Millennial Brand Loyalty and how to not use Social Media in Hotels

Last week’s Hotel Show in Dubai was again a well-attended event, although the conference was a little underwhelming, or at least the TecSec Summit, the technology focused branch of the conference program was.  Generally I believe that great expos have average conferences and vice versa for the

simple reason that each format attracts different types of attendees, so inevitably the part with lesser emphasis will suffer. This was the case for the TecSec Summit which had a great program but suffered from bad accoustics and a lack of a dedicated conference manager who would keep time and more effectively moderate the audience-speaker interaction.

Millennials in the Middle East are different – buy why?

Nonetheless, there were a number of interesting presentations worth battling the ambient noise for. Millennials featured in more than just one presentation and while the general consensus is that this new dominant demographic is picky and demanding, a presentation from Google pointed out that unlike their peers elsewhere in the world, Millennials in the Middle East are very brand loyal.

Why? According to Google, the Millennials in the ME are not quite as sophisticated when it comes to brands but will catch up soon. 

Really? In a region that has become synonymous with brand shopping and conspicuous consumption and boasts large membership of social networks it seems a little far-fetched to blame a lack of sophistication. It would be welcome to get a greater perspective here, as the results may also provide a better understanding of brand loyalty in this demographic in general. I hope the good folks at Google take up the mantle and dig a little deeper here (the essence of the Google presentation can be found here).

Big Data or Big Brother?

Another big topic was Big Data and how hoteliers can use it to their advantage. It’s a topic close to my heart, as IPTV systems by nature can reveal a lot of information about guests through their in-room entertainment system usage. However, most hotels today tend to just look at general statistics, rather than ‘customising’ a guest’s experience.

Copyright Pauline Siebers

Social media is at another level of course and it is tempting to look at the data available surrounding travelers on the net as this big, easily mined pot of gold, ready to be exploited. But just how dangerous it is to approach this topic without a sound strategy and thorough research was evident in the TecSec panel discussion on this topic.

It’s all fair and well to engage with guests on Twitter and Facebook but what about using guest data from social networks to customise his/her visit? Where to draw the line between usefulness and invasive creepiness? Sadly, the panelists only had shrugs rather than enlightened answers, which is a shame, as this question had come up in other sessions of the conference (it does help to attend some other sessions than just your own to get a feel for what is top of mind).

While some people may find it a ‘wow’ factor when the hotel spots from my various social media sites that I like Hello Kitty and stacks my guest room with references to them, an equal amount may find it very creepy and will feel they have been stalked and run a mile, never to be seen at that hotel ever again. The problem is that you may not glance from my online profiles to which camp I belong.

The rather limp response from the panelists was to adopt a ‘trial and error’ approach, which I doubt any hotelier would risk, less a bad experience not only repels one guest, but also presumably his/her 10,000 twitter followers.

Those advocating these purportedly ‘tailored’ initiatives really want an algorithm that neatly takes care of seeking out the info and delivering the right call to action to the hotel for fulfilment. But, as much as culture, conditioning and commerce have forced us into certain stereotypes that behave more or less predictably, there is a core individualism inherent in us that spoils the party for those who want us all to ‘like’ the same thing. And thank heavens for that, too.

Don’t get me wrong, I think data mining could play a much bigger role, especially when determining which pages/services/offers are more popular than others, what content is looked at how often, to better the experience etc. But hotels understand very well that there is a creepiness factor and are mindful of not straying too far into their guests’ privacy.

Beware the 'Beacon' Effect

For now, and unless there is a more solid, empirical approach to this, I believe the most productive way to mine the social media data is to look out for broad trends, rather than individual targeting. Yes, it means business cannot use all that fabulous data out there but as even Facebook learned with their disastrous ad platform Beacon, which resulted in a class action law suit and was eventually scrapped, we are not quite ready yet to accept being completely manipulated.

Dispatches: the blessings of clueless tech companies, foreign labour shortage forces hotels to transform and how not to handle late check-out requests

Get Luckey

Out all night : Palmer Luckey

One of my favourite recent stories in the department of "wacky names" is how yet another 21-year old whiz kid called Palmer Luckey sold his virtual reality business Oculus to Facebook for a handsome US$2bn. Even if it's only a fraction of the $19bn Facebook paid not so long ago for Whats App, it seems like a lucky palm-off indeed. But funny names and big money aside, what was really interesting about this transaction was the discussion it triggered about what the 'next big thing' in tech innovation would be and the dominant tech companies' ability - or rather inability - to predict it.

As Google dabbles in self-driven cars and Glass headsets, Amazon plans to use drones as next generation delivery mechanisms and Facebook now clearly bets on virtual reality transforming our future lives, I tend to agree with GigaOm's Om Malik, who called the current attempt to define the next big thing as "billion dollar dart throwing". "Are the smartest minds of our time as clueless as we are?", he cheekily asks. For hotel IT managers who have been fretting over what the next 'big thing' in hotel technology will be and whether it is just around the corner, this should come as a relief. If the bleeding edge doesn't know which way the cookie will crumble, we shouldn't guess it either. There are plenty of enabling technologies out there now that have the capability to deliver a lot of innovation within the hotel. The key is to find the right application to fit each hotel's personality and to integrate it fully to facilitate smooth operation.

Hotel Industry's Labour Shortage in Singapore is here to stay

STB CEO Lionel Yeo

Meanwhile, at last week's Food & Hotel Expo in Singapore, the CEO of the Singapore Tourism Board Lionel Yeo delivered the news no one in the industry wanted to hear: manpower challenges, triggered by a tightening of foreign labour laws, are here to stay. And Yeo put the responsibility to deal with the chronic shortage of front and back of house staff in hotels across the city state squarely at the feet of the industry itself: "With even more hotel rooms coming onstream in the next few years, this situation will get worse if our industry does not transform. Based on our rough estimates, an additional shortfall of about 3,000 workers by 2017 is looming if we don't make adjustments," he said. While that is sobering news to many hotels struggling to fill positions, many hotels are taking the situation in their stride and are indeed looking at ways to transform their operations. The hotels we have been dealing with are increasingly interested in using the in-room IPTV system to streamline operations and offer self-serve ordering options for the most requested items from housekeeping to in-room dining. Flexibility and customisation are key here as of course no two hotels are alike, but to really benefit from these automated services it is imperative that they are integrated into the hotel's overall ecosystem.

How to not handle late check-out requests

During a short break on Okinawa recently we stayed at a new and comfortable hotel that was at the right location for the activities we had planned and didn't break the bank. All good reasons to recommend it and mark it as a place to return to, and it would be, if it wasn't for one thing: the late check-out charges. We should have had an inkling of what was to come when we were told of the rather early check-out time of 11am, but as we naively asked for a check out at 1pm (to match with our late afternoon flight departure), we were presented with the charges: 1,000 yen every hour, maximum three hours.

Not happy Jan...

While this was delivered with the same unfailing smile we received by staff throughout our stay, it smacked of mercenarianism that leaves a rather sour taste. I have come across fixed late check-out charges and worse behaviour by hotels wanting to make a quick buck by exploiting travelers' skewed flight times before - the worst was in the US where conference delegates who flew in on red-eye flights and wanted to check in earlier than the "3pm standard check-in time" were told their room would be ready for a US$25 fee. But this is not something you usually come across in Asia, and rightly so. Late check-out is not a given and should always be at the discretion of the hotel pending on availability. But even if it's not possible to extend a late check-out for these reasons, the fact that I can ask for it and the staff make an effort to accommodate my request, rather than slap a table of charges in front of me, will make me feel that the hotel values my custom. Not so difficult one would think...

Facebook and the $100 Billion Dollar Question

There seemed to be a collective breath holding going earlier this week when it was reported that Facebook is apparently planning an IPO in the first half of next year to the tune of $10 billion, which would value the company a cool $100 billion. If successful, it would also be the largest tech IPO in history, but merely the fourth largest ever; still not bad for a company that wasn’t even around 8 years ago. 

Some of the reports couldn’t resist the “Dr Evil” reference, that line in the first Austin Powers movie where the numeracy challenged Dr Evil proposes to hold the world ransom for $100 billion. However, compared with the amounts that we are bombarded with on a regular basis these days, a mere $100 billion seems like a piggy bank of small change. Greece is threatening to buckle under a 340 billion Euro debt, the US government bailing out the financial community to the tune of $700 billion in 2008, and of course now facing a $15 trillion deficit as at November 17, 2011 (take that Dr Evil!). These types of numbers seem to be rolling off everyone’s tongue as if discussing the latest petrol prices. While many lay people may still gasp in awe at the likely Facebook valuation, my guess is that very few are able to take it beyond its abstract meaning of “a whole lot of money”. 

So let’s just quickly clarify what we are actually dealing with. Wallstats.com puts the cost of waging 48 hours of war in Iraq and Afghanistan at one billion dollars, which puts the $15 trillion US-deficit somewhat in perspective. The site usdebt.kleptocracy.us on the other hand, does a great visualization of various astronomic amounts, of which the One Billion Dollar one looks like this:

So now that we have established beyond doubt that we are talking about more money than you can reasonably carry away in a bank robbery, let’s go back to Dr Evil and look at the ransom part. There is actually a bit of irony in there that I find much more irresistible than the dollar amount itself. 

The vast amount of intimate information Facebook now has available about its users worldwide is such that if it was a government agency, it would pose an internal security risk for any country that has a sizeable Facebook user community (which excludes, notably, China). So with vast amounts of sensitive intelligence and deep pockets, you may indeed be forgiven to think that there is something slightly creepy going on. But maybe that’s because (disclosure) I don’t do Facebook. 

The notion that you give your personal data (and then some) voluntarily over to a commercial corporation, whose intentions about what it plans to do with it are less than clear, and then go out to buy into the company once it goes IPO sounds almost like buying back what you have given for free. But who knows, maybe Facebook won’t get the $10 billion IPO, or even if, maybe it won’t hold its value after the launch which in the current economic climate is quite possible. Just this week it was reported that companies that listed in the US this year had lost an average of 10% of their value after debuting. And that includes coupon-seller Groupon, whose shares have now fallen below their initial price, as well as music streaming site Pandora Media.

There will no doubt be a great deal of analysis and debate about whether Facebook is actually worth $100 billion. But whichever way it goes, the IPO (if it is true) sends a powerful signal to the industry. It implies that the company, just like other entertainment and communications technology companies is  poised to continue to thrive, no matter whether there’s a deadlock in the Senate or the Eurozone breaks up. Quite to the contrary. It seems that the more dire the circumstances, the more we collectively flee into the haven of entertainment, even if it is just for a short while. The record 42 billion online videos watched by US citizens in October this year speak for themselves, and so do the reports that despite the general doom and gloom telcos are set to profit from stable growth in the coming years.  On the whole, it looks like it’s statistically proven that we love to be entertained when we are happy and we also spend money to be entertained when we are sad.

Of course, as the entertainment sector bucks the trend and becomes the shining example of successin an otherwise faltering economy, things will get a lot more competitive for a share of the spoils.  Many other operators, currently on the industry fringes may just muscle their way in. For companies already in the entertainment and communications technology space this means just one thing: innovate or perish.

The Limits of Using Icons as a Visual Vocabulary

It was just the other day when we looked at coming up with a new set of Icons for our in-room entertainment Graphic User Interface that it occurred to us that while the various technology devices that anchor our lives these days allow us to communicate ever more visually, our collective reference points are more and more fragmented. From the old Egyptians and their hieroglyphs to today’s Apps, mankind has always sought to use pictorial descriptions to communicate. When you study for your drivers licence, you have to memorise the look and meaning of as many road signs as possible in order to pass the test. In order to make it easier, the road authorities around the world came up with pictorial representations of the various signs which over the years were adopted more or less universally in the developed world. But while learning the meaning of these signs came with a clear incentive – i.e. learn them or don’t drive – the visual identifiers and pictorials that guide so many other things in life evolved much more haphazardly.

The windows approach to computing was probably a major milestone for making icons a centre piece of way finding in our daily lives. In the early days of the desktop computing age, these icons were necessarily simple, but not only because of the graphic restrictions, but because of the need for a simple conduit into a complex world that would be understood by the most technically inept person. The artist who created the icons for the original Mac desktop and applications believed that icons should work like traffic signs and convey information without distracting the user. So born was the ‘folder’ icon with the little stub poking out that looked exactly like the ones stacked in everyone’s office desk, alongside the ‘recycle bin’ that looked like Oscar the Grouch’s trash can, the pair of scissors that signaled that you were about to ‘cut’ something and a paperclip that meant you were ‘attaching’ a document. Then, when the internet came of age, the depiction of a neat little house with a chimney wasn’t an advertisement for a furniture shop anymore, but the icon that signified the homepage of an internet site. All of this is of course common sense and has largely managed to align most of us along one common path of iconography that enables us to recognise that a shopping cart icon means “check out” a pad lock means “security” and an umbrella has something to do with the weather.

However, what happens when the corresponding physical object has no longer any distinguishing features that are so important for being both instantly identifiable and minimally distracting? Or what if the activity it is meant to represent becomes too complex for a clear pictorial representation? A house is a house is a house is a home – ok. But take out your mobile phone and look at the symbols on the buttons for making a call and ending a call. It’s the old fashioned banana-shaped head set that was part of the home phone before it was replaced with a very different looking hands free set or a mobile phone. Or try saving something on your computer and you’ll see that this action to this date is symbolized by a floppy disc, something that joined the technology scrap heap more than 15 years ago as other portable storage options such as CD-ROM took over.

But it was when I was sitting with my graphics team to ponder a new set of icons for the User Interface of our in-room entertainment system that it really hit me how little the pictorial representation of our world has changed in the face of the relentless evolution of our communications world. How better to represent TV channels than a box with the old rabbit ears on top? And nothing says “movie” better and clearer than the old 35mm movie reel, even though today’s box offices smashes are more likely a combination of digital video and CGI. Music channels are much better represented by a full blown stereo headset rather than the now more prevalent micro earpieces. And what says better “you’ve got mail” than a good old fashioned letter envelope? It will be interesting to see if these ‘old’ pictorials finally disappear simply because a new generation of users has no longer any memory of them ever being in existence. But what will replace them? The problem is that as the physical part of human interaction and communication gets more complex, so by necessity does the iconography. What was once a clearly defined activity, such as “I watch TV”, has morphed into “I Skype my friend on my connected TV”. “I read the news in the paper” is now more likely to be “I read the news on my smart phone”. The question is at what point finding a universal visual vocabulary for ever complex activities becomes futile. Some icons will move into the abstract space where the meaning is instilled through what is commonly known as branding. We can already see this with Facebook, Skype and Twitter, whose logos have effectively turned into icons describing an activity.

But what about the so-called ‘way finding’ icons? At the risk of sounding a little nostalgic, my bet is that while newspapers may go completely digital and TV’s become multifunctional communication devices, their original form and purpose will live on in the world of icons for generations to come. And as for our User interface? In the end we decided to do a combo of words and icons. Nothing beats a good compromise.