Ancillaries in Travel Are Being Transformed and You Need to Know About It

Ancillaries are the powerhouse growing travel brand revenues around the world and the industry has only just got started.

Technology is powering a massive growth in partnerships across the travel industry as brands race to enhance their offering to customers and also their bottom lines. Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), AI-powered personalization and streamlined booking processes are helping travel brands to cross-sell a growing amount of inventory and make the customer’s journey easier.

Ancillary sales are expanding to cover more and more inventory. From trains, ridesharing and buses, to dining, to an exploding tours and activities sector that has drawn the attention of all the largest online travel players. In TripAdvisor’s latest set of results from Q1 2018, its non-hotel revenues soared 36% and it is banking on tours and activities to push up results further this year. Clearly their strategy of focusing on the area after acquiring Viator, who are speaking at Eyefortravel’s Europe Summit in London this June, is beginning to pay off and indicates the growing importance of new revenue streams.

Elsewhere, rail travel is becoming one of the biggest focuses in travel, with digital giants like Expedia jumping in with their acquisition of SilverRail Technologies, Skyscanner launching a train booking feature for mobiles (both brands are speaking at EyeforTravel Europe), and major existing players stepping up their online presence.

As Cameron Jones, chief commercial officer at SilverRail, who will be speaking in London, puts it: “Rail’s time is now. Expedia, Rail Europe, Rome2Rio, Trainline, GoEuro and more are raising the profile and relevance of rail as a key product line in a comprehensive retailing strategy. Rail gives travellers greater choice and flexibility when trip planning and, being a high frequency product, drives traffic and loyalty enabling retailers to lower their customer acquisition costs. And Skyscanner/Ctrip’s recent move into rail in Europe highlights the momentum.”

The growing realm of potential partnerships means that travel brands can cater to more aspects of the customer’s journey, even if they are only a small player – both generating more revenues and greater customer satisfaction.

If you would like to find out more about the expanding role of partnerships across the industry, there’s only one place to go – the EyeforTravel Europe Summit 2018.

The Summit features a host of speakers from across the spectrum who can help to transform the ancillaries you sell from a variety of diverse sectors, such as tours and activities, ride sharing, transportation. These include

• Viator
• The Trainline
• Blablacar
• Eatwith
• Withlocals
• SilverRail Technologies
• Hertz
• Amadeus
• Checkmybus.com
• routeRank
• Eurail
• Rail Europe
• Insight Guides
• Urban Adventures
• TripCreator
• Livn

Join four cutting edge travel conference under one roof and change how travel is sold. Get your ticket to the EyeforTravel Europe Summit 2018 today!

The four moments travel brands must connect with their mobile customers

Huge global smartphone adoption across the globe presents a massive opportunity for travel brands to reach consumers but where should they be focusing their efforts to maximise returns?

EyeforTravel and SAP Digital Interconnect’s new Driving Intelligent, Interconnected Mobile Engagement Throughout the Travel Journey report, which is free to download now, identifies the four key areas where travel brands need to target mobile consumers:

1. Awareness

It is becoming increasingly critical to create inspiring content that will work on mobile as consumers are most likely to be using their mobile devices early on in travel research. As more detailed, late-stage research is undertaken, most consumers in major markets move over to larger screens on desktops and laptops. Consumers therefore need to be engaged with content and made aware of the travel options and offers available. This is the first stage of influencing the buyer journey and a key mobile phase.

2. Purchase decision

Despite desktops and laptops being the main booking devices for travel purchases generally, some markets such as China are mobile-first throughout, and overall it is increasingly an omnichannel experience. Mobile is also growing globally. J.D. Power found that 25% of hotel online reservations were made using mobile in 2017, up from 14% in 2014. EyeforTravel’s 2018 research similarly finds that the median share of mobile bookings reported by travel brands is between 10% to 19%, with 58% reporting more than 10% of bookings come through mobile. Customers now expect a relatively seamless transition and look for consistency across platforms as they move down the purchase funnel.

This purchase funnel is broadening, with new channels and communication services growing. Although mobile bookings are still largely through web browsers, leading to 45% of travel brands focusing on the mobile web compared to the 22.5% focusing on apps, brands will need to shift and widen their focus. For the modern traveler, alongside established SMS, web and email channels, social media services, such as WeChat, WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, are increasingly important. Not only can they now allow bookings but they are also great touch points to help the consumer get more information for their purchase journey and help them feel safe about their purchase. However, just 29% of travel brands currently have instant messaging capabilities and this will need to increase as consumer tastes change and travel brands chase low-cost distribution routes.

Improving a brand’s ability to use these emerging mobile channels can also help to address the main issues that exist with mobile booking for consumers. Key among these is security. The channels mentioned above can be used for two-factor authentication (2FA), sending security codes to approve payment, access secure pages and complete bookings. This helps drive consumer confidence in making online purchases and therefore mobile conversion rates, which are far lower in the travel industry than for desktop and laptop visitors.

3. Throughout the trip itself

Being able to reach consumers with key information as and when they need it is becoming a core competency for travel brands that want to drive a relationship and build loyalty with their customer. Among US consumers, 87% report that they find travel notifications useful and travel brands that can reach a traveler in a moment of crisis can win over a consumer for life.

Becoming the trusted source of information to the consumer as they travel is a way to wrest control of the traveler and their journey from third parties and reposition the travel brand at the core of the journey. Customer satisfaction rates are higher when they have been actively reached out to by a travel brand with relevant messaging or if they have downloaded a brand’s app.

Travel brands and technology players need to provide channels that are truly global and not just accessible in the home country or continent of the consumer. The channel has to have the presence to reach the traveler throughout their journey, especially when disruptions happen, such as a delay or change in flight.

4. Post travel

It is extremely important to get the voice of the traveler as feedback. One single bad review can influence future purchase decisions, and travel brands need to use technologies to interact and strike when they happen. Emotions run very high most recent to a bad experience and if you are able to address that then you can calm a situation and possibly turn a negative into a positive. Encourage positive reviews and social interaction post-travel to not only influence other buyers, but to also engender brand loyalty with your traveler.

Among travel brands that had automated messaging capabilities, 47% reported that they sent out satisfaction questionnaires and 37% sent out post-stay marketing. This shows that travel brands are awakening to the potential of using mobile in the post-travel period but they still have a long way to go to make the most out of this time.

Get ahead of the competition now and download this completely free mobile market report to access:

• A major industry survey of all travel verticals uncovering their mobile strategies and technology deployments.
• Analysis of how consumers are using the mobile channel.
• Projections for mobile’s growth across travel.
• Where you should be investing to reach the mobile consumer.
• How you can ensure mobile-focused communications are effective.
• An overview of how you should be measuring and overseeing an m-commerce operation.

Search and social dominate travel brands’ mobile marketing

Search engine and social marketing are the priority spending categories for 67% of travel brands’ mobile marketing budgets finds new research.

New research from EyeforTravel and SAP Digital Interconnect, which surveyed nearly 300 travel industry professionals on the topic of mobile has found that search and social have a stranglehold over mobile marketing, likely reflecting the dominance of Google and Facebook in the digital marketing sphere.

When respondents were asked what is the largest component of their mobile marketing budgets, 35% selected search and 32% social, according to EyeforTravel and SAP Digital Interconnect’s new Driving Intelligent, Interconnected Mobile Engagement Throughout the Travel Journey report, which is free to download now.

Search spending was even higher among hospitality and accommodation brands, where it was the most important category for 45.3% of brands. This preponderance is a result of the way in which consumers search for hotels, with mobile still a last-minute channel when it comes to booking and at that stage consumers are looking mainly for specific locations, largely through search engines. However, it may also indicate an over-focus on the latter stages of consumers booking journey and an acquisition-driven strategy that doesn’t fully take into account the role of mobile in inspiration and initial research phases.

One area where travel brands might look to expand spending and make the most of mobile’s role at the inspiration stage is video marketing, which was rated as most important in just 4.4% of budgets.

The small role of video marketing currently would seem to be a major missed opportunity for travel brands given the growth of mobile video consumption in recent years. A multi-country study by AOL estimated that 57% of consumers watch videos through their mobile every day and Zenith estimated that there was 20% growth in global video consumption in 2017.

Get ahead of the competition now and download this completely free mobile market report to access:

• A major industry survey of all travel verticals uncovering their mobile strategies and technology deployments.
• Analysis of how consumers are using the mobile channel.
• Projections for mobile’s growth across travel.
• Where you should be investing to reach the mobile consumer.
• How you can ensure mobile-focused communications are effective.
• An overview of how you should be measuring and overseeing an m-commerce operation.

Three travel mobile marketing trends in 2018

How will mobile change the travel industry in 2018? A new mobile market report investigates.

Mobile is a growth category for the travel industry as established markets experience rising usage and emerging markets add millions of consumers who look and book with their smartphones. It is even more vital tool for in-trip engagement as the majority of travelers globally report that they use their smartphone as their main conduit for information and communications as they travel.  It is therefore an area that travel brands must address in 2018 in order to maximise their return on investment and avoid falling behind competitors.  

Based on EyeforTravel and SAP Digital Interconnect’s new Driving Intelligent, Interconnected Mobile Engagement Throughout the Travel Journey report, here are three key ways in which mobile will influence the travel marketing in 2018.

1.      Getting to customers through their smartphones as they travel is going to be key in building a relationship

Smartphones are used most during the actual trip itself, presenting a golden time to reach them through this medium. For 67% of British, French and German consumers, the smartphone is their key device during their trip and 98% of Chinese international travelers report that they use their smartphone whilst abroad, with 65% reporting that they use their smartphone to search for restaurants or to use navigation tools.

What’s more there are more ways than ever to reach the consumer through their smartphone, none of which are being fully exploited by travel brands so far. First and foremost there are apps. Although these are difficult to get installed on a user’s device, they have excellent engagement rates and allow owners to send push notifications, which were found to be the most effective form of in-app advertising by our research. However, just a third of travel brands currently have an app. Beyond this, consumers can receive or request messages from travel brands through SMS, used by 24% of travel brands, MMS (8%), QR codes (16%), and instant messaging services (29% of travel brands). The latter of these could be key, as IHS Markit predicts that there will be 7.5 billion messaging and communication app accounts by 2020, giving unrivalled reach.

2.      Automated outreach is going to go wider and get a whole lot more effective

In order to get relevant and engaging messages to consumers, travel brands will need to automate the process through data analysis and AI-enabled services. We found that among the 41% of travel brands that have automated mobile outreach, 83% report that is effective at driving satisfaction. These services can be used to build loyalty and drive revenues through a variety of services that give the consumer key pieces of information that makes their journey easier and upsell and marketing messages. Currently, 78.4% of travel brands that have an automated messaging service report that they can send booking confirmations and reminders but just 37% can send post-stay marketing messages and 35% emergency notifications. We can expect the number of travel brands with automated outreach to grow in 2018 alongside the type and content of their messages. Brands will take on a multichannel strategy with their messaging, using the most appropriate format for the customer based on where they are in the journey. For example, SMS for a change in gate, or push notifications from an app for excursions at the destination.  

3.      Mobile sites will become better at grabbing the last-minute booking

Although mobile is a fast-growing channel when it comes to the booking itself, desktops and laptops still rule the roost when it comes to share and even more so when it comes to spending. Instead, mobile appears to still be a last-minute channel, especially for hotels. Just under 65% of respondents from all verticals in the survey say that mobile lead times are either much shorter or slightly shorter than desktop bookings, with 40% answering that they are much shorter. Nearly double the rate of respondents from the accommodation group report that mobile lead times are much shorter – 59% to 31%.

This makes the mobile web experience critical, as smaller screens and a need for swift information will make relevancy and presentation critical. In our survey 39% of brands reported that they were prioritizing the mobile web and a further 6%, said they were shifting to mobile web, far above those who said they were prioritizing apps. We can expect the number of travel brands who have a responsive or adaptive website to rise from the 58% who currently do.

Optimizing this experience will be driven by growing abilities to personalize landing pages and streamlining the moments from arrival on the site to the check-out based off growing data analysis capabilities and A/B testing. Furthermore, advances in revenue management and yield maximization techniques will increase the profitability of last-minute mobile bookings.

To access the research and get ahead of the competition, download this completely free mobile market report to access:

• A major industry survey of all travel verticals uncovering their mobile strategies and technology deployments.
• Analysis of how consumers are using the mobile channel.
• Projections for mobile’s growth across travel.
• Where you should be investing to reach the mobile consumer.
• How you can ensure mobile-focused communications are effective.
• An overview of how you should be measuring and overseeing an m-commerce operation.

EyeforTravel Europe is 6 weeks away and what a show it’s going to be!

Mobile innovation and the internet’s control of the consumer, integrating voice into your business, a smart customer journey, how the death of cash in travel will change the industry forever are just a handful of market opportunities you should be considering today… and this conference will help facilitate this change.

“It was my first time to TDS and I have to say it really exceeded my expectations in terms of quality and variety of presentations, networking options..2 days well spent!”

“We started big business partnerships with two individual organisations as a direct consequence of sponsoring the EyeforTravel Summit in London this year” Hjalti, CEO, Bokun  

With speakers from Airbnb, Hilton and Booking.com covering the macro questions we all want answered, Hostel World, Edwardian Hotels, Rail Europe discussing next steps of AI, to Hotels.com and Hotel Tonight discussing loyalty and NH Hotels, Expedia talking about the partnerships you need this is the event to be at.  

Whether your interest is smart hotel rooms, open source APIs or firming up your ancillary strategy, this is the one event which unites practical people in the industry who are building new travel architecture that revolutionizes the industry and creates profit. Want in?

With a bigger and better agenda, it’s now three days and boasts big hitting keynotes, three topic specific tracks, a hackathon, a start-up village and dedicated workshops for B2C brands to attend!

Click here to see what they are covering in the 2018 agenda

If you are looking to get face to face with over 450 of Europe’s leading travel brands comprising heads of mobile innovation, technology, marketing and innovation from Europe’s biggest transport, hospitality and travel brands looking to meet for one goal … identify the strategies, partnerships, innovations and business models that will make their companies thrive in the future. Then there’s options for you.

Ways you can bring your brand to the event is through sponsorship opportunities, they have limited booths available and currently have a final discounted ticket price for you to attend. So, what are you waiting for?

Need help making a decision you can request the attendee list here.

A mixture of active debate, insightful presentations and 1-2-1 networking will be at the heart of this year’s conference.

Get your hands on one of their discounted passes today!

For more details contact Leo Langford leo@eyefortravel.com

EyeforTravel is a community where the world's top online travel brands – from hotels to airlines, online travel agents, cruise, car hire firms and more – come to meet to drive forward growth and innovation in the industry. We aim to provide you with industry focused news, events, reports, updates and information. EyeforTravel Limited is a registered company. The Company Registration number is 06286442. It is also registered in England & Wales. Registered office is 7-9 Fashion Street, London E1 6PX, United Kingdom.

Hotels need to do better at reaching guests finds report

Hotel brands are seeing lower satisfaction rates from their mobile efforts according to EyeforTravel’s new report, likely as a result of not being able to reach guests as effectively as other verticals through the channel.

As part of EyeforTravel and SAP Digital Interconnect’s new Driving Intelligent, Interconnected Mobile Engagement Throughout the Travel Journey report, an industry survey asked whether mobile messaging services were effective at driving satisfaction amongst customers. While 72% of hospitality and accommodation brands said that their messaging services were effective, a much higher 90% of respondents from other travel industry verticals reported success through messaging. 

But why is this? The report points out that one potential explanation is that hospitality brands are utilizing the most personalized and effective elements of messaging channels to a lesser degree than other verticals. This is leading to them not getting the maximum utility out of their messaging services and not building up the same relationship with their customers than other companies surveyed.

The research finds that although hotel brands are good at pushing booking confirmations and welcome/check-in messages to travelers, they fall behind when it comes to more complex and data-reliant messages. Hospitality brands are using push notification at half the rate of the rest of the sample (35.3% versus 16.7%), despite 31% of accommodation companies having an app, and are way behind for upsell notifications, with just 32.3% of messaging-capable hospitality brands sending personalized upsell messages versus 51.2% for the remaining respondents. They therefore have less ability to become useful to the consumer and implant themselves with travelers as a trusted source of local information.

Hospitality brands low deployment of push-notifications is illustrative of this mismatch, as push notifications were found by the survey to be by far the most effective form of in-app advertising. Push notifications were chosen as the most effective form by 44% of respondents, followed by display banners at 25%, videos at 15%, native display at 14% and interstitial at 3%. Therefore, without these capabilities, hotels cannot communicate.

Hospitality and accommodation companies therefore need to build up their technological capabilities in order to reach out to consumers wherever they are with relevant and targeted messages.

“Brands need to be present where the customer is present, rather than forcing people to pick the channels or means or tools that the brands want them to use,” says Rohit Tripathi, general manager and head of products, SAP Digital Interconnect. “Today, if your customer is residing in social channels such as Facebook Messenger or WeChat, then build bridges into these mediums.”

Amro Khoudeir, global director of digital & distribution, Mövenpick Hotels & Resorts, notes that they have deployed several tools to better cater to guests on mobile: “Before arrival we send our guests an invitation to check-in. The guest provides us with all their details and they get their barcode on the day of arrival, scan and receive a key and to go straight to their room. Post-booking, there’s an opportunity to start identifying guests who come in to the hotel through geolocation or beacons. We do some geolocation marketing and social marketing and are expanding this to more hotels in 2018.”

Get ahead of the competition now and download this completely free mobile market report to access:

• A major industry survey of all travel verticals uncovering their mobile strategies and technology deployments.
• Analysis of how consumers are using the mobile channel.
• Projections for mobile’s growth across travel.
• Where you should be investing to reach the mobile consumer.
• How you can ensure mobile-focused communications are effective.
• An overview of how you should be measuring and overseeing an m-commerce operation. 

Mark Your Diary: North America’s Largest Travel Summit for Commercial, Data, And Digital Executives Set to Convene on Oct 18 – 19 2018 In Las Vegas

Dates have been finalized for the EyeforTravel North America 2018 Summit, set to take place on Oct 18 – 19, at the Mandalay Bay Las Vegas.  

This year marks the 20^th anniversary of North America’s largest commercial travel summit covering distribution, travel technology, data analytics, revenue management, marketing, partnerships and much more!

To be the first to hear about the 2018 event agenda launch and speaker line-up, click here.

The event will bring together 400+ industry leaders with dedicated keynote sessions and conference streams to ensure you walk away with: The Winning formula to Own the Booking: Frictionless CX + Data-Driven Customer Insight + Cross Industry Partnerships = Super Charged Travel Sales

The 2018 event will equip you with the tools to:

• Understand what the right technologies to invest in are, and why
• Understand what your customers want, and the price they will pay through truly data-driven insights
• Invest in cross-industry partnerships so you can source and sell the travel product your customer wants
• Overcome the fragmentation in the supply of travel products, and form innovative commercial models that bypass the tech giants and get your product in front of the traveller when they want to buy

A sneak peek of the brands confirmed to speak include Wyndham Hotel Group, United Airlines, Amazon, Allegiant Air, Skyscanner, Jet Blue Technology Ventures, Caesars Corporation, Cosmopolitan Las Vegas and Palace Resorts.

Click here to reserve your summit brochure and to receive event updates

In the meantime, there are three ways you can get involved right away:

1. Help to shape the agenda for this year – if your organization is working on something amazing that needs to be covered, or if you would like to participate as a speaker, contact renu@eyefortravel.com
2. Early bird exhibition and sponsorship packages –the event had a sell-out exhibition hall, networking party and thought leadership opportunities last year – so get in quick for your discounted packages
3. Pre-launch discounted conference passes (as low as $1299) – if your dates are locked in, book your pass now at a highly subsidized rate. Passes are fully transferrable and can be cancelled up to 6 weeks prior to the event.

Ps. The EyeforTravel Start Up Awards is also back for 2018! Full details on the Awards, Awards process, and subsidized registration fees can be found here.

If you are a start-up working in the travel industry (having started no later than 2013), EyeforTravel would love to hear from you. Register your details here to be in the running for this year’s competition:  http://events.eyefortravel.com/travel-distribution-summit-north-america/awards-register.php

Do not miss your chance to join some of travel’s most inspiring and innovative brands coming together for two days on Oct 18^th and 19^th 2018 in Las Vegas– this is the only place you will learn from and network with travel’s elite, with the main goal of getting business done and pioneering change in the industry.

Contact the team directly at – renu@eyefortravel.com

  

EyeforTravel is a community where the world's top online travel brands – from hotels to airlines, online travel agents, cruise, car hire firms and more – come to meet to drive forward growth and innovation in the industry. We aim to provide you with industry focused news, events, reports, updates and information. EyeforTravel Limited is a registered company. The Company Registration number is 06286442. It is also registered in England & Wales. Registered office is 7-9 Fashion Street, London E1 6PX, United Kingdom.

Renu Kannu

EyeForTravel | Project and Research Director (+ 44 20 7375 7197 |renu@eyefortravel.com)