The Chairman of Hotel Marketing Association (HMA), Harry Fielder (also CEO Umi Digital), talks hotel digital marketing, direct strategies and introduces us to the HMA.
As one of the presenters at ACE Hotel Tech Summit, September 2023, he will be covering Clever ways to encourage more direct bookings. In our conversation we look at:
1. What is the HMA? Why hotels should be a member
2. Trends in direct bookings
3. The basic hotels should be doing for direct bookings and marketing today
4. Capitalising on direct bookings
5. Approaching social media and reviews
Harry will join Travel Market Life at The Independent Hotel Show Tuesday 17th October, 3 - 4pm at the Social Business Space for the discussion: Tech stack for the future - Make the most of your tech investment by discovering the right systems to help your hotel. This session will look at how to build a business case for senior management, getting staff buy-in, and breaking down silos to help the tech you choose work for your business - today and tomorrow The Hotel Marketing Association (HMA) is the only dedicated body for hotel marketers in the UK. Providing support and inspiration for hotel marketers and the wider industry seeking guidance and insight for business and career development.
Listen on Spotify
Listen on Apple Podcasts
Programme Notes
This episode has been automatically transcribed by AI, please excuse any typos or grammatical errors
Ryan Haynes:
Hello and welcome back to Travel Market Life. As part of our media partnership with ACE Hotel Tech Summit, we are hosting a series of conversations with the presenters. Today is Harry Fielder Chairman of Hotel Marketing Association and CEO of Umi Digital, where he'll be talking about digital marketing and marketing strategies. in our conversation today, we are going to be looking at the Hotel Marketing Association trends in direct bookings. The basics hotels should be considering how hoteliers can capitalize further on direct bookings and the approaches to social media,
Ryan Haynes:
So, on the line now is Harry Fielder Chairman of Hotel Marketing Association Harry. Thanks ever so much for joining us. First, let's just dive straight in. What is the Hotel Marketing Association?
Harry Fielder:
Good question. The Hotel Marketing Association has actually been around for over 30 years. It is a professional body that is whose whole purpose is to champion best practices in hotel marketing, to elevate the industry in terms of skillset and sort of be there as a kind of almost mentors and, and, and senior, senior figures in hotel marketing. For everyone to kind of come around and just create an amazing community around hotel marketing really because it is so many unique skill sets within that field. And we, we really, you know, champion it as a profession, not just a kind of a side part of, of the wider hotel team.
Ryan Haynes:
I mean, it has massively diversified in recent years of all the different systems and platforms and social and digital and all sorts as well. As you say, I've, I've certainly come from a background in marketing as you know, and more often than not, it's the administrators that, that are dumped with the tasks of marketing, but it goes far deeper than that. Why should hotels be a part of the Hotel Marketing Association then?
Harry Fielder:
So, I mean, we have a great calendar of events coming up. We have our awards every year and we've got, and we've recently partnered with HOSPA, obviously another large Hospitality professional body. And so, we now actually have more resources, more reach and some more, you know, creative ideas to bring to the industry. So, it's a really exciting time. The best way to kind of follow along and be part of it is to go to the Hotel Marketing Association website and just drop your, drop your email address down, down in there. We are, we are kind of slightly reshaping what membership looks like with various different tiers, various different approaches to membership.
Harry Fielder:
But the best thing to do right now is just drop your details in there. You'll, you'll, you'll start receiving all of the insights and, and news and everything from the Association. And as our membership becomes a little bit more refined with regard to those things I was mentioning then, then obviously we can work out the best way for to be involved for you.
Ryan Haynes:
I mean, the wonderful thing is that you have that partnership with HOSPA, as you just mentioned, And I believe that you are going to be doing something in conjunction at host space in November so people can learn a little bit more in person.
Harry Fielder:
We are indeed. Yes, there is. So, I think generally revenue management, which is, which is kind of the, the backbone of host space really and marketing are just ever coming, ever closer together, really. And, you know, marketing can't really excel without a good understanding of revenue and, and, and vice versa really. So, I think the, over the years the host base conference has started to really blend into marketing, and you look at a lot of the topics last year at Hot Space, so many of them were, it's effectively a, a marketing conference with a revenue management wrapper on it, really. So that, yeah, there's so many, so many good overlaps.
Ryan Haynes:
So, looking at the Trends in direct bookings, what are you seeing at the moment over the last couple of years?
Harry Fielder:
Yeah, so we've, in terms of the confidence to invest in, in that direct strategy, it's, I would say it's, it's higher now than it was pre-COVID. We're seeing much higher budgets being put into things like Google ads and, and traffic acquisition last year. Interestingly, direct bookings actually went over 50% for the first time in many years, like probably around 10 years or so. So actually, while the online travel agents still represent a, you know, an incredibly important source of, source of bookings, the direct channel is, you know, it's still a very viable, viable option. And as we crossed over that 50% threshold, a lot of hotel marketers like us kind of got quite excited because you kind of see the fruits of the labour really with regard to the way traffic is kind of acquired into that direct funnel.
Harry Fielder:
You know, we're seeing 30% of all journeys actually start from Google Maps. You know, if we've seen more than 50% of all searches on Google as zero clicks, people never actually leave the Google platform. We are seeing, you know, the organic reach of social media, the organic reach of social media continues to drop and drop and drop or if you, if you're just treating social as that kind of one way communication method rather than going down the paid or com or engagement route. So, yeah, there's a lot of things changing. I think another exciting area is the packaging. So, marketers being working really closely with revenue to start creating cool packages because if you look at what the online travel agents are doing, you know, they are investing so much in bringing all of the different travel verticals together, flights, tours, experiences, you know, you look at Airbnb, experiences and stuff like that.
Harry Fielder:
So, I think the direct channel has a huge part too. I think that's a really, the ability for you to be creative with your packaging and how you sell is actually your secret weapon because you'll never be able to do it as, as detailed and as curated as the online travel agents can because they have to do stuff at scale and they're not going to be able to leverage local partnerships, local produce and all, all that kind of, all that kind of thing. That kind of local affiliate network that you might, that you might have. And I think that's, while the packaging is kind of this big, this big push that I think is a secret weapon for the direct, for that independent or the, you know, a small group to kind. Really drive that direct channel.
Ryan Haynes:
It's certainly what we're seeing is we've sort of moved towards that mindset of e-commerce and how you can bring in different services and break down the different amenities and products that you have within the hotel, but we don't want to see it as, you know, a big, huge mountain that you've got to scale. There are some easy, quick wins. And what I absolutely loved about the Trends you just mentioned was this whole point of Google Maps because I'm one of them, I'm a victim of looking for hotels on Google because I know exactly where I'm going. I want to find the hotels in and around that area. I don't want to be siphoning through a booking.com or Expedia. I want to go directive I possibly can. As we know now, you go to Google, and you see the prices from all the OTAs as well as direct.
Ryan Haynes:
And you can see in general that there's very little difference in that pricing.
Harry Fielder:
Which is now free, you know, you can list the prices for free as long as you've got your integration with Google hotel ads, your price listing there is free.
Ryan Haynes:
Wow. Amazing. That's fantastic. So, which is great. So, it sounds like, you know, let's say Google business, it’s really easy to set up, but what other basics hotels should be doing in and around direct bookings and marketing?
Harry Fielder:
Good question. Just quickly on that, Google My Business piece, you can actually push offers and blog posts and all these sorts of things through your Google My Business profile, but not many, not many people do. So, no.
Ryan Haynes:
Never knew that.
Harry Fielder:
Yeah. It's cutting, you know, the things at the speed at which you respond to reviews, pushing offers, pushing blog posts, pushing events all through your business profile, given the fact that over 30% of people discover Hospitality through maps, you know, that's a really good quick win. It doesn't require any ditch.
Ryan Haynes:
Google reviews are actually incredibly powerful, and that's one of the first areas that even I look at today rather than go to TripAdvisor or all the other review platforms. So, it's incredible how powerful that single access point to the internet has become.
Harry Fielder:
Absolutely. And you know, back to that zero-click thing, more than 50% of journeys in the Google space never leave Google. So, you think of it as a tool to distribute traffic, but they're holding onto more traffic than they distribute, which is kind of a weird one to think about as a search engine. So yeah, I mean Google if you can respond to them, well also increase your reviews over time. You don't, you don't have to just sit back and be at the mercy of your reviewers. You can take proactive measures using tools like, like Review Fielder for example, where every person who checks out sends them an email. They can fill out a survey if it's a positive response at the click of a button, it can publish it to review platforms.
Harry Fielder:
If it's a negative response, it goes directly to the reservations team or the customer support team or whatever to handle it offline. So, you are still getting everyone's feedback, but you can kind of engineer, you know, positivity on through those, through those channels.
Ryan Haynes:
I mean, we've got a right to reply and that's a great thing. If it is negative, you know, you do want to see that reply that's come from a hotel. And I really appreciate and respect anybody that is actually responding to those negative reviews and, and how well they respond to them as well. And you know, especially if it's a, you know, 4.5, 4.8 rating and there's like a one-star review, you are thinking, oh, that person didn't have a great time, but it perhaps it was down to the mood of the actual individual at the time or, or it was a real off day for the hotel. And that we know that happens. And I think it's that authenticity half the time. It's particularly true if you're an independent hotel, it's just being upfront and honest, isn't it? And just saying, okay, yeah, we got this wrong or oh, I'm sorry you didn't have the experience that the rest of our guests tend to have and, and look at a resolution to compensate that guest in some way.
Ryan Haynes:
Now, I mean the website is obviously the key as well. Once you land on the site, you want to have that great journey, but it's also making it bookable, which is absolute, this is key because I mean, I was booking something the other day, I mean, I don't like Premiere in as an example. It's about five or six steps before you actually complete a booking. And now that is one of the key frictions when it comes to actually getting that direct booking, isn't it?
Harry Fielder:
It is and I think where what we're seeing now as, as I guess the first, there's, there's a big from a trend point of view back to our trends question earlier. There is so much technology out there now that allows us to control a first-party experience because the whole industry really, the whole hotel tech stack is so third-party. You go from your own website over to a separate booking engine, you have a separate channel manager, you have a separate team working on your ads, you put your data into a separate CRM and it's, and it's so disjointed. It's incredibly disjointed. For example, just that booking journey, right? You have a website and then you have a spa booking system, you have a table reservation engine, you have a room booking engine, all of them are completely separate, right?
Harry Fielder:
And you've got kind of SaaS products like one journey that of which they're sort of starting to bring those revenue streams together, you know, which is fantastic. But there, and, and the, but there's also things that you can do yourself. You know, there's, you can, a lot of these property management systems, they have an A P I, which allows you to just create bookings on your website. You know, you can bring in table availability from the res a p I or the seven rooms, a p i, you can bring in and you can bring in flights. Now there's a tool called Duffel, which aggregates 45 different airlines into a bookable API, that you can then plug into your own first-party booking experience. Now how far we get that is, that's another question.
Harry Fielder:
And how much that's going to apply to a small independent, again, another question, but, but this, this drive towards this kind of controlling the first party experience and not having to rely so heavily on this third party disjointed tech stack, I think is another real trend that we're going to need not necessarily see over the next 12 months, but certainly five years’ time. I think a lot of people are going to be really focused on that. You know, if you see the prog progression in things like Google, you know, they're, they're working towards this cookie list, cookie list world, and this first part, trying to really nail that first party, first party tracking experience. So, yeah. Another interesting one,
Ryan Haynes:
Yeah. The more we can actually get hold of that data, understand who our guests are or our audience. I mean, I think the problem has always been, if you go back to 20 years ago when we're doing print advertising, you were just like, oh, well just do an advert and it goes all in sundry. It was mass advertising, and you were just hoping for the best. Whereas today you should know who your most valuable guest is, what age they are, what gender they are booking per head, potentially what size of group, how long they're booking for what time of year they're booking, how far in advance they're booking. So, you can do the actual marketing on the right channels, and you can do the packages like you said, or you can break up the services and products for them to be able to build their own products. And as you say, it's, it's not about sitting there coding anymore, which is the beauty of it.
Ryan Haynes:
The technology is there for you to basically just go in and it's incredibly intuitive software for you to create your own packages, plus copy paste, and away you go. And I guess, you know, someone yourself who comes from that background of web building to see that simplicity that is now available for hoteliers. You are, you must be seeing them, like you say, sort of try so many different new ways of approaching the market and, and actually being more creative with their marketing and, and direct bookings.
Harry Fielder:
Yeah, I agree. I think the role of the hotel has become, so if you just look at maybe five, 10 years ago, we were spending a lot of our time changing content for a hotel, right? Well, can you change this picture? Can you change this page? Can you, and so pretty much the, so much of the creativity now in terms or the execution of the marketing strategy has is, is now actually with the marketing execs, the marketing managers in the hotel where I feel the, the role of an agency has, has shifted is that it is to focus on connecting the dots. So, okay, well how can we bring the data captured from our website into our CRM list? That's auto, auto also going to populate our, advertising audience through Google ads automatically, you know?
Harry Fielder:
And so that's, that does go beyond the skillset of your, your normal like in-house hotel marketing. So, the agent, so the agency is kind of supporting more in not necessarily the traditional marketing ways, but it's, it's connecting the dots and leading the tech part. Now, I think another five years’ time thing is, I, I do think we need more technical expertise on the hotel side. I think you're going to start seeing CTOs of hotel groups. Are you a large brand, you have them, but if you end up having a hotel that needs 10, 15 pieces of tech and you've got the decisions being made by revenue, by marketing, by the GM, by operations, by everyone all separately, completely separately, independently of each other, it you, you, you still end up with all these data silos here and here.
Harry Fielder:
And none of them talk to each other. And so, I do think that we'll start seeing sort of technical oversight and this, this kind of almost like part-time CTO or tech Yeah. Some technical expertise at the board level for that tech decision making. Because
Ryan Haynes:
Yeah, it's been interesting conversations I've been having with some C-level executives about where they're actually placing their focus and traditionally it's been around the PMSs and then having a data warehouse, but more so they're looking towards the CRM and that being the centre of the hotel and you know, that processing all the data from all their third party systems in order for them to be able to actually own that data, which is the most important thing because the more you sort of, you, you, you overly on third parties, the more they end up owning that data or, or managing that data on behalf of you. Whereas if you can get it all in centrally, then hopefully that allows you to have that better, closer proximity with your guests and then be able to crunch that data much more closely to understand how you can optimize the revenue and commercial opportunities throughout the hotel.
Ryan Haynes:
So, it's interesting how we're seeing that, that evolution in a way. We're, we're, we're, we're viewing that tech stack. Mm. And actually, on that matter, Harry and you are going to be joining Travel Market Life at the Independent Hotel Show as part of the social business space on the 17th of October to actually discuss the Tech stack for the future of hotels. So, we'll dive into deep further, deeper into that, won't we? Which would be great.
Harry Fielder:
Absolutely.
Ryan Haynes:
Is there any particular sort of technology that you feel hotels need to really be thinking of as a priority for themselves and being able to maximize direct bookings and marketing then?
Harry Fielder:
Oh, at a basic level, you know, it's still, it comes down to the, is that booking journey seamless from website to booking engine? Are you discoverable for your brand? Are you protecting your brand by bidding on your own brand name? Because booking.com will be bidding on it. So, brand protection, easily pushes that person through to, through to a coherent booking engine that ultimately offers equal or better value down an OTA if that, that's going to be the vast majority of, of, of if you're going to do well or not, you know if it's kind of the basics, right? But in terms of technology, your question there is, where would I be innovating or where would I be considering setting myself up for the future?
Harry Fielder:
I think it is in that data aggregation piece. And that's that. I also believe that that starts from the PMS And I think if you've got this, this kind of debate around what is the central source of truth. You, you were mentioning CRM there CRM to pull in all of our customer data together. I'd say a lot of PMS companies would say the PMSs are the central source of truth. So why don't we just build a CRM within? Why shouldn’t CRMs just integrate with us and, you know, should push all the data to us? And so, I think there's going to be this kind of slight battle between where the central source of truth is, is it a separate data warehouse? So, the, if there was any decision that I could, could start sort of encouraging people to make, now it's, if I could put all of my bits of hotel tech on a piece of paper and draw lines between them, how many lines could I draw?
Harry Fielder:
Like in terms in and in terms of data flowing between, between what, and you know, that there will be a lot of lines that you can't draw. But it's not to say that those lines don't exist or if you were to shop around a little bit from a connectivity perspective that they, you know, they, they might come together cause it's going to be the people that bring those data silos together that will ultimately succeed because they'll be, they'll have the ability to be far more personalized, far more relevant, and have a clearer understanding of their audience.
Ryan Haynes:
Excellent. Harry, thank you ever so much for that whistle stop store around the HMA and direct bookings and marketing. Thank you. I look forward to seeing you very, very soon.
Harry Fielder:
Look forward to it as well.
Ryan Haynes:
So that was Harry Fielder, The Chairman of the Hotel Marketing Association and CEO of Umi Digital as he mentioned. He'll be at the ACE Hotel Tech Summit in September, the Independent Hotel Show in October, as well as host space in November. He'll be joining us on our panel at the Independent Hotel Show Tech stack for the future. So, look out for that event on LinkedIn. Thanks so much for listening to us today. You can find out more stories from hotels about how they're using data in our Hoteliers’ Voice series. I'm your host, Ryan Haynes ciao for now.