eCommerce impacts in the hospitality industry
Ever since the Internet was first introduced, we have been gradually changing the way we communicate, perceive knowledge and process it; much differently than what we have done before “the Internet”. Rather looking up information through reference books, newspapers, or just ask your friend, we would “Google” it; which is now an official term in our dictionary. At the convenience of a click, people can easily search for the information they need and make products or services purchases over the Internet. This is defined as eCommerce, also known as electronic commerce, refers to the buying and selling process of either products or services online.
The eCommerce revolutionary is here without you acknowledging it. Not only hospitality industry experiencing it, other sectors are also enjoying the productivity it brings along
eCommerce has rapidly affected not only the customer buying behavior alone but also the sellers. It gives businesses this incredibly powerful platform to expand and present their businesses to customers. In fact, it has encouraged and motivated businesses to revolutionize and better themselves in providing customer-centric services/products while catching up with the technological era. The hospitality industry is no exception. People no longer have to directly visit the travel agency offices to plan their holiday or book plane tickets. Sales are often successfully made through websites, emails or social channels. The traditional travel agency selling methodology would no longer be applied in this digital age. What impacts have eCommerce brought into the hospitality industry to make such a breakthrough?
Customer-focused services maximize customers satisfaction
Everyone has their own preferences that they look out for in a product or service. As the technology is constantly getting advanced, the competition becomes extremely intense and painful. Hoteliers provide a wide-range of services to meet demanding customers’ requests, making sure they not only enjoy their current stays but to come back for their next holiday. That means hoteliers have to record each and every guest’s personalized information, monitor and engage customers to establish a sense of individuality.
eCommerce has enabled hoteliers to generate customers data as soon as their online booking is completed. It might sound complicated, but easier to achieve with an efficient PMS – hotel management software. All customer’s data including housekeeping habits, their accommodation preferences, lifestyle, food choice and so on will be recorded into the system once they successfully book the room.
Guest information has been logged in hotel’s PMS hospitality management solution as soon as their booking goes through
Next time your guests come to visit, they shall be surprised and feel appreciated to receive their own special treatment that offers just what they need. If you haven’t found the way to wrap your head around any hotel management software yet, try out our CiHMS – the all-in-one hospitality management solution integrated with 360 degree guest profiles management will give you a complete outlook on how to manage your customer database effectively. A happy returning customer is the loyal customer that will stay regardless of the slightly higher price tag. As a matter of fact, eCommerce has made the hospitality industry change the way they do business. Hoteliers have to adapt their services tailoring to their customers’ experience, keeping their focus on the guests which eventually brings greater and more sustainable revenue effortlessly.
Increasing Brand awareness domestically and internationally
As the number of online booking accelerates, hoteliers are busy maintaining their reputation and privilege online: through social media channels, prestige online hotel review websites, the search engines as well as their own hotel website.
Not in the hospitality industry only, building brand is crucial to businesses. It’s represent business’s value, culture, mission and vision to the customer
The more people know about your brand, the quicker their decision-making process will be. If you haven’t done anything to put your hotel on the map, you are way behind. Here are a few basic criteria for your website to follow up with:
- Is it mobile friendly? If not, go mobile now. People now live on their cell phone, it is a necessity, no longer a luxury.
- Is it on the search engine? For what keywords? Do those keywords generate good sales? Do you like to target different keywords? If you have no idea what these questions are about, time to talk to find a SEO consultant as soon as possible.
- Are you on social media? If not, why not? There isn’t any better way to approach your targeted customers segments than social websites. With the current AI technology, social websites shall automatically convert your customers productively based on their online surfing behavior. Apart from that, it is a great place to interact with your customers, getting to know them and initiate campaigns to earn your customer loyalty to your brand.
- Keep testing your website. Changing words, modules, and layouts to get your message across. Apply A/B testing to achieve the best performance website possible. Even if we are trying to improve ourselves everyday, there is no reason to stop doing the same to your website.
- Think internationally, act internationally. If your hotel is certified and following international guidelines to welcome global guests, get your website ready for it as well, by supporting multiple languages, transaction methods, and international security standards.
eCommerce helps to expand your brand presence into the international market. Promising higher revenue while committing greater responsibilities to maintain brand reputation.
Predicting the trend and be the trend-setter
Even though the Virtual Reality technology has been around for the last 2 decades or so, it has only gained its popularity shortly after the first commercial consumer headset was sold on the market 7 years ago. The game industry jumped into the VR bandwagon and had made the technology remarkably affordable to develop and produce massively. Hotels had recently started to apply the VR technology to allow their guests “virtually” visit the hotel environment, check out the neighborhood, restaurants, shops, gyms, swimming pools, and even room tours at the comfort of their own home. It attracts customer curiosity and drives online sales effortlessly.
Are you a follower or a trendsetter? In hospitality industry, keep tab with the technology and practice it in your business operation to stay on top of it
The VR technology was first adopted by the tech-savvy hotels, which has differentiated themselves from others in the customers mindset for being up-to-date and modernized. The question is how to catch up? Keep yourself alert with the latest technology, practicing it into your daily business operations, and treating technology as a part of your business culture. Soon you shall find yourself setting the trend instead of following it. The recent trend in hospitality arises amidst this pandemic situation and worth mentioning is contactless hotel experience with cashless payment (which we would have a detailed blog on this matter coming up in a few weeks. Watch out for it!). Being a trend-setter takes the same courage and patience as an entrepreneur. It does not always guarantee success, but the experience and knowledge you gathered along the way is priceless.
One year after the pandemic started, the world economy has been suffering with social distancing and the major change in lifestyle. Retailers have to close down thousands of physical stores, malls are disappearing. Online retails, on the other hand, has reached its peak during this period, increasing by 71.1% in Singapore, and 27.6% increase worldwide according to eMarketer reports. It has opened up new opportunities to businesses from various industries. Although the damage resulting from the pandemic is incomparable, the impacts eCommerce has delivered to the hospitality industry are truly overwhelming and won’t be able to list them all out. We, hoteliers, learn to accept and be flexible to change and adapt with this fast-paced evolution of technology. What are the impacts eCommerce has on your businesses in the last few years? Share us your thoughts in the comment section down below. We’d love to hear your side of the story.
