Guest in the City – the Airbnb of the leisure industry?

Guest in the City is a collaborative platform allowing French or foreign tourists to book meals and activities with French locals (cooking class, wine tasting, guided tours…). The objective is to offer a friendlier kind of tourism and authentic experiences with locals. People from different nationalities can meet and share their culture and way of living.

The website has been launch in October 2015 by Frank & Véronique Prabel, co-founder of Guest in the City. They decided to develop this project because they found that it is not always easy to meet the locals when travelling. Guest in the City offers a connection between the tourists and the hosts wishing to share their passions or welcome people at their places.  

 Source: http://www.guestinthecity.com/

Everybody can become a member of the Guest in the City community. You can be a French tourist but also an inhabitant of a neighborhood wishing to book and share an activities or dinner with a host staying in your area. In the future the platform would like to expand to the BtoB market and attract cultural or sportive event manager looking for new places, rooms or activities for their events.

But how does it work?  
The tourists or users of the platform can book their activities and pay the price fixed by the hosts directly on the site.

Source: http://www.guestinthecity.com/

Guest in the City takes a commission of 15% on the amount paid by the customers as the service fees but the hosts do not need to pay to publish a post. Each host is selected and validated by the team of Guest in the City to create a community in which tourists and users of the platform can trust and to assure the quality of the services offered. All the posts are available in French and English to increase the number of potential bookings.

100 posts are now available on the platform (April 2016). The objective of the team of Guest in the City is to reach 300 posts by the end of 2016 and more than 1,000 post by the end of 2017.

Surfing on the “collaborative economy” wave, this new start up offers an easy way to give a new dimension to our travels. Useful for both international and national travellers this concept allows travellers to be closer to locals and to discover more about the habits of the place they are visiting. For now, the start up is only starting to work and focus mostly on France but can easily expand to be used for other countries and offer more activities. 

Lucile BESSON & Léa MARET

Sources:

http://www.tourmag.com/Guest-in-the-City-veut-devenir-le-Airbnb-du-loisir_a79811.html

http://www.guestinthecity.com/fr/

http://bonjouridee.com/guestinthecity/

The new Accor mobile application has been awarded !

Some months ago, AccorHotels launched a new version of its mobile application in order to improve guests experience. They have been rewarded during the "Trophee des Apps" ceremony.

This Application enables travelers, whether business or leisure, to optimize their time by getting all information on the same platform. I do personally use it every time I travel in an AccorHotels property.

How does it meet guests' expectations?

Guests have the opportunity to:

Select a hotel among a wide range of brands, all introduced on the App

Find information about hotel location, facilities and services

Book online

Discover the online City Guide to better prepare their stay

Manage their loyalty accounts

Learn latest news and offers of the Group

Since July 2015, the application is even available on Apple Watch. Romain Roulleau, AccorHotels’ SVP e-commerce and director of the “mobile first” program explains:

“By launching this AccorHotels application for Apple Watch™, AccorHotels is establishing itself as an audacious digital hospitality player.”

This application enhances the huge potential of AccorHotels Digital Transformation.

Of course, we hope that other features will be developed soon. Some competitor hotels provide guests with tablets so that they can adjust temperature or lighting in their room. In order to personalize their stays, customers can even sometimes beneficiate from an e-concierge which enable them to order breakfast in the room, make dinner reservations, to request extra pillows…without moving from their rooms.”

Indeed, the hotel group is doing its mobile revolution to keep one single app.
Customers have on average 23 applications in their smartphone, including 3-4 dedicated to travel: TripAdvisor, one online travel agency, and one to go around. The third or fourth may be the one of a chain hotel. Accor want to be part of this selection. That is why they will have one application for all trademarks of Accorhotels. The group will multippliate the reasons for a traveler to have the Accor Hotel app in his smartphone. Thus they can be differentiated themselves from online agencies.

The French group has integrated last years the service Wipolo, the startups they bought in 2014 and already added Uber upon check-in.

Tailored services are as well offered within the hotel, such as restaurant reservations, spa, room service ...

 Accor wants to offer a complete experience before, during, and after the stay of the guests.

Mobile, including smartphones and tablets, attracts nearly 40% of the global audience, and 12% of direct digital sales. The delta is explained. Travelers often use their smartphone on the move, in public places. They did not necessarily want to take out their credit card and enter their details, in transport for example. To improve their conversion rate, they will adopt the second half of the 1-Click payment, such as Amazon's bank details are already entered, the purchase is validated with a single click.

Accor wants its staff to provide personalized service instead of being bogged down filling out paperwork to register guests.

Accor’s guests can do this advance check-in only if they’ve have booked their reservation directly through Accor or if they are loyalty program members or subscription cardholders.

On the day of the stay, guests receive a welcome text message confirming that the room key and room are available. The text may also provide practical tips about the property, such as ground transportation information and parking access codes, for example.

When guests arrive at the property instead of needing to provide credit card information and fill out paperwork, “the hotel staff is supposed to greet them immediately upon arrival in the lobby or possibly even in the hotel bar, hand them their room key, and answer any questions or handle special requests”, Accor says.

Christine Pouletty, who managed the project’s introduction, says early feedback shows that 93% of guests who used the service during a trial period indicated they would do so again. And, 40% of guests did the advance check-in with their smartphones, she adds.

“Queues are diminishing and hoteliers are more available for their guests,” Pouletty says. “They can devote themselves completely to their passion, the job of host.”

GOOGLE TRAVELS WITH ITS USERS

Google launched a new tool helping travellers to plan their future trips directly from their smartphones. This new tool, called Destinations, is an ergonomic interface pushing people to stay on Google in each step of the travel organisation.

Every day ”Destinations” the new tool summarizes the prices of thousands of billions itineraries to show flight and hotel fares which are updated every time. It enables people to compare costs among famous cities in a quick time.

Google has opened itself to the world travel with this new tool, targeting mobile users mainly. According to statistic, 60% of researches for travelling start on Google website, thus, the leader of the search engines decided to optimize its research interface of travelling and to take advantage of the “mobile-first” trend. It is a success; the number of travel researches on Google increased by 50 since last year.

How does it work?

Firstly, the mobile user has to indicate the destination wanted in the search engine and add the key words “holidays” or “destination”. The user can easily access to detailed information about the most famous destinations of a country.

The mobile user will be able to filter its research month by month in order to find the best prices according to the time through the filter “Flexible dates”. Then thanks to the filter “Discover” it will also be possible for the user to see the weather in each city all year long, the tool will suggest the user the best time in order to avoid the crowd. Thus the future consumer will be able to book its flight and accommodation through the function “Plan a trip”.  Google selects the offer fares for the next six months, up-to-date according to Google Flights and Hotel Finder data.

The new Google tool can be used as a travel guide.

“Carnet de voyages” classifies the itineraries most frequented depending on the destinations. The platform suggests places to visit based on the history of visits from the platform database or from the other internet users.

The traveller will be able to improve its researches by choosing activities to do according to its interests.

Google allows gaining time in the travel organisation, the benefit for the user is to make everything easier during the travel researches and bookings. The goal for Google is to keep the traveller on its interface so that the traveller spends less time on OTA’s. 

Oanh GIARD & Anne-Sophie SPITERI

References:

http://www.tourmag.com/Comment-Google-veut-il-se-rendre-indispensable-aux-voyageurs_a79225.html

http://images.google.fr/imgres?imgurl=http%3A%2F%2Fnicoo.fr%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2012%2F09%2Fgoogle-travel.png&imgrefurl=http%3A%2F%2Fnicoo.fr%2Fe-tourisme%2Fstrategie-voyage-de-google-529&h=95&w=275&tbnid=g4Hupf-DccXiYM%3A&docid=YgemlWKz-FhfeM&ei=UkcLV6qXMYf2UsXzmrgG&tbm=isch&iact=rc&uact=3&dur=1135&page=1&start=0&ndsp=25&ved=0ahUKEwiqiL3I_YXMAhUHuxQKHcW5BmcQMwgdKAAwAA

A Blog about blogs

The blog writing industry has never been so flourishing: more than 3 million blogs are nowadays created per month in the world. In 2013, 56% of Internet-users in the world first went on a blog before consulting a formal website and 34% of French people trusted  a travel blog more than other traditional tourism websites. Blogs and bloggers are now everywhere and most of them are specialised (gastronomy, fitness, travel, fashion, dance, music etc.) and in consequence they reach a particular public that can interest commercial brands or firms.

Gathering numerous people around their passion and stories and being web-experts, they use a new and particular story-telling way: more authentic, they use “I”, a personalised tone and different tools for expressing their personality and stories (words, pictures, videos, testimonies etc.). In their story-telling, they publish articles before, during and after the journey or the event on different channels (multi-channel strategy): Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube and their blog. But we should bear in mind their difference with journalists - who face conflicts of interests for example and who should remain as objective as possible. Indeed, bloggers benefit from their freedom. They interact a lot with their readers, have real relationships and dialogues with them, according to Marie-Julie Gagnon (writer, columnist and blogger).

According to a study ran by Marmara, most of bloggers spend more than 10 hours a week on their blog, 1 out of 5 spends more than 30 hours on it and more than 50% of respondents do not consider themselves as professional bloggers. Amateur or professional, young or older, at work or not, because of their huge and confident audience, the travel-bloggers are more and more needed and contacted by firms and brands to promote them on Internet and social media.

Source: Marmara, http://veilletourisme.ca/2015/11/23/comment-travailler-avec-les-blogueurs

The tourism industry starts being deeply interested by these bloggers as this sector is strongly linked to the Web. ITB fair in Berlin has organised for 2 years “speed-datings” to make bloggers and tourism professionals meet. Last September, the first “Travel Bloggers Fair” was held in Cannes. In a world where information is omnipresent, it is difficult to find some around; bloggers offer a new alternative than peers’ opinion. They are trust-worthy, have a large public of readers and their words count. As they are considered as ambassadors and opinion leaders, they obviously represent strategic allies for firms to extend their reputation or positioning. Indeed, they know how to create buzz, one easily follows them on social networks, one can simply interact with them and they make their followers loyal. In consequence, blogs become more and more a part of marketing strategies. They represent a great tool to understand trends of customers, their expectations and needs; it is also useful for improving the SEO of a place (hotel, restaurant, club, bar) as the search engine will take the place more into consideration.

Examples of brands using bloggers:

·         Voyages-sncf.com caught this wave and based its strategy on social media and blogs: from September 2014 to March 2015, 6 female bloggers visited 6 French cities in order to find good tips, the must-sees, must-dos and activities in partnership with My Little Paris, a website broadcasting trendy tips in Paris.

·      In 2013, Radisson Blu ran a first blog campaign, #MyMauritius, and gathered 13 bloggers during a week. This resulted into 54 published articles, 964 published pictures on Internet and reached 800 000 fans on Facebook.

Different financing possibilities can be proposed on these blogs:

•         Ads on the blogs, pay per click or according to the website traffic
•         Sponsored articles promoting a product
•       Affiliated links to commercial websites
•        Special actions or partnerships when the bloggers collaborate with the brand to create content

According to Abbi Agency, 70% of bloggers received a remuneration for an article. For example, Alexandre – CEO - who launched a blog in New York to supplement his pay, finally earned €200 000 in 2013. “For a blog, to be influent, it needs 1 000 unique visitors per day”.

Examples of the different uses of a blog:

http://www.nomadicmatt.com/

It is one of the most famous travel blogs; its motto is “Tips and advices on how you can travel better, cheaper and smarter”. For example, some articles are entitled “The ultimate guide to travelling when you have no money”, “How to find a cheap flight”, “How to buy good travel insurance”, “Why travel makes you awesome”. We have the feeling that the blogger talks to us individually; he moves us with his own words, he is close to us, understands our concerns and uses an informal tone with regular jokes. He talks about his experience, feelings, adventures, and meetings, what he liked in such city or on such trip and shares some must-dos and tips with his readers. For instance, in his article about Melbourne, he strongly recommends taking a jacket during the moonlight movies sessions in the Royal Botanic Gardens and points out that food and drinks are allowed.

https://lesjoiesevenementiel.wordpress.com/

« The joys of event management» is a popular French blog about the life of a junior event planner and about news in the industry. Through this blog, Gwendoline shares her passion and what she constantly learns, discovers about event planning. In one of her latest articles, she talked about her experience organizing a show for an amateur singer association. She explained that this project had taught her how to control herself and become mature. She encouraged her readers to live a similar experience with a lot of challenges, as it is how you learn the most and you feel the most satisfied about the final result.

By Camille COURTIAL-SPIROUX & Manon GATTEGNO

Sources

http://fr.labs.teads.tv/top-blogs/tourisme

http://www.tourmag.com/Les-blogueurs-voyage-des-influenceurs-convoites-par-le-tourisme_a70179.html

http://veilletourisme.ca/2015/11/23/comment-travailler-avec-les-blogueurs/

http://blog.lesroches.edu/alumni/the-importance-of-blogs-in-the-tourism-industry/

Trocotel: Don’t ever loose your hotel reservation anymore. Sell it!

It is time for your holidays. You booked a wonderful hotel room in Istanbul. You cannot wait to be there. Unfortunately, an unforeseen event changes your plans leaving only a couple of weeks before the departure. Moreover, your reservation is non-refundable. Thus, you are going to loose your money. No worries! Trocotel comes to your rescue!

Founded by professionals from the Parisian hotels, Etienne Merlo and Jerome Rouveron, Trocotel.com was born in April 2015. Because they have both worked for many years in this sector that both young entrepreneurs know how hard it is to manage customer dissatisfaction when requesting cancellations out of time... The idea has caught on and the answer to this problem began with the creation of Trocotel.com.

This start-up enables French people to resell this type of reservations that are comparable to the Prem’s ticket of SNCF. The concept comes from the US where it was created in 2014. Trocotel uses the collaborative and innovative spirit; in order to find a solution to the 1.8 million non-refundable hotel reservations lost every year.

This service is open 24/24 and 7/7 and available for 95% of hotels worldwide. Trocotel acts as a technical intermediary between the seller and the buyer. It debits service charges up to 12% if and only if the sale is effective. Otherwise, using Trocotel is totally free.

Every transaction that takes place on Trocotel is secured. A simple payment by credit card validates the purchase of the room. The sums paid are recorded pending the validation of both parties. Buyers and sellers are immediately informed of the sale of the accommodation unit by email. The payment is then held securely in the accounts of the financial partner of Trocotel, where he is untouchable. Then, it is released and transferred to the sellers two days after the date of departure.

What does it implies for the tourism industry?

- Democratize and simplify the tourism yield management to "restrictive price"

- Reconciling the client with the hotel and innovate face to a profession often misperceived by the public

It is a virtuous circle without unfair competition. For one, to get back his money lost in a useless booking and for the other, buy the reservation at a competitive price.

We can only regret that the site does not carries the name change on the reservation, as does its competitor RoomRoom. The client has to check himself with the hotel that his booking has been confirmed and that the name has been changed accordingly.

Sources:

http://www.mediaterranee.com/2232015-trocotel-au-top-du-troc-des-vacances-lhotel.html

http://www.lcg-expertise.fr/creation/les-idees-business/loisirs/article?title=trocotel-com-l-hotel-entre-particuliers

https://www.trocotel.com/

http://www.tourmag.com/Trocotel-le-troc-des-trains-de-l-hotellerie_a73656.html#