margaret ady
Think Small: Rethinking Hotel Technology for a New Era
Margaret Ady | February 4, 2020
By Margaret Ady When Volkswagen introduced the Beetle to the United States in the 1950s, it did it with a revolutionary and wildly successful ad campaign: “Think Small.” Original “Think Small” VW Ad Given it was a decade of giant, gas-guzzling American cars from the likes of GM and Chrysler, the campaign needed to entice consumers to go against the grain. They would have to see the value in a small, simple, and inexpensive European car. The Agency notes, “The ad tapped into a sense of disconnect that the public was feeling as a result of being pressured to buy and consumer for so many years. This was especially felt by youn...
Hotel Apps Enter a New Decade
Margaret Ady | January 27, 2020
By Margaret Ady It’s time to explode the old notion of the app as we move into 2020 and look at the breadth of possibilities that a hotel app store offers. Here are a few that have gotten my attention as of late Two point five million! Well, nearly 2.5 million. That’s how many apps the Google Play store has. Apple’s store came in second at 1.8 million apps. For perspective, 1.69 million people live on the island of Manhattan. That’s more than one app for every person on the island. Apps have become the go-to for managing our lives, both the operations (budgets, exercise, bill paying) and outer lives (work, social, news apps). ...
A Make-or-Break Issue for Hotels: Guests Want Cybersecurity
Margaret Ady | December 3, 2019
By Margaret Ady These days, we tend talk about cybersecurity far less than we talk about melting icebergs or political problems or plastic straws. And, of course. Those are things we can do a little something about; we can make our own tiny dent in the environmental crisis or get out the vote, but cybersecurity is one of those problems that feel far out of most our hands. Yet, we all have important, essential, identifying information flying around the web, apps, stores, airlines, and—hotels. Consumers are relying on businesses to be transparent and secure, and hotels are one of the most targeted industries (just behind retailers) by cybe...
Approaching the Tech Buffet Without Getting Sick
Margaret Ady | September 13, 2018
How to build a tech stack based on what your guests need (instead of just what's available) By Margaret Ady Don't lie; you know you've done it. I sure have. The hotel breakfast buffet. You're so hungry and there's so much food. You want your money's worth. Each station looks better than the one before it, and those decorated plates piled with pancakes the size of your head make it all too delicious to pass up (I usually have these as my "dessert course"). How can you say no? Decision fatigue kicks in, your better sense of judgement goes out the window, and you go after that buffet like a boss instead of th...
Leveling the Data Field: How Hotels Can Compete with Better Data Access
Margaret Ady | December 4, 2017
By Margaret Ady Amazon's purchase of Whole Foods took over the business news this fall. A behemoth retailer acquiring a well-known but much smaller-scale grocer inspired a lot of speculation about what would change for Whole Foods and how. Of course, Amazon can afford to slash prices to grow the grocer's market share, but clearly, Amazon must do something that makes Whole Foods' model more sustainable. There's no easy answer or there wouldn't be so much conversation; however, among the things Amazon can offer that Whole Foods didn't have before are large-scale efficiencies. As one expert in the field told The Washington Post, "The key t...
Analysis to Action: The Smart Way Independent Hotels Can Manage Distribution
Margaret Ady | November 21, 2017
By Margaret Ady You've surely heard before that the big brand investment in direct booking campaigns trickles down to independents (by way of travelers being more aware of the value of booking directly). Hotel brands have poured billions of dollars into direct booking campaigns, and a report by Hitwise in May of this year shows that for some of the major players, direct bookings are looking up. For everyone else, not so much. OTAs still achieved an almost 3% gain in market share, while hotels lost 3.87% (Skift). So while ad campaigns may have paid off for the Wyndhams and Hiltons of the world, when it comes to smaller brands and indepen...
How to Keep the Heart of Your Hotel Beating
Margaret Ady | September 18, 2017
By Margaret Ady Julia Child called the kitchen "the beating heart of the household." Cooking is essential to our lives. Though we can get away with being disorganized in the kitchen, everything flows better when there is a clear, logical place for all of the tools and when you understand how they all work together because no one tool does everything on its own. Technology is the beating heart of the hotel. Without a PMS, how would we even begin to serve guests? Without distribution channels, how would guests book rooms? Without a CRM, how would we create loyalty? Right now, most hotels get away with disorganized technology, be...
No More Spaghetti: Where Hotel Technology Must Go in 2017
January 17, 2017
By Margaret Ady A fly on the wall of a conversation about hotels and technology will almost invariably hear the word silos. How are technology silos holding us back, for instance? Data silos are a barrier in any organization, but this term doesn't adequately convey the true mess that the hospitality finds itself in. The problem is that silos suggest order. Some logical grouping of like things. But this is hardly what we have in hospitality anymore. Enter, Exhibit A! The Spaghetti Chart! The spaghetti chart illustrates the reality of the situation. The PMS continues to be at the core, but channel management, revenue management, rese...
