Thank you for Subscribing to Hospitality Business Review Weekly Brief
Brief Background on the Roles in the Organizations You’ve Worked For
In the last 13 years of hotel industry marketing my curiosity and scope have always gravitated towards digital marketing. In the earlier period of that time, I was working for some of the world’s leading independent luxury hotels, those which you may find in highly regarded lists such as Conde Nast Gold list or Travel and Leisure top 100. Digital was a source of competitive advantage for these properties as initiatives and changes could be made quickly. Recently, I was with IHG, in the infancy stages of the Regent brand reinvigoration, working on pre-opening properties and quite hands-on with the evolution of the brand, the lessons I learned from the smaller scale organisations helped here as I was able to propose more innovative or guerilla marketing style initiatives to position Regent properties. Within the last few years one of the big changes has been the democratization of data, with little cost or effort it is simpler than ever to glean insights and now AI is adding even more depth.
Centara Hotels & Resorts, my current posting, is a mid-sized hotel group encompassing six distinct brands, from luxury island retreats and upscale family resorts to affordable lifestyle concepts. Regardless of brand positioning, the combination of data insight and agility are lynchpin factors in an especially competitive market post-COVID. Overall, I have been able to strike a good balance for the utilization of past learnings.
"Driving business through multiple channels, that not only target actively but work harmoniously are best unified by a compelling loyalty program"
Challenges Adhering to Hospitality Digital Marketing Strategies
Many in the industry face new, or more accentuated challenges, with aggressive OTA market growth, the resulting implications on rate parity and freshly engrained price sensitivity habits from online consumers, mean higher risks of losing leads. Parity is no new word on the street but with the augmentation of OTA's business models, management becomes ever the more cumbersome task.
Couple this with the cost of marketing online, which has also significantly risen over the last couple of years, extra careful attention to pro-actively optimise each and every campaign or initiative is required.
Meeting the Digital Marketing Needs of Clients Through Omni-Channel Interaction Strategies
Driving business through multiple channels, that not only target actively but work harmoniously is best unified by a compelling loyalty program. Our loyalty program at Centara Hotels and Resorts is a genuine advantage to the guest experience and therefore a key tool of competitive advantage. This is a tried and true strategy and a constant project of refinement and optimisation to reach and satisfy more customers.
Key Trends of Digital Marketing
I believe AI is already contributing much to the digital and marketing space, from debugging or optimising code, auto-campaign optimisation, and generating suggestions for content marketing plans to Turing test-beating chatbots that are soon coming. Nothing new, but Mobile booking experience benchmarks are being set higher to address new generations of bookers who prefer frictionless booking experiences in their pocketable devices.
Advice for Senior Leaders and CXOs in the Industry
It’s the same advice I was given at an early stage of my career, never lose curiosity, without it passion is not possible and part of the joy of the digital space, beyond the bounds of the hospitality sector, is the spirit of discovery. I would also add to not get lost in the weeds, its easily done but valuable to retain a high-level view of consumer behaviors and trends, again influence and inspiration can come from any industry.
