NB: This is a guest article by Paul Durrant, director of sales at New York, US-based HyperTech Solutions.
I was reading the excellent HEBS blog a few months back when it was discussing the impact of SoLoMo (SOcial, LOcal, MObile) on hotel marketing.
The author Max Starkov made some excellent points which can be extrapolated to apply to the entire leisure travel technology community and planning process.
For those with their heads buried in the sand for past 18 months or so, SoLoMo is the phrase applied to the combination of social, location and mobile. It generally takes the form of mobile phone apps that combine social networking and location data.
HEBS make the point that the mobile channel provides three distinct opportunities to market to and service consumers:
- Mobile marketing and distribution, including the mobile website, focused on generating bookings, and other group/event leads
- Location-based mobile services, typically focused on providing information like mapping and directions via geo-fencing and location-aware, or upselling services/amenities at the property to current guests, as well as check-ins
- Mobile CRM and customer service: resolving customer service issues at the property in real-time
Vacation suppliers do such a good job in marketing a destination, website and creating a value proposition for their product, but they forget about “selling” to their clients, once they have left.
Is there a problem?
So often these in-resort sales get lost or are unstructured in how they are made. So often the hotel concierge is making suggestions for your customers to book and enjoy.
For example, you have made the sale and the client has been cross-sold, up-sold, packaged etc accordingly, but does this mean that your sales involvement should stop?
Of course not!
You are able to sell them more. Not only have you sent them on vacation, but you know where they are, and, for how long.
Drew McLellan states that 20% of all searches have a local intent, and more and more of them are happening in real-time on a smartphone, and 70% of all searches carried out on a smartphone result in action within one hour.
ONE HOUR!
Get to grips with it
So people are using their phones to find what they need/want at that moment they need it. We knew that, right? But have we acted on it yet?
By using your smartphone’s GPS capabilities, you can be identified in terms of your current location at all times. This means that when you are in-resort your phone can offer you deals from local merchants and any up-sells which you wish to extend to them.
This may be particularly interesting for those travel providers who have multiple destinations as part of their itineraries as they will be able to up-sell on multiple occasions.
Promotions, based on location are an extension of this. It is feasible to offer “high-value” clients preferential services based on location and spend.
This is the power of SoLoMo.
Clients are also able to provide reviews instantly for these services and can look-up which services are the highest rated in their vicinity.
This is a win-win situation for everyone:
- Local suppliers benefit from having a client delivered to them and (potentially) having paid alread
- Travellers are being given ‘applicable’ and personalized deals which they can take advantage of instantly
- Travel suppliers like it as they are increasing their client engagement and building a new (un-tapped) revenue stream
I have talked previously about the need for increased Industry personalization and SoLoMo allows you to this. It allows you to combine real-time customer geo-location with their travel information and time/date and location-relevant promotions.
Travel providers need to consider how to best utilize SoLoMo to engage their guests and generate incremental revenues.
By focusing efforts on social media, local marketing, and mobile marketing, marketers have the ability to deliver more personalized, relevant content and engage existing guests and potential customers like never before.
With modern GPS technologies, this can be an easy and instantaneous sale.
I believe that this is a very real area of growth for the entire industry, and one which can be automated using the current in-resort  inventory found in many technology systems.
We just need to get on with it.
NB: This is a guest article by Paul Durrant, director of sales at New York, US-based HyperTech Solutions.
NB2: Mobile handset cheering image via Shutterstock.
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Hi Paul, I couldn’t agree more and I believe there is a tremendous potential for all online travel agents to upsell local inventory on mobile devices. Yet, the sad reality is that most of the influential players are still so stuck up with other things and/or have such a poor technology stack that it will probably still take some time before we see more traction in this market. You are right to point though out that there are literally billions of dollars untouched…
Paul,
Great points and call to action. Love the ONE HOUR point. Let’s hope folks are listening. Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts. JIM
I think people view their mobile devices as part of their “personal space”, and so the more you send ads, the more likely they will be to turn off notifications.
Also, there is already a plethora of mobile apps that want to send geofence notifications, so the real challenge is not in the technology but in the compelling need. If you’re not providing value to the user every time you push something to them, then you’re likely annoying them.
I know one startup in this field, and the challenge they have is getting enough density of users and local marketing content. It’s very much like what Yelp and Groupon went through when they started up – Yelp was able to be crowdsourced, and Groupon had lots of money. If you can use one of those two growth strategies, then maybe you have a chance.
It’s a tough nut to crack.
Great article Paul.
Our company works in this domain and we also genuinely believe that there is a lot of untapped potential. Perhaps there is a notion that implementing technological solutions in hotels will always carry a large initial expense. That quite simply isn’t the case in this day and age.
Mobile hospitality solutions can be installed for a fee that is relatively small when compared to the additional revenue streams that can dramatically increase post-implementation. One developing industry trend is the diversification of revenue to different channels: it is no longer a case of yield management.
In relation to Ron’s comment, I agree that people can be frustrated by an invasion of advertising. However, this doesn’t have to be the case, particularly when guest are in situ. Putting a mobile facility with access to additional services and information at their fingertips (literally) can radically grow customer experience ratings.
This is certainly an area of the hospitality industry that we can expect to change enormously in the next decade or so.
Thanks for the feedback on the article. I think you all make good and salient points about this part of our market.
We see it as a major, untapped market which our clients are talking to us about. We feel that it can become an extension of the merchandising and cross-sell process (which normally occurs prior to the sale) in that it can happen after the initial transaction and even when they have left on their vacation.
We not only know where the client is going on vacation (as we sold it to them), we have the LBS [Location Based Services] to pinpoint exactly where they are. You will be able to tap into the content which is stored in your reservation system (such as our PleX Travel Suite) and book either dynamic or local product. The benefits of this are that you are providing an extra service and a relevant one.
HyperTech’s PleX Concierge is the newest way to tap into this market. You will allow the client to search for day trips, extra services and any other product you wish to offer and allow your clients to book them. This is all off their mobile and all in resort. This will add to their original booking record (Super PNR) and the clients will accrue additional loyalty / rewards, so the benefit is mutually satisfying. GPS ensures that you are offering ‘local’ deals which are relevant to the particular holiday-goer.
This is a very real area of growth and one which can be automated using the current in-resort ‘extras’ inventory. A reservation system (such as PleX) will be able to manage all of these bookings by: offering a real-time priced product, allowing the client to book it, pay for it, produce an electronic voucher for the client and sending a booking request to the ground handler.