Weekly Roundup: Travel, Tech and Social Media
Happy Friday and welcome back to another weekly roundup of travel, tech, and social media news and trends. Check out our favorite picks below!
Happy reading and don't forget to come back next week for more!
Industry News
Hotelquickly Enters Japan with Purchase of Tonight
Last-minute hotel booking app, HotelQuickly, has acquired Japan’s domestic booking app, Tonight, paving its entry into the “Land of the Rising Sun”.
Amadeus Launches First Online GDS Booking Platform in UK
Amadeus has officially launched its Selling Platform Connect in the UK, which it claims is the world’s first fully online GDS booking and fulfilment platform.
Choice Hotels CEO on Vacation Rentals and Instant Gratification for Millennials
Choice Hotels recognizes that traveler behavior is changing. For the sometime-business and other-times-leisure traveler, Choice Privileges members can earn points whether staying in a hotel or in a vacation rental. And because “millennials want instant gratification,” according to CEO Stephen Joyce, Choice is giving it to them in the form of perks at check-in.
Trends and Insights
Capitalizing on Micro-Moments in Travel
The average consumer checks their phones 150 times a day but they only spend 177 minutes a day actively using their phones. That means that the average session lasts close to one minute ten seconds, precious time that marketers can take the opportunity to try and reach people in the midst of intent driven action. Google calls these brief minutes "micro-moments" and they are the newest and most important way to make sure you are getting your message to customers when they are most likely to be impacted.
Business Travelers Split Between Traditional and Alternative Booking Channels
Figures from the GBTA Foundation show business travellers from the UK, Germany and France are fairly evenly split between booking via traditional channels and alternative methods.
Why Guests Still Call Hotels for Reservations
With the rise in online travel, few predicted that by now anyone would still be calling to make a reservation. Yet here we are in 2016 with the phones still ringing; and ringing they are, with many hotels even experiencing an increase in calls as those who search on smartphones use the “click to call” feature.
Can Personalizing Your Content Increase Hotel Bookings?
In the process of converting lookers into bookers, personalization is fast becoming an important differentiator. According to a recent Mindtree study, 78% of travelers have bought online based on personalized promotions they have not bought before. Consumers want to see content tailored to them. Once you know what your audience wants, how do you know what to show them?
Google Drops Right-Side Ads from Desktop Results
Over the weekend, Google confirmed that they will no longer be showing paid ads on the right side of desktop search results pages worldwide. With the new page layout, paid ads will only be shown at the top and/or bottom of the page.
What should hotels be doing differently with paid search?
Digital State of the Travel Nation
Econsultancy and Adobe spent a few months last summer trying to understand the requirements and challenges facing digital marketers and ecommerce executives in travel. Here are the results!
A Need for Speed in Business Travel Booking Systems
Business travellers continue to be frustrated about how long it takes to book travel as well as lack of flexibility in systems says research from Egencia.
