Briefing: Business keeps moving forward

According to statistics from STR, in Q2 2016, Europe’s hotel industry reported nearly flat occupancy growth (+0.6% to 73.9%) and Central/South America region reported a decrease in occupancy. This year there has been a lot of reasons for concern around where we are in the economic cycle and whether geopolitical issues could disrupt the market. With all this happening resilience and focus on the future is important.

These videos show different attitudes towards this year’s hospitality market:

STR’s reports show that in the Central/South America region there 5.1% decrease in occupancy to 54.1% compared to Q2 2015. Average daily rate was up 5.3% to US$89.75. Revenue per available room was flat at US$48.58.

Performance in Europe was more positive with average daily rate going up 2.1% to EUR114.33. and revenue per available room up 2.7% to EUR84.49. However, in France there were decreases on all three of these: occupancy (-5.5% to 68.2%), ADR (-7.5% to EUR138.43) and RevPAR (-12.6% to EUR94.34).

And in Asia Pacific again performance is flattening out with an 1.3% increase in occupancy to 68.3% alongside an average daily rate decrease of 1.1% to US$96.95. Revenue per available room was nearly flat (+0.2% to US$66.18).

While these figures look gloomy there is reason to believe that with one recession in recent memory under the belt and markets showing an increased ability to bounce back, businesses can stay positive and face any possible obstacles head on.

If you’ve been sent to this page and you’re not yet on the circulation list to receive these regular briefings and you would like to sign up, you can do see here. It’s free.

Video clips produced by ybc.tv for the Hospitality Channel, including interview from industry conferences such as the IHIF conference as well as specific Hospitality Channel shoots.

Briefing: A sense of place and community

How to create effective social spaces is a question posed by many designers of parks, universities, and more recently offices. ABX, a leading building industry event in America is even holding a competition this year to create an innovative design for a social space.

A hotel is a unique kind of space, it overlaps public and private, home, work and leisure. As our experts discuss in the videos below, community elements have become very important to a hotel’s design and sense of place:

An article by fastcodedesign.com suggests that three key elements of a ‘Good Space’ are that the physical space should encourages social activity, there should be a mix of public and private, and there should be mixed uses for the space. These are all things a well-designed hotel can achieve. It should make both business and leisure travellers feel comfortable and ideally be a space that even those who aren’t staying in the hotel would want to enter, when this mix of guests begin to interact, your social space is successful.

Social space is becoming increasing important also in offices to encourage well-being, as discussed in this bizjournals article earlier this year.

This Guardian article discusses how in university spaces, comfort and usability of a space can sometime be compromised in order to create a unique look. This is also very relevant to hotel design, innovation and creativity should always serve a purpose, and the ultimate goal should always be make a better experience for the guest.

If you’ve been sent to this page and you’re not yet on the circulation list to receive these regular briefings and you would like to sign up, you can do see here. It’s free.

Video clips produced by ybc.tv for the Hospitality Channel, including interview from industry conferences such as the IHIF conference as well as specific Hospitality Channel shoots.

Briefing: Hospitality will always be about people

Research from Forrester found that 73% of people consider “valuing their time” as the most important thing a company can do to provide them with good service. Being able to anticipate and react to needs in a friendly accommodating way is vital in hospitality. People skills are essential to a successful career and this focus on relationships is also what makes the industry a rewarding and exciting place to be.

These videos discuss what makes hospitality great:

Forrester’s report Trends 2016: The Future Of Customer Service looked at changing customer service expectations. The report reminds us that dissatisfied customers today have many outlets to share their negative experience. The report states that when dissatisfied by a brand 39% of people tell friends and families about negative experiences and 11% post negative comments about the brand on Facebook.

As well as keeping up face to face communications hospitality companies must maintain good levels of service on all channels. The study found that in the 12 months preceding the survey (published January 2016) 84% of respondents had sought assistance via an app, help page or FAQ page on a company’s website. 83% had spoken to customer service on the telephone and 76% had accessed customer service via email.

Self-service and digital channels are becoming increasingly important, but whatever method is used to deliver the service, the principles of taking people into account remain the same. And in any industry the attitudes people take towards customers and also colleagues will ultimately play into levels of success.

If you’ve been sent to this page and you’re not yet on the circulation list to receive these regular briefings and you would like to sign up, you can do see here. It’s free.

Video clips produced by ybc.tv for the Hospitality Channel, including interview from industry conferences such as the IHIF conference as well as specific Hospitality Channel shoots.

Briefing: Soft brands compete in independents’ market

This year, Hyatt launched a new ‘soft brand’ The Unbound Collection, a portfolio of individual properties with a ‘distinct character’. The popularity and character of independent hotels is being harnessed by soft brands. For the individual hotel owner being part of a collection offers them better exposure and other benefits in exchange for a fee.

Four hospitality experts discuss branding and independence:

According to STR and The Highland group, the supply of boutique, lifestyle and soft-brand hotels has increased at double-digit annual rates over the last five years, and in 2015 they jointly generated room revenues of $13.7 billion. Their research showed that Soft Brand Collections account for $43.341 bn of this revenue, and Boutiques account for $8.025 bn,

Another soft brand that is aiming to provide an independent feel include Best Western’s Vib, which has a membership fee of 5% of total room revenue. Hilton has several collections in including Canopy and Curio which each sells a slightly differently lifestyle.

It is not just hotels that are following this trend. In the serviced apartment sector Ascott recently launched the crest collection with four properties in Paris and Bangkok.

If you’ve been sent to this page and you’re not yet on the circulation list to receive these regular briefings and you would like to sign up, you can do see here. It’s free.

Video clips produced by ybc.tv for the Hospitality Channel, including interview from industry conferences such as the IHIF conference as well as specific Hospitality Channel shoots.

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