Booking engines for hotel chains

Transcription

1 November 2010 Ver. 1.0 Booking engines for hotel chains Lorenzo Cantoni, Vittoria Passini, Marco Faré, Alessandro Inversini Executive summary What are booking engines main functionalities? How can booking engines sound as the welcoming voice of a receptionist? The present study investigates contents and functionalities of the main hotel chains' booking engines worldwide. Measuring the interactivity of reservation systems and selecting relevant practices from 162 hotel chains, it helps to understand how to design or improve a booking engine. Results show a quite low degree of engagement with prospective customers, and suggest that a human-like interaction system may be the next step in this area. In other words: a booking engine should move from being just an inventory management system up to becoming a recommendation system. The increasing share requested by intermediating online travel channels may push hotels towards a higher degree of disintermediation, hence investing in their own booking engine. Università della Svizzera italiana Via Giuseppe Buffi 13 CH 6904 Lugano, Switzerland (e) info@webatelier.net (w) (t) +41 (0) (f) +41 (0)

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3 Introduction The growing importance e-commerce is acquiring in the travel and tourism industry, along with the increasing interest of the hotel sector towards internet marketing and e-distribution, are at the basis of the present study about hotel chains booking engines. The fact that e-commerce is acquiring increasing relevance is demonstrated by a recent research published by HeBS: it announces that in 2009, 54.2% of overall CSR [Computer Reservation Systems] bookings for the top 30 hotel brands came from the online channel, which constituted a remarkable increase of 6.6% vs (Hospitality ebusiness Strategy, Not All Internet Bookings are Created Equal, 2010). While on one side the remarkable importance of internet as a selling channel has been demonstrated, on the other side market research proves that the share of bookings coming from indirect online channels (e.g. OTAs) is increasing. This has several implications for a hotel, first of all an increase in costs. HeBS study further demonstrates that the difference between the cost of a Direct Online Channel and Indirect Online Channel booking is 8.3 times (ibid.). These data suggest the importance for hoteliers to foster bookings on their direct online channel: in this context, among other actions, the implementation or improvement of an own booking engine may become crucial. Customers are becoming more and more demanding when buying online, especially when they are buying an experiencegood such as a hotel room. This paper presents an analysis of the booking engines of 162 hotel chains worldwide. The study offers an overview on hotel chains booking engines state-of-the-art today at an international level, understanding what they consist of, offer and feature today. Besides this overview, a set of relevant practices is presented: a group of examples, taken from the analyzed booking engines, illustrates significant solutions for some pertinent issues. The study also investigates the degree of interactivity of booking engines: some elements of a booking engine can improve customers experience when booking a hotel room, attempting to simulate the interaction with an expert human operator. Results show how this aspect is lacking in booking engines currently in use by the main hotels chains worldwide. Methodology The group for the study has been defined as the combination of two charts: the ranking of the main hotel groups present in Italy (Federalberghi Confturismo, 2008) and The world's 300 largest hotel operators (HOTELS Magazine, 2009). Some groups were excluded from this sample, either because of the selection criteria (e.g. management companies and travel agencies online were not considered) or for technical problems (e.g. the website was not accessible). Following these criteria the result is a sample of 162 hotel chains. The analysis focuses only on the booking engines themselves, not on the websites at large. An analysis grid has been developed ad hoc for this work, based on exploratory research. The grid is composed of 58 indicators, grouped into 11 categories, which represent the steps of a reservation process as well as the key features/ services of a booking engine. Categories Search Basic accommodation request Multi-lingual Booking engine services Booking engine features Results Finalize reservation Hotels p olicies Security and p rivacy No b ut Yes and As an example, the category Booking engine services collects the links to access my reservation and reservation guide/faqs sections, the currency converter tool and the newsletter subscriptions among others. In this analysis, only the presence or the absence of the indicators has been assessed: a score of 1 has been assigned if the item is present, a score of 0 if it is not. The quality of contents is not evaluated here. The analysis has been done in the period September-October

4 No but & Yes and Previous studies assessed that the level of interaction a customer can experience at the phone with an operator is significantly better than the one s/he can have while reserving online. In most of the cases, reservation systems do work as binary systems where the answer is yes or no, while a receptionist can suggest different options to satisfy the client. That is the motivation to add these two unusual categories within the grid. We have therefore investigated whether current booking engines support prospective clients with this kind of functionalities. These two categories provide customers with suitable options to what they have asked for, offering and suggesting services which they might be interested. No but options are proposals of alternative solutions to the original inquiry set out by the user. No but answers can be seen as opportunities for the chains: they have the possibility to invite customers to think about alternative choices to their initial ones, which they may not have considered otherwise. Yes and category groups together some proposals that are complementary to the main reservation, such as proposals for upgrade. RESEARCH IN NUMBERS Number of hotel chains 162 Number of hotel chains nationalities Fig. 1: The research in numbers Findings more than 20 Number of indicators 58 Highest score obtained by an hotel chain 39 The results of the analysis offer an up to date overview on what booking engines consist of, offer and feature. The findings of the analysis are presented here: for each category a summary of the main results is presented. The category Search groups together indicators regarding the search function, i.e.: the options users are offered when looking for a hotel in a hotel chain s website. The category Basic accommodation request groups together options users may find when looking for hotels availability and prices. Indicators that scored higher are the basic elements of the so called quick reservation (the reservation box users are provided to start their accommodation research, a box which is frequently present on all or many pages of the website). Functions, such as the research based on rate type, room category and budget, can be considered additional elements to the basic ones: despite their usefulness, they are present in a minority of cases. The category Multi-Lingual investigates the number of languages offered, the translation degree of the booking engine and how it allows users to switch from one language to another one. More than half of booking engines offers the same structure for all available languages and allows users to change language within the booking engine. The fourth category, Booking engine services, collects all the information and tools to assist customers during the reservation process among other services. Results demonstrate that a helpline, a live chat or a hotel phone number are present in 44% of the analyzed booking engines, while reservation guide or FAQ are present in just 20% of them. The fifth category Booking engine features examines features of the booking engine interface; a remarkable result is that the only 6% of booking engines are single screen ones. The category Results collects contents and options presented in the booking step where results are displayed. As demonstrated by the study, tools like a map, sorting of results and comparing hotels are present in a minority of booking engines, the latter reaching a percentage as low as 6%. In the category Finalize reservation contents and functionalities users can find in the last step of the reservation have been considered. Hotel s Policies and Security and Privacy respectively collect policies of the hotels regarding the reservation and the information provided about the security and privacy guaranty. 4

5 HOTEL CHAINS TOTAL SCORE DISTRIBUTION X axis: total scores got by hotel chains Y axis: number of hotel chains Fig. 2: Hotel chains total score distribution As a result of the analysis, every hotel chain got a total score, corresponding to the number of indicators its booking engine has. (Fig. 2) A further analysis investigates the degree of translation of booking engines (Fig. 3) LANGUAGES Number of languages Number of booking engine Partial translation Fig. 3: Languages offered in booking engines and degree of translation The results of the analysis demonstrate that the greater the number of languages offered, the higher the percentage of partial translation, and vice versa. While 94% of booking engines offering 1 to 3 languages are completely translated, the percentage dramatically decreases with the increase of the languages offered. No but & Yes and findings Full translation % 6% 94% % 26% 74% % 57% 43% % 100% 0% Despite the potential contribution which can be offered by the No but and Yes and functionalities in letting booking engines much more interactively involving customers, they are present in a minority of cases (Fig. 4). Reason for negative results and table of available dates are the only indicators present in more than half of the booking engines, in 70% and 43% of cases, respectively. All other indicators are positioned very low in the ranking of indicators frequency. Category Indicator Frequency (%) No but Yes and When considering proposals for a different accomodation (i.e. a suggestion of an alternative if the one searched by the customer is unavailable), the most frequent is another hotel within the same chain, found in 34% of the cases. The other two suggestions, proposals of different room categories and dates, are present in a much lower percentage, only in 3% and 2% of booking engines. Regarding the Yes and category, results are even lower: the category is ranked in the lowest position with an average of 9% of presence. A proposal of an upgrade before confirmation/payment is suggested only in 4% of booking engines, while the reservation of services not belonging to the hotel, such as tickets for a theatre or a museum, was found in only 1% of cases. This suggests that there is a wide room for improvement in providing customers with suggestions when the accommodation searched is not available. The likeliness that a customer abandons the reservation if no alternatives are proposed to him/ her is very high, certainly higher than if one or more alternatives are offered. The simple statement No availability can be considered a failure for both parties; by adopting a No but strategy, hotel chains can increase their revenues as customers are helped in finding available alternative solutions. A similar reasoning holds for the Yes and solutions: suggestions such as a room upgrade can represent an added-value for customers who are invited to easily compare the difference in price for an upper-level room. Such a suggestion can increase the likeliness of a customer choosing an upgraded solution. Of course, both No but and Yes and are to be designed in a way that does not become too intrusive and annoying for the users. Reason for negative results 70% Table of available dates 43% Proposal of another hotel of the chain 34% Proposal of different room category 3% Proposal of different dates 2% Total price updating when selecting additional services Proposal of an upgrade before confirmation/payment Reservation of services not belonging to the hotel 23% Fig. 4: Scores obtained by the categories No but and Yes and 4% 1% 5

6 Relevant practices Following the analysis of a wide range of booking engines, a set of interesting practices has been selected. Relevant practices consist of indicators used and presented in a particularly effective way. For instance, Scope search / through POI [Point of interest], is an option which allows customers to run the hotel search according to different scopes (indicating an attraction). The practice presented here is a list of all the attractions present in the selected location: this solution helps users suggesting them all the locations/attractions they may find interesting to have near their hotel. Having a full list of POI avoids potential obstacles in the research, e.g. if the user cannot remember the exact name of the attraction or if s/he does not know the spelling of the attraction. Reservation guide/faq are instruments which assist consumers, providing specific information about the reservation process. Two interesting practices for this indicator represent different solutions offering customers these services/information. The first one is the integration of all customer-care communication channels (Fig. 5), which can represent a real advantage to customers looking for an answer. With one click, they are provided with a range of possible Fig 5: Help section Westin.com The example presented here has been selected as relevant practice, because it shows the comparison of the hotel in a very easy and effective way (Fig. 7). All the possible amenities/services/activities of a hotel are listed in a table, divided by categories, and the ones actually offered by a specific hotel are marked. Fig 7: Compare hotels section Accorhotels.com Search according to the budget is a function allowing customers to search availability and prices of the hotels, which can accommodate a given number of people in a certain date for a given range of price (Fig. 8 and 9). If the function is present in the booking engine it would be advisable to offer a selection of main currencies, or, at a minimum, those corresponding to the chain s customer base market. Alternatively, a link to an external currency converter may be displayed. Fig 8 and 9: Budget tools nh-hotels.com and Accorhotels.com Fig 6: Quick reserve istay booking engine means of contact, from which they can choose the one fitting their information needs. The case just presented highlights the advantage of integration, while the second one offers contextual guides (Fig. 6), which provide customers with specific and easily accessible information and guidelines during the reservation process. Contextual guides main advantage is keeping the customers within the reservation process. The Compare hotels tool facilitates the comparison of different hotels of the same chain, allowing users to easily see differences in price and services offered by hotels. Flexible date search / weekend search allows customers with no fixed dates to quickly look for an accommodation. The solution presented here (Fig. 10) is considered interesting because it allows customers to look only for weekends. Customers can choose the month and specify their weekend days. 6

7 Authors With this set of options, customers can see all the rates for the weekends of a whole month for a number of hotels with just one click. Fig 10: Weekend search Harrahs.com Proposal of another hotel of the chain In the case presented (Fig. 11), the booking engine shows the total price of the alternatives: it is calculated on the criteria (number of people and date) selected by the customer. Thus, a customer who already sees the total price can better and more easily understand whether the alternative proposed can be good for him/her. Fig 11: Hotel search results Disneyworld.com The example below (Fig. 12) can be seen as a Proposal of different room category : when showing the room available for the date requested by the customer, the booking engine shows the unavailable room types too, with the possibility to easily access an availability calendar for each type. Prof. Lorenzo Cantoni is scientific director of webatelier.net, professor and Dean of the faculty of communication sciences at the Università della Svizzera italiana (Lugano, Switzerland). He graduated in Philosophy and holds a PhD in Education and Linguistics. He is also director of the laboratories webatelier.net, NewMinE Lab (New Media in Education Lab) and of elab (elearning Lab). His research interests range from etourism to elearning, up to egovernment and Usability. Lorenzo Cantoni is overall chair of the ENTER th International Conference for Information Technology and Travel & Tourism, that brings together international experts in all aspects of Information and Communication Technologies in Travel and Tourism. Vittoria Passini, has graduated from the Master in International Tourism program at the Università della Svizzera italiana with a thesis on online booking engines for hotel chains. She has a work experience in the hotel sector, as well as research experience at the webatelier.net. Marco Faré, researcher, holds a degree in communication sciences, obtained in 2003 at the Università della Svizzera italiana and has collaborated with the webatelier.net since same year. His field of interest is the online communication and his PhD research is focused on the visualization of search engines' results. Fig 12: Room search results Barcelo.com Alessandro Inversini, managing director of webatelier.net, holds a PhD in communication sciences. His field of interest is on communication, technologies and tourism. He has worked with Prof. Cantoni since 2005, after the degree in Communication Sciences at the Università della Svizzera italiana. He also worked as instructional designer at the elearning Lab where he coordinated three Swiss Virtual Campus projects. His research interests are Cultural Tourism Online Communication, Web Reputation and Web2.0 in Tourism. 7

8 Publications webatelier.net lab The academic laboratory webatelier.net is part of the faculty of Communication Sciences at the Università della Svizzera italiana (USI), based in Lugano, Switzerland. Webatelier.net is specialized in research and development in the field of online communication and ICT in general, stressing the 'human side' of it. Most activities focus on analysis, design and promotion of the online communication for hotels, destinations cruise companies and other travel and tourism players. Its main field of research is nowadays New Media in Tourism Communication and it combines a strong academic background with a relevant business experience. Selected books Cantoni L., Piccini C. (2004). Il sito del vicino è sempre più verde. La comunicazione fra committenti e progettisti di siti internet. Franco Angeli, Milano. Cantoni L., Di Blas N., Bolchini D. (2003). Comunicazione, qualità e usabilità. Apogeo, Milano Among recent publications by webatelier.net researches: Inversini A., Marchiori E., Dedekind C., Cantoni L. (2010). Applying a Conceptual Framework to Analyze Online Reputation of Tourism Destinations. In Gretzel U., Law R., Fuchs M. (eds.), Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism 2010 (Proceedings of the International Conference in Lugano, Switzerland, February 10-12, 2010), Springer, Wien New York, pp Inversini A., Cantoni L., Buhalis D. (2009). Destinations Information Competition and Web Reputation. Journal of Information Technology & Tourism, 11 (2009), pp Cantoni, L., Kalbaska, N., Inversini, A. (2009). E- learning in tourism and hospitality: A map. Journal of Hospitality, Leisure, Sport &Tourism Education, 8-2, pp Inversini, A., Buhalis, D. (2009). Long Tail and Tourism Destination Websites: A study on information quality and information convergence. Proceedings of the CAUTHE 2009 Conference, Australia, February. Inversini, A., Cantoni, L. (2009). Cultural Destination Usability: The Case of Visit Bath. In Hopken W., Gretzel U., Law R. (eds.), Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism 2009 (Proceedings of the International Conference in Amsterdam, Netherland). Springer, Wien, pp webatelier.net white papers Cantoni L., De Ascaniis S., Fedele S. (2010). Destination Marketing: why do tourists like a destination? A research in etourism and Argumentation Cantoni L., Marchiori E., Faré M., Botturi L., Bolchini D. (2009). A systematic methodology to use LEGO bricks in web communication design. Proceedings of the 27th ACM international Conference on Design of Communication (Bloomington, Indiana, USA, October 05-07, 2009). SIGDOC 09. ACM, New York, NY, pp