LODGING LEADERS
251 | Channel Mix: Hotels balance costs of guest acquisition, OTAs and overall business opportunities
LODGING LEADERS
Online travel agencies. Hoteliers love them. Hoteliers hate them.
Brand.com, GDS, call centers, travel agents, groups and so on. There are many types of business in every market.
In this episode, Lodging Leaders explores how hotel owners and operators can learn to use third-party platforms such as OTAs and when to tap other resources for those all-important direct channels. The knowledge is critical to a hotel’s profit contribution, say experts.
Understanding the full array of business in a market and how to manage communication through the full guest journey can improve the relationship a hotel has with its customers and drive retention and repeat bookings.
We feature Mark Lewis-Brown, CEO and president of Vertical Booking USA, which provides customer reservation system software to hotels; Matthew Arrants, executive vice president of Pinnacle Advisory Group; Tim Lee, a consultant with Pinnacle Advisory who used to work for Expedia Group; and Cindy Estis Green, co-founder and CEO of Kalibri Labs, which analyzes the hotel industry’s distribution channels.
Resources and Links
LODGING LEADERS
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301 | The Road Warrior Ahead: Business travel will come back ‘with a vengeance,’ say experts
Global business travel is a $1.4 trillion industry. The Global Business Travel Association calculates the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 resulted in a loss of $113 billion in business travel spend in hotels, airlines and other sectors of the travel industry. But all is not lost. GBTA, industry analysts and travel management companies see some green shoots of hope for 2021 as the COVID-19 vaccine rolls out and corporations put some of their people on the road again. This report is part of Long Live Lodging’s ongoing coverage of the coronavirus crisis and its impact on the hospitality industry.
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300 | 2020 Hindsight: Lodging Leaders reviews hot topics, gives sneak peek of what’s ahead
Long Live Lodging, an online multimedia news organization that covers the hospitality industry, found itself tossing aside its plans for news coverage late in the first quarter of 2020, when the coronavirus pandemic hit the U.S. and devastated the hospitality industry. The year turned out to be ground-breaking for Long Live Lodging, which developed the industry’s first live digital conference, and its podcast, Lodging Leaders, which increased its followers through timely, credible and balanced reporting on trends and issues driving the industry during the historic year. The company also won international recognition for its coverage of the COVID-19 crisis and its work as a whole. Long Live Lodging is a startup media company, formed in 2019, with Lodging Leaders, which was founded in 2015. In today’s report, we celebrate the podcast’s 300th episode. Podcast founder and co-host Jon Albano and co-host Judy Maxwell have a free-wheeling conversation in which they review the top podcasts of 2020 (Can anyone say ‘fair franchising’?) and give a brief preview of what the media organization plans for 2021.