Briefing: Social needs influence consumer behaviour

A recent poll of American leisure travellers by Choice Hotels found that almost one in 10 respondents’ summer travels were motivated by the opportunity to brag to friends and family on social media. This is great evidence of how social behaviours, influenced by current technology, have affected how people make purchasing decisions. Another finding was that 42% of travellers like to stay in a hotel during the summer because they don’t have to clean the bathroom!

Four experts discuss how new consumer demands have changed hospitality.

Statistics from Google show that mobile continues to have a huge role in the travel experience with 60% of people now searching for destination information on a mobile and two thirds of watch time for top travel videos on YouTube happening on mobile. Consumers also continue to rely on their mobiles once they are on holiday. Google says that there was a 30% increase in smartphone searched from hotel properties in the last year.

Choice Hotels’ poll labels 8% of respondents as Social Travelers – for these people the holiday is all about showing of on social media. But a larger percentage, 26% of respondents are classified as Experience Travelers, who prioritise the experience and activities while travelling.

Choice also found that 57% of American travellers save up all their hotel loyalty points towards that all important Instagramable summer vacation.

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Video clips produced by ybc.tv for the Hospitality Channel, including interview from industry conferences such as the IHIF conference as well as specific Hospitality Channel shoots.

Briefing: In the Clouds – Changing IT systems in hospitality

The latest data from Cisco suggests that by 2019, more than four-fifths (86%) of workloads will be processed by cloud data centres and only 14% will be processed by traditional data centres. Cloud has been a game changer in all businesses, but in hospitality there has also been widespread upgrading of PMS and the introduction of customer relationship management (CRM) systems.

In these videos our experts discuss how the right technology systems can really make a difference:

Cisco’s statistics show that global cloud IP traffic will more than quadruple (4.1-fold) over the next 5 years. In the digital economy data use is rising fast. Cisco report that the workload for cloud data centres are already higher than traditional data centres, and this is increasing. Cisco say that “the workload density (that is, workloads per physical server) for cloud data centres was 5.1 in 2014 and will grow to 8.4 by 2019.”

A separate report by Fruition Partners suggests that switching to the cloud requires careful management. It revealed a fear in “85% of CIOs in the UK and US that cloud is reducing their organisations’ control over IT.” Using cloud systems and teaming up with technology partners with specific expertise is worthwhile part of modern business, but as with any change it should be carefully thought through to ensure it gets maximum results.

If you’ve been sent to this page and you’re not yet on the circulation list to receive these regular briefings and you would like to sign up, you can do see here. It’s free.

Video clips produced by ybc.tv for the Hospitality Channel, including interview from industry conferences such as the IHIF conference as well as specific Hospitality Channel shoots.

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