Tell Newsletter #66
Most direct bookings coming from phone+email! Comparing Netflix and hotel culture. Less technology and more emotions? an interesting viewpoint also AI hardware is failing but could be great in travel.
Hello ,
Many pro’s and cons on my discussion of last week about Digital Officers. It is just a title change after all. But most people seem to agree that the leader of technology projects in hotels needs to be guest facing. See my post on Linkedin or down below.
Best, Martin
About me: I'm a fractional CMO for large travel technology companies helping turn them into industry leaders. I'm also the co-founder of 10minutes.news a hotel news media that is unsensational, factual and keeps hoteliers updated on the industry – also it is the most read hotel newsletter in Europe. See the international edition of the newsletter and subscribe to it here. 
Email and phone’s 31% reservation share
A 2024 HOTREC European Hotel Distribution Study shows a direct bookings lead at 50.9% and OTAs have grown to a 45.1% market share. It surprised me as I’ve never seen such numbers before. But most studies only look at online distribution (easiest to measure) and rarely take into account email and phone. It turns out according to this study that 31% of revenue, thirty one percent, is from phone and email! Yet email and phone are rarely included in the distribution mix. Brendan May once told me about this and why he built a startup that just works on email reservations. At the time I thought he was over-thinking things. But he had the numbers to confirm it. It is wroth looking into how to optimize these, plus there’s no OTA commission and low cost of acquisition. I’m still having a hard time believing this is a thing, but it is.
EMAIL MARKET SHARE
What Netflix and Hotels have in common
In 2009 Netflix published a deck about culture at the company. It was written by the founder and it created quite a buzz in the tech world. I re-read it again recently and realized that hotels have a lot of that culture. I don’t know if they really recognize how much of it they have. Selflessness, high performance, judgement to name a few. The hotel industry is one of the few industries where one’s ability to cope means more than one’s pedigree, education or background. Managing a hotel is one of the most random jobs I’ve ever done. But it is also incredibly rewarding. I think we shouldn’t forget the incredible culture that our industry is based on, a bit like the entertainment industry - we deliver a fleeting moment of feeling great. Unfortunately we don’t pay as well as Netflix though. But let’s celebrate what we do well.
NETFLIX CULTURE DECK
Why I launched 10minutes.news
For some time I’ve been looking at how to make information sharing better in our industry. On the one side, there are hundreds or really great vendor blogs with rich and informative content which doesn’t get the distribution it deserves. On the other side there are several news sites that deliver a glut of information, some are biased, some are sensationalists, some just output really a lot. And when we look outside of English language it is even harder. With Tony Loeb we had worked on multiple educational content campaigns over the years. Often releasing better analysis than what trade media channels published. But we lacked distribution because it was “vendor news” thus considered self-promotional. So we made a simple newsletter that looks for vendor news which is educational, and we help hoteliers get the overview of the industry. And in the process drive a traffic to the vendors and news sites who put effort into making great content. It is in English, but mostly in French, German, Italian and Spanish. We’re pretty proud to already be Europe’s most read hotel newsletter. Also, hotels seem to love it.
A SIMPLE NEWS EMAIL
What about: Less tech more emotions
I frequently rant about how technology should be used to save us a lot of time, such as waiting in line to check-in. Rory Sutherland of the Ogilvy Ad agency argues that we could just make waiting more fun, it would probably cost less and leave guests happier. It is an interesting point. Disney does a bit of that when waiting to get on a ride (but the main memory I have from visiting Disney parcs is waiting), it is a hard problem. Hotels don’t have near that big a problem, except in Vegas. The interesting thing is that hotels do work on the emotional side a lot, GMs are essentially fire-fighting all day. But they make it seem like a great thing for guests. Converting a negative sentiment to a positive is really a matter of perspective. A video worth watching, I’ve queued it up to the right spot. Otherwise scroll to 6:20 for the Eurostar story.
PERSPECTIVE IS EVERYTHING
AI hardware needs work
I recently received my Rabbit R1 device. As MKBHD said, it is barely reviewable. The device doesn’t do a lot, yet. Even the wifi connectivity fails frequently. But enough people have said how bad it is. I actually believe there is a niche for these devices, in the future. The AI Pin idea, of having an assistant that isn’t in the pocket and doesn’t require being pulled out and looked at has value. In travel these devices become ideal companions. With AI and the technology of language models the idea of a voice interface is becoming realistic. We don’t need keybards and mouse/touch for everything tech related. What it means is that we need to build systems for that type of input. Talking to take notes, get direction, look up information and execute actions will become normal now. Siri was too early, Google Glasses too. But now we’re almost there. We should watch this trend.
AI HARDWARE EXPERIMENT
Inside, iPhones look a lot like hotel tech
We have the idea that Apple and their devices are clean and perfect combination of technology. They kind of are. But if you look inside an iPhone to see all the components - it very much looks like a hotel’s tech stack. I.e. a dozen or more vendors providing key parts of the technology that becomes a shiny package in our pockets. Let’s not forget that when we’re building the next great, shiny hotel experience.
THE TECH STACK OF AN IPHONE
PAST THOUGHTS:
The problem with Content Marketing
Content Marketing is such a bad idea. It’s high the ranking of bad marketing ideas. I’d rank it close to spam (and GenAI isn't going to make that better).
If the purpose of the content is marketing, then it's literally spam. On the other hand interesting information, shared to help, that is a good idea.
MICHELIN pioneered the concept a century ago with the Michelin Guide and it was simply brilliant. But it wasn’t content marketing. It was interesting information shared to help car owners make new road trips. As a side-effect, Michelin’s brand is now associated with the top restaurants in the world. Pretty good for a tire-company. There are dozens of great examples. (If you need inspiration, check out Jeremy Connell-Waite's feed. He keeps sharing amazing things that he should probably be selling.)
When I was the CMO at SnapShot we were delivering educational bootcamps at EHL Hospitality Business School and ESSEC Business School. Our team had put some really thorough educational courses together. Going through it, I stumbled on a slide that showed the various tech solutions in hotels and their categories. I loved the slide but it was not easy to share. With the team and a designer we spent weeks trying to think of a logic that would explain the concept, when we finally managed and published it, it became the most famous hotel tech infographic.
But it wasn’t Content Marketing. It was amazing research done by some really great people, research I wished I had had earlier and that would be valuable to others. Some people didn’t understand why we allowed competitors on the chart. That’s because it wasn’t “content marketing” it was knowledge sharing. The impact on brand was a side-benefit.
If sharing knowledge benefits your brand, that’s just awesome. But do it to share knowledge first and if you’re really good, people will remember the brand. Please avoid the "7 spammy content marketing tips" stuff. An ideal I try to reach is, would I read this on a Sunday afternoon?
Share your "secret" knowledge. Yes there's a risk that competitors use them, but there's a huge possibility that the market is going to thank you for it and the way they thank you is by trusting you and your brand. That's a pretty good side effect.
And don’t let GenAI convince you to create a lot of spam in the name of content marketing.
WHAT DO YOU THINK? JOIN THE CONVERSATION
