Hospitality Paradigm

Online reputation management has traditionally concentrated on TripAdvisor reviews. Hotels and restaurants in particular know how important online reviews have become ever since sites such as TripAdvisor came into the spotlight almost two decades ago.
Google with its “of course, we can do it better” mantra has beefed up its own review platform, which is fully integrated into its existing search and maps empire. They always play to win. All of Google’s recent upgrades have served to make them a better information center for the end user. TripAdvisor with its hyper-narrow focus might be the biggest review website in the world today, but it is getting pushed to the sidelines by a bigger and smarter competitor.

Review Distribution by Site – Source: Revinate

As expected, Google indeed did overtake Booking.com in the #1 position, as both sites are now dominating the field, with TripAdvisor coming in as distant third. While 74% of reviews were posted on four sites in 2017, a greater percentage is now concentrated in only the top 3 – Google, Booking and TripAdvisor.

Move over Millennials… the post millennials are here!

A recent article published by Bloomberg says this is the year that Generation Z becomes the biggest consumer cohort globally, displacing millennials as a top obsession for investors trying to figure out how to cash in on their unique shopping, eating and media habits. While the older lot have entered the workforce recently, the majority are still studying; but boy, do they have the spending power!

Investors have always been interested in young consumers and how their habits might open up new opportunities, but much of the long-held thinking on college kids and tweens—invest in beer stocks or TV networks or junk food—don’t hold up today. Gen Z, roughly between the ages of seven and 22, were born after the internet went mainstream and occupy a world where anything and everything can be delivered to their front door with a swipe of a finger and they grew up on platforms like Facebook and Instagram, where the influencer culture has taken hold.

For investors looking to factor Gen Z into their portfolios, here are some broad trends they may want to consider

1. They Can Be Influenced 

That means influencers—celebrities or everyday people with big social media followings who are paid to promote products—can have an outsized impact with this cohort where nearly six out of 10 self-diagnose spending too much time on their phones.

2. They Have Different Vices

Younger consumers are wary of nasty hangovers and eager to wake up on the weekends feeling fresh so they can get outdoors and capture selfies. In the US and Canada for example, Marijuana is perceived healthier than alcohol. As more states legalize and stressed out, tired Americans look to cannabis compounds to alleviate insomnia and anxiety, or just unwind after a hard week of work.

3. They Don’t Have to Go to Stores

It’s worth noting that the oldest members of Gen Z are barely out of college by most measures, not exactly peak grocery-buying age. Still, they’ve grown up in a world where digital shopping is ubiquitous. Gen Z could be the first generation to truly embrace online grocery shopping.

4. They Choose Their Brand Loyalties Carefully

The rise of Gen Z could be bad news for traditional clothing retailers. Apparel brands looking to connect with younger shoppers have tried embracing edgier brand ambassadors, a departure from the days when consumer companies went to great pains to avoid politics. That’s because Gen Z actually wants corporations to take a stand on issues, with 40 percent saying they’d pay more for a product if they knew the company was promoting gender equality issues and 42 percent for racial justice initiatives.

5. They Eat (Somewhat) Differently

Gen Z consumers are more likely to skip meat than the older U.S. cohorts, the latest dining disruption with big implications for fast-food restaurants and packaged-food giants.

As Gen Z eventually enters their prime earning years, some of these trends could start to become more concrete and visible.

Mobile phones are ubiquitous and research shows that although most users think they have good mobile manners, many people report being irritated or annoyed by the handling of these mobiles. Good mobile phone etiquette is similar to common courtesy. Conversations and text exchanges have a tendency to distract people from what’s happening in front of them. Mobile users should be thoughtful, courteous and respect the people around them. Clearly there’s a lack of understanding of what is and isn’t acceptable in terms of mobile etiquette.

I’ve put together a pop quiz each one of us may want to answer and rate ourselves on our mobile etiquettes at our workplace:

1. When engaged face-to-face with others, either in a meeting or a conversation, do you avoid giving them your complete and undivided attention by texting or taking calls?
2. No one wants to be a captive audience to a third-party phone conversation or to sit in silence while their colleague texts with someone. Are you in the habit of leaving your ringtone on and placing your phone in front of you on the table?
3. When you must use your phone in public, do you take the call where you are instead of respecting your colleague’s personal space and moving to at least three metres between you and others?
4. Nothing is more irritating than to be cut off while calling someone. It is akin to being snubbed in a conversation. Rather than putting the phone on silent immediately (in case you have not done it earlier) and allowing the phone to continue ringing silently, do you disconnect a caller ringing you when you are busy?
5. In case you send a standard auto reply message while receiving a call which you do not want to pick up, do you often forget to call back as promised?
6. While in a meeting, are you in the habit of picking up a call and then informing the caller that you are in a meeting?
7. Do you answer calls at work on your speaker phone?
8. Do you keep your phone on vibrator mode during meetings and yet keep the phone on the table, so that the sound is as disturbing as a ring tone?
9. Do you make calls from the bathroom, ignoring the fact that it is an extreme put-off?
10. Do you use your phone as a watch? If so, then are you tempted to check your messages whilst checking the time?

A “Yes” answer to any of the above, as you may have guessed, is a no-no!

To how many of the above have you answered “NO” to? The ideal score is 100%… how much have you scored?

Some studies have anticipated that voice will account for 50% of searches in under two years. What seems unquestionable is that users will be searching the net very differently before too long. Using voice commands to search for and book hotels is going to be disruptive in the hotel industry.

We have come to yet another turning point where hotels are forced to “adapt or die” in the fight to defend and boost direct bookings. Voice search poses a new threat for those who are lagging behind, but it also represents an opportunity for the more active businesses that are ready to act fast.

The new priority now involves connecting your direct channel to the end user right from their first point of contact with the Internet, which increasingly means the voice assistants available on phones (like the Google Assistant or Siri) and home devices like Google Home or Amazon’s Alexa. This unstoppable shift in user behaviour is likely to shake up the traditional online distribution model, starting with OTAs who will have to reinvent themselves, and also direct channels that need to find their new place.

Recent research conducted by Booking.com has revealed that Travellers today have more options than ever when it comes to booking their next getaway. Some of the most talked about and on the rise accommodation types around the world are:

Luxury Tent: Driven by the desire to make camping a more enjoyable experience for everyone, recent years have seen a significant increase in interest for glamorous camping – or glamping – with almost a third of global travellers stating that they prefer unique and quirky accommodations while on holidays, such as luxury tents.

Riad: Stemming from the Arabian term for garden, a riad is a type of traditional Moroccan house or palace built around an interior courtyard. These palatial stays offer beauty in their architectural and floral design.

Holiday Homes: While travelling is often about branching out and seeing new places, some of us still look for the comforts of home. For many travellers a holiday home offers the best of both worlds and the opportunity truly embrace their chosen destination.

Capsule Hotels: From one small stay to another, capsule hotels offer perfectly formed accommodation options for budget-conscious travellers. These extremely small “rooms” are often found in more casual accommodation offerings and are stacked high, side-by-side with steps for access and is also one of the fastest growing categories of accommodation.

Chalet: As picture perfect as a souvenir postcard, a chalet offers an alternative alpine accommodation. The wooden houses with overhanging eaves often form part of skiing resorts. In fact, cabins and chalets are the desired accommodation for almost a sixth of global travellers and are also amongst the fastest rising in relative popularity

Apartments: These self-contained units often provide the perfect balance of escape and home comforts for city living.

Tiny Houses: The tiny house movement sees people embracing a smaller and simpler existence. A property that’s less than 500 feet would technically constitute a tiny house and these small dwellings are popping up for travellers across the globe to provide a peek into the trendy and eco-conscious way of living that’s simple, uncomplicated and cosy.

Peter Drucker was  consulting for a CEO of a major bank in US. For every meeting the CEO used to assign Peter a time slot of 90 minutes. A highly effective person, the CEO was delivering  consistent results for his bank year-on-year. During the one-and-half hour meeting the CEO refrained from taking any telephone calls and asked his secretary to handle the same which enabled him to pay undivided attention to Peter Drucker. When asked for the reason behind his time management strategy, the CEO replied, “Mr. Drucker, nothing significant happens if I do not devote a minimum of 90 minutes for an important task. However beyond 90 minutes, the grasping power of the mind reduces. Only two people are allowed to call me when I am in a meeting; the first is the President of USA and the second is my wife. The former will not call me and the latter dare not call me. I return all my calls once  the meeting is over.”

Discipline is the most important aspect for executives to attain optimum productivity.

Here are three productivity-killing habits you should avoid:

Impulsive Web Browsing: Since most of us have access to the Internet at work, it’s easy to get side-tracked looking up the answer to a random question that just popped into your head. That’s why Quora user Suresh Rathinam recommends writing down these thoughts or questions on a notepad. This way, you can look up the information you want later, when you’re not trying to get work done.

Suresh, a sales executive was making an important offer for his client. While on google search he gets digressed into social media and loses focus. There are two types of tasks a. What is right for me & b. What is right in-front of me. Quite often the latter takes over the former. Please refer the figure. When you are on facebook, twitter or a joke on Whatsapp (right in front of me) the activity  is going to take away your time in making that important offer or handling an angry customer (right for me). The more there is overlap in these two areas (the common green portion called as focus area) the better it will be for you in working effectively.

Putting off important tasks till later in the day: People often start off their day by completing easy tasks to get themselves rolling and leave their difficult work for later. This is a bad idea and one that frequently leads to the important work not getting done at all. Let us go back to the case of Suresh who has to make a project report which needs a lot of technical understanding and calculations Such a task consumes a lot of intellectual and mental energy. If he does this in the morning when his energy levels are high, he will be able to do justice to his task. However he starts doing the mundane and routine things in the morning (like seeing all the cc/Bcc emails) due to which there is a mismatch between his energy levels and task complexity (refer figure below).

Checking emails throughout the day: Constant Internet access leads people to check email throughout the day. Sadly, each time one does this, you lose several minutes of work time. What’s more, the constant checking of email makes you dumber! Instead, strategy consultant Ron Friedman suggests quitting Outlook, closing email tabs and turning off your phone for 30-minute chunks of ‘deep-dive work’.

In his book, ‘The Four Hour Work Week’, Timothy Ferriss suggests to his readers that he looks at the mail only at 11 AM and then clears them all in a batch. We shall talk a great deal about that in my next update.

Rajan Parulekar – Director, Hospitality Paradigm

The principle challenge faced by the industry is the availability of motivated associates. Hotels cannot deliver excellent hotel stays if they are understaffed or are experiencing disruptive associate turnover. To overcome this, they must start treating employees as critically involved members of communities. They need to be trained and supported as individuals.

The second challenge is how to adopt technology in a thoughtful and practical manner. The past decade has seen an unprecedented acceleration in consumer technology, and this pace is unlikely to slow. To this end, hotel brands must be careful to adopt proven technologies that enhance the stay experience rather than provide a flash in the pan. Technology solutions are expensive when rolled out across hundreds of rooms, so their impact must be measurable, experiential and centred on driving guest preferences.