Spain-headquartered Veturis Travel has joined forces with cloud platform SiteMinder to deepen its penetration in Asia and Europe, as it seeks to grow beyond its established presence in France, Italy and the US.
The wholesale travel agency is upping its investment in cloud-based technology as part of a recent transition to dynamic online rates and a strategy to expand its direct contracts with hotels.
In a world where digitisation has become the order of the day, traditional hotel distribution channels such as wholesalers are facing new challenges and more competition
“The landscape for wholesalers is changing and key to remaining relevant is specialisation and adding value to our partners, to help them compete through distribution,” said Irma Mesa, head of sales support at Veturis Travel.
Mesa added that the partnership with SiteMinder is a strategic evolution, offering opportunities for the Veturis Travel to explore new possibilities.
The partnership also reflects the “continued value” of traditional hotel distribution channels like wholesalers in the digitalisation age, said Mateus Coelho, regional manager for Spain, Portugal and Brazil at SiteMinder.
Veturis Travel supports more than 180,000 hotels via a business-to-business interface and connectivity with travel agencies and DMCs in more than 70 countries, including Thailand where more than 8,000 hotels are based.
InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) is bringing Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants to Japan, with Kimpton Tokyo Shinjuku set to open in 2020 as the brand’s first in the country.
The 162-room hotel will feature three meeting spaces that accommodate up to 300 people, a wellness studio, and a multi-function chapel.
Japan is the newest market for the Kimpton brand
Kimpton Tokyo Shinjuku will also offer three locally-inspired restaurants, in addition to Kimpton signature perks such as complimentary morning coffee and tea in the living room lobby and an evening social hour.
Tsukada Global Holdings, the owner of Kimpton Tokyo Shinjuku, is a long-time IHG development partner, currently owning four IHG hotels including Intercontinental Tokyo Bay and The Strings by Intercontinental Tokyo.
Japan marks the newest market for the Kimpton brand, continuing the recent growth trajectory in Asia with signings in Greater China and South-east Asia.
There are currently 66 Kimpton hotels open globally, with another 20 in the pipeline, including cities such as Bali, Shanghai, Sanya and Taipei.
The ITB Asia 2018 conference will take place at the Sands Expo and Convention Centre in Singapore’s Marina Bay Sands from October 17-19 with a focus on the major trends provoking disruption across the travel industry.
The opening keynote session on October 17 will be led by global leaders from Facebook, Microsoft and Trip.com. It will touch on the major technological changes driving disruption in the travel industry, such as the rise in global smartphone ownership, how organisations are evolving their business models to remain competitive and their vision for the future of the travel industry.
Global leaders will provide insights on the major trends driving change and transformation within the travel industry
The keynote addresses will be delivered by Nikhilesh Ponde, global head of travel strategy from Facebook; Shane O’Flaherty, global director of travel and transportation from Microsoft; and Xing Xiong, CEO from Trip.com.
Day two’s keynote will be a new intermediaries panel session with a focus on the future of travel distribution, given how OTAs, metasearch engines and new intermediaries are disrupting distribution.
The second keynote panel session will be led by industry players including Amy Wei, vice president, Asia-Pacific from Kayak; Andrew Hughes, regional director of sourcing from Hotelbeds; Filip Filipov, vice president of product from Skyscanner; and Charlie Osmond, founder & chief tease from Triptease.
The keynote panel session on day three will look at China’s outbound travellers are reshaping the world today with their spending power.
Sharing their insights on connecting travel brands with Chinese millennials are Alessandro Dassi, CEO & general manager, Greater China & Far East from Thomas Cook; Troy Liu, founder & CEO from Mileslife; and Changle Yang, COO from Tujia.
Attracting high-quality website traffic is vital to any brand. This fact isn’t lost on travel marketers with roughly 90 per cent of digital ad budgets going towards traffic generation. However, traffic generation, while important, is only one half of the job. The next step is converting this traffic into actual bookings.
Jamie Pierre
Recent research showed that the travel sector is hit hardest by consumer hesitation – more specifically, when potential bookers make their way to the checkout process only to bail out early. This is also known as booking abandonment, and it happens with nine out of every 10 consumers in the travel sector. Travel agents are hit even harder online, seeing a miserably high 97.4 per cent average abandonment rate.
A certain amount of shopping around for inspiration is a hallmark of the travel industry, with customers always likely to dip their toe before taking the plunge on an often expensive outlay. However, there are some easy ways travel agents can reduce this number to increase bookings.
Know your type online: get with the programmatic
The first chance travel agents have to decrease booking abandonment rates is actually before consumers even arrive on site. With so much marketing budget going on driving wannabe travellers to your website, making sure that this traffic is relevant and interested in your product is vital to success. This can be achieved with programmatic display ads.
Display advertising has undergone a revival of late, driven by a few reasons. For one, the widespread change to programmatic buying of inventory has made it more accessible and affordable for a greater number of companies to run display campaigns. But the main reason behind the resurgence of display advertising is the results it can now achieve.
The huge quantity of data available today allows travel companies to reach their target demographic with unprecedented accuracy. With a programmatic strategy in place, travel agents can pinpoint the difference between traffic and qualified traffic – driving only worthwhile, relevant consumers to their sites. And as a general rule of thumb, the better suited your offering is to the people who view it, the more successful bookings your website will generate.
Less persona, more personal
I’m assuming that you will be familiar with, and most likely use, buyer personas. Effective marketing, and ultimately business practice, has always involved the ability to find and develop a strong relationship with your customer – speaking to and not at. And how can you do that without knowing who they are?
However, traditional buyer personas are of limited use in the modern online landscape, and in display advertising in particular. While they’re great at telling you who your customers are, it’s only through data reporting that you can see how they act.
Take an active holiday provider, for example. Their ideal candidate for booking is 30-50 years old, a fitness nut, with moderate levels of disposable income and a fondness for running wear. With the traditional model of manual inventory purchasing, ad space would be paid for on sports news and retail websites in the hope that their readership overlaps with this customer profile. However, customers are far less one-dimensional in reality.
By using a mix of automated data points and real-life market expertise, brands can not only reach their target audience, but make a positive impression with their advertising.
Every time a visitor uses your website, their actions tell a story, it’s up to travel companies to read it. Doing so will mean travel agents can cater to behavioural trends on site and in their marketing, leading to better booking rates online.
Make your website a one-stop shop
Making travel plans often starts with a spark of inspiration, and inspiration is often followed up with a good deal of research. The more travel agents can stay relevant during this transition, the better chance they have of being there at the decisive moment – the booking.
Embed Instagram accounts, integrate TripAdvisor reviews and publish share-worthy blogs to allow consumers to continue their research journey but remain on your site to do it. Also, a thumbs up from fellow travellers along with some stunning snaps is often more persuasive than your carefully crafted and articulately illustrative website copy alone.
By bringing everything together, travel agents, regardless of size, will cut booking abandonment.
Declutter the booking process
Bookings rely on momentum, and nothing kills momentum like boredom or confusion. So any booking process needs to be kept lean, intuitive and easy to use. This means short forms, inline field validation and offering a number of different payment options to remove any blockers in the process and keep bookers on track.
Although customers are now more comfortable with online payments in general, displaying security logos and clear delivery options still goes a long way to instilling trust. If you’re unsure of what’s working and what isn’t in your booking process, run version-controlled A/B testing to find out where customers are checking out.
Reach back after rejection
Booking holidays can take up to 45 days with people visiting as many as 38 travel sites before committing, so even the best functioning sites will lose travellers at the final hurdle. This is where travel agents can make significant gains on the competition.
Given the role played by research in the booking process, those abandoning ‘almost bookers’ are far from lost causes – quite the opposite. They’ve showed solid intent at this stage, so proactively reaching back out via email or retargeting ads will oftentimes be welcomed as an extension of customer service.
So there you have it, five top ways for travel agents to reduce booking abandonment rates online that actually work. Abandonment rates may be high but as the number of bookings made online continues to skyrocket, this points more to the opportunity for travel agents to win back bookings than the threat of losing them.
Ve Global is a marketing and advertising technology business that operates from product discovery through to purchase.
Pullman Luang Prabang, Laos
The 16-hectare resort situated 10 minutes away from the UNESCO-listed Old Town features 123 guestrooms, suites and a two-bedroom villa nestled amid infinity pools, watercourses and streams. Lead-in rooms start with the 42m2 Deluxe Room and extends to the two-bedroom Villa – complete with separate living and dining areas, garden and pool – which can host up to 50 guests for a cocktail party or 12-seater private dinner.
Facilities on-site include the all-day dining L’Atelier restaurant, two bars, gym, spa, outdoor pool and kids’ club. The property is also home to Luang Prabang’s largest conference centre, which can cater up to 300 guests and whose outdoor patio can also host al-fresco events and pre-dinner cocktail functions.
Four Seasons Hotel Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Four Seasons has taken up residence in a new 65-storey building just next to the Petronas Twin Towers. The property houses 209 guestrooms and suites, 27 serviced apartments, and 242 private residences.
Recreational facilities include an outdoor pool complete with private cabanas, a spa with eight treatment rooms, and fitness centre. There are also six F&B venues, ranging from the Cantonese restaurant Yun House to Bar Trigona. For meetings and events, the hotel offers 1,821m2 of flexible event space over two ballrooms and four meeting rooms.
The Mantra Albury Hotel, Australia
This new eight-storey hotel in Albury, New South Wales offers 146 one- and two-bedroom studios and suites, all of which come furnished with a microwave and fridge. Amenities on-site include a restaurant and bar called La Tierra, 24-hour reception, an Internet lounge, and a fully-equipped gymnasium. There are also conferencing and events facilities that can cater for more than 200 people, and an exclusive Sky Lounge available for hire on the top floor with sky lighting, wet bar and lounge seating.
Ascott Harmony City Nantong, China
The Ascott has opened its first property in Nantong, a city along the Yangtze River Economic Belt in China’s Jiangsu province. The property offers 164 apartments, ranging from studio to three- bedroom units. Each apartment comes with a living room, dining area and a fully-equipped kitchen. Recreational facilities include a breakfast lounge, gym, sky garden and indoor swimming pool. A library, conference room facilities and business support services are also available for corporate travellers.
A cover feature on the use of technology to enhance the delegate experience at business events, published in TTGmice’s June 2017 issue, has won the PATA Gold Award 2018, Travel Journalism – Industry Business Article.
Written by group editor Karen Yue, The Technology Experience sought to understand the types of event technology available in the marketplace, the benefits they bring to the delegate experience, and the rate of technology adoption in business events, drawing insights from industry specialists.
TTGmice joins 29 other winners of the PATA Gold Award 2018, which recognises organisations and individuals across the categories of Marketing, Environment, Corporate Social Responsibility, Women Empowerment Initiative, Education and Training and more.
The annual awards also celebrates four PATA Grand Awards recipients in the areas of Education and Training, Environment, Heritage and Culture, and Marketing.
According to a PATA statement, this year’s awards attracted 200 entries from 87 organisations and individuals worldwide. The winners were selected by an independent judging committee consisting of 14 senior executives from the travel, tourism and hospitality sectors.
These awards have been generously supported and sponsored by the Macao Government Tourism Office since 1995.
The awards ceremony will take place in Langkawi, Malaysia, on September 14 during PATA Travel Mart 2018.
The travel trade is eager awaiting details on Malaysia’s Sales and Services Tax (SST) rate, which is set to be reintroduced on September 1 after the bill is passed in the current parliament session.
Malaysian finance minister Lim Guan Eng had announced that the provision of services has been set at six per cent, while the sales of goods will incur a 10 per cent tax.
Tourism stakeholders voice various concerns as Malaysia plans to reintroduce sales and services tax; Kuala Lumpur skyline pictured
These are the same rates imposed under the old SST structure before it was replaced by the Goods and Services Tax (GST) on April 1, 2015.
While Malaysian consumers are currently enjoying the tax holiday after the GST has been reduced to zero since June 1 this year, travel industry leaders are waiting and seeing how the new tax laws will affect the sector.
When contacted, Malaysian Association of Hotel Owners executive director Shaharuddin Saaid said the association is currently waiting for official communication from the government on the SST implementation.
He said: ”We don’t know the mechanism yet, but we hope it won’t be like the old GST system where we have to pay tax of six per cent on the service charge of 10 per cent as that is not fair for hotels.”
Nigel Wong, director of Urban Rhythms Tour Adventures and Travel, said he hopes the SST will not be extended to include services covered in tours and travels, as it had not in the past.
“We hope it remains status quo as far as the travel industry is concerned,” Wong said.
Ally Bhoonee, executive director of World Avenues, shared: “We have to wait for more information from the government on the SST mechanism. At this point, we don’t know how it will affect contract rates with hotels – will the hotels maintain nett rates or revise their rates?”
Elevating the ease of travel planning in Myanmar and improving customer experience was Flymya founder Than Tun Win’s main goal when he launched the company in 2016.
“There was a lack of good comprehensive domestic flight booking websites and travel portals for independent travel agents to upload their packages,” the entrepreneur said. “We wanted to provide a seamless all-in-one portal.”
Than Tun Win launched Flyma to improve the travel booking experience in Myanmar
Since launching, Flymya has worked with more than 300 travel partners, airlines and bus operators, and grown from a team of 12 to more than 100, providing 24/7 support. It has also developed an online event booking and ticketing section, and boasts the largest selection of flights, buses, hotels and tour packages in Myanmar.
The company has quickly expanded its reach in Myanmar and beyond. In early 2017, Flymya snapped up London-based startup Switch.cm, which builds reservations platforms for the hotel and airline industries.
Than Tun Win said: “Hotels in Myanmar and South-east Asia are mainly using extranet and Excel sheets for hotel bookings. We see a lot of potential in providing an easy-to-use property management software and channel manager to help small hotels aross South-east Asia digitalise.”
In December 2017, Flymya expanded its presence further when it bought out smaller rival Go-myanmar.com. Go-Myanmar.com’s popularity online – attracting 3,000 to 4,000 daily visitors, predominantly from Europe and America – combined with Flymya’s regional reputation as a local leader have strengthened its position and put the company ahead of the game globally, said Than Tun Win.
Flymya’s plans don’t stop there. The second half of 2018 will see the company shift its focus outwards, with sights set on regional expansion starting with Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam.
Than Tun Win said: “Flymya believes in helping small tour operators and hotels by giving them better access to platforms and technology, while promoting grassroots entrepreneurship.”
Following the launch of its first outpost in Singapore’s Chinatown, homegrown capsule hotel brand Cube has opened its second property in the city, this time in the Kampong Glam heritage district.
Cube Boutique Capsule Hotel at Kampong Glam offers 56 beds – a mix of singles and queens – in configurations of private group rooms and dormitories nestled within three conserved shophouses.
Cube hotel’s queen bed
By bringing a luxury feel to the low-cost backpacker dormitory, Sonia Anya Tay, COO and co-founder of Cube, hopes that the concept will attract fun-seeking and tech-savvy travellers, families and special interest groups.
Furthermore, CEO and co-founder Benedict Choa told TTG Asia that Cube aims to “raise the profile of Kampong Glam as an events street”, as the hotel promotes the character and attractions of the vibrant cultural district it sits in.
Cube’s founders Sonia Anya Tay and Benedict Choa
For example, daily breakfast at its in-house café features one dish supplied from a neighbouring F&B establishment – usually a local halal dish such as nasi lemak or mee goreng – and room configurations are named after Kampong Glam’s surrounding streets.
Each capsule moderates its own temperature and air-flow; is solidly insulated to reduce ambient noise; and is equipped with a universal electrical outlet, safe, vanity area, bedside light, garment space and a digital locker drawer.
Guests are provided with a dental kit, slippers and one towel upon check-in – which are exchangeable daily – and a washing machine with complimentary detergent, as well as work desks, are provided for guests’ use.
Cube’s founders also plan to open another capsule hotel in Chinatown with a family concept by this year-end, and the company also has overseas projects in the pipeline.
InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) has signed a management agreement with Pearl Grand Tower Hotel to bring the InterContinental brand back to the Sri Lankan capital.
Slated to open in 2019, InterContinental Colombo will feature 307 rooms including 47 suites across 42 stories. All rooms and suites will be equipped with top-class modern amenities, and most will have uninterrupted views of the Indian Ocean.
InterContinental brand returns to Colombo city (pictured)
Located along Galle Road in Colombo 3 district, the upcoming property will house 1,115m2 of meeting and banqueting facilities, with the largest room able to accommodate 400 guests. Other facilities include a business centre, gym, outdoor pool, spa, and six dining options.
Sudeep Jain, IHG’s vice president, development, South-west Asia, commented: “This move is in line with our strategy to grow IHG’s footprint across South-west Asia, and expand the presence of the InterContinental brand in key cities and resort destinations in the region.”
