On April the 24th, I attended my first think tank, the DDIH, Digital Development In Hospitality. Thanks to this event I had the opportunity to participate to four very interesting and versatile conferences about:
- Reputation management
- The new expectations of luxury consumers
- The future of concierges
- A brand new app dedicated to hotels managers and customers
In this article I wish to share with you some perspectives and thoughts I had during and after the conferences about the two most interesting topics.
Reputation management by reviewPro
It was the first conference of the day. And we had the luck it was made by one of the founder, RJ Freidlander.
Thanks to his presentation I discovered a new aspect of the strategic approach an entrepreneur, an hotelier should have. Thanks to my studies and previous experiences I knew that a company or its manger should manage, protect, and develop their brand using brand management techniques.
We can define the brand management as follows: “the application of marketing techniques to a specific product, product line, or brand. It seeks to increase a product's perceived value to the customer and thereby increase brand franchise and brand equity. Marketers see a brand as an implied promise that the level of quality people have come to expect from a brand will continue with future purchases of the same product. This may increase sales by making a comparison with competing products more favorable. It may also enable the manufacturer to charge more for the product. The value of the brand is determined by the amount of profit it generates for the manufacturer” (source: Wikipedia). And a job has been created: brand manager. You can read a description of the job here: http://www.e-marketing.fr/Marketing-Magazine/Article/Brand-manager-un-metier-qui-reste-a-construire-15235-1.htm
However this definition ignores a new yet very important phenomenon: the emergence of social networks and their consequences on companies and on their financial results.
I thought the idea of reviewPro is very clever because it matches this new and very powerful trend. When I came back home I made some researches about the reputation management and I noticed that reviewPro is not the only company on this market. This let me think this business is promising. The main competitors in hotel reputation management I found are:
- TrustYou
- Brand Karma
- Review Analyst
- Escuchatucliente
Moreover, in 2009 BDRC, an english consulatncy company published a study about the impact of review sites on hotels companies. This study tended to show that they have an impact on revenue. Unfortunately I could find this study.
Last summer I had the opportunity to do my training at MKG Group, the famous counseling company. And they developed a computer based service to analyze the client satisfaction. Their product is very similar in its form to the reviewPro.
As I said previously reviewPro faces a strong competition. As a consequence, I thought that they could do a partnership with companies like MKG or develop their own version of the satisfaction management tool to improve their offer and gain market shares by providing a wider range of services to hoteliers.
Online luxury consumers
I have a real interest for luxury brand management. So I was very interested in the conference dealing the luxury consumers and their new expectations.
Customers’ expectations changed quickly. Of course people with very high purchasing power are still looking for products and services offering the best quality. However, they are now looking for something more. They are now looking for exceptional experiences, new emotions and sensations.
The lesson I learned from the conference is that the feeling of something unique, different should begin with the website of the hotel.
So, after the conference I tried to make a small analysis of the website of some of the most famous palaces in the world. I have randomly selected three hotels among the most luxurious and famous in the world:
- The Ritz, Paris: http://www.ritzparis.com/home_ritz/home.asp?show_all=1
- The Savoy, London: http://www.fairmont.com/promo/savoy
- The Waldorf Towers, New York: http://www.waldorfnewyork.com/towers-accommodations/
And the least I can is that these three amazing hotels have completely forgotten their website.
When looking at them you notice that they are commercial sites with commercial details like the number of rooms, the prices, and so on rather than being a website that immerses potential customers in the amazing atmosphere of these legendary places.
The worst example of the three is the Savoy whose first page picture is at least 10 years old. None of them tries to make customers feeling special, none offers any virtual experience.
We may think this lack of action and consideration for their website is dangerous for these hotels. But if we look at the situation from another point of view, we, future professionals in hospitality and luxury brand management, can see some work opportunities: why not offering our vision, experience and knowledge acquired in e-business classes and conferences to theses companies?
