The impact of social media and technology within hotel industry

The impact of social media and technology within hotel industry

Goricastanisic, February 16, 2013

http://goricastanisic.wordpress.com/2013/02/16/280/

                

Over the past years, the increase utilization of new technologies and social media has become an essential aspect impossible to avoid in the current world of work. The tourism industry is not spared by this trend and especially not the hospitality one. A lot of recent articles and surveys try to find out the impacts of this trend on the hotel industry. The article named “The impact of social media and technology within hotel industry” published by Goricastanisic in February 16, 2013 attempts to sum up all these positive and negative results.

The positive impacts of new technologies and social media on the hotel industry

The effective increase of new technologies and social media’s utilization can be seen as an international window and consequently as incredible opportunities in the hotel business environment. Indeed, it can be a fantastic tool:

 - To romote a hotel. Publicity can be easily and internationally release. Newsletters can be sent, information can be share instantaneously and so on. 

-  Consumers can share their own experiences, satisfaction, advice and information with everybody in the world.

- People can easily register their rooms, discover new hotels, compare price-rooms-facilities and so on. It is very easy to get every kind of information about everything. In a nutshell this tool represent a perfect way to save time.

- Create real competitive advantage.

The negative impacts of new technologies and social media on the hotel industry

Unfortunately, new technologies and social media not only bring positive impacts. They are not necessarily tools easy to put in place and to manage in an optimal way.  As said before, they represent a kind of international window which can be dangerous if its management is not perfect. Negative reviews or bad comments on Facebook or Trip Advisor may turn out to be a real disaster. To avoid these terrible issues, it seems more and more necessary to implement specific teams to manage and work exclusively on that.

There are still a lot of hotels which are not integrating new technology in their strategic plan. These hotels are generally the small or old ones because of a lack of money or technological skills. To be really effective, additional employee training seems necessarily. 

Moreover, the management of these tools is doubly difficult to do properly because targets are various and it is difficult, even impossible to touch each segment with the same strategy. How to attract business travelers as well as the leisure travelers, the young and the seniors and so on? A lot of different platform should be put in place in order to touch and satisfy everybody.

To conclude, we can say that new technologies and social media are efficient tools if their management are absolutely perfect. Their advantages are huge, famous and considerable but can be turning out disaster very quickly. In the future, we can suppose that each hotel will have its own team specially dedicated to the management of new technologies and social media. 

Key words: New Technologies, Social Medias, Hotel industry, Positive impacts, Negative impacts, 

Other articles:

M,, Christou ,E,, Gretzel, U. (2012) Social Media in Travel, Tourism and Hospitality: Theory, Practice and Cases, UK, Asghate Publishing Limited

                                                                                                                              Solenne Annoussamy and Juliette Courty-Garnier

A NEW BORN in the collaborative tourism industry: the KLM Must See Map.

A new trend in the tourism sector has emerged for these last years named the collaborative tourism. This new form is more focused on the social aspect than other aspects, which means travellers are more able to share their experiences and knowledge thanks to new specialized websites such as Tripnco  and Aventuro. These both websites are platforms for travellers for which in one hand want to find other partners to organize a common travel and in the other hand for traveller who desire to participate in a travel already prepared either by the members or by other travellers registered in these websites. Aventuro is more specialized in the adventure tourism than Tripcno but both of them have the same purpose toward their customers. And as we can see, consumers are on the centre of the process of decision-making. That is what we call prosumers.

Therefore, advantages are numerous both for travellers and travel agencies.

Firstly, for travellers, there is a better share of their experiences and interests with people who want to have information about a destination or desire to have information about a specific region or country due to a lack of information. Then, it is easier to constitute a group with people sharing similar interests. Another significant advantage is the cost sharing which allow “collaborative economies” for travellers. As regards the advantages for travel agencies, we can notice that they can target the expectations and needs of their customers easier and faster. As a consequence, they could observe the real trends that are related to their customers. They make their customer in the same time more loyal. The collaborative tourism will certainly modify the tourism sector in a near future because travellers are still looking for better expertise and service. That is why the tourism sector has to adapt rapidly to these new trends if they want to be competitive.

Being competitive creating new services, this is one of the objective and a success of KLM with the project of the Must see map. This is a great example of the collaborative tourism since using the Must see map, travellers can prepare their new stay with the recommendation of their friends from different social network on the places to go, to eat, etc…

Once, the friends end their say, KLM print and send the complete map with all the advices included on the map to the user for free.

To know more about the KLM's Must see map, watch the video. 

Sources:

- http://www.aventureo.com/
- http://www.etourisme-outgoing.fr/tourisme-communautaire-et-collaboratif/
- http://www.tripnco.com/fr/
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=dosrsAy4ENY

UGC, User Generated Currency?

How Ctrip became the biggest on-line travel agency in China.

With the rapid development of technologies, the tourism and event industries are revolutionized by the new technologies and media. According to the speech given during the “Global Tourism Economy Forum 2012” in Macau, by Zhou Li, the mobile technology and internet generated $6 trillion of the global economy (which represents 9 percent of global GDP) and created 260 million jobs worldwide. The new technologies changed the way of travelling – traveler not only try to find useful information about many potential destinations, but also try to find interesting destinations activities and hotels before, during, and give comments after the trip. But, according to the researches, the technologies are useless without users. This is why many state that the UGC- User Generated Content – is the most effective tool for any marketing process.

As can be understood from the name, the User Generated Content gives internet users the chance to give advices or comment, using their own knowledge and opinions on the website. Being very aware of the huge potential of this opportunity, Ctrip, the biggest on-line travel agency in China, successfully linked the UGC to their website and mobile applications. On those, you can find the advices and experiences given by and to the travelers during the trip. This includes the destination recommendation, current activities, sight spots information, and hotels booking. Both Ctrip’s website and app of are not only providing information, but mainly forwarding to the users the most accurate and up to date comments in order to fully inform and satisfy their customers.

Let’s take a closer look at Ctrip’s strategy, and understand how it became the biggest online travel agency in China thanks to the UGC.

1.      The first step consist of using a marketing strategy with the combination of contact on-line (website), on app (mobile application) and sometime with telephone services, which supports eight languages including Chinese, English, French, German, Spanish, Korean, Japanese and Russian, in order to reach a target as broad as possible within their own territory.

2.      The second step is implementing what everybody expects from a travel agency: providing Information about the destination, the local activities, the possible hotels to be booked, the flights that can be taken, the affordable organized tours and other various services (including electronic maps, trains, bus, weather forecasts, events and exhibitions information and car rentals).

3.      Finally the most important step of their strategy is based on the UGC, which can be found in three different areas.

a)       Hotels. Ctrip doesn’t only recommend hotels to users but also provides customer comments about the hotels, and creates a ranking based on those comments. Clients who booked and slept in a specific hotel can give their comments about their stay and their experience. This is essential for potential customers because it can greatly influence their choices and purchases. It also extremely useful for the hotels that want to improve the satisfaction of their guest by focusing on some positive comments or correcting, solving problems that induced negative comments. The UGC comments gathered from the clients will directly appear under the basic information of the hotel. Thus, users have direct access to both types of information and can build their choice based on either or both.

b)       Destination guides written officially by Ctrip and improved by tourists. The contents can include activities, hotel, restaurant, spa and other information. Travelers are willing to share their experience with others in this space. In one hand, the clients UGC helps other clients to find information. In another hand, it gives a platform for the clients to show their travel experience to others. Moreover, as comments can be given for all the guides, it gives an opportunity for travelers to communicate with each other, creating a forum of some sorts. It is also widely used for lonely travelers wishing to find a companion for their prospective trip by posting a message on a forum and receiving an answer from someone with similar travelling interest.

Mobile APP

c)        Mobile application. Ctrip mobile application boasts that it can fully satisfy your travel experience by combining travel guides, hotels and flight bookings; but also traditional information completed with the UGC. In addition, it gives you some surprises – you can use this to find the nearest tourist attraction and the comments left by others who have been there, you even can see the time when others posted. It provides the latest information and the real feeling of others. For example, whether it is the right place you want to visit, the food or services provided there, the activities you can go to, how to get discount; even if the weather is good for your trip there. With this UGC, you can plan your trip better and you can even find friends who are nearby and chat with each other through this platform.

UGC is important for travelers because they can get the “true” information and experiences felt by their peers that can help them make the purchasing desicion. It is also critical for the companies and marketers by gathering the satisfaction information of the customers and creates data files that can be used for generating loyalty, or for selling to any tourism focused company wishing to learn about the potential market. The UGC brings a new travel model for travellers which is more convinent and effective before, during and after the consumer travel process

Reference: 
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/hkedition/2012-09/12/content_15751370.htm
http://english.ctrip.com

Posted by: Qian GE, Alexis Brenet

QR Codes: A New Era in Advertising

QR codes (quick response codes, QRCs) have been around for decades but are just gaining popularity in recent years due to the increased use of digital and mobile technology. Unlike the one-dimensional barcodes, QR codes have a two-dimensional matrix design which allows them to store much more information.

Initially, QRCs were used by manufacturers in order to optimise production capacities. In recent years, QR codes have become a novelty marketing tool which allows customers to access product- and company-related information on-the-go. All you need to do is scan the code with your smartphone and a special app will do the rest. Contained data can be transformed into a predefined message, an image, documentation or a hyperlink. Buses, billboards and magazines are already common places for QR codes. This technology attracts attention with its modern graphic design and provides a centralised database which can be accessed anytime and anyplace as long as you have a smartphone and an internet connection.

QRCs provide endless opportunities to inform, advertise and attract people to virtual and real-life destinations. No wonder that they are becoming the new thing in the tourism industry.



source: Creativeview.co.uk

In the summer of 2012, the city of Lisbon brought together traditional craft and modern marketing by creating a pavement QR code campaign. Walking along the street you may stumble upon a mosaic which is more than just street art. It provides tourists with information about major attractions in the area. Strategically located QR codes inviting visitors to Portugal are also to be found in Barcelona. The campaign was unveiled on 10 June 2012 at a tourism trade fair in Barcelona, during the commemorations for Portugal Day.Similar initiatives are undertaken in Rio de Janeiro and Seoul.



source: Soehnepartner.com

Another urban application of QR codes will be created in Dubai. Austrian architects Söhne & Partner have designed not only a building but also a medium. The Code Unique Hotel, currently under construction, will contain a giant QR code incorporated in its facade. Situated in Dubai Studio City, the building is intended to attract members and fans of the local and world film industry. The hotel will provide premium service to travellers and is already becoming an attraction itself due to its futuristic design.





source: Missionhillschina.com

QR codes may also appear in natural landscapes. In January 2013, the Mission Hills Golf Club in Shenzhen choreographed a giant human QR code in the golf premises. The idea is to promote global sustainable eco-tourism and celebrate the 20th anniversary of the club. The code was comprised of 2000 employees carrying umbrellas and could be seen from the sky. When scanned, it redirects to a campaign website and engages visitors in a sustainability survey. Participants then have the chance to win a holiday package courtesy of the company.

 

All these examples are a testament to a new trend in marketing and advertising which pushes the boundaries of creativity and engages people to act.

Indeed, the simple and emblematic design of any QR code allows creative application and placement. Many forms of traditional marketing have become too intrusive while people struggle to go through the information clutter. Concerning tourism, visitors are often disturbed or even overwhelmed by advertising messages which “pollute” urban and natural landscapes. QR codes are self-service tools intended to arouse curiosity - they create a gateway to information and merely invite people in.


Sources:
BeQRious, n.d. A Hotel All Wrapped Up in QR Code. BeQRious.com, n.d.
<http://beqrious.com/a-hotel-all-wrapped-up-in-qr-code/>

TPN/LUSA, 2012. Cobblestone QR Code a World First. The Portugal News Online, 30 August 2012.
<http://theportugalnews.com/news/cobblestone-qr-code-a-world-first/26701>

BBC News. Mosaic QR codes boost tourism in Rio de Janeiro. BBC.co.uk, 31 January 2013.

<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-21274863>

Lima, P., 2012. QR Code Made with Portuguese Cobblestone. CreativeReview.co.uk, September 2012.
<http://www.creativereview.co.uk/feed/september-2012/25/qr-code-made-with-portuguese-cobblestone>

BeQRious, n.d. South Korea Boosts Tourism with QR Codes. BeQRious.com, n.d.

<http://beqrious.com/south-korea-boosts-tourism-with-qr-codes/>

Söhne & Partner, n.d. Studio City Hotel. Code Unique. Soehnepartner.com, n.d.

<http://www.soehnepartner.com/projekte/studio-city-hotel>

Mission Hills, 2013. World’s Largest Golf Club & Spa Resort Creates the World’s Biggest QR Code. MissionHillsChina.com, 28 January 2013.

<http://www.missionhillschina.com/en-US/mediacenter/news_archive/the-world-s-biggest-qr-code>

Key words: QR codes, tourism, marketing, advertising, technology, sustainability, creativity

Written by: STOILOVA, Lilyana & OUYANG Xiaozhao

3D print technology in hybrid meetings

The 3D print technology:
Over the last few years, 3D printing as a more refined technology has caught the public eye a lot. Some of the uses have drawn wide attention in the media and the public, from the ability to produce gun parts at home to the amazing creation of foods.

How exactly does 3D printing work:
No matter 2D or 3D printer, the principal of “printing” an object is not far from us: spraying or transferring a substance in multiple layers onto a building surface.
First, people should create a 3D image of the item you want to print on the computer by using software(for example CAD). This software will slice that virtual object into hundreds or thousands of horizontal layers. Then 3D printer is going to implement those layers one over another till the completed object emerges.

Applications:
Industrial 3D printers have appeared since the 1980s and have been used extensively for rapid prototyping and research purposes. This is because 3D printing enabled rapid manufacturing in an inexpensive way. The production of small numbers of parts is much easier than ever. Besides, there are not so much limitations on the materials: plastic, resin, even the food could be “printed”.


3D Printing of Humans:
Some fans are crazing in trying to print everything. How about print a human? Some biotechnological firms and academic institutes have already produced human organs by layers of living cells. Those organs will bear a real human or a robot? Here’s what “3D Human Printing” would be applied. Let’s say I can’t attend a meeting tomorrow because that’s in India, 8000 miles away. But I really want to go. So, I send data of my body to that far away office and they create another me through 3D printer. I take my virtual reality suit at home and that printed me wear a same one, then we open eyes at same time. On the video screen I see what those eyes see. I move my arms and that one moves its arms. I talk that one talks with my voice. My entire awareness feels like it’s in the room in India.

Of course, video conferencing can never replace face to face meetings. But this high technology might help to give you an immersed sense, and so do the others. People in that conference room are thinking you are right there with them. After talking or debating, the meeting completed. By saving money and time, is it a better way to communicate?

Look at these printed “human” in another way. It can touch the regions where you are absent. Those regions could be foreign countries, attractions or the universe. In terms of the disable people, they can feel the world through this receiver. This experience may delight their life and be remembered for a long time. Would this be a new market for the hospitality firms?

Keywords: 3D print, human, hybrid conference

Reference:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2013/01/23/f-3d-printing.html
http://blog.ponoko.com/2012/04/19/3d-printing-as-an-art-form/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_printing
http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2013/02/10-great-ideas-someone-should-invent/


By Chen LIU and Milena BILLAUD

New technology comes with new privacy concerns

New technology comes with new privacy concerns

New technology comes with new privacy concerns

BY ARJUNA SORIANO
NOV 10, 2011

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Google Inc./Arjuna Soriano/MEDILL

Government requests for Google's user data has jumped sharply.

New technologies such as Apple Inc.’s Siri and Amazon.com Inc.’s Kindle Fire are pushing both the limits of mobile technology and the amount of data that can be collected about users. High-speed cellular service and relatively slow mobile hardware has supercharged hand-held devices and upped the ante on privacy concerns.

“I think that individuals do not understand that they are providing all of this detailed information when they sign up for services,” said Ed Yohnka, director of communications and public policy for the American Civil Liberties of Illinois. “We need to make sure engaging in public life doesn’t result in harm or intrusion upon an individual’s privacy,” warns Ed Yohnka.

Apple's latest iPhone, the 4S, houses weapons-grade technology in its glass body. Siri, a project that originated in the depths of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, allows the user to interact and control the phone’s features by speaking to it in everyday language.

Some experts even think Siri may be the next major advance in computing.

“[Siri] shifts the competition from platforms positioned on a device to a ‘coupled’ super-platform dependent on broadband and infrastructural computing,” said Asymco.com founder and analyst Horace Dediu.

Getting Siri to run on the relatively underpowered iPhone required a high-speed connection to Apple’s powerful servers to help process user requests.

Siri has caught the imagination of the public and the tech world. Countless YouTube videos and websites have sprung up dedicated to the funny things it says. When asked who makes the best cell phone, Siri replies, “Wait... there are other phones?”  Siri now has its first single, singing a lovely duet with Internet rocker Jonathan Mann.

Siri relies on saving users’ requests to adapt and improve upon its responses. It is not clear if actual recordings of user voices are being saved or if it is only the content of the requests that are being collected.

Not to be outdone, Amazon’s Kindle Fire is challenging Apple’s iPad in the tablet computer market. Amazon focused on creating a product with a low price tag, which meant less computing power and less speed.

To make up for slower hardware, Amazon engineered a web browser that like Siri borrows computing power from high-speed Web servers. That should mean that web sites will show up faster on the device.

“The content of Web pages you visit using Amazon [Fire] passes through our servers and may be cached to improve performance on subsequent page loads,” states the Amazon privacy agreement.

In other words, Amazon servers not only see what users are doing on the Fire’s browser, they also save a copy of the content.

The new strategy of using Web servers to boost the power of mobile devices is causing concern among privacy advocates.

“New technologies are radically advancing our freedoms but they are also enabling unparalleled invasions of privacy,” warns the Electronic Frontier Foundation on its website.

One reason Google Inc. is able to return such accurate and helpful search results is because it collects previous searches and ranks results depending on what site users most often click on.

Email providers obviously save all user emails on remote computers. They also scan email subjects and content to weed out spam and allow them to provide relevant advertising.

Facebook knows who our friends and family are and they even use face recognition technology on every photo uploaded to its servers. This last practice has gotten

Facebook into legal trouble in Germany where the government has gone to court about it.

Critics complain that Google Inc. and Facebook are trying to become some sort of Big Brother.

“It’s kind of scary,” said Occupy Chicago participant Jill Johnson. When asked why Occupy Chicago still uses social media services like Facebook and Twitter she responded, “It is the only way we can get our message out.”

In light of rampant privacy concerns, it may be puzzling why companies continue to amass user data.

The bottom line is they make money from it.

Google has turned the information into advertising dollars, lots of them. It reported second-quarter revenue of $6.82 billion, 97 percent of which came from selling advertising.

Not just any type of advertising, though. The real moneymakers are "targeted ads," or ads that relate to the things that users like. "They are giving an experience that is more relevant to the user,” said Cary Lawrence, vice president of SocialCode LLC, an agency specializing in targeted advertising campaigns on Facebook. "What we found was, ads that had interest targeting had a 54 percent higher click-through rate and a 176 percent higher 'like' rate."

There is also a secondary danger inherent in gathering all of this user data in one place.

“It is often used in ways that consumers have no idea it is being used. That includes the sharing of information with government agencies,” said Yohnka of the ACLU.

Digital privacy watchdog, the Electronic Frontier Foundation warns, “...by logging your online activities these companies are creating a honey pot of personal information potentially available to any party wielding a subpoena.”

The government, in fact, can compel a service provider to disclose the contents of an email that is older than 180 days with nothing more than a subpoena, according to senior counsel for Google, Richard Salgado.

The government has been taking full advantage of this. Various agencies have requested information from Google at an increasing rate, almost 6,000 requests in the first six months of 2011. Google has handed over user data 93 percent of the time.

To its credit, Google has been pushing for reform in online privacy laws and it is the only large company to release data on government information requests made by agencies.

It is a bit scary, but Darryl Frazier of Chicago who uses social media and his iPhone to communicate with his family has an old-fashioned solution. “I try not to put too much personal information out there.”

NEVERTOLATETOBENEWBRAND

Near-field communication is already embedded in your personal life, but what can it do for you professionally?

Key words: NFC, Mobile phones, Congress, delegates

This article was written by Samantha Dixon and published on the MPI Website. In the article, Samantha summarizes the advantages for planners to use technologies such as Near-field communication (NFC). This is a tool that can be used by event planners in many different ways. As an example, it enables smartphones to communicate using a radio frequency. This new tool works when only one of the devises is powered. It works similarly to Bluetooth but of course in a better way. The author of the article gives a concrete example which is: “A chip with no battery of its own can be inserted into something as small as a piece of paper. One device acts as the writer, the other as the reader. However, with two powered devices, peer-to-peer data transfer is possible”. Even if NFC works similarly to Bluetooth, there are still considerable differences.

1.     The connection between the two devices is 60 times faster than with Bluetooth.

2.     NFC is more secure as it allows for a closer operating range, which is perfect for congested areas.

With the NFC, consumers are able to pay and directly receive their receipt on their mobile phones! Some banks have already adopted this mode of payment such as American Express. Corbin Ball even goes as far as saying that NFC is the step forward and we may turn into a cashless society.

The events industry, slowly comprehends its use for events. For instance, NFC can be used to enhance interaction and experience, especially for corporate events. It also allows for a higher networking.

Currently, NFC can be useful in 9 ways for meeting planners. As mentioned before, NFC can be used as a contactless payment method. This works especially great for small transactions. For instance, delegates of a congress would be able to pay their food on the congress premises with their phones. They will also be able to see their cash balance directly on their phone. The London Olympic Games have used this contactless payment method during the Games in order to allow athletes to pay at thousands of shops. The second way, which will prove very useful by some event attendees, is using NFC for automatic ticketing. As such, delegates can wear a bracelet that holds all their information, payment methods, etc… They can wear it at all times throughout the congress duration. This means that attendees don’t need to worry about posted badges/tickets, a registration centre at the congress or spending money and time on phone calls. As mentioned above, NFC is particularly useful for social networking. Delegates are able to share information, photos, videos, etc.. more easily and faster, whilst sitting next to each other! Furthermore, information can be exchanged easily, such as maps, timetables, business cards, or also, exhibitors can easily display the information they want to show.  The main benefit of sharing information in this way during exhibitions is that no paper needs to be printed, therefore it diminishes the environmental damage and the visitors do not have to carry heavy paper around.

Another way that NFC can be used at events is for obtaining leads. For instance, sales representative can focus on actually selling their products, instead of concentrating on obtaining contact details. In that example, NFC can be used to obtain contact details by prospects who are interested. One way that would be of high interest for event planners would be during the registration process. Similar to the wristband previously mentioned, delegates could have one card with all their contact details that they would scan at the entrance of the congress. They can also scan their card at the entrance of break out sessions for instance, in order to mark their presence and to get the slides. This enables the event planner to know who has attended the session.

Currently, there are two main providers of NFC technologies that are Poken and Getvoo. At the moment, congresses that wish to use NFC technologies hand-out the devise to attendees, as not all of them have phone which enable the use of NFC. Furthermore, attendees feel connected when they get given a devise at congresses, so it does seem that the trend is not to develop phones that enable NFC use. 

There are 3 main reasons why firms should and want to invest in NFC.

1.     To be first ones to use the technology and to be innovative.

2.     Use it as marketing tool – being a pioneer in using such a technology will allow for visibility and exposure in the media.

3.     To save money- NFC enables to collect contact details a lot faster than with regular staff.

This new technology will definitely be used by event planners and attendees in the next decade or so. It is also important that event planners should always be on the look out for new technologies that they can incorporate in the organization of their event.

The article can be found on:

http://www.mpiweb.org/Portal/Technology/20130205/A_New_Meeting_Frequency