eCommerce & Revenue Management

In the Who Is Who In Hospitality (wiwih.com) forum, there is a group called Hotel Department Group that is meant for hoteliers in the various departments. There are groups like General Managers Group, and Sales & Marketing Managers Group. There is one group is called eCommerce & Revenue Managers Group.

My first thought (and I have posted most of the below in this forum) was "Why was eCommerce & Revenue Management placed in the same group?"


At Millennium & Copthorne Corporate, both teams fall under Global Distribution & Revenue Management, which in turn comes under Global Sales & Marketing. eCommerce is categorized as a sales channel. I think in Hilton both fall under a larger group of Revenue Management and Distribution as well. Marriott seems to put eCommerce under Sales & Marketing and includes "Reservations, Inventory, and Distribution" under eCommerce too. So there does not seem to be a right or wrong way.

It is not uncommon that Revenue Managers have moved into eCommerce or have taken that additional responsibility/role - not unlike the move of Reservations Management into Revenue Management. But the move from Reservations into Revenue Management seems to be more complementary...

Reservations managers have:

• Familiarity with the tools and interfaces to control rates
• An idea of the business mix and seasonality of a property
• One could argue that this is the natural evolution, or career progression for Reservations Managers.
  

However eCommerce role requires three competencies that are not necessary found in Revenue Managers:

• General understanding of technology platform (hardware/software - which is IT's domain)
• General understanding of web technologies (which is more web development domain)
• Good knowledge of the online marketplace (which is a sales/marketing domain)

What is complementary is the fact that Revenue Management are numerate and analytical. Something that is extremely important in the eCommerce field and a mindset that is not always found in Reservations Managers.

I am curious to find out:

1. How many people have made the move from Revenue Management into eCommerce?
2. How many people are doing two roles at the same time?
3. Since Revenue Managers tend to report directly to the General Manager, how has that helped push out eCommerce initiatives?
4. What difficulties you have encountered moving into this role and how have they been overcome? (that's a big question, but hey you might be helping someone else!)
5. And lastly, does anyone disagree with anything that I have mentioned above? What are other views?

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The above only generated one reply which is why I am posting this in the greater marketplace as wiwih.com is members only and the Hotel Departments Groups are only for hoteliers.

The reply that did come in was by an Area Revenue Manager of a very large hotel group and he pointed out:

"What you pictured is an example of how the role of Revenue Managers can be seen from different perspectives and how often the position of a Revenue Mangers might be confused with a yield/distribution manager... Room revenue is impacted more and more by on-line distribution but should a revenue manager stop at room revenue? As you know total hotel revenue is the optimal/most profitable combination of Room, Conference & Banqueting and Food & Beverage revenue. The role of a revenue manager is much more complex and in my view must covering all hotel's revenue generating area's."

What he says is very valid and also points out that the role of a Revenue Manager is already quite complex. And there is an overlap as explained in this article? But can you realistically place the additional role of eCommerce onto these people's shoulder?

If successful, would you end up with something like this?


Here's one for the Revenue Managers reading this: Will Your Next CEO Be A Revenue Manager?

One Page Booking Engines

You have seen it at iHotelier and others. While a One-Page Reservation Process may seem simple and straight-forward, it does incorporate business logic and workflow. From the users’ point of view, they will only access one webpage during the whole booking process, which means this page has to be quite dynamic. The Reservations Workflow will have to be designed and implemented to guide users through the process. Users should also be provided with seamless integration with other internal systems as well as any relevant third party systems.

One-Page Reservation Process

In a typical multi-page booking process, a user may enter the reservations process from a number of different points: from the hotel’s website (using the Quick Reservations functionality), or from a link provided by the sales team, or from a promotional or advertising campaign. But once the user is in the reservations page, he/she typically follows through a linear booking process that loads one webpage at a time and then presents a summary at the end. This can be a tedious and slow process and making changes mid-flow can also be quite a hassle. Even increasing the reservation server’s speed and bandwidth can not remove the user’s perception that they have to wait while another page is being loaded.

A one-page reservation process eliminates the need for loading a new webpage every step and also allows users to see each step in the process and make changes quickly and easily at any time. Typically the user interface is a web-browser friendly client-side application that integrates with a CRS or GDS to get availability, room types, rates, rate descriptions, etc. as well as to communicate back to these systems with other essential reservations information. This application can be developed with JavaScript, however Macromedia Flash is a better environment for this kind of development as it is: 1) more secure, 2) a more robust development tool, and 3) able to provide a more user friendly, interactive experience.

The First Generation of One-Page Reservations

The first generation of this type of one-page reservations processes is provided by companies like iHotelier and SynXis. An example of the iHotelier interface is Hotel Nikko Düsseldorf (is it still there?); see Figure 1 below. An example of the SynXis interface is the Aztec Hotel & Spa Bristol (); see Figure 2. Users can select dates from a calendar, select from available rooms and rates, view photography and description of the room, and enter their details including credit card information – all on one page.

While many of the benefits of one-page reservations are there, these interfaces are platform specific and are more applicable for individual hotels rather than a hotel group. They require the hotel to use specific PMS or to allocate inventory into a separate database that is accessed by the one-page reservations process.

Figure 1 - Nikko Düsseldorf’s iHotelier One-Page Reservation

Figure 2 - Aztec Hotel’s SynXis One-Page Reservation

Users Guide

One thing lacking from the first generation one-page reservations interfaces above is a step-by-step guide through the process for visitors. To display the whole interface immediately can be daunting to a user that has never been to the site before or has not used one-page interfaces before. BookingEdge has a demo of a one-page interface that leads a user through the process; see Figure 3 below for a screen capture of the demo.

However this “guide” function should be able to be turned off by advance users and regular visitors.

Figure 3 - BookingEdge.com One-Page Reservation with Users Guide

Web 2.0 - YouTube: The Ugly

So continuing from "The Good, The Bad...". Here's

The Ugly

"Buffet lunch at millennium hotel"

This is 7 seconds of almost nonsense. A quick flash of the nice couple followed by blur to the beautiful... plate. Why bother? The text description is better than the video: "had brunch with a couple of our friends at the milenium ariport hotel in deira, Dubai UAE."

"Millennium UN Plaza New York room vid."

Alright, maybe I am being mean by labeling this as "ugly", but watching the video is like seeing things from the perspective of a near-sighted mute.

"ShangHai Drum Band on stage"

Someone caught a Jamaican band on show at the Millennium Hongqiao Shanghai. It's an excruciating 5 minutes, both the camera work and the sound quality.

"Jeff Sandler Orchestra"

A wedding singer performance at the Millennium Knickerbocker Chicago Hotel. The question is why? Why post this online at all????

The WTF!%?!? - As if the above was not bad enough, there are other more random things....

"mommy"

This is random post from a grown up guy who starts the long description with "i miss my mommy". The whole video has some kind of pink filter on the lens to make everything really pink. He saying something about working with some girl at the Millennium Hotel Stuttgart. Then getting her phone number which shows on a piece of paper. I guess this guy has some real issues with women....

Millennium Hotel
by urbananan?????

A Bunch of teenagers singing nonsense, but filmed by a cameraman with attention deficit disorder (ADD). The only title was "millennium hotel" and the description just said "sing". The poster "urbananan" is a 46 year old from Canada.

"Bachelor party"

A bunch of guys getting drunk in a hotel room. The only tag was "millennium". It was submitted by poster "sociallystunted" who lives in Cincinnati, Ohio. So I guess this "event" was at the Millennium Cincinnati.

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So what does the above post and the one before it show? Well it is obvious that the quality of content is generally not that good. The content is random and is not content that can be used to make any kind of decisions from a consumer's perspective.

In any case, this has been fun checking out YouTube in this way. I will have to do this with TripAdvisor one of these days...

Web 2.0 - YouTube: The Good, the Bad...

So we are all talking about Web 2.0 and listening to people spout social networking. What are we really talking about here? To demonstrate what we are talking about, I went to YouTube.com and did a search for "millennium hotels" to see what I would get. In deference to Clint Eastwood, I will classify them as The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.

The Good

"Britain's Best Breaks: Glasgow: Millennium Hotel Glasgow"
Wow! A professionally produced video on YouTube!

A very pleasant surprise. Obviously video was done by an OTA and uploaded by www.britainsbestbreaks.tv - This is the kind of video that we want.


"Love Train" at Millennium Biltmore Los Angeles

Not sure if the singing is considered "good", but it does show what how nice the banqueting hall is at the hotel. wow!


View from Millennium UN Plaza New York

This is barely "good". It starts out ok with a city view from the bedroom. Nice! The we go shaky cam and start going back and forth. Then he sweeps inside the room (um..ok). Then he switches to night city shots (urgh!) and then some music starts. He put some work into editing this thing, but looks like he needs more lessons.


"New York East River view from Millennium Hotel"

This is probably the best of amateur videos that I have found on Millennium. The guy takes an outside view and pans steadily and slowly so that you could see things. He even puts in mix music: "Music: Bebel Gilberto "Ceu Distante" remixed by DJ Spinna". But alas later in the end, he tries to be artistic: comes into the room and pans the interior.. shaky cam. Nothing's perfect.


The Bad

"Millennium Biltmore Los Angeles"
This guy starts his description with: "There's dead bodies in the walls.."

He starts out ok with proper titles for the movie and all. Then you suddenly realizes that he is illegally go through the innards of the hotel where he should definitely not be. He thinks this is cool...

"Travelling through Dubai"

I don't even know why this came up when I searched for Millennium. But it's a ok edited video, but it just about 4 college party "doods" talking smack and being lude. They are looking forward to drinking and sluts in Dubai(!@#$@#) .. ah the joys of being young and stupid.

Fire alarm goes off at the Millennium St. Louis

So these morons filmed their sophomoric evacuation after a fire alarm goes off. The alarm was blamed on a room sprinkler that "randomly popped". More likely they held a lighter to it just to see what would happen.... sigh....

"The Fear...The Confusion...The Dreaded Staircase"

These guys were apparently friends of the guys who sent in the fire alarm episode from the Millennium St. Louis. Why do you want to post up this video? But hey they did leave a very long description and got lots of comments from their friends. Social networking at its best. So how are hoteliers supposed to get into this arena?


TO BE CONTINUED WITH THE UGLY AND THE WTF#$%

"The role of search engines in a Travel 2.0 world"

So hotelmarketing.com leads off today's newsletter with the above title and follows the subtitle with:

"Will online travel consumers abandon Google as a travel planning and research tool and shift their attention to Web 2.0 sites such as TripAdvisor.com and social networks like YouTube.com?"

HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA.!!!!!

I had a good laugh at that. Google invests so much money into what it does and into research, there is no hope of some rinky-dink tripadvisor or even expedia is going to come even close. They are spending billions on datacenters and there own POWER PLANTS. Even Amazon and ebay pale in comparison.

And these Travel 2.0 and Web 2.0 guys NEED google. Without google, they would get no traffic!!!

Starwood launches starwoodpro.com for travel professionals

OK.. Here is what Starwood says of its own program:

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Who we are: StarwoodPro

Why we’re here: To make matching specific client requirements with the perfect hotel effortless.

How we’ve done it: By putting you first.

Created by professionals, for professionals, StarwoodPro puts the information and tools you rely on most – the ability to research locations, dynamic search that helps pinpoint the right properties, and a booking shortcut tool – all in easy reach.

We’ve also included textural information – such as vivid descriptions of each of our brands and local area information so that you can unite clients with hotels that will not just meet, but exceed expectations.

We appreciate you recommending Starwood to your clients and look forward to providing them with positive travel experiences.

Nine ways to expand client options
Learn more about each of our brands – what each one is famous for, why they are different, and why guests come back. More>

How Starwood Rewards Travel Professionals
We look forward to being part of your brand experience, which is why we pay commissions on most rate categories. It’s also why commissions are as easy as possible. More>

On the Horizon

Working to help you open more hotel doors to your clients, StarwoodPro is looking to do more – provide more tools, more information about our properties, and finding more ways to help you help your clients. Some of the things we’ll be adding in the future:

Enhanced Travel Professional Education – We're focused on helping you find more ways to use Starwood’s brands to build your business. We also want to get to know you, as well as help you get to know us and each of our brands.

Travel Professional Rates – Stay with us! We’re working on enhancing our current discounted rates for Travel Professionals to give you more opportunities to stay at our hotels and resorts worldwide at preferred rates.

Rewards Program – We've got something cooking that may just motivate you to book any one of our 825 + hotels and resorts.

Special Events – Celebrations and business go hand in hand, and we will have a lot to celebrate as we launch new brands and open new hotels.

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The above are found here. Here are some info on commissions.

This looks like a great program to me. Hopefully getting the "mom and pop" travel agents to book direct with Starwood rather than going through the large OTAs......

iPhone Activated and Unlocked!!!!!

OK so this post is not really about hotel or ecommerce, but I am just so siked or is it "psyched".

I am in New York arrived here on Sunday 9th September. I read just before I came that there was a software unlock for the iphone that was coming out on the 10th that would allow you to use the iphone on other carriers besides AT&T. This was done by iphonesimfree.com

The articles are here:
http://www.engadget.com/tag/iphonesimfree
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/TECH/09/01/apple.iphone/


....Though neither are necessary very dependable news sources (DOH!).

Well I figured it this was true, I would buy an iPhone and try my worst. So on Monday I bought the iPhone from the flagship Apple Store in the Big Apple:



So for the last 3 nights I have been trying to get it to work!

1st night (Monday): I activated my phone with iActivator (UPDATE: iActivator has been updated with a better software iNdependence. Use this instead.) This is the first step and allows you to modify the software on the iPhone to let the phone turn on. Because when you first get it, the iphone wont let you do anything!!! The iActivator will let you have most functionality except phone and youtube. (ipod, photo, synch, camera, etc are fine.) So far so good.

2nd & 3rd nights (Tues & Wed): The second step is to unlock the SIM software so that you can use a non AT & T SIM card. I used http://www.iphoneworldwideunlock.com/ and paid USD50. There is a free version as well at http://www.freeiphoneunlock.com/unlock/, but I did not want to risk it and it looks more troublesome. Step 2 takes a while as you are trying to figure out the tech stuff. And I had to do mine twice before it worked. Also, the iphoneworldwideunlock takes a few days to activate as they had to load your IMEI into a server.

BUT last night, it happened... I succeeded. Now I own an iPhone running on Singapore's MobileOne network (roaming currently of course)!!!!!

The iPhone is reeaalllly suhhh-wheeet. Have fun hacking.. I dare ya. (PS. Now you know why I haven't posted anything in the last few days. I have been ..um.. very busy.)

UPDATE: After being unlocked for a couple of days, I turned my iPhone off last night. When I powered it on this morning, I could not get any signal. so I searched around trying to understand what's going on. so what happened was that the "Activation" (Step 1 above) was somehow corrupted, but the phone still turned on and had basic functionality. The problem was NOT the "Unlock" (Step 2). so I plugged the phone back in and turned on iNdependence. I then did the same Activation steps (no need to Jailbreak again) and everything was back to normal.

LESSON: do not throw iNdepence away after the first install. Keep it on your Mac as you may need it later for things like this.

ALSO: I upgraded to iTunes 7.4.1 today so the above is compatible with this version.

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