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Leading Hotels of the World – Marketing Conference Presentation

by RobertKCole on May 17, 2011

It was an honor to be invited to give the closing keynote address for The Leading Hotels of the World 2011 Sales, Marketing and Distribution Conference at the Kameha Grand Bonn in Bonn, Germany.

Leading Hotels of the World members understand luxury travel

Challenge: Identify a group that better understands the needs of luxury hotel guests than members of The Leading Hotels of the World

The topic of the presentation was Deconstructing Distribution – It’s all about the Customer with a focus on the customer, the channels and the future.

Setting the scene, the luxury hotel industry continues to recover from its steepest decline on record that unfortunately coincided with a period of momentous technological advancement – particularly mobile and social media that have significantly empowered consumers.

As a result, hotels and resorts target a changed guest, armed with access to information and backed by a network of trusted advisers – both corporal and virtual. The hotels also face an impossibly complex variety of distribution channels that have expanded into social networks and location-based services. continue reading →

Tagged as: advertising, Apple, customer relationship management, customer service, hospitality, hotel, luxury, marketing, mobile, personas, resorts, social media, statistics, technology, travel, trends

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HSMAI Resort Best Practices Mobile Marketing Presentation

by RobertKCole on February 2, 2011

The Hospitality Sales and Marketing Association International (HSMAI) has an active Resort Best Practices Initiative that facilitates research and discussion sponsored by a forward looking group of leading resort marketing and management executives. Preceding HSMAI’s 2011 Digital Marketing Strategy Conference at the New York Marriott Marquis, I was invited to present the topic of Mobile Marketing for Resorts – Today and Tomorrow.

Future Mobile Phone
Creative Commons License photo credit: urban don

Predict the future of mobile technology? Well, if you like post-apocalyptic Mad Max style, this might just be the one for you. The cable provides a long awaited universal mobile analytics feed.

Building on last year’s mobile presentation for The 2010 Hospitality Financial and Technology Professionals HITEC Conference, Mobile Distribution – No, It’s Not Billboards and Neon Vacancy Signs, this session capitalized on three fundamental areas with a higher level and more future oriented focus.

Current Landscape

  • Why Mobile Changes Everything
  • Beware of the Splinternet

This segment focused on the latest explosive growth stats, as well as the complexities involved with providing a consistent brand experience across various mobile platforms. The burning question from resort executives was “Should we build a mobile app, or develop a mobile web site?”

Responding “What mobile platforms are your customers using, what guest interactions require process improvements and how would you plan to measure your success?” is a sure-fire way to put a damper on that conversation.

Unfortunately, when it comes to mobile, one size definitely does not fit all.

Traveler Engagement

  • Guests are More Important than Technology
  • Technology Enables Relevant Interaction

A big risk is marketing executives are feeling pressured to leap into technological platforms and processes without having a solid marketing strategy as a foundation. Instead, an understanding of guest needs, contact points and traveler personas must dictate priorities that can then be translated into marketing product planning initiatives.

Future Implications

  • From Anytime/Anywhere to Everytime/Everywhere

The future portion of the presentation includes an aggregation of all the Apple iTravel patent filings, including the associated iWallet (now Transaction) works. The patents also cover related airline, hotel, cruise, conference, concert, sporting event, wedding and innovative location-based Apps.

HSMAI Resort Marketing Best Practices – Mobile



View more Slideshare presentations from Robert Cole.

There are four videos embedded in the presentation. As they are not available through the slideshare

  1. Google Goggles Experiment Video
  2. Introducing Voice Actions for Android
  3. Introducing Word Lens
  4. OpenWays iphone apps for guests

With everything in the mobile space advancing so quickly, it will be interesting to see what iTravel applications will eventually see the light of day.

However, that won’t be nearly as fascinating as the reaction from hotels and airlines that have traditionally complained that the Global Distribution Systems (GDS) and Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) represent too great a burden in terms of distribution costs.

With Apple currently taking 30% of the revenue share from developers as the toll for distribution through the App Store, it will be interesting to see what the admission price will be for a highly integrated, mobile, end-to-end travel experience.

As there is no reason to believe that Apple would drop the ball when creating a quality user experience, or relent on its oversight of apps operating in its environment, current GDS and OTA fee levels could conceptually start looking like a bargain.

Tagged as: Apple, Google, hospitality, hotel, innovation, marketing, mobile, personas, resort, technology, travel

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Big Brother in 1984 Apple Macintosh Ad was Steve Jobs!

by RobertKCole on July 12, 2010

To be clear, I am not an Apple hater. My history with Apple goes back to a time before many of you reading this were born. The company’s foresight and design prowess have always been a source of inspiration and personal admiration.

Morphed Photo shows Big Brother from the 1984 MacIntosh ad is actually Steve Jobs from the future!

Morphed image provides conclusive proof that Big Brother from Apple's 1984 Macintosh launch ad is actually Steve Jobs from the future!

In college, the Apple II changed my life. It was soon apparent that accounting homework and the pressure on teaching assistants to grade final exams and enter semester grades would never be the same with VisiCalc’s spreadsheet and database capabilities.

While I had some previous experience “re-purposing” (OK, hacking) my high school’s career computer to play Hewlett Packard Football on the University of Washington mainframe, that was only accessing a comm link and spoofing a password. With the Apple II, I got my first experience in social computing by recoding the binary tree game to guess fetishes instead of animals.

Apple made microcomputers both useful and fun. I became an Apple fanboy in 1979. continue reading →

Tagged as: advertising, Apple, Google, innovation, technology

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HITEC Presentation: Mobile Distribution – No, It’s Not Billboards and Neon Vacancy Signs

by RobertKCole on June 28, 2010

It was great to see that attendance rebounded healthily at the annual Hospitality Financial & Technology Professionals HITEC conference, held in Orlando, Florida June 21 – 24, 2010.

The hospitality industry needs to discover what its guests want and figure out what combination of Apps and devices should be supported

There's not only an App for that, but there's also a device and operating system as well, plus a bunch of travel industry complexities...

The good news was that I had been selected to speak on a subject that combined two of the hottest topics in technology and travel: Mobile Distribution. It’s always fun to speak on a topic that should attract a good crowd…

The bad news was that the session was scheduled for 8:00am Wednesday morning – A time slot generally not conducive to strong crowds, especially following a second straight late night of highly entertaining client parties…

Rather amazingly, the early start time still produced a good sized audience that was sincerely interested in the monumental changes taking place in the mobile space and its impact on the hotel distribution landscape.

Many thanks are owed to to Rob Torres of Google, Flo Lugli of Wyndham Worldwide and Brett Keller of Priceline who generously provided some great graphics and data points regarding mobile and hotel distribution in presentations at the Association of Travel Marketing Executives Conference the previous week in Boston. Several of the statistics included are staggering.

The session was titled “Mobile Distribution – No, It’s Not Billboards and Neon No Vacancy Signs” continue reading →

Tagged as: Apple, distribution, Google, hospitality, hotel, marketing, mobile, strategy, technology, travel

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