Posts tagged Online bookings

The need to remain competitive for businesses in the online travel sector is paramount as the market perception of travel products has been commoditized. With so many travel sites offering similar services and products, consumers have a much more comprehensive and transparent availability of information to make a thoughtful purchasing decision.

“The importance of measuring your competitiveness thus becomes of paramount importance to sustain and grow your market share in the markets you serve,” says Bhanu Chopra, CEO of travel technology company RateGain.

The six-year old company has been expanding its offerings. RateGain offers its solutions under its market intelligence, channel distribution and social network marketing suite of products for the travel and hospitality sector.

“Our business has evolved from being a competitive intelligence provider to more of a market intelligence and distribution solutions provider to the online travel industry. Our initial solutions were around competitive intelligence but we have invested in providing innovative solutions in measuring and monitoring the impact of social media and reviews,”

Bhanu Chopra told EyeforTravel’s Ritesh Gupta in an interview.

Bhanu spoke about the need for business intelligence solutions, the maturity level of such solutions, his company’s new referral marketing platform and related issues. Excerpts:

Can you elaborate on how has the need for business intelligence solutions evolved in the online travel industry for various players?

Bhanu Chopra:

The area of business intelligence is quite vast and it can apply to the online travel industry in multiple ways. Within the context of BI tools that RateGain offers today, it is clear that in the competitive online travel world, both suppliers and intermediaries are vying aggressively for that online customer. In any business and much more in online travel business the need to be competitive is paramount as the market perception of travel products has been commoditized. With so many travel sites offering similar services and products, consumers have a much more comprehensive and transparent availability of information to make a thoughtful purchasing decision. The importance of measuring your competitiveness thus becomes of paramount importance to sustain and grow your market share in the markets you serve.

There is growing complexity now with how customers find and book travel today. Some new emerging trends are around rapid adoption of mobile to look and book travel, use of trip planning sites, hotel reviews becoming of vital importance on how consumers book travel(about 85% use reviews to book accommodation based on recent studies).

In addition Facebook and Twitter are becoming extremely important for businesses to monitor and measure brand perception and respond on a real-time basis to potentially adverse comments on these powerful platforms. It is important to monitor and measure the effectiveness of your online marketing campaigns and see if the new online mediums provide a ROI.

How has your company focused on differentiating its offerings in the last couple of years?

Bhanu Chopra:

We have tried to approach business intelligence in a holistic way to assist companies measure the impact of their overall online strategy. Our business has evolved from being a competitive intelligence provider to more of a market intelligence and distribution solutions provider to the online travel industry. Our initial solutions were around competitive intelligence but we have invested in providing innovative solutions in measuring and monitoring the impact of social media and reviews.

Our recent product launch Rumbido, has found a lot of excitement in the marketplace on how to actually monetize the power of social networks. In a nutshell, I think our agility and ability to listen to market needs has enabled us to continuously innovate and unveil new solutions to help address the changing market needs.

In addition we have solidified our customer relationships with high level of customization, customer focus and a consultative approach instead of a service approach. All these are complimented with a round-the-clock post sales support with a quick turnaround service delivery.

How do you assess the maturity level of BI solutions as far as the travel industry is concerned? What new trends have you witnessed in this arena?

Bhanu Chopra:

My rating would be medium to low-high i.e. B+ to A-. Even after 6 years and having some of the top travel companies as our clients, we still feel the industry as such hasn’t matured. Although in the recent times some of the mid-market players have shown interest, however the demand or rather requirement of business intelligence solutions is much more apt for bigger players in the industry.

Some of the noticeable trends that we have witnessed in our interaction with industry players and insiders are:

• There is a growing demand from industry players to integrate business intelligence with their existing or new revenue management systems. These companies are looking for an integrated solution through which they can control their pricing as well as execute an analytics based competitive pricing strategy. This is certainly seen as the next phase where suite of business intelligence solutions in travel industry can take the next leap and transform as an integrated solution as per the changing market demand.
• Need to monitor social media networks and its effectiveness
• Importance of monitoring and responding to reviews in the decision making process of consumers.

The industry has witnessed the emergence of a new referral marketing platform that intends to reach out to friends, families and followers of existing customers on different social networks. How do you expect your solution to fare in the next year or so?

Bhanu Chopra:

Social media offers a huge bill board effect which we can’t be over-looked. There are numerous research studies available that prove this point that the probability of buying any product increases if it is being referred by a close friend, relative or peer. Increased popularity of consumer review sites and the way people contribute and trust on the reviews posted there, authenticate this claim that the next phase of social media marketing will be majorly dependent on referrals and peer recommendation. Another interesting aspect here is that until now social networks were mainly used to create a buzz and a wider brand visibility. This new angle is capable of actually converting the buzz and brand awareness to new customer acquisition.

As more and more social network sites are integrating review sections in their offerings, we see a bright future for the adoption of this kind of a solution not only by the companies but also the consumers. And to keep consumers motivated who are actually acting as brand ambassadors, we added a commission angle for all successful referrals.

We expect hotel chains, mid & large online travel agents as well as marketing and advertising agencies catering to travel industry as the major adopters of this new social network referral marketing platform.

What factors did you take into consideration before launching this solution?

Bhanu Chopra:

Social media is one of the most popular buzzwords these days. Every single travel and hospitality company is on these platforms and ensuring their presence is felt. However, when we interacted with some of these companies we found that unanimously they all felt the need of a solution that can take the existing social media marketing campaigns from just a mere buzz generating vehicle to a lead generation platform.

Converting buzz to sales or say monetizing social media is the need of the hour. Taking this insight as the core solution, we designed rumbido, our proprietary social media referral marketing solution. In fact, we even have a patent pending for rumbido. It engages and rewards your customers to promote your offering within their social networks, thereby creating buzz for your brand, traffic and sales for your business.

With rumbido, hotels, OTAs, airlines and travel companies can go beyond branding on networking sites and build a powerful online referral program. It helps them to acquire new customers and convert them into brand ambassadors and their networks into a new, cost effective channel of distribution.

A hotelier told me: the referral is only going to influence business for selective hotels who have a strong product and consumer focus. Also the key will be the level of electronic engagement from the hotel with the consumer. Again the channel mix is a key driver here. Also the luxury segment may gain more than the budget segment as a consumer always want to showcase about the prestige associated with the same in social networks. What’s your viewpoint regarding the same?

Bhanu Chopra:

Well, it all depends on the category of company. Be it a luxury brand or a budget brand, their customers have their own personal preferences. E.g. A luxury brand customer would be encouraged to share his world class experiences with his peer group to advertise the fact that he/she had stayed in such a luxurious property whereas a budget brand customer would love to inform his peer group about the exciting offer he availed and how it is a great deal for them to lap up too. Hence, it the specialty and uniqueness of the brand that will be the compelling and selling point for/to its customers.