HOSPITALITY BRAND

 For the week ending August 15, the US hotel occupancy finally went above 50% for the first time since the pandemic began.  That being said, the occupancy rate of growth continued to trail that of China and Europe.  That is to say that China and Europe are recovering at a faster pace than the US--we are all on the same road to recovery, the US is just not hitting the accelerator as much.  

 The week ending August 1st, brought US Occupancy to 48.9%, according to STR, up 1.8% over the previous week. Here we see the occupancy by week. While this is quite an improvement from the 22% occupancy we saw back in April, the rate of growth is slowing.  Over the last five weeks, we have seen the rate of growth average 1.6%, which is much lower than the rate of growth we saw over the previous 2 months of 7.8%.  The chart below shows the occupancy change week to week, 15 out of the last 16 weeks have seen growth. This occupancy growth has been fueled by leisure demand, of concern is the looming end of the summer vacation period.  Chris Nassetta, Hilton's CEO, mentioned in their most recent earnings call that he expects Business/Corporate demand to offset the drop in Leisure as we enter the fall.  Suggesting that leisure demand is unlikely to continue at its current pace indefinately.  

Sabre released their 2020 brand.com benchmark report showing that a higher percentage of traffic came to hotel websites via CPC/Paid Search; up to 18% of all traffic in 2019 from 14% in the previous year.   While Organic Search continues to drive the most traffic (44%), it has decreased 5pts from 2018.  This highlights the continued importance of SEO in driving traffic organically, as well as the importance of a healthy investment in Paid Search and CPC.  This suggests an increase in hotel investments in CPC, as well as, an increase in the ability for paid search to drive traffic.   Key Takeaways Organic Search continues to reign at the top for driving traffic CPC/Paid Search continues to grow in importance for the hotel industry Direct traffic importance has not changed in the last year Show me the data Brand.com Traffic Change from 2018 to 2019 Show me the numbers Sources Tables and charts by HospitalityBrand.com with data from Sabre's past 2 reports Sabr...

Google search data shows that people are not searching for the popular "Hotel", "Flights", and "Travel" terms anywhere near as much as last year, or earlier in the year for that matter.  Furthermore, most of the related searches for "Travel" and "Flights" are around cancellations and Covid19 restrictions.  On the bright side during the week leading into July 4th, search for "Hotels" was at roughly 75% of last years levels. The term "Travel" is roughly at the same level as last year but searches for "Flights" are considerably down.  What am I looking at? In the graph above, you are seeing US search volume for the terms "Hotels" in blue, "Travel" in red, and "Flights"in yellow--from June 1, 2019 to June 30, 2020.  The lines compare search volume across the terms and across time.  The scale is relative to the highest searched term at a particular period in time.  A value of ...

United Airlines  values its loyalty program at $22B, Skift reports.  Opening the secret box to the industry's most valuable assets... its loyalty member audience and point currency. As the travel landscape changes, companies will have to look at ways to leverage their loyalty program members as an addressable audience in new ways without eroding trust. Not since  Air Canada   sold (and then bought back) its loyalty program, have we had such a public view of the revenue-generating power of loyalty. United's program generated 12% of the airline's total revenue in 2019, you bet that number will be much higher in 2020, and they will be looking for ways to continue to grow that number. Important to note that hotel companies have turned to their loyalty programs as for financing as well, by pre-selling points to their credit card partners.  Both Hilton and Marriott have presold close to $1B dollars each.  Will we start valuing travel companies by the size of thei...

STR reports US Hotel occupancy is above 40% for the first time in about 3 months, for the week ending June 13.   For context, it took us 5 weeks to gain 10%pts in occupancy, we broke 30% on the week ending May 9.   The lowest point was back on April 11, where we closed the week at 22%.  In those 5 weeks, the new Covid-19 case count has remained relatively flat; meaning that we have not seen a significant decrease in new COVID cases (7-day average) being reported.   Originally in LinkedIn, join the conversation below:

Weekly US Hotel Demand Update: Week-ending May 20th was the 7th straight week of modest occupancy improvement; at 35%, up from a low of 21% on April 11th. Despite the increase, this is still a 70% RevPAR decline vs last year. April closed out with the worst RevPAR decline ever, down 80% in the US. Driven by declines north of 90% at Upper Upscale & Luxury properties. Top 25 markets continue to be heavily impacted. Finally, on the development front, the pipeline has peaked, with a number of projects on early stages moving to abandoned or postponed. Originally from LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/andres-orta-travels_us-hotel-performance-results-april-2020-activity-6672148618444701697-FUlL

Last week US hotel occupancy continued to slowly climb up to 32%; and continued to closely follow China's trajectory, albeit 6 weeks behind; China is now at 43%. STR and CBRE both released updates to their FY forecasts. STR expects a drop of nearly 60% in RevPAR for FY 2020, and does not see a return to 2019 levels until late 2024, driven by a drag in ADR. For their part, CBRE's forecast puts 2020 FY RevPAR at -52%, and a return to 2019 levels a year earlier, by 2023. Originally posted on  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/andres-orta-travels_us-results-week-ending-may-16-activity-6669700510477533184-Qhxp

Demand update: Continued slow recovery, over 3M more RNs sold in the US vs the prior week, driven by weekend demand at beach drive destinations. RevPAR -74.4% for the week, up from a bottom of -84% for the week of April 11

1M more RNs sold last week than the week before Slow “improvement” with the 3rd week of sub -80% RevPAR performance, led by weekends at beach destinations and overall select-service hotel performance Originally posted on LinkedIn, join the conversation: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/andres-orta-travels_us-results-week-ending-may-2-activity-6664597934195175424-Unvl

More and more hotel companies have realized that if I could get free WiFi in a $10 a night guesthouse in Cambodia in 2009, I must be able to get it for free in a hotel 10 or 20 times that price.   All of the major hotel companies have been saying that it has been in the works for quite some time; but “coincidentally” many have begun offering some sort of free WiFi in the past months.    We can’t get too excited yet, in some cases free wifi comes with some restrictions.   According to HotelChatter’s 2014 WiFi report, Marriott, Starwood, Hilton, Hyatt, Intercontinental, and Wyndham did not offer free in-room internet as of the report’s April 2014 publication.   http://www.hotelchatter.com/story/2014/4/22/11951/4765/hotels/The_2014_HotelChatter_WiFi_Report%3A_Who_is_Still_Charging_for_WiFi_and_Why%3F_ WHERE ARE WE NOW? IHG :   You didn’t see this one coming from Intercon, but they were the first to announce in March 2013 that they would ...

Four Seasons, Hilton and Marriott Top L2′s Second annual Digital IQ Index®: Hotels.  In its second edition, this report is now the benchmark on hotel online brand management+ execution; and serves as a compendium of what different hotel brands have done over the year.  The study reveals that differentiated content on site and mobile bookings drive traffic and high margin revenue. The research demonstrates a clear relationship between hotel brands’ Digital IQ® and shareholder value. “In this year’s report, an overwhelming 38 percent of brands registered an Average ranking, versus just 10 percent in 2011. The standard deviation across the Index tightened from 38 in 2011 to 21 in 2012, suggesting differentiation in digital has become increasingly difficult.”   —Scott Galloway, L2 Digital IQ Index: Hotels Author, NYU Stern A must read for all hotel executives. Download the Full Report from L2ThinkTank.com >> 

New Zealand targets youth in latest “Stories Beat Stuff” campaign, entirely in Social Media Wyndham Will Trade You Two Million Points for Your Horrible Holiday Gift New Research Points to Significant Growth In Multigenerational Travel  Mandarin Oriental Bets on Rich Content to Increase Conversion Hotel lobbies become multi-use spaces HOSPIALITYBRAND.COM ANALYSIS: The Hotel “Social Lobby” Trend Goes Mainstream + Ceases to be a Competitive Advantage Design Hotels Transforms an Existing Budget Hotel + Launches the 99 Cabaña Pop-up Camp with Papaya Playa in Tulum, Mexico

A decade ago, hotels began differentiating themselves from their competition by reinventing their lobbies as social spaces, introducing unique f&b concepts, promoting lively lounge bars, and even reducing the size of the front desk to increase guest interaction.   These properties began to define their brands by their hotels' social lobby design; however, today's USA TODAY article Hotel lobbies become multi-use spaces details how every major brand now features "social lobbies".  Any hotel defining their brand by their "social lobbies" is no longer differentiated.  The "social lobby", just like the specialty beds of last decade, has gone from being a point of differentiation to being a point of parity. The predecessor of the modern hotel were the Inns & Public Houses of years back--a place of social gathering for locals and travelers alike.  When Atlanta's Hyatt Regency Hotel opened in 1967, it was the first atrium hotel to be...

Fashion School Students Dress Rooms as a Designer Would Dress Model in New 1-5 Star Single Hotel Retro Hotel Brand, The Postcard Inn, Opens Second Property Hotels Start to Enter Into Airline-Like Alliances: Jin Jiang Inn and Campanile Form Brand Alliance HOSPITALITYBRAND.COM ANALYSIS:  THE POWER OF THE LOYALTY PROGRAM New Hotel Brand: The Saguaro New Startup InBed.me Allows You to Book your Hostel and Connect with Other People Staying There Starwood Preferred Guest Announces Partnership With Jiepang—the Chinese Equivalent of Foursquare

Image  courtesy of American Airlines Today's chapter 11 announcement by American Airlines is a strong reminder of the power of customer loyalty and most importantly, of the contemporary significance of the frequent flyer program. To provide a little bit of background, American's AAdvantage program is credited as being the first loyalty program in the world, having launched in 1981. Currently, it is one of the largest (if not the largest) of such programs with 67 million members. Fast forward to today:  American Airline's parent company AMR has filled for Chapter 11 , and AA sent an email to all it's AAdvantage members . What is immediately clear from that email is that AA wants everyone to know that (a) their miles are safe and (b) the program will not be altered as part of these reorganization procedures. See the  entire letter Here Airlines enter into Bankruptcy through what seems to be a never-ending revolving door. The real news is that their frequ...

If every encounter a customer has with the brand either helps or hurts the brand value, then everything in a business comes back to brand management. And if the goal is to maximize revenues, then brand management is revenue management. This is why these two roles should be moved into the same department to enhance collaboration. As the recent HotelNewsNow.com article, Reputation management is Revenue management , hotel industry is starting to see the power of this relationship between Branding and Revenue Mgt... just starting. But even five years ago the people in charge of brand management (at the corporate or property level rarely ever talked to the Revenue managers. They were secluded to opposite sides of the building, the brand and marketing people seen as 'those people who have their heads in the clouds while everyone else does the work' and the revenue folks on the other side were 'those people who crunch the numbers while everyone else does the work'. Unf...

Photo Courtesy of  The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company    With recent news of the second Ritz Carlton Reserve property set to open in December 2012 as the Dorado Beach, a Ritz Carlton Reserve in Puerto Rico, the question is:  What is the Ritz Carlton Reserve Brand? The announcement of the brand came in 2007, when it was described as: A departure for Ritz-Carlton in size and scope, The Reserve brand will feature signature, one-of-a-kind boutique resorts located in choice settings, each with a distinctive personality and sense of place...  The Reserve brand will be distinguished from other award-winning Ritz-Carlton resorts by offering guests' exotic, hand-selected "hideaway" destinations; a relaxed, casually elegant atmosphere; and an even greater level of individualized service through a higher staff to guest ratio. ( source ) In short, this is a brand extension of smaller hotels (around 100 rooms), distinct destinations, and higher level of service. ...

Oyster.com has launched Oyster Shots , with the ability to browse hotels by their pictures and not based on where they are geographically (ie their city).   Instead, the user is invited to scroll through hotels grouped in photo categories such as:  beaches, balconies, kid friendly hotels, luxury bathrooms, cabanas, etc.  Even better, you can see the hotel's average rate (not sure how they are calculating this) and click to book right from the page.   This is getting advertised as an in-picture booking engine, which is not.  You cannot input your dates and see rates right from the picture, but its very close to being one; however, it is a very well positioned call to action.  More importantly, it highlights the importance placed by customers and retailers on getting the call to action in as many places and as easily accessible as possible.   If you are a hotelier and your website does not have a booking engine, which is prominent,  on...

I never thought it would happen, but it did.  United and Continental Airlines have officially completed their merger, in twitter at least.  Merging airline systems is a complicated, long, and tactical task.  According to a recent New York Times article , Delta and Northwest had to swiftly integrate 1,200 separate systems while going through their own merger. One would think that, at the very least, merging twitter accounts would be one easy integration to get right.  But it didn't turn out that way for Continental/United.  In the process of merging handles they have lost the over 337 thousand followers the old individual accounts had.  The new account @united only had around 6,000 followers today.  Starting from scratch on twitter would seem like the right thing to do if they were trying to set up a new brand identity, but that can't be the case when you keep the United name and the Continental livery. The photograph after the jump ...