Weekly Roundup #23: Travel, Tech and Social Media

Week 23/2018
Hello once again! The Weekly Roundup is up and ready with more hospitality news! As always, we have it all, from industry insights to trends and technology stories, so make yourself comfortable and take a look. Also, don’t forget to follow us on social media: we are on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram!
Have an amazing weekend, everyone!

Industry News
Protel and TrustYou collaboration brings huge benefit to hotels by enabling automated survey and guest data processes:
We are proud to announce our most recent and exciting collaboration with hotel management systems provider, protel, which has the end goal of facilitating process for guest survey distribution and management. This collaboration enables an automated guest data synchronization and distribution of surveys for hotels and accommodation providers. TrustYou clients, who also use protel’s PMS solutions for their hotel management purposes, can immediately benefit from this combined offer to easier collect surveys and thereby increase the number of reviews, improve scores, and grow revenue. Protel clients, who are not yet TrustYou users, can sign up for TrustYou’s free survey lite version to benefit from the state-of-the-art survey solution and start a free 14-day-trial to test other feedback related solutions.
AccorHotels sells AccorInvest, considers taking stake in Air France KLM:
Our client AccorHotels has completed the sale of 57.8% of the capital of AccorInvest, and is looking again at possibly buying a stake in Air France KLM. For AccorHotels, the sale of its investment arm results in a gross cash contribution of €4.6bn. Regarding investing in Air France KLM, the company said over the past years it had held discussions with Air France KLM with a view to develop joint projects, including an acquisition of a minority stake. However the discussions are at a "very early stage" and "there is no certainty that they will lead to any agreement nor any form of implementation."
U.S. hotel industry forecasted to continue on record-breaking track:
The U.S. hotel industry is projected to continue posting record-breaking performance levels through 2019, according to STR and Tourism Economics’ revised forecast just released at the NYU International Hospitality Industry Investment Conference. “RevPAR growth exceeded expectations during the first quarter of the year and lifted our projections for 2018 as a whole,” said Amanda Hite, STR’s president and CEO. “However, because of the post-hurricane demand boost in 2017, we expect year-over-year occupancy declines during Q4 that will extend into 2019 with that year’s total overall performance affected.”

Trends and Insights
Off to new adventures: The new TrustYou HQ office in Munich:
This week, our HQ office in Munich is celebrating an exciting milestone! Our team of around 70 adventurers has finally moved to our new office in the Sendling district, a neighborhood located southwest of the center of Munich. After over 7 years of growth in an office park located near Olympiapark - the famous landmark constructed for the 1972 summer Olympics - we finally outgrew our space and needed to find additional space to continue our ambitious growth targets set for 2018 and beyond. Our new home has enough space to increase opportunities for our entire team to interact casually and naturally. Better yet, we now have more room and facilities to welcome our guests, partners, and the global TrustYou team - whether they are visiting us from our offices in San Diego, Cluj, Singapore, Tokyo, Madrid, or from our remote locations.
Snapshot of online behaviour impacting the travel sector in Europe:
According to ComScore's 2018 EU Travel Report, mobile minutes represent one-fifth to one-third of travel-related minutes, yet reaching mass-market appeal with mobile apps is proving to be a challenge. comScore has published its 2018 “EU Travel Report,” which uses multi-platform data from five European countries (France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK) to highlight online trends impacting the travel sector, outlining key differences in consumers’ behavioural patterns. The UK leads the pack with 94 percent of its digital population visiting travel sites – the highest proportion in Europe. In contrast, that figure is 65 percent in Germany. The numbers are 67 percent, 69 percent and 86 percent for France, Italy and Spain, respectively.
India, among top five growing markets for Booking.com:
With 47,500 Indian properties listed on its website, Booking.com sees India among its five growing markets. Speaking exclusively to Indian media at its headquarters in Amsterdam, Gillian Tans, Booking.com’s CEO said: “With more than 46,500 listings, it clearly shows the amount of investment our company is making in the Indian market. It is a market that is fast growing and it is one that we have prioritised. She went on to add that the biggest change she saw in the India market is that more and more consumers are finding their way online.

Technology
AI to personalise business trips and make them safer:
Business travelers think their trips could be improved by Artificial Intelligence-based technology, but are reluctant about sharing some types of personal data. A survey by expense and travel management firm SAP Concur found 52% of UK business travelers thought AI would make business trips safer through services such as predictive risk alerts around natural disasters. While even more travelers (75%) said AI would help to make their journeys more personalised. But despite these perceived benefits from AI, travelers were less willing to share certain types of personal data, particularly home addresses, which only 25% were prepared to share, followed by biometrics (27%), and phone numbers (33%). They were more prepared to share information such as email addresses (54%), travel preferences (52%), and their gender (46%).
Record numbers buy holidays from mobile devices:
The tipping point of mobile use over desktop to browse the internet happened back in 2015, thanks to the evolution of smartphones and their promise of an improved user experience. What didn’t happen at this point was a widespread increase in consumers completing purchases via mobile, especially for larger-value products such as holidays. Yet, fast-forward to 2018, and one in five of us are now buying holidays on our mobile phones, according to new research carried out by Holiday Hypermarket. This statistic is backed up by their transactional data, which has shown a rise from 15 to 20% in bookings made from mobile devices in the first three months of 2018, versus 2017. Further supporting this, ABTA’s Holiday Habits report reveals similar stats, with mobile bookings increasing from 13–20% between 2016 and 2017.