by Georges Panayotis
The official priority of hotel groups today is to build a recognized brand, convinced that it is the best response to the banalization of offers listed by price on all the comparison search engines. And yet what they build with one hand through concepts, communication and marketing, they destroy with the other through revenue management, discounting and digital distribution.
Hotel managers are now divided between the need to position a brand with strong attributes that differentiate them from the competition, and the need to sell the ephemeral hotel night at the best price. Stuck within an optimized distribution logic set to produce the profitability required by shareholders and owners, the hotelier believed he had found the answer in yield management tools, without realizing he was shooting himself in the foot.
Algorithms have shown that the rarer the product, the more its value can grow out of necessity. Consciously or not, shortage management was one of the arguments presented to public authorities to create a kind of numerus clausus, and limit new implantations. But that didn’t include the inevitable overflow when the pressure rises too high. Hotel residences have experienced unhoped for growth by making it possible to circumvent administrative obstacles and today “sharing” supply has invaded all the markets that thought they had found the right balance at the expense of clients.
The time has come to fight on a battlefield that is not the one hoteliers prefer. They will always be a little late, technologically and budget-wise, with respect to the on-line global distribution giants of the sharing economy. The consumer, who felt trapped by the excessive variations of Revenue Management, is indirectly taking revenge by attempting new experiences.
The promise of the brand has trouble managing this surge without reinforcement from real answers to the expectations raised by the evolution of behavior. The quest for a real identity must be an absolute priority. Weak growth also slowed innovation. Concepts have aged because the cash needed to renovate drained shareholders’ dividends. Relaunching widescale development should be a constant concern and include the development of innovations that still remain limited to punctual tests.
It is imperative to respond with a renewed hotel supply to regain the confidence of all customers who opted instead for an apartment or a room in the city. They will only find their way back to the hotel if the offer is innovative, identified, protected, personalized and priced right. And the “right price” is not necessarily the lowest, but the one that offers satisfaction and positive surprise when it corresponds to real hospitality.
