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Watch episode 9 of This Week in Hotels – with Josiah and I discussing the latest technology trends, and how your hotel might use them:?
This Week in Hotels, Episode 9 from Josiah Mackenzie on Vimeo.
[The video was a little messed up this week...probably the fault of my software. Sorry! You may want to just listen: Download the mp3 recording here]
Prefer to read our discussion? Here are the highlights:
The transcript wouldn't have been made without Katie (so thank Katie on her Twitter account pease)
[1:30] Josiah and Guillaume discuss the recent launch of Facebook Places. Why should your hotel follow geo-location developments?
Josiah: On the last few episodes, we’ve been discussing this topic – everything from how you can use Four Square for your business, down to… will Four Square be acquired by another service, or is Facebook going to offer or launch a competitive feature – and that’s exactly what happened only a few hours after we finished recording last week’s episode.
This is their entrance into geo-location; this is how they’re going to engage the 500 million people that use their network and I think that is going to be the key to their success. But only one week into the program… it’s a little to early to make a judgment call about whether there’s going to be a strong return on their investment.
Guillaume: So, have you ever experimented with Facebook Places?
Josiah: I’ll be trying it out more in the weeks ahead, but I have to say that I’m pretty impressed. For me, a service is only useful if my friends are using it, or if I can be connecting with people. Wiith Facebook Places, I can see if my friends are at a venue, for example, if I’m at a concert, or… a sporting event, I can see if my friends are at that venue; we can connect that way. You can check in some of your friends as well.
Guillaume: Well, I didn’t play around with Facebook Places, but to me, it was another additional feature that allows you to post where you are… so all of this is already available. I think the difference, maybe, is that it’s instant communication. The difference between what I’ve been using, Four Square, versus Facebook Places, is the “gaming” aspect, where I can be the mayor of a place, I can earn some badges. Facebook… there’s nothing. I don’t see what sort of advantages I’d have, in the long run.
Josiah: Right. I think that’s a good point, because these two tools are quite different in that regard. Like you say, in Four Square, you’re competing with the whole Four Square community: who’s there most often, and Facebook is more, well, the title of their blog post announcing this is “Who? What? When? And now, where?” So, they’re trying to tap the location element to the Facebook network, but to date, it’s not really competing against the larger group of people that are visiting your favorite establishments.
[7:50] Do you agree with Guillaume that “Four Square’s days are numbered”?
Guillaime: There’s no way around it; 500 million against 3 or 4 million users is going to be difficult… I think their days are probably numbered.
[9:23] In what way does Four Square have an advantage over Facebook Places?
Josiah: I think the company has a cool technology and a very passionate user base. From what I’ve seen, the Facebook users who are using Facebook Places, it’s sort of a passive, “This is kinda cool; it’s not too difficult, you know, why not try it?”. But Four Square people are much more engaged with the network…
Guillaume: Yeah, just watch these spaces in your free time: Twitter, Facebook, blogs. There are different free places where you can benefit by getting new customers to knock on the door of your hotels, and leave Facebook Places, and Gowalla and Four Square for later. I think it’s too soon to invest too much time in this.
[10:45] How can hotels decide which languages to use for their social media communications?
Josiah: So on the topic of location, I know you wanted to talk a little bit about languages that hotels are using on their website, in their communications. Let’s talk a little bit about your thinking on that. How do hotels decide which translations to offer? Which localized bits of information or social network they should be engaged in? Is there a criteria people can use for that?
Guillaume: It’s been an ongoing dilemma. When you launch a website for a hotel, the first thing you’re going to do is have it in English, because you want to reach as many people as possible, and then you go after other languages that are related to your targeted prospects. So if I’m let’s say, a hotel in a Spanish resort, there’s a good chance I want to have it in Spanish and English and German and Dutch, because that’s my target market. What I’m seeing sometimes, is that when I go to the hotel chain website – and I’m not talking about The Big Guys, I’m talking about the smaller guys – they push instantly, as a default, the local language.
Have you thought about localizing your promotion in different languages? It’s great to open a Facebook account, and a Twitter account, but most of it is pretty much done in English. Why don’t we open an account for Spanish travelers, or French travelers? What do you think of that?
Josiah: Would it make sense to create a separate Twitter account for each language that you wanna be engaging people in? Or do you think it’s good to just mix all languages into one account?
Guillaume: Well, the good news is, it is possible, thanks to Twitter applications that help you manage multiple accounts…
Josiah: Or, just think… who do you have on your team that would be able to facilitate this? For example, one resort that I work with in Canada has a lot of seasonal workers, a very international staff: people from Italy, Germany… there’s at least 5-6 different languages represented on their staff. And if you could just have each of those people maybe tweet out a few times a week, then you don’t need to think about, “How can we manage this relationship with all these different translators?”
Guillaume: Something that I’m sure they’re conscious of is the cost of translation. When you start translating a website, you want to make it right. You want to really professionalize the translation, making sure that it is understandable, and that’s why you have to make some choices about how many languages you want to cover on your website, your Twitter account, and Facebook. What have you been doing with your hotel website?
[16:40] Why is it so important for hotels to speak their guests’ language?
Josiah: I think this is so important because… even if someone understands English – they read, they speak English – I saw some study done a while back; people are more likely to purchase something – and this may have not been in the hotel industry, specifically – but, people in general would rather purchase something in their native language.
I’d like to kind of wrap up this topic with some really practical steps. How would a hotel decide what languages they need to be offering? Do they look at past guests’ records? Are they looking at Google Analytics to see which language people are coming from? Do you have any ideas on that?
Guillaume: They should have in their sales plan, marketing plan… “Which guest am I trying to attract? Which nationalities am I likely to get, based on my location? Based on what things are around my hotel? And how can I get to those guys? Could I do this as well myself by offering a good translation on my website, and be able to get direct bookings?” Those kinds of things need to be factored in. Do you have something to add?
Josiah: An effective translator will know how to communicate your intention into something that’s regionally and culturally appropriate for your target audience. So if you have someone on your team already, if you have multi-cultural staff, think about how you can take people who are already working for you and involve them in the process of translating and reaching more people.
[21:13] Should hotels offer a guest-referral-discount through social media channels?
Josiah: Question number one is from someone who sent it in anonymously. I have the email up right up here; they want to create sort of a hotel referral deal for their social media users. For example, you get two of your friends to book a room at the hotel and receive 50% off of your stay with them. The question is, “Have you seen anything like this before? Do you think the idea could work?”
Guillaume: I think it’s innovative. It’s probably worth a try. It depends on how old the hotel is. If the hotel just opened, I think it’s a great idea. You need to start somewhere, right? The question then is, how are you doing this? And how do you measure this?
Josiah: That’s a big one. Tracking is the biggest issue in my mind, at this point…
[23:31] Should hotels reward guests for taking satisfaction surveys?
Josiah: Okay, so the second question is around the topic of incentives, as well, and Brent sends this in. He’s working with a group of hotels in the U.S. and he saw a campaign done by a hotel in Hollywood, where they’re rewarding guests who take their guest satisfaction survey with money. And so, he thinks that, “Hotels should reward valuable customers, but not necessarily for completing a satisfaction survey” because he thinks that, “Guests are very savvy and will see right through this.”
I think the bigger question behind it is, “What’s the best way to encourage people to take a survey?” It’s all in how you ask for it, right?
Guillaume: A detailed survey is definitely a good way to understand where you can really make a dramatic change, but if it’s a long survey – it takes half an hour – I understand hat you might actually reward people for their time, but usually those kinds of surveys are done face-to-face, or over the phone…
At the end of the day, people will definitely respond if they think they’ll contribute to a better product.
Josiah: Well it all comes down to giving the right incentive, right? I think the people that you’re asking need to think, “Okay, this is actually going to improve my life.” People are selfish to a large extent, and if people see that their feedback and their insights will have a direct impact on making their life better, their experience better, the product better…
I’m a very big fan of one-question-surveys. The ultimate question being, “Would you refer us to your friends and your family?” I was on a website the other day that said something to effect of, “What did you come here for, and were you able to find it?” And it was a two button “yes or no”, and it probably takes about two and a half seconds to give this feedback. That would give you some good insights, and a lot of responses.
[31:20] What can hotels do to maximize exposure through the GDS?
Guillaume: Okay, so another question that was sent to me on Twitter about half an hour ago was, “What can hotels do to maximize exposure through the GDS?”
Well, first of all, you need to make sure of who you’re competing with on GDS. Remember – I think – it’s about 500 thousand hotels in the world; GDS is about 100 thousand. So, of those hotels in your location, who are you competing with? Another thing to look at is which market you want to target. Are you on the GDS to have international coverage and just target everything, or are you on the GDS because you know that this specific GDS – whether it’s Travel Port, or Amadeus, or Saber – have a good footprint in, let’s say, Mexico, for instance? That’s something you should know, because there are clear markets for different GDS.
Josiah: And make sure your GDS partner has the right firepower to support your hotel. That’s crucial.
Guillaume: The last point I wanted to make about exposure on the GDS is, make sure that your hotel’s information is accurate, up-to-date, and that you share a lot of pictures, as well. And let’s not forget other languages. GDS do support other languages, so make sure that you have your description and amenities translated.
Josiah: Good show today, and as always, if you have any questions, let us know, either through Twitter or through a comment on one of the blogs. We run this show to answer your questions, to help you look at everything that’s going on in the world of technology and hotels, explain it, and hopefully make your hotel more profitable.
Guillaume: Right; thank you, guys. Enjoy the rest of this week, and see you next week!
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