Briefing: Ownership structures are changing

This month, easyHotels announced the signing of a new franchise agreement for a 54 room hotel in Reading. Franchises make up the bulk of easyHotel’s rooms with 1,512 franchised rooms, verses 390 owned rooms. The hospitality industry is seeing a clear increase in franchising and management agreements, which means a separation of roles across businesses.

In these videos four hospitality experts discuss franchising and owner/ operator relationships:

The new easyHotel is an existing hotel that will be converted during 2017. The company’s expansion strategy is largely based around franchising. This agreement brings easyHotel’s total committed development projects to 1,658 rooms under development, 576 of which are owned and 1,082 are being developed by franchise partners.

Franchising and management agreements allow hospitality companies to expand quickly and diversify their porfolios. Elegant Hotels Group plc in Barbados recently signed its first ever management contract, which is also its first hotel outside of Barbados. Hodges Bay Resort & Spa by Elegant Hotels in Antigua is currently under construction and is expected to open its doors in mid to late 2017.

Similarly, earlier this year Compass Hospitality Group, one of Southeast Asia’s fastest-growing hospitality management companies, took on operations of its first hotel in Scotland; The Columba Hotel in Inverness. The hotel has 82 rooms views of Inverness Castle across the River Ness. The hotel is owned by Singapore based Seacare Hospitality.

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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: A good reputation goes a long way

A new study from Resonance Consultancy has named London as the World’s Best City Brand. The results were based on analysis of social media comments about cities, by both locals and visitors. So how important is it that people are talking about your brand online, and how far are hospitality companies relying on Social Media for feedback on their performance?

Four hospitality experts discuss word of mouth and building a loyal customer base:

Outside of Social Media, performance on dedicated review sites continues to have a great impact on a hospitality business. ReviewPro’s 2016 Top Luxury Hotel & Brand Report, found that Luxury Hotels receive 1,008 reviews on average per hotel per year. Within that, an amazing 83% were positive reviews.

China had the largest number of top of top rated luxury properties in ReviewPro’s report, and had experienced a dramatic increase of +46% reviews year-on- year, further reflecting the fast changing developments in China.

The UK had the third most top reviews and unsurprisingly the Maldives had the second largest number of top rated luxury properties.

To return to Resonance Consultancy’s Word’s Best City Brands Report, the full top 5 best city brands were found to b: London, Singapore, New York, Paris and Sydney.

 

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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: 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: Business keeps moving forward

According to statistics from STR, in Q2 2016, Europe’s hotel industry reported nearly flat occupancy growth (+0.6% to 73.9%) and Central/South America region reported a decrease in occupancy. This year there has been a lot of reasons for concern around where we are in the economic cycle and whether geopolitical issues could disrupt the market. With all this happening resilience and focus on the future is important.

These videos show different attitudes towards this year’s hospitality market:

STR’s reports show that in the Central/South America region there 5.1% decrease in occupancy to 54.1% compared to Q2 2015. Average daily rate was up 5.3% to US$89.75. Revenue per available room was flat at US$48.58.

Performance in Europe was more positive with average daily rate going up 2.1% to EUR114.33. and revenue per available room up 2.7% to EUR84.49. However, in France there were decreases on all three of these: occupancy (-5.5% to 68.2%), ADR (-7.5% to EUR138.43) and RevPAR (-12.6% to EUR94.34).

And in Asia Pacific again performance is flattening out with an 1.3% increase in occupancy to 68.3% alongside an average daily rate decrease of 1.1% to US$96.95. Revenue per available room was nearly flat (+0.2% to US$66.18).

While these figures look gloomy there is reason to believe that with one recession in recent memory under the belt and markets showing an increased ability to bounce back, businesses can stay positive and face any possible obstacles head on.

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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: innovation to reinvent, evolve and adapt to markets

In a changing world, products and operations must respond to disruptions and shifting markets. Business plans cannot be too rigid, especially when applied in new markets where the risk factors are unknown. Old technology and systems that are in place are not always appropriate to deal with new problems.

So what do businesses need to do to keep up to date? How can brands adapt to new environments? And how can smaller hotels compete with the resources of larger brands? This briefing has comment on all these issues:

  • Christine Hodder, General Manager, The Stafford London on balancing consistency with innovation

  • Simon Schwitalik, Director of Business Intelligence – EMEA, TravelClick on turning legacy systems into effective marketing platforms

  • Sanjay Tanna, Director – Commercial &  Investments, ADNEC on why constant reinvention and adaptability is the key

  • Peter Norman, SVP – Acquisitions & Development, Hyatt Hotels Corporation on why hotel brands must continually evolve

 

 

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

Briefing: embracing new engagement tools

All industries are learning about the new ways they can engage with their customers, clients and partners and perhaps most importantly potential customers. But is the hospitality industry lagging behind most others when it comes to embracing these new technologies? In this briefing we hear from some key experts about how they are using, and should be using, this new wave of technology to enhance their businesses. This includes, Leo Brand, of SwissCom Hospitality Services, Ramona Mehta of Mishcon de Reya and Robert Cook, of Malmaison and Hotel du Vin.

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Briefing: Moving into new markets

In this briefing we hear from leaders in the hospitality industry on how they are tackling opportunities in the BRIC countries and Africa. Those interviewed include Gebhard Rainer of Hyatt Group, Miguel Ruano of Hotel Solutions, Arthur de Haast of Jones Lang Lasalle Hotels and Robert Cook of Malmaison & Hotel du Vin.

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Briefing: exploiting the data rich industry

Continuing on the technology theme, in this weeks series we try to understand how to use the data being created continuously from mobile devices, social media and feedback forums. Mining this information can help any hotel deliver that personal service that so many customers want. Reacting to this in real-time is the next obstacle, and will of course increase your customer loyalty. Hear the thoughts from key people at Hyatt, InterContinental and SwissCom below.

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