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Hotels chase ultimate experience

Pam Sykes
By Pam Sykes
Johannesburg, 06 Dec 2010

Making a hotel reservation is as much about speed and convenience as everything else in the Internet age - and, increasingly, that means going mobile.

“Businesses aren't necessarily ready at this stage to provide mobile services, but their customers are demanding it,” says Sybase director Julie Tomlinson.

“There's a generation of people coming that is so digitally savvy and has such high expectations of the way they interact that businesses that can't give them what they want are going to suffer. But it's not just the younger generation; there's growing demand among 30-to 50-year-olds too. People are increasingly frustrated when they can't do anything they want from their mobile phone, when they want to do it.”

Tomlinson suggests starting by providing basic information like details of rooms, facilities, rates and local attractions, but warns that it won't keep demanding consumers satisfied for long.

“The less often your customers have to talk to a call centre or reservations desk, the better,” she says. “People want to be in control and drive the process themselves.”

But making self-service bookings a reality - whether it's on a mobile or a desktop - is no simple task. Offering real-time information about room availability and taking bookings online requires a level of background integration that only the largest local hotel groups have so far achieved.

“A lot of our travel companies aren't yet able to show real-time availability,” confirms Realmdigital MD Wesley Lynch. “And even those that do have the systems don't always release their data in open standards so that anyone else can use it.

“So far the OpenTravel standard used by large travel sites like Expedia has some adoption in SA, but mostly we don't have information available in standard, structured formats. That means even travel agents struggle to get information, let alone make it available to customers online.”

Expedia, Lynch points out, books 1.6 hotel rooms a second around the world - and offers consumer-friendly tools for booking flights, accommodation, car hire and activities, all at the same time. For any local company with an eye on the global market, cutting themselves out of this information loop is a mistake.

“The e-tourism summit in October did a lot to alert people to the need for open standards and to embrace social media,” says Lynch, but there is a long way to go, especially for smaller establishments.

Keep it real-time

The lack of real-time room availability data often reflects a lack of integration in back-end systems.

“Consumers now want complete flexibility and instant results,” says Immo B"ohm, MD of Hansaworld ERP solution provider Afresh Consult. “If your Web site isn't completely integrated with your reservation system - not just interfaced - then you end up providing outdated information, or restricting the user's freedom to manoeuvre.

“When I find an airline site that won't let me book less than four days in advance, for example, I'll go to their competitors before I pick up the phone.”

Hansaworld is one of the applications that make it possible to offer mobile reservations and bookings - but there are other options. “It's true that putting the mobile app on the device is the easy part,” says Tomlinson. “The integration to backend systems is where the real work comes in. The old way of doing it is very tactical - just create the app and then use whatever sticky tape and glue you need to connect with your system. But that very quickly becomes a nightmare as soon as you update or change anything.”

Tomlinson says IT companies are trying to solve this problem with mobility platforms that “provide you with an easy, neat way to access your backend systems, then present the data in whatever way your users require, whether that's on the Web or any kind of mobile device.

“It's very important to be able to support any kind of device. There is already a lot of diversity in the mobile market and you just don't know what will be the next big thing.”

She reiterates that a mobile application is only as useful as the real-time information that fuels it. “This is especially true in the hospitality industry, where data that's even five minutes old could be completely wrong. The architecture is critical - you can't have a time lag, or any situation where you are dependent on a network that might go down. If you wrongly report availability, you stand to lose business.”

Virtual reality

Smaller operators that don't need such sophisticated systems - if you only have 10 rooms, you can carry any real-time booking system in your head - can still offer their customers more speed and convenience with relatively simple changes.

Many of these businesses, for example, still ask guests to make electronic funds transfers or cash payments as a deposit, then fax proof of payment. Simply adding a credit card payment facility to their Web sites can make a big difference.

“This has been a real Achilles heel for the smaller guys,” says MWeb Business GM Andre Joubert. “Their target market isn't always local and taking payments has been a real problem.”

Local solutions are now available, though, and the rapid improvements in the state of SA's connectivity have created even more opportunities, he says.

“Until quite recently, the typical guesthouse was sitting on a slow ADSL or even dialup connection, running a standard two- or three-page Web site and doing all their communication via e-mail. Now those small businesses can have decent connection speeds, which means they can enhance their Web sites with videos, picture galleries and virtual tours.”

High-speed Internet access is no longer a 'nice to have' service in South African hotels.

Craig Stewart, WiFi product manager, Internet Solutions

For overseas visitors, the more information, the better, says Joubert. “Travellers to SA from Europe and North America tend to be experienced travellers and they have high expectations. The more visual information an accommodation establishment can provide, the better the customer feels and the more likely they are to make a booking.”

As Web sites become more tightly integrated with the booking and guest-management process, the industry is also beginning to embrace social media with more enthusiasm. The importance of social media was a key theme at the e-Tourism Summit held in Cape Town in October, and companies such as the Accor Hotels group are paying close attention.

“We're using IT and social media intensively to promote all our 15 brands around the world,” says Philippe Trapp, MD for Accor's Southern and Eastern Africa and Indian Ocean region.

With brands as diverse as the luxury Sofitel and the budget Formula 1 hotels, Accor is using social media to identify and communicate with clearly defined market segments.

“We are not just selling a room, we're selling an entire destination,” says Trapp. “Our Web site now gives information on local attractions, events and activities alongside room availability. It's all part of offering the customer a total package.”

Let them eat bandwidth

Of course, Accor also offers WiFi access in all its rooms, even in the budget Formula 1 hotels. Increasingly, this is becoming part of the standard package that hotel visitors expect and demand.

The speed, cost and availability of WiFi in hotels around the world is, of course, a perennial traveller's gripe, and SA has been no exception.

“WiFi pricing has been incredibly high for the past couple of years, targeted at international travellers who have no other options,” acknowledges Internet Solutions WiFi product manager, Craig Stewart.

“The market hasn't done a lot to address those pricing issues and accommodate local travellers who are looking for access, but 2011 will bring a complete pricing realignment.”

The goal is to provide the guest with connectivity no matter what device they are using or where they are on the property.

Anthony Ivins, IT manager for infrastructure strategy and service, Southern Sun

Stewart says Internet Solutions is planning to drop its bandwidth prices to about a quarter of their current levels at all its AlwaysOn WiFi hotspots. Internet Solutions is also exploring ways to make the process of distributing access vouchers less cumbersome.

“A lot of people are still not 100% comfortable making credit card purchases online, and having to go to the reception desk late at night to buy a voucher doesn't make for a great guest experience. We've built an add-on to the Micros property management system that enables guests to bill bandwidth purchases directly to their room accounts. This allows hotels to completely do away with vouchers, and to offer guests limited free access without worrying about security.”

The Southern Sun group is taking it even further. “Guests want more than just an Internet connection. They want access to their entire online world,” says Anthony Ivins, Southern Sun's IT manager for infrastructure strategy and service.

“Even now around 60% of our guests don't have their own laptops, so for those who don't want to be always using their phones, we are looking at supplying portable tablet PCs that will offer secure Internet access.”

The goal, says Ivins, “is to provide the guest with connectivity no matter what device they are using or where they are on the property. Our guests should be able to order room service from the pool, check their room account at any time and make movie or theatre bookings conveniently. We'll be rolling this out hotel by hotel within the next two to three years.”

Ivins says it's also important for hotels to be able to expand available bandwidth at short notice, to meet peak demand during special events.

“Appetite for bandwidth is insatiable anyway, but during the World Cup, for example, demand was exceptionally high. Overseas guests expect 10MBps to 20MBps connections - a South African standard of 1Mbps is not going to be enough. Vodacom Business was able to give us a 10Mbps dedicated link into the Sandton Convention Centre at 24 hours' notice, which is the kind of flexibility we need.”

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