By Hannah Edensor

One day after Quest Serviced Apartments relaunched as ‘Quest Apartment Hotels’, we decided to get the lowdown on the industry by speaking exclusively to Quest ceo Zed Sanjana.

And what an industry it is, with Airbnb, online travel agents, and a competitive landscape – all vying for the modern business traveller.

“Customer needs are changing, and expectations are shifting, and our brand is evolving to become relevant for them,” Sanjana told Travel Weekly.

“Everyone is talking about the millennial traveller, the travellers in their 20s and early 30s, but we want to extend beyond that.

Sanjana calls it a “millennial mindset”, which he says is a way of approaching the market and slotting their needs into a renovated hotel landscape.

“Millennials will be 78% of the workforce in 20 years’ time,” Sanjana said. “And they are a much more sophisticated customer than 20 years ago.”

“They want and need to travel. They’re driven by experience, driven by sharing, they’re connected, and they’re looking to determine their experience themselves.”

“They also have access to a lot more infrastructure to make their decisions than ever before.”

With all this in mind, Sanjana says this is a positive sign for Quest, as their position as an apartment hotel gives millennial travellers the chance to determine their own experience post check-in.

“Apartment hotels give a different type of experience than a person checking in to a hotel,” Sanjana told Travel Weekly.

“They can cook for themselves, have their family stay with them, get a cappuccino from the local place downstairs that we’ve recommended, live like a local – they are masters of their own destiny.”

And Sanjana believes Quest has “no standout competitor”, adding that the franchise is in “every CBD, suburban and regional market.”

Talking about Airbnb, Sanjana told Travel Weekly that while the home-sharing disruptor is “good at what they do”, what they don’t do is the ‘beyond booking experience’.

“They’re [Airbnb] good at technical experiences and are good booking channels,” Sanjana said.

“But beyond the booking experience they don’t have the ability to check in with the guests once they’ve actually checked-in, and that’s our advantage.”

“The OTAs and Airbnb don’t drive demand, and don’t create their own inventory.”

“Our game is to make customers warm to our brand, create that stickiness of our brand.”

“A customer is always going to judge you on their worst experience not their best. We’re playing to our strengths.”

And with a “robust pipeline” with a “number of sites around Melbourne and Sydney” in the works, not to mention outside Australia working with The Ascott Limited, Quest is showing no signs of slowing down.

If you ever attend a party with hoteliers, or if you know someone working in the hospitality marketing sphere, one sure way to spark a heated conversation is to ask what they think about online travel agencies, better known as OTA. You know, Expedia, Booking.com, Hotels.com, Orbitz, Travelocity… oh, and you might as well include meta-search engines such as Trivago, Kayak, Hipmunk and even TripAdvisor into the equation. And if you want to conversation to go sour, perhaps you’ll speak about Airbnb, HomeAway and other players from the sharing economy. A cocktail weenie with that?

What’s the issue?

For the general public, it can be hard to understand the nuances of the situation when in fact it’s rather simple. Every time a traveler books a room directly via a hotelier’s website, there is no commission to pay, save the credit card fees. So on a 100$ transaction, for example, the hotelier gets 98$ in revenue. But when that reservation comes through Expedia, or any of its subsidiaries, i.e. Hotels.com, Hotwire, Venere, Travelocity, Orbitz, Trivago, etc. the hotelier will pay out a commission on average of 25%, sometimes more if and when a promotion or preferred positioning is chosen. So on that 100$ transaction, the hotelier now only gets 75$ in revenue.

Do the math: for hotels and properties selling tens or hundreds of room every day, the commission levels can skyrocket to insane amounts on a monthly and yearly basis if the OTA take a larger share of online sales. And this is what’s presently happening!

This situation is not exclusive to hoteliers. While presenting last week to the Quebec Camping Association, campground owners asked my opinion about OTAs, since many owners are being approached by Booking.com to sign partnerships and sell their available inventory. And next week I will speak on this very topic at Hosteling International’s North American Managers Meeting (NAMM2015). Just like the OTA duopoly between Expedia and Priceline, we’re seeing a consolidation in this realm with Hostelworld vs. HIhostels.

Okay, but what’s the issue, then? Isn’t normal for middle players to make a commission when delivering clients to your property? That business model has been in place forever, much before the internet existed, through affiliate marketing, or giving a finder’s fee for a new client. Herein lies the real problem: if the OTA sends a new client, that a hotelier would not have gotten in the first place, everybody wins. But if the client used to book directly a given hotel in the past, and now deals through Expedia or Booking, for the hotelier this now becomes a problem….

Grievances about OTA

In fact, here are the four common complaints from hoteliers when it comes to online travel agencies:

Commission levels: Whenever you make a reservation on Booking.com, the hotel pays out a commission of 15-18%, sometimes more. With Expedia, as explained above, it’s even higher, at 25% or more. These commission levels are undergoing changes and negotiations as we speak, due to industry pressure from leading hotel chains, but it remains nevertheless the number one issue.

Restrictive conditions: Hotels, inns, hostels… everybody who signs with OTA are required to sign complex and details contracts that demand rate parity, rate integrity, and room availability, among key conditions. In other words, a hotel can’t show a lower rate on his own website, nor can he make rooms available on a site while unavailable on another.

Online reputation: If a traveler writes a comment, positive or negative, on TripAdvisor or Yelp, hoteliers can respond publicly. It gives context to the situation. But if you have a bad experience and write up a comment on Expedia? Hoteliers can respond to you privately, but it won’t show on the site. So users only see traveler reviews, and not the hotel response. Not good for hotels, nor for site users who don’t get the complete picture.

Loss of direct relationship with clients: OTA have developed such brand equity and user loyalty that many tend to book over and over with them. Hotels.com has been promoting its “book 10 rooms, get the 11th free” program for a while. And earlier in 2015, Expedia launched its reward program, Expedia+ with no blackout dates.

And the benefits?

Yet there are certainly areas of opportunities for those who choose to work with OTA. Here are three key benefits:

The “billboard effect”: According to a Cornell University study, hotels listed on Expedia will benefit from reservations directly to their site, simply as a consequence of being seen on Expedia. Incremental reservations will vary from 8% to 26%, depending on the type of hotel – independent hotels are the ones who seem to benefit most! Bearing in mind the substantial amounts of money OTAs are spending online, this reason alone should be enough to consider playing along. But this begs the question: if a potential traveler comes to your website from Expedia or Booking, will she find everything and be able to book within a few clicks?

Multiscreen capabilities: Most OTA sites and mobile applications are on their 4th or 5th generation, have great UX and showcase seamlessly what travelers want to see without having to click too many times. Expedia, for example, developed its Scratchpad enabling customers to start a session on a tablet, continue on their mobile and perhaps close the deal on a desktop. Hotel sites should watch, learn and replicate what seems to work, rather than ignore the evolution in customer needs and wants online.

Direct relationship: While the booking may have come from a third-party, some hotels embrace this as an opportunity to retain the customer by asking their email upon checking-in, either to become part of the hotel loyalty program, or either to take advantage of a promotion. After I had booked a Montreal hotel through Hotwire, the staff at the reception gave me a 25$ coupon for my next reservation, which had to be made online, on their site, or through their call centre.

So, friends or foes?

At the end of the day, online travel agencies are neither friends, nor foes. A necessary evil, perhaps? They play a key role in promoting travel, from accommodations to transportation, including things to see and do once at a given destination, i.e. restaurants, tours and activities, attractions, etc.

For a campground owner, a hostelier or hotel managers, the question is more about how you can drive more business directly to your website rather than why is some of that business going through OTA. It’s an uneven battle if you only look at buying Google AdWords, but savvy remarketing campaigns and, more importantly, a strategic approach to content marketing can help if you properly identify how and when to invest on your owned media, versus paid & shared media.

Nobody ever said hospitality marketing was easy, especially in this fragmented space that is now seeing the rise of the sharing economy. This party is far from over, and hoteliers must keep their focus on a quality experience while maintaining their leadership in the online world. OTA are part of the equation, so what do you say: friends or foes?

blah blah blah

This is a test

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2013 had Gangnam Style. 2014 has the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. Both incredible achievements that have left marketers and promoters around the world wondering: What’s the magic formula? What’s the secret sauce?

Last year, as much as I tried, I couldn’t work out what it was about Gangnam Style that made it get 1 billion views. Yes, it’s very catchy. But so are many other jingles on YouTube. I did, however notice, that babies and toddlers loved Gangnam Style as much as their parents did. Maybe a good way to test jingles is by seeing how babies react?

With the Ice Bucket Challenge, I reckon I’ve cracked it. It’s a great cause and I’d love to see more charities learn from its success. Here are the 5 key elements to the viral formula:

1. Ensure it’s something everyone is capable of doing

If you’re reading this, you have water. You have, or can easily obtain, a bucket. Ice is simple to make or cheap to buy. Pouring it over your head doesn’t take much effort. It might take guts, but not a huge amount of effort (that said, Bill Gates’ Ice Bucket Challenge took it to the next level). So the barrier to entry in participating is very low.

2. Ensure it’s something everyone’s friends would want to see them doing

If someone asked you a couple of months ago whether you would want to see a bucket of ice cold water being poured on a certain friend’s head, what would have you said? Yes, of course. We love a bit of a cheeky laugh at the expense of our friends when they go through a little bit of painless suffering. Sort of like when a mate trips over their own feet and you can’t help but crack out a smile :).

3. Ensure it’s something everyone is proud of doing

Everyone is proud of their achievements after the Ice Bucket Challenge. While it’s a simple task with low barriers to entry, it’s still an accomplishment once you’ve done it. People can’t wait to post the video on their social networks and win likes, comments, retweets and general kudos from their friends. The psychology of gratification (particularly through social) is an important part of the success of the Ice Bucket Challenge.

4. Ensure it propagates virally

Every person who does it nominates 3 people. A simple viral formula. Assuming everyone is nominated only once, it would take just 20 rounds to reach the entire ‘Internet Connected’ population of Earth (=3^20).

5. Add a bit of guilt and stir

There’s nothing like applying a bit of guilt to a situation to get people to act. Especially if they’ve been nominated publicly by a friend in front of all their friends.

So there you have it. If you can come up with a concept that meets all the requirements above, you’ll have yourself a viral event like the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge.

Congratulations to the ALSA for brilliantly executing this campaign for motor neurone disease. By all accounts, it has been an overwhelming success, both in raising awareness, and funds. It is a very worthy cause and organisation, and I hope others can learn from it too.

Now lets what 2015 will bring ;).

Head here to donate: #IceBucketChallenge

The story goes that at Virgin’s head office, in their boardroom, is an empty chair. The chair represents the customer, so whenever Sir Richard and his executives get together, symbolically the customer is right there with them. This way they are reminded to see things from the customer’s point of view and not just their own.

Powerful Stuff.

Often when we’re brainstorming ideas and trying to find creative solutions we get caught up in our own point of view and fail to see things from the point of view of others. As a result we limit our thinking and may even fail to see opportunities outside of our own vision. A third person view of the world can very often make all the difference and so it’s important to see things from someone else’s perspective. To come up with quality business solutions it's vital to see things in different ways.

And this is exactly what the empty chair does.

We often use this as a device when facilitating business sessions. We place an empty chair at every table and as delegates work through various tasks and problems, they are constantly reminded to consider the customer's voice, needs, and point of view. As a result they arrived with solutions that are not from their own point of view but from the point of view of the customer.

The empty chair can be used to represent other people as well, such as your stakeholders if they’re opinions and influence are important. Or perhaps the chair could represent a mentor or role model who can symbolically advise you and prompt you to see things differently.

So why not place an empty chair in your office, boardroom, or creative space? Let it be a reminder to get out of your own head and into the head of someone else and see things from their point of view .

It’s a fantastic facilitative device to use.

The story goes that at Virgin’s head office, in their boardroom, is an empty chair. The chair represents the customer, so whenever Sir Richard and his executives get together, symbolically the customer is right there with them. This way they are reminded to see things from the customer’s point of view and not just their own.

Powerful Stuff.

Often when we’re brainstorming ideas and trying to find creative solutions we get caught up in our own point of view and fail to see things from the point of view of others. As a result we limit our thinking and may even fail to see opportunities outside of our own vision. A third person view of the world can very often make all the difference and so it’s important to see things from someone else’s perspective. To come up with quality business solutions it's vital to see things in different ways.

And this is exactly what the empty chair does.

We often use this as a device when facilitating business sessions. We place an empty chair at every table and as delegates work through various tasks and problems, they are constantly reminded to consider the customer's voice, needs, and point of view. As a result they arrived with solutions that are not from their own point of view but from the point of view of the customer.

The empty chair can be used to represent other people as well, such as your stakeholders if they’re opinions and influence are important. Or perhaps the chair could represent a mentor or role model who can symbolically advise you and prompt you to see things differently.

So why not place an empty chair in your office, boardroom, or creative space? Let it be a reminder to get out of your own head and into the head of someone else and see things from their point of view .

It’s a fantastic facilitative device to use.