Tine Thygesen
- 5 easy steps to make your hotel
competitive on mobile
Mobile marketing
essentials for hotels
&

Everplaces
Global travel community, most
authentic design & foodie travel tips
TripTale
World’s best travel app builder
for brands and DMOs
We know a bit about
mobile travel…

52%
consumers used mobile
device to book travel
Laptop 48%. Mobile Marketer, March13
Why we are even having this conversation:

Setting the scene:
The challenge that is OTA strength
What started as a great source of new guests has
become a challenge:
- Transparent pricing squeeze margins
- Very high commissions
- Less direct relationship with guests
Status: Independent hotels online bookings:
76% OTA (70% average)
24% Own sites

On mobile it’s worse. Here most hotels are
losing further ground to OTAs
- OTAs: 64% of mobile hotel bookings 2012
- Hotels: 36% on own mobile sites:
Source: PhoCusWright

This is a big problem because mobile hotel
bookings are growing fast...
- 27% hotel bookings already via mobile on Orbitz (fifth
OTA bookings by Americans)
- Mobile & tablet hotel bookings have risen 12 fold
since 2010 (PCW)
- Las Vegas already gets 30% of all hotel bookings
from mobile

Q4 2013
And here comes a multiplying factor
Same-day bookings
29% now book within 24h of their stay:

Same day bookings intensify
problem for hotels because
same-day means mobile
- 65% of mobile customers on Orbitz are booking
hotels for the same day
- 70% of mobile bookings are for same-day stays
(PhoCusWright)

Purpose built apps
Example. HotelsTonight:
- 5m downloads
- 100 employees,
- $45m investment
In three years. Just
opened Europe office
Around 20 similar apps
Same-day bookings includes whole
new group of mobile-first OTAs

Conclusion: If hotels want to turn the tide.
You need to fight back
- wont be easy
- wont be fast
- not everything will work
but it is your best chance for long term thriving

Action plan
1.Improve mobile landing pages
2.Encourage time spent on your own sites
3.Build more loyalty with existing guests
4.Make it easier to book and buy services digitally
5.Quality matters

30% of traffic on many travel sites come from mobile, serve this fast
and accurately, or loose that deal.
Motivation
1. People stay 2.08 min longer on optimized sites (IAT)
2. Many booking decisions start on mobile and tablet, even if actual
booking is on web.
Mobile-web specific behavior:
- Be fast! You have 2.5 seconds for the page to load
- People want to-the-point info: Booking, address, contact
- Bring booking almost to the top & make easy to buy, use existing
systems to avoid credit card entry
1. Optimize mobile optimized pages

The first step to grab more direct bookings is to
encourage and reward people to stay longer on pages
you control:
Web
- Great, multiple visuals
- Lots of detailed info incl. maps with local area
- Review and UGC from TripAdvisor, Instagram etc.
Mobile web
- See previous slide. Less images so its loads quick
2. Keep more traffic on own sites

Example of traffic retention: Use travel tips to
make your website more interesting
Maps and images with stories and tips for the
neighborhood. Needs images or map, not just text.

‣ A content CMS (like
Everplaces) can feed into
content widget on your site
‣ Requires no technical skills
‣ Alter via mobile and
computer
‣ Updates every 24h
Use a CMS,
then it’s easy to
add content to
web (and app)

Build on existing relations
-guests
-frequent guests
-existing community
and spread the word from there
3. Loyalty & secondary awareness from
sharing of existing customers
Paradigm shift happening: from awareness, to inside-out
marketing which is focussed on getting your existing relations
to share the word. Because building awareness has become
too expensive.

- Apps are a flexible format, yours can be made
totally to your requirements
- Offline information, only digital communication
which does not require roaming
- Ongoing dialogue with guests
- Multi language, fast and effectively
Why apps are the right tool for hotel loyalty

Trend:
Right here, right now!
Apps work because people travel less prepared, therefore
they need location based, practical info they can trust:
‣ What’s near me now (eat, see, sleep)
‣ How do I find it and get in contact
‣ Map has become a platform where people search directly

Specific search after discovery stage. Percentage of smartphone
owners that used it to look up:
• Hotel address/directions – 29%
• Attractions/ things to do near my hotel – 23%
• Places to eat near my hotel – 22%
• Read a hotel review – 22%
• Compared prices & availability – 21%
• Booked hotel room – 18%
• Received price alerts for hotels – 18%
• Looked up ground transportation – 17%
• Cancelled a hotel reservation – 10%
TNOOZ
What people do on mobile regarding hotels

Loyalty app functionality
‣Personalized (remember their preferences)
‣Easy pay (pre-stored payment info)
‣Info surrounding neighborhood
‣Maps (offline/ online) based on your location
‣Info about hotel services
‣Time saving (check-in, check-out)

- Centered around
exact location
- Personal tips
(concierge in
pocket)
- Tailored to target
group (in this case
design)
- Distributed like the
map at reception
Customized guide app by Hotel
Alexandra, a service extension

Measuring success of your app
Most apps that fail, fail because they’ve got wrong, non-
specific goals.
A successful an app doesn’t need 1m downloads, it has
to solve a problem for you:
- alternative to paper brochure/map
- make important info more handy
- speed up check-in etc. to reduce wait
So it’s ok if apps are deleted after stay (brochure would
be thrown out too), ok with low download numbers (is a
loyalty tool, not awareness) - As long as they serve a
purpose first.

Up-sell with
mobile payments
‣ Pay with mobile is now going mainstream (in-app,
proximity-based, mobile pay, wallets, skype)
‣ 26bn spent on mobile commerce in app 2013 (IAB)
‣ Mobile ticketing to jump the queue (check-in)
‣ Apps can be used to sell more to guests (Book massage,
spa, bike, tour, table in restaurant, room service, before
dinner drink, toothpaste, late checkout, internet.)

Consumer side: Must be really really easy, to combat low
trust barrier
Hotel side: Avoid expensive integration till you see it
works. Start quick and easy to test:
1. Initially make system which just notifies your staff.
Items goes on normal bill.
2. Later integrate with finance system, or use known
payment (skype, google wallet,
Easiest way to start
with mobile up-selling

Notifications to
service & up-sell
‣ Send deals based on location
(happy hour)
‣ Built-in automatic location-based
notifications
‣ Future will enable more relevant
messaging, less spam

Many early apps for hotels were too poorly made
to be successful, this gave a false negative
experience. To make guests use your app:
‣ Easy to use (not too much info)
‣ Visual and nice design
‣ Actually solve a problem for guest
5. Quality required

Visual design example

Recap - mobile marketing
essentials for hotels
1.Improve mobile landing pages
2.Encourage more time spent on own sites
3.Build more loyalty with existing guests
4.Make it easier to book and buy services digitally
5.Quality matters

The real purpose
behind it all
‣ Creating great memories, and being a part of
those positive experiences
‣ And nudging customers to book more, and book
directly
What if it could also work for you?

Can we help?
App costs from €1500, incl. all
technical management.
Everplaces will give 10% discount
if you quote #epoque14

By Tine Thygesen, @tahitahi
Thank you!
Considering an app for your
business? Contact
chris@triptale.net for great
help!
&