ratings and reviews, according to the latest figures from Forrester research. Meanwhile, 80% of Web buyers troll reviews when shopping online. The lingering fear: Negative reviews will send customers running the other way…” Read the full article.

Biz Report: 84% of Americans influenced by online customer reviews.

“What is more interesting is that half of respondents turned to online customer reviews early on in the decision-making process. “This is critical for companies to understand as they fight to be considered by consumers and look for ways to be ever-present through a variety of channels and media outlets….” Read the full article.

eMarketer.com: Customer Product Reviews – the next Generation.

“Customer product reviews are becoming a fixture on retail and consumer brand websites, with over 80% of retailers planning to feature them by the end of 2010. The accelerated adoption of customer reviews indicates a more enlightened approach to handling negative comments—that is, occasional negative reviews do not hurt sales…” Read the full article.

IT Business Edge: Online Customer Reviews: Take Bad with the Good.

“Taking a more proactive approach to participating in, monitoring and controlling online reviews may very well be one of the many ways organizations can influence both consumer consideration and, ultimately, the buying decision…” Read the full article.

Focus: Using Customer and Peer Reviews Efficiently for Cross-Channel Marketing Purposes.

“If you are brave enough to open your site and other online presences in a professional and “open” manner for honest customer reviews, you will benefit greatly: trust, a better conversion, SEO, links, buzz, cross-channel interaction possibilities, user-generated content, customer satisfaction, sales, important opinions for his business, you name it…” Read the full article.

Conversionation.net: Research confirms importance of opinions of others.

“The fact that consumers are influenced by others, is an opportunity, a threat and at the same time probably an expression of the sociological phenomenon that people seem to form their ideas less than before. However, what else can you expect from a world bulging with information and opinions?…” Read the full article.

So what can you do..

• Encourage reviews – Try to get everyone whose stays to write a review especially people who tell you they had a good time
• Stay informed – No point sticking your head in the sand.
• Find out what ‘s being said about you – Sign up for any free tools… Google Alerts, Fossick.com (we’ll email you when a review is left).

The best way to have a good reputation is to manage it, rather than waiting or reacting . Customize your listing, join in the debates, be active.

Will money be left on the table with World Cup accommodation next year? There’s a decent storm brewing over room rates in September/October 2011 with many fearing over-inflated room rates will dent New Zealand’s reputation and will make tourists feel as though they have had their wallets emptied at gunpoint.

Some of this talk is fair but most of it is overly black and white. You can’t speak of September/October 2011 as though it is one homogenous set of dates with the same level of supply and demand; there is a huge variety of likely occupancy levels even from one day to the next in the same city.  A game day means town will be full and prices are likely to be high but the following days might see a “normal” or even below average occupancy as fans and teams leave town for the next venue.

Should an accommodation business faced with those dynamics be forced to keep game day rates low just to artificially uphold New Zealand’s reputation, or should they be allowed to let demand determine their rooms rates to a fair degree?

Recent controversy over a Christchurch hotel charging $2,400 for a single room night has put a spotlight on the issue, but instances like this are likely to be few and far between, at least to that extreme.

What is it about the World Cup that gets NZ so worked up over price? Hotel rooms in Auckland on the nights of the recent U2 concert were going at well over $1000 but nobody seemed to mind. Even Wellington on Bon Jovi night last week saw people paying in excess of $500 for a room. Those guests probably didn’t want to pay that much, but hey, town is full and so prices are high. It’s a reality that in most situations people find acceptable.

But not the World Cup. Is it because rugby is so dear to our hearts as a nation? Is it an almost socialist sense of fairness that everyone should have access to low-price accommodation during the World Cup because it is our ‘national game’?

Whatever the case it is clear the industry has a clear division between those who want to make a bit more money per night and keep themselves as full as they can over a long period (ie not just game days) and those who want to ensure they squeeze every last dollar out of every available room.

Just last week we had a Travelbug booking cancelled by the motellier that hadn’t realised the rates he was selling for in September next year. Rather than take the hit, he emailed the UK traveller that he couldn’t sell his room for such a “ridiculously low” rate. But the motellier just down the road was willing to re-accommodate the same guest at an only slightly higher rate than he was selling at this year because he doesn’t see the point in ratcheting rates too high on non-game days.

So how will it wash up next year? No toothpaste on offer, toothpaste at $10 or toothpaste at $50? Only time will tell but if you believe the hype then the world is watching….

Obtaining online bookings for you property is much easier…and cheaper… than you may think. And it can be achieved in days – not weeks or months. This  four pronged approach will ensure your online bookings increase as well as allowing you to maximise revenue from each booking.

So, where do you start? Easy. You can achieve 75 per cent of your online strategy very quickly, cheaply and effectively. The remaining 25 per cent (if you need it) will take more thought and external assistance, but achieving the majority of your objectives instantly allows you to focus on getting the last 25 per cent right.

The first 75 per cent :

The first three  prongs of the approach require you to sign up to an effective channel manager, get yourself a top performing booking engine (a commission free one), and spruce up your website (the last thing you want is a great looking booking engine on a tired old site).

That’s the first 75 per cent of the strategy. Can it really be that simple? Yes, and here is why:

1. Channel Manager

This clever little piece of technology will allow you to list on a multitude of top performing online booking sites worldwide.  The good ones will also link to wholesalers, corporate booking sites and the like. Why is this so important?

Let’s look at a site like Expedia. Expedia invests many millions of dollars on internet search, TV and radio, travel agency relationships, affiliate programs and social media to ensure that your property is put in front of consumers worldwide. Not many accommodation providers can afford to give their property this kind of exposure, so allowing leading booking sites to do it on your behalf is a great way to participate, particularly since it is free to sign up, easy to manage through your channel manager, and you only pay a success fee when a booking occurs.

Have you ever wondered why the property down the road gets more customers from Asia or the UK than you? It could be because they are using their channel manager to update Agoda and Booking.com, the two  leading sites in Asia and the UK respectively.

So what to look for in a channel manager?

• Make sure your channel manager offers a rich selection of major overseas sites; you are limiting your success if you can only update local booking sites
• Make sure you go with a trusted name, that has a significant support team behind them and offers extras like weekend support.
• Ensure your channel manager offers a 2 way, pooled inventory system where inventory is automatically adjusted on all sites when a booking is made on any site. This will maximize your chance of getting bookings while minimizing overbooking risk. Tools that force you to split your inventory across sites and only offer one way updates are yesterday’s news.

2. Online Booking Engine For Your Own Site

This is the one you really want to get right. This determines if people coming to your site with the intent to book, actually end up booking your property or abandoning the booking and going elsewhere. Results from a leading online research company reveal that more than 40 per cent of all bookings on a hotel’s own website are abandoned during the booking cycle due to a complex booking process, as well as sluggish performance by the booking engine on the site (wait time).

So what you are looking for is a booking engine that is:

• Commission free (don’t pay someone else for bookings that are rightfully yours)
• Offers an easy to use, 2 step booking process
• Offers extremely fast response times.

It also won’t hurt if your booking engine looks sexy, allows rich media content like photo libraries of your property, rooms and online maps, and allows you to customise and colour match your website theme to ensure consistency of your brand.

3. Your Own Website

This is the face of your hotel to the entire world. Invest a little to make it appealing. It will pay you back many times. There are companies out there that can provide you with a quality hosted website, at a very reasonable cost.

One golden rule to remember when getting a new website is MAINTAIN OWNERSHIP OF YOUR OWN DOMAIN NAME! If you let your website provider own or take control of the ownership of your domain, you will be tied to them for life and at the mercy of whatever prices they want to charge you.

Owning your domain name means you control the destiny of your own website.

The last 25 per cent:

So, you now have 75 per cent of a solid online booking strategy. The last 25 per cent (the fourth prong of our approach) is a detailed and in depth subject, but is equally important as the first 75 per cent.

Assuming you are not 100 per cent occupied after getting a channel manager, quality booking engine and spruced up website, then you will want to consider: search engine marketing and search engine optimisation strategies (SEO and SEM), social media strategies (if applicable), and other direct marketing strategies to drive business to your own website – where of course your new booking engine will do a fantastic job of converting bookings.

If you do not have the expertise to devise and execute such strategies, then it is advisable to engage an external, independent online marketing expert to assist you.

An important note: If you intend on engaging an SEO expert to assist you in the future, then it is worthwhile engaging them prior to your new website being built. The website content and structure can affect SEO results significantly. The website designer/builder does not need to be the same person, but they should work together on the website to ensure best results.

Do not be scared of this last step. You do not have to spend thousands upon thousands – you can spend as much or as little as you want to achieve varying results. With SEO, you should ensure you establish a pay by the month deal so that you can stop at any time. On average, expect a time period of about six months for an SEO strategy to make a difference to the traffic coming to your website.

Accommodation providers using the Bookit system and on Travelbug will be able to login to Bookit to set up their auction for any of their room products and the commission will be 10% (including credit card fees).

For the winner of the auction they will provided with a link to a normal Travelbug booking page to complete the booking details and make payment online within 24 hours of winning the auction, so the booking confirmation and payments will be handled as normal via Bookit.

As with any type of auction you can set a reserve price and a buy now price.  The key requirement to place an auction on Trade Me for an accommodation booking is that the room availability must be guaranteed by the operator – so be careful about the date range you set for the date of travel and note that the availability is manually allocated, it is not linked with your Bookit availability.

Given operators have to be certain about the room availability to ensure the success of the auction I’d expect only operators with large inventory levels to be confident with using this and can imagine some awkward situations if the room auction dates get sold out through other booking channels prior to the end of an auction, hmmmm.

The set up looks easy enough though so it will be interesting to see how this gets adopted by accommodation providers, they can also develop packages to auction. Trade Me Travel also intends to add flights, event tickets and activities to this auction section on Trade Me.

Simply put, a channel manager is Internet-based software that allows accommodation providers to manage availability and rates across a multitude of online channels from a single easy-to-use web page. The real benefits to the accommodation business are many and significantly outweigh the investment requirements to get up and running on this vital piece of software. As an accommodation provider, the major business benefits accruing to you include:

• More accurate availability and price parity on online booking channels – by making a single change, your staff can update multitudes of websites immediately. This means availability and pricing across sites will be current, accurate and require minimal staff training to maintain.
• The capability to list on many more online booking channels with little or no additional effort for each channel you add. The result is increased distribution without increased cost and you are able to put your rooms in front of millions of consumers around the globe.
• Free and easy marketing for your property – the major booking site players have the money and the will to market your property effectively online, so let them!
• Increased accuracy with your availability and rates, coupled with increased exposure to local and international online booking channels means increased bookings revenue and more dollars on your bottom line.
• Elimination of double bookings. Any channel manager worth its salt will automatically adjust inventory across all sites when a booking occurs on any site. This means you can have all your availability on all sites all the time and feel secure. This is known as the Pooled Inventory Model and it means you can maximise your chance of being booked without being overbooked.

So, we’ve established that a channel manager will increase your online bookings but what should an accommodation provider look for when selecting among the multitude of offerings on the market? Look for:

• A product that is based on the pooled inventory model, where the tool automatically adjusts inventory across all sites as soon as a booking occurs on any site – this will maximise your inventory and reduce double bookings.
• A product with no transaction fees. Channel managers that work on a flat monthly fee are the best value for money
• A product that allows you to manage inventory on your own website’s booking engine as well as on the third party booking sites.
• A product without lock-in contracts. A channel manager with no lock-in contracts has confidence in their ability to service your business and backs their own product – this is a good sign. Rapid changes in technology you could be left behind if you are locked in to a sub par product.
• A product that does all their own product development in-house – they are more likely to be able to respond to the changes your business needs and adapt their product to a changing online distribution landscape.
• Ensure that you select a channel manager that is backed by a significant support team that can ensure all your needs are taken care of under one roof.
• Ensure your channel manager updates all the major international bookings sites. The local sites are not enough and the international majors are spending up big on marketing your property to the world. Remember, you have to be in it to win it!
• Last but not least, it is advisable to pay your channel manager a visit and view their operation first hand. Many accommodation businesses are doing more than 40% of their business online. You cannot afford to put this business with a fly-by-night company. Remember, you are choosing a long term business partner, not just a product.

So what does the future hold for channel management?

Channel managers are rapidly evolving as the one-stop shop for all your online distribution needs, dis-intermediating some of the more traditional electronic distribution channels.

Channel managers are already connecting to online booking sites, wholesalers, traditional travel agents, GDS and inbound tour operators. Many additional channel options will be connected in the future and booking channels not connected to a reputable channel manager risk being left out in the cold.

The future will see the leading channel managers increasingly connected to more property and central reservation systems, providing seamless connectivity between the property management system and the online bookings channels. Facilitation of automatic delivery of all reservations from online channels directly into the property management systems, is an important capability of the future channel manager. Such a solution completely eliminates the need for the property to recapture online booking channel reservation emails into the property system.

With the proliferation of channel managers and similar distribution switch networks of the future, distribution and acquisition costs to accommodation providers will be dramatically reduced. Channel managers are a far more cost effective option than older distribution systems and these systems are already finding their market challenged with the new kids on the block.

The accommodation providers that embrace the right channel management technology today will have reap the benefits of increased online bookings, lower acquisition costs, increased business efficiency and ultimately, higher profit margins.

Can you afford not to?

The solution for most is use of “Channel Management” internet based software that will automatically update pricing and inventory across these key channels by linking the systems together (usually via an API link).

Not only does channel management eliminate the risk of double bookings, it also allows operators to achieve broad exposure for their business internationally and increase their total bookings…a no brainer really.

Increasingly mainstream Property Management System’s (PMS) will link to update the channel manager for you, so keep this in mind when selecting a PMS.

Some channel managers won’t require a link to an automated property management system so these ones can be just as applicable for B&B’s as they are for hotels, motels, and Backpacker accommodation.

Some key Channel Managers relevant for New Zealand accommodation are:

Siteminder

• Australian based with one of the most comprehensive lists of channels that it updates relevant for both NZ and Australian accommodation operators.
• Prices start from $49 per month
• They also offer a booking system for your website called the “Booking Button” from $29 per month
• Can use their channel manager without a PMS
• They have recently implemented a NZ freephone number to improve direct support for NZ operators

Seekom

• A 100% NZ based option with a growing list of key NZ and international booking channels that it updates
• Seekom is primarily an online booking solution but has been expanding it’s software capability and now offer a full PMS, along with channel management and content managed website solutions.
• You can use Seekom Channel Management option on it’s own from $39 per month and is even more cost effective to use it in combination with their online booking system and other solutions.
• Recently been chosen as the preferred channel manager for the HAPNZ group

Staah

• Another NZ owned organisation offering an internet based online booking system for your website and channel management. They also provide website design and SEO services.
• They can link to some the common PMS’s used in NZ
• Set monthly fees, (pricing not published on their website)

RoamFree

• Australian based with links to global channels, they offer channel management and an online booking tool for your own website that can also link to some PMS’s (although at this stage they are not key NZ based ones). Their channels tend to be Australian and Globally focused so exclude some key NZ channels.
• Set monthly fees (not published on their website)
  

Have you got any more information about these channel management options or other options you think are relevant? Leave a comment to let us know.

The decision on which online booking system you choose will come down to a few key areas that are relevant to your business:

Cost model

Is it commission based per booking or a set monthly fee?  The certainty of a set monthly fee will suit some and not others.  Those will lower volume bookings are likely to be better off using a supplier with a straight commission model.

Flexibility with Inventory Management

Can you opt to offer real time or on request bookings?  Can you mix it up between the 2 options?  There are definite key benefits to having control over your availability type for different time periods – particularly for smaller suppliers who don’t have the luxury of large room inventories to always offer instant bookings.

Distribution opportunities

Does the system offer a retail distribution channel or network to increase your booking opportunities?  Many of the key systems either have set up their own retail website, work with key retail websites or have been purchased by a large retailer.

Functionality

Does it come with all the bells and whistles of a full reservations system or simply accept online bookings?  Can you choose what you use in the system to suit your business?  Pick a system that will work with your needs.

Channel Management

Does it offer an automated link to updating key retail travel websites or at least link to a channel manager that does?  This ability opens up the opportunity for you to gain broad exposure and easily manage your pricing and availability with key online travel agents.

Easy to use

For both yourself and your customers.  It’s an important consideration as to how your customers experience the booking process on your own website.  It should be simple, quick and easy to understand (likewise for you!).

How Do New Zealand Online Booking Systems Score?

To me, a great system would offer you options in all of these areas and give you the choices to make it work for your business without dictating how you use it.  Does any of the New Zealand systems offer all of this right now?  Not really, there is no perfect system yet that will suit every type of tourism business.

Don’t get me wrong – many of the systems work fine and offer comprehensive solutions, but I think all of them fail in one respect or another so it’s a matter of picking the one that is the best fit for your business based on some of the criteria discussed above.

Click on the image to enlarge

Interesting to see an article on the Mashable website yesterday about Google Testing Hotel Prices in Google Maps. This news, which was announced fairly casually on Monday on the Google Maps blog siting it as an “experiment”, will no doubt spark up interest among the Online Travel Agents (OTA’s) as a new way to advertise pricing and get click through traffic to their website.

For travellers it’s means they can use google maps to find accommodation with the ability to search on dates of travel to get real time pricing and then click through to the provider website to book.

From Google’s perspective it’s probably seen as an evolution of the maps business listings and another way to develop advertising revenues rather than a desire to become part of the online travel market, however it will no doubt have an impact on OTA’s and introduce a fairly competitive necessity to be included as an advertiser on the google maps.

Of interest to accommodation providers will be whether they too get the opportunity to be one of the listed advertisers to attract direct bookings or whether the pricing has to come through an automated feed from participating OTA’s or booking systems – if it’s a bidding model like Google Adwords then it’s likely the large global OTA’s will dominate this opportunity.

Potentially the effects of this will be lesser felt in New Zealand as many accommodation suppliers do not participate on the global OTA’s, leaving the opportunity open perhaps for more of the local accommodation booking websites and accommodation providers themselves.

So time will tell on how this will all work and impact on the market, we will keep an eye on progress of the likely roll out of this new feature.  In the meantime, if I were an accommodation provider I’d make sure I’m listed on a selection of OTA’s.

The market has since become polluted with accommodation resellers, and at the same time, accommodation suppliers have been saturated for choice to assist in promoting & selling their properties. Recession hit both existing and these new players (some of which are amateurish websites with very little systems or processes but appear high on some search engines), and all have had to fight it out over the reduction of consumers.

With this proliferation of accommodation resellers and more recently channel managers such as Siteminder, Seekom, Staah & Roamfree marketing to potential accommodation suppliers, and the general exposure (advertising/marketing) of educating  consumers to booking accommodation online, many would have thought that skills would have been tuned and many making the most of the ‘new age selling tool’.

But, this is still not the case, and many accommodation suppliers across the country continue to display rooms that they either have sold out within hours of, forgotten to block off heavy demand dates such as ‘cycle challenge’, ‘rugby tests’, ‘New Years Eve’s’ or local events such as concerts etc, or simply just not updated their availability and claim the first two afore mentioned.

When these overbookings occur, for the most part problems are resolved quickly and efficiently with accommodation suppliers either ‘upgrading’ or moving other customers to accommodate the booking. Basically, adhering to the terms and conditions of a mutual agreement. But on the other hand there are still many accommodation suppliers that wash their hands of the problem and instruct the accommodation reseller that they need to address the issue.

Now this wouldn’t be a problem if the first priority of the accommodation supplier was the customer. But unfortunately there are many accommodation suppliers that still exist within the New Zealand accommodation sector that create headaches for accommodation resellers by not keeping their rates and availability up to date.

Thousands of marketing dollars are spent every year by many of the top accommodation resellers in an attempt to market and advertise both their own brand and the accommodation providers that have signed with them. The whole reason for an accommodation supplier to sign with an accommodation reseller is to have their own property extensively marketed to fill gaps and increase occupancy. Inevitably, creating greater profits and providing enjoyment for the owner.

When a booking is made online, the customer is in the full belief that they have booked a room and that room will be delivered without problems, the email notification will be received in a timely manner, the booking placed into the accommodation supplier’s system, the customer checked in, stays and then departs paying any balance owed. A simple process. But when an overbooking occurs the accommodation supplier is seen as not being able to complete the agreement that the customer thought that that they were buying. More often it falls upon the accommodation reseller to handle the problem, contact the customer and then try to relocate the customer to retain the sale. The worst case is a credit back to the customer of what has been provided in a transaction therefore a lost sale to the accommodation reseller.

This lost sale is one part of the equation. Brand equity is another. As soon as the customer as been advised that their booking cannot be honoured, the customer’s attention is then turned to the accommodation reseller and the service that they provide. Recent feedback from Ezibed customers that have experienced an overbooking shows that there is a 70% chance that they may not use that online channel again to book their accommodation as they want to be guaranteed that what they have booked is available as presented to them.

And that is fair enough too.

70% is an interesting statistic. The marketing investment to attract potential customers to book with an accommodation reseller can be undone with one small error from an accommodation supplier.

Many accommodation suppliers still question the value of a 10% fee of their advertised rates. This goes towards advertising, promoting, marketing  (what ever you want to call it) the accommodation supplier. Many accommodation suppliers don’t realise the costs associated with attempting to bring the accommodation supplier business, which can all be undone with one small overbooking of which some accommodation supplier’s simply wash their hands of.

How big is the problem? That is the million dollar question. From experience with Ezibed.com it happens more often that we like and results in lost revenue and associated bad pr with customers. One customer may in fact tell 5 of their friends/family of their booking experience and the result is reduced customers through the online channels and in turn reduced business to the accommodation supplier. The problem may be greater with larger accommodation resellers such as Wotif.

So how do we as an industry get through  to those responsible that they do in fact have a responsibility to preserve both their own and the accommodation resellers brand integrity? I’m not sure of the answer yet, but I hope that if we talk about it more within the industry, the closer both accommodation suppliers and accommodation resellers can work to create a vibrant online accommodation booking industry with low associated costs and high yields.

It was started by comments from Australian Sports Tours general manager Sam Harrison who said “Some of the prices are just ridiculous”,  a hotel in Hamilton planned to charge $700 a night – up from its normal $60 to $100, was one example quoted.  While in New Zealand response has been that the Aussie remarks are inflammatory as a ploy to try and drive prices down, particularly when exorbitant pricing was prevalent during the Sydney Olympics and the Rugby World Cup.  Here are a few of the media articles related to the debate:

Dominion Post: Aussies Take Flight over World Cup Hotel Rates

TV3: Rugby World Cup hotel prices enrage Aussie fans (article and video interview)

Sydney Morning Herald: NZ accuse Aussies of price “beat up”

Surely setting the prices is basic economics – if there is high demand then of course the prices will go up, that’s one of the benefits of hosting such an event, however in New Zealand Bruce Robertson of the Hospitality Association is expecting there to be options available to cater for all budgets. 

“The reality is there will be plenty of rooms available, and there will be packages that will meet most budgets, depending on how far they are willing to travel for a given event.” Time will tell as the official allocations are completed and rooms available for Joe supporter are released for sale.

It would be good to hear direct from some accommodation providers in New Zealand as to their pricing strategy during the world cup period, without giving away too much to competition, is it realistic to expect that there will be options available for a variety of budgets? Is it likely many supporters will need to be accommodated in different cities or towns (or in Australia as suggested by the Aussies!) and just travel to the event on the day?

What advice should be given to accommodation providers for price setting during this period? How this is all managed will indeed be interesting and let’s hope New Zealand tourism providers will be the winners on the day.

First up is Mercure Auckland, an oft-neglected option for a stay in the centre of the city, but well worth another look. They’ve just recently undergone a refurbishment of their lobby and conferencing centre and last week held a launch of their new facilities. The attention to detail and the quality of both the rooms and the food was quite exceptional, so I’d like to extend my congratulations to the food and beverage staff for what was a very well-run event.

Also receiving a bouquet from me – but for different reasons – is CityLife Auckland. Already on this blog site you can see a number of posts advising how to treat customers, and CityLife really delivered on all fronts last week. First there was the flexibility in allowing my wife and me to check in early to allow our baby to have her midday sleep. They even had the portacot shifted and made up without a fuss. Then there was the knock on the door with a letter and small gift for me acknowledging my fifth (only my fifth mind you) stay with them and thanking me for my support. Nice. Add in the promptness of the valet parking staff and the friendliness of the team on reception and I couldn’t fault my experience there.

Last of all comes Hahei Holiday Resort in the sunny Coromandel. I had the pleasure of staying in one of their 2-bedroom villas last weekend for my brother’s wedding (congratulations, brother). Everything about this holiday park impressed everyone in our large group of family and friends. Checking in was a breeze, the information was clear and accurate and the villas were spotless. Every day they offered plenty of new towels and any request was met cheerfully by the team of cleaners. The kitchen was stocked with plenty of cleaning supplies, crockery and cutlery and everything in the villa worked perfectly. Oh, and the TV reception was crystal clear. If a holiday park in Hahei can do it then so can any inner-city hotel, so why isn’t it more common? I’ll be getting these guys on Travelbug as soon as I can because I know that any travellers we send there will not be disappointed.

So it was a happy week of accommodation experiences, for many different reasons. Well done to the teams involved, you are looking after your customers well and I’ll be telling more people about it.

From a travellers point of view, the smile or lack of from the Front Desk can either make or break a stay in a hotel, resort or motel.

Too often in New Zealand it seems as if the Front Office staff feel that those travellers either checking in or checking out of their hotel/resort are really quite a nuisance and if it wasn’t for the inconvenience of people wanting to stay in the hotel, annoying them asking silly questions about activities in the town , asking for directions etc, the front office job would be very pleasant.

Interestingly it seems to me that the higher price the establishment, the colder the reception.  Probably the best city in New Zealand for Customer Service in Hotels would be Christchurch…. Having stayed in many hotels in that city, I have always found friendly helpful welcomes both when on business or personal travel. Why is that!  The North Island is often a different thing altogether…why?

The hospitality industry in New Zealand needs to take a leaf out of Hawaii’s book…. that state knows how to treat travellers making them feel very special and that they are the only guest in the hotel.  In fact throughout the USA one cannot fault customer service (sometimes its even a little over the top but rather that than none at all)

Tourism is too important to New Zealand to be blighted by offhand and unfriendly service.

Here are some thoughts and recommendations for promoting online booking.

• Online booking is not a new concept and is popular with the initiated due to instant confirmations, live updates on availability such as on last minute accommodation websites.
• When consumers provide credit card details online, they need to be as vigilant as if they were handing some cash on the street, thus make sure that the payment pages are secured with HTTPS, as opposed to the regular HTTP address.
• Customers should make sure the website has acceptable terms and conditions ( refund policies etc..), you don’t want to be left empty handed because of the small print.
• Make sure the website offering the discount is providing confirmation of your payment and reservation. Some services offer to “register your interest” and only when you have paid, will they check availability with the hotel or Motel.
• A good idea would to remind customers to take receipt of your online booking for check-in.
• If a third party website was used customers may want to call prior to confirm your booking and maybe also advise of check-in times, special needs or requests etc.
• Rates displayed on websites are generally for 2 people and further investigation may be needed to ascertain if additional people can be accommodated and if so what the charge will be, check for any inclusions or extras on offer too.
• Inclusions can prove to be of excellent value and include such offerings as free breakfast, a bottle of champagne or drink voucher or perhaps a free shuttle service – all these should be included on the booking confirmation.

I was chatting with someone the other day (let’s call him Ron) talking about what he looks for most when shopping for travel online. It wasn’t what I would have thought, and it probably wasn’t representative of what most people look for, but it was worth thinking about.

When Ron books accommodation online he is most likely to book the room that, when he turns the handle and opens the door, is exactly as he expected it to be.  More importantly, the room must be as his girlfriend expected it to be, otherwise there will be trouble.
So, if the photos, room names and descriptions are poor, Ron won’t book. If there is a large discrepancy between the photos, descriptions and room names across different websites, he won’t book. If all these are consistent across sites, then he’ll book on his favourite site that has the best price.  Why?  Because he’s been burned too many times with rooms that are nothing like the promise he’d made his girlfriend based on what was viewable online.

This is pretty extreme (and a little whipped, sorry to say fella), but the basics are sound.  Photos, room names and descriptions help clarify expectations. The more accurate they are, the better prepared your guests will be for what they get when they arrive.  Is your “executive room” a “king executive room” on some sites when it is the same thing?  Does every product have at least one photo attached to help clarify expectations?

Just in time for those Valentine’s Day check-ins it’s worth thinking about what your listings have promised your guests and help men everywhere keep their girlfriends happy.

Here’s a recent tv ad from Stamford Plaza that touches on guest expectations.
Until next time, happy Valentine’s Day.

One of the popular phrases in the online travel space lately has been “price parity”, an idea pushed by the OTAs (online travel agencies) and expected of the supplier, as outlined in this article. 

If I were an accommodation operator, I would ask myself, “why does it matter, surely I can play with prices across the sites I deal with, who will even notice?”  Not only that, as an operator I would naturally have better relationships with some OTAs than with others, and I would like to offer better prices on x site versus y site.  Factor in a variety of commission levels across OTAs and all of a sudden it is conceivable I would have a wide variety of prices online for even my core products.

Unfortunately, one of the immutable truths of online travel consumption is that people shop around, and price differences will be noticed by the online shopper. Usually, these differences will not matter – the traveller will merely take advantage of the lowest price they find and book there.  Aggregator sites have ensured that this is a simple task.

There are occasions where such a wide variety of prices across different OTAs and travel websites can erode trust in your property and may lose you a booking that you might otherwise have secured. I recently came across an example of this on my site, Travelbug, where travellers can make enquiries direct to the supplier. In one such enquiry, the traveller indicated that they were so confused and taken aback by the variety of prices they saw across the internet for what seemed to be the very same products, that they were compelled to ask the hotel why this was happening:

So how should you manage your pricing while allowing for your relationships with OTAs and managing profitability despite varying commission levels? I’d like to suggest a few things:

• Commission levels on retail sites are a cost of doing business.  If you have decided that the audience provided by an OTA or a network of resellers is valuable to your business then you have to accept the commission level charged by that site or group of sites. If the commission level is too high for you, don’t participate in that network.
• Your core products, eg ‘Standard room’, ‘Queen room’, ‘Studio apartment’ and so forth should have the same retail price across all third party channels and OTAs
• Use added value products and multi-night rates to differentiate across your preferred sites. For example, offer a B&B rate on your favourite site that you might not offer elsewhere.  Shoppers making comparisons will not find this confusing or feel that you’re playing a game – it’s an entirely different product
• Use channel management software to make your pricing updates easy and seamless
• Lean on the account manager or support team of the OTA in question to help you configure your rates

If you follow these key points, you’ll have happy OTAs and happy online shoppers.

I’d love to hear your reactions to this, the first of my contributions to this blog site, so don’t be shy!

Too often on my travels I wished I had bought my own pillow with me.  There is nothing worse than hoping into bed after a day of exploring, putting your head on your pillow only to find a flat, hard brick like thing probably at least 10years old,  and you spend what seems to be half the night trying to get comfortable and half the next day trying to get rid of the crick in your neck.  Pillows need to be replaced very regularly, twice a year is good if the room is almost fully booked year round.  And they need to be double slipped.  Hygiene is good!

The hotels I loved the most were the ones with the great pillows.  Lets face it, the main reason you book a hotel is that it provides you (you hope) with a lovely comfy, snugglie bed to sleep in so pillows are really really important.  Some hotels and B & B’s even give you a choice of pillow type…super hard, super soft, medium, down filled, cotton filled, synthetic  the list can be endless…   Accommodation Providers don’t have to go to that extreme but there is no excuse for not having good quality pillows on the beds.

Nice to have well rested happy travellers at the check out desk in the morning.

A good strategy for most accommodation businesses is:

1.  The more booking sites you are on the better.  Essentially the more exposure your accommodation business gets online the higher profile your website will be in the search engines and the more opportunity you will get for regular automated bookings.  Most of these sites are free to list on and take a commission for any bookings they send your way.  Some of the top sites for instant bookings I recommend for New Zealand accommodation are: Wotif (includes Lastminute.com.au, Travel.com.au amongst others); Travelbug; Expedia (Venere); Travelocity; Ezibed; Rates to Go; NZ Tourism Guide (Bookit); AA Travel; Jsons (Holiday Guide)

2.  Use a Channel Manager. These will provide you with just one system that needs updating for your availability and pricing and will automatically update all of the booking sites for you – phew!  Popular channel managers in New Zealand include Seekom and Siteminder. 

3.  Offer Online Bookings in Your Own Website. This is important because the majority of travellers still prefer to book direct with you on  your website but also want quick and instant bookings. Ideally, your website online system will either get updated by your reservations/property management system or by your channel manager.

A clear indication that all sectors, businesses and organisations in the New Zealand Tourism industry should be focused on providing an automated online booking and payment option for their customers to easily book online.  See more details about the online booking research here.

To find out more about the different online booking systems available in the New Zealand market read this post I wrote in August 2009: Online Booking Strategy for Tourism Operators.

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