From fraudulent bookings (booking.com) to making online bookings even at a reception desk to save money, hotels are paying out an astounding amount of revenues USD 160 billion to different online hotel booking services. In addition to that, the OTA (Online-Travel-Agents) style of business requires blocks of rooms to be guaranteed, which is essentially rooms taken off of the market. The hotel may get a guaranteed base rate for each room and in some cases these are paid for in advance but in others are just requirements of membership.
To add injury onto that pain AIRBNB GIG style business is taking away another 400 million patrons who would otherwise use an official hotel room. These kinds of businesses don't have the same controls and costs as hotels do which makes it quite unfair to say they are legitimately competing.
What can a hotel do to reign in their revenues and compete with the online booking services? A micro-app can give a hotel quite a bit of power to provide personalized services for their guests where online booking services can't. Up to 20% of a hotel's guests are repeat customers which makes it almost necessary to provide personalized services that are easy to use, accurate and provide immediate results.
What are the things that regular hotel guests need the most?
| Needs | Micro-app |
|---|---|
| Personalized Account | History of previous stays |
| Personalized Messaging | Direct messaging with an assigned customer care staff |
| Room location & emenities | Select Room preferences |
| Wifi | Access to the latest password |
| Referrals | Rewards for referrals |
| Personal Services | Massage / Clubs / Laundry / Amenities |
| Room service | Order by micro-app |
| Benefits & Rewards | A list of benefits and rewards that can be up or down voted |
| Room service | Order by micro-app (special discounts) |
| Airport Pickup/Delivery | From/to airport with flight details given |
| Airport Pickup | Pickup from airport with flight details given |
As long as your rates are inline with what they can get online, you can keep your customer's happy. Guests can access your micro-app directly from your website. When they sign-in they can setup their hotel visit with a click of a button. When they are a guest in the hotel a whole set of new services is available.
