Hotel loyalty members rely on mobile to communicate.

This article is about a study made by Loylogic, the leading provider of loyalty technology solutions; called "The 2010 Frequent Traveler Survey". This survey was completed between September 17th and October 15th 2010, and, reflects the opinion of 36 000 frequent travelers (members of at least one loyalty program).
The main goal of this survey was to better understand the point of view of these 36 000 frequent travelers on their loyalty programs, their ways of using these programs...

The main objective of a loyalty program in our sector is to drive the customer loyalty and to make the guest want to continue to choose to stay at our brand's hotel again and again. Many groups like Marriott, Hilton, Hyatt, Starwood ... offer a loyalty program.

One principal question required to these 36 000 travelers is "Which method they prefer to redeem points or check their account balance?".
The results of this study indicate to us that 58% of these travelers prefer to earn and redeem points or to check their loyalty program balances online (to use internet) ; 20% prefer their smart phones to do that; 11% of these travelers prefer to check directly at the hotel. 4% and 3% prefer respectively, SMS text and Facebook.

I think that it is very important and interesting for hotels. With this study, we can better understand which method the members of our loyalty program use in order to interact with this program, so, the method we need to use if we want to interact very well with our members.
Today internet and smart phones are more and more important and, this survey proves it. Indeed, 78% of the 36 000 frequent travelers questioned use internet or their smartphones to earn or redeem points or to check their account balances.
So, for 2011, I think that hoteliers should to focus their loyalty programs' strategy on these two interactions tools which are internet and smart phones. Moreover, the two last answers of this top 5 are related to the use of internet or / and smart phone.
As it is said in this article, today we want and we feel the need to be connected "anytime,anywhere" that it proves the internet importance, but also, the importance of smart phones with which we can go on internet.

To conclude, I think that it is essential for the hoteliers to have with spirit that internet and smart phones must have an important part in their marketing strategies, their strategies of loyalty programs (development, interaction with members...)...

Comment about Alia's article

This article is very interesting. I think that OpinionWell is a very good idea and a new online tool very important for hoteliers.
Indeed, this is a really good tool that can enable hoteliers who use it to improve their quality of services and their reputation.
OpinionWell is very clear and easy to use, and, it gives a complete information about your hotel (reviews, ...) and about your competitors (reviews of their guests, their scores, ...).
I am agree with Alia, this website will be soon existing in Europe because it is a great marketing tool and it is Free!!

Link to Alia's article

What consumers want most from a hotel in 2011?

This article is about "what consumers want most from a hotel in 2011? ". It is very interesting, especially for us and hoteliers to read this article in order to understand what a customer waits when he comes in a hotel.

Today, it is more and more important for hoteliers to know how they can attract more and more customers. This thing is very difficult because every year the trends, the customers' expectations change; so a hotelier must to be attractive all the time.

Thanks to an Orbitz survey based on customers' behavior, expectations...we have a clear and accurate idea for 2011 of what attract customers, and thus, which they will make choose such hotel rather than another. According to this research, we finally know the services and amenities which can help to attract customers ; such as :

• Promotional offers and discounts => The clients want more for less ; so they are interested by packages, promotional offers which give them access to more services, amenities, activities and facilities for a lower cost.
  
• Swimming pool => According to this research, it is the favorite amenities for the customers.
  
• The Extras => Consumers are more and more interested and attracted by some facilities like SPA, fitness room, welcoming pets...

It is essential to understand that clients want more and more but, they want also to pay less and less. When we prepare our holidays, we often compare different hotels to see which of these offers the most services and amenities. Thus, between two hotels located in the same place, we will be more attracted by the hotel which includes some facilities, services, amenities in its prices (breakfast included, free access to the SPA, swimming pool, free wifi...).

So, I think it is very important for a hotelier to know and understand the essential expectations, their needs, in order to adapt the hotel and to do it more attractive.

TripAdvisor adds airline ratings to flight search - Comments about Deborah's article

I agree with Deborah that it is a good initiative by TripAdvisor to develop TripAdvisor Flights.

I think that it is a great and good idea. Many travelers have difficulties to choose the airline company, they should book for their trips.

This TripAdvisor's new initiative will be helpful by giving all the information necessary to facilitate the choice of the travelers.

TripAdvisor is a website very interesting for all the travelers to prepare their trips (the choice of the airline company, the choice of the hotel, things to do during their trips...).

Link to Deborah's comments

IMGuest.com , like Foursquare for hotels

This article is about the website IMGuest.com that is like Foursquare for hotels.

IMGuest.com can be used by every hotel guests around the world (IMGuest's database has more than 140 000 hotels worldwide today) to virtually check in their hotel, connect and setup meetings with others interesting guests.

As I said above, this website works like Foursquare in the sense that users check in to the service in order denote their exact location. And, others who are also in the premises will be able to see that they have checked in, learn more about them; and, if they really like what they see, they can try to arrange a meeting.

I think that this website is very interesting and innovative for business travel individuals. Indeed, IMGuest is a real innovative social network that helps connecting the world's business travelers to make them more productive and successful.

In addition, it is free, and very easy to use (an application on iPhone exists). IMGuest will allow business travelers to develop good conversations, business relationships... In this sense, this social network can help to expand our social and business networking and that is important.

Finally, I think that this webiste is very interesting because it can help to develop our business relationships with persons who come from different countries. So, with this website, we can create and develop new business opportunities, new international business relationships.

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Expedia promotes vacation packages on Facebook - Comment about Deborah's article

This article and her comment are very interesting. I am agree with Deborah. Today, customers have a place more and more important in the strategy of a website like Expedia. In addition, this article shows the importance that social media have today in a marketing strategy. In this sense, with this type of tool we can attract more and more customers.
I think that Expedia had a good idea with this contest on Facebook, it is a very good marketing strategy, but also, a very good communication strategy.

Best Western launches iPad app

 This article is about "Best Western to Go", a new application launched by Best Western. 

 This new application is very interesting for travelers , and offers more than a simple tool of reservation. In this sense, Best Western proposes an application very complete with many tools.

For example, a person who uses this application can create itineraries to help with a travel planning by inputting addresses of attractions and restaurants nearby of the hotel and, by using the GPS.
The user can save in this application his past trips in order to remember easier his favorite attractions, restaurants, for each location already visited.
In this application, a user can add pictures and descriptions, and, he can share it with his friends via e-mail or facebook.

I think that this new application is very interesting for travelers, and it is a very good marketing tool for Best Western. In this sense, this application is not another booking application, but, it is a complete application which can be used by users during all the time of their trips, and after also. It is a good tool which can give many information to the user, and, which can permit at the user to share his information and impressions with his friends.
It is a good marketing tool that can help to promote Best Western; and it is a real value-added, which should interest many travelers and should be quickly developed by other hotel groups.

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Expedia offers free rooms upgrades for top customers - Comments about Aude's post

I totally agree with Aude!! The hospitality and the customer loyalty is a real story of the service quality. I think that what makes the customer loyalty it is not only the amenities or upgrades, but it is how the customer lived his stay. A customer will decide to return in a hotel, only if the entire stay occurred without problem. And, consequently, as Aude said, the key to hospitality's success is the service; the quality of this service. Thus, the customer loyalty will be done according to the quality of the service offered by the hotel, by its employees.

How travelers use online and social media channels to make hotel-choice decision?

This article is about the study "How Travelers Use Online and Social Media Channels to Make Hotel-Choice Decision",released by the Cornell Center for Hospitality research. It is a very interesting study, made by Laura McCarthy, Debra Stock and Rohit Verma.

These article and study explain that many travelers use internet to prepare their trips, to choose their hotels. In this sense, today, when we prepare our travel, we will gather some information from internet search engines (such as Google, Yahoo, ...); social media sites (such as Facebook, Twitter,...); meta-search websites (such as Expedia, Priceline...). It is important to keep in mind that there are other sources of information such as recommendations from friends, family, colleagues... 

In regard to this study, based on responses of 2830 recent travelers, it exists some differences in travelers' hotel search process depending on the type of the travel (business or leisure). Indeed, the differences between leisure and business travel are considerable.
In this sense, according to this article and the study, a leisure traveler uses many more sources for hotel information (recommendations from his friends and family, internet search engines, travel related websites, meta-search websites, social media channels, social networks...) than do a business traveler (his company's recommendations or his colleagues' recommendations and, eventually, some research on internet search engines).

Usually, when I prepare a trip, I speak first of all with my friends and family to gather their recommendations (I can do this with facebook, twitter, or in another way), and, then, I make many reseach on Internet (hotel reviews on TripAdvisor ; travel guides; websites as booking.com ; blogs ; ...). I use more and more internet when I prepare a trip.

And you, how do you prepare your stay? Do you use internet to make your hotel choice decision?