Briefing: The opportunity and challenge of hospitality alternatives

A report by JLL has found that serviced apartments account for less than 10% of total room inventory in London – and in UK regions account for only 3.9%. This highlights that there is still a lot of opportunity for serviced apartments and other types of alternative accommodation to grow. But are these relatively new products less attractive to investors?

Four hospitality experts discuss the performance of hotel alternatives:

JLL’s report found that there are over 1,500 serviced apartment rooms due to open in London between now and 2019. This shows that the sector is only going to become more mainstream, and with that there will be more evidence on performance for investors.

As discussed in the above videos, some regions across the globe, such as the US, have a bigger alternatives market than others. JLL states that the number of serviced apartment rooms vs hotel rooms in Singapore is higher than in London with 10% of total room supply.

In Europe, the market is still developing. According to JLL, the key serviced apartment operators at the moment are AccorHotels, The Ascott Limited, BridgeStreet Global Hospitality, Frasers Hospitality, and Go Native. They also state that some up and coming operators are Staycity, Zoku and Starwood Capital.

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: Appreciating data skill

Research from Tableau Software has revealed that just 40% of recent graduates believe data analytics skills are essential for their future job and only 30% believe data analytics to be critical in fulfilling their career goals. In every aspect of hospitality, workers need to appreciate the importance of data, although not everyone needs to be able to analyse it. Some will collect the data, and others will be using the insight it provides in their work.

Our experts discuss how understanding data can have a positive impact on business:

Organisations are continuing to invest in data, whether this means bringing in new skilled staff or creating partnerships with data specialist companies.

So what are some of the problems that arise when working with data?  According to a study by Xplenty, Over 30% of Business Intelligence Professionals say they spend 50% – 90% of their time cleaning raw data. Other challenges mentioned include, integrating data from different platforms and managing the sheer volume of incoming data at any given time.

The amount of data available for people to work with is only increasing, and this could mean great things for business. A report by Forbes, Data Elevates the Customer Experience, found that the growth of customer experience data increasing at rate of more than 25% a year.

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: Holidaymakers value safety and security

Safety fears have a huge impact on consumers’ holiday choices. This is particularly apparent in light of events in popular destinations such as Turkey and Paris. In a UK survey by FamilyBreakFinder, 80% of people said terrorism, health scares or political trouble will affect their choice of holiday destination in 2017. But these are not the only fears people have when taking a break. A survey by Expedia also found that 42% of beachgoers are scared of sharks.

In these videos experts discuss dealing with safety and security fears:

When we go on holiday we want everything to run smoothly, so what would get in the way of this? Expedia’s survey found that that on a beach holiday the three biggest worries are having your wallet, passport or possessions stolen 39%, getting a Sunburn 17%, and experiencing bad weather that prevents beach time 14%.

There is also somewhat of a gulf between what people worry about and what the likelihood of it happening is. 6.6 million people are so afraid of sharks they don’t get in the water but the actual global odds of encountering a shark are 11.5 million to one.

Some holidaymakers are reassured by a focus on security. According to a survey by TravelZoo, when the French government announced in July that beaches in Cannes would be patrolled by armed police, over a third of British respondents believed the UK should follow France’s lead and deploy similar security measures.

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: Trust issues hold back the Sharing Economy

New research shows that the Sharing Economy in the UK is being held back because of a lack of trust and understanding. A survey by Trust Pilot found that 29% of people have previously avoided using a sharing economy platform because of a lack of clarity on who would hold responsibility when something goes wrong. The survey also found that 42% of people would usually wait until a friend or family member has used a sharing economy scheme before using it themselves.

In these videos our experts discuss the impact of the sharing economy in hospitality:

A separate survey by Veridu also found similar results.  The survey states that ‘A lack of understanding of the Sharing Economy in the UK is impacting growth with 41% of respondents citing this as a reason for not participating.’ Other reasons given for avoiding participation were unwillingness to share possessions with strangers (41%), concerns for personal safety (34%), and worries that possessions would be damaged (29%).

Some Sharing Economy business have grown faster than others, and Airbnb is a clear success story, although it still has hurdles to overcome. Trust Pilot’s survey found that 58% of respondents had used property rental sharing economy services (e.g. Airbnb) whereas only 28% of people has used private car loan services or car sharing schemes (e.g. Zipcar).

With word of mouth remaining such a strong driver of growth, trust is sure to keep growing over time and emerging Sharing Economy business will continue to present competition to more traditional business.

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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