Thanks to an invitation from Giancarlo Carniani, I recently had the pleasure of presenting social media for hoteliers with Laura Valerio at the Buy Tourism Online Conference in Florence.  Laura, who is Expedia’s Director of Market Management for Northern Italy, is highly knowledgeable about the Italian travel market.  This post is an epilogue to our presentation, and given that the great majority of Italian hotels are independents, this post is dedicated especially to them.

Independent hoteliers need to truly understand their differentiators, because it’s the differentiators that will enable hotels to attract the right guests who are willing to pay a premium for what you offer.  Differentiators must meet the following 2 criteria:

1. It’s absolutely good by your own standards (however measured, either through internal guest satisfaction surveys, word-of-mouth feedback on the web, or because your guests tell you when they check out)
2. It’s relatively better when compared with your competitors (from looking at social media feedback and editorial reviews)

Given this framework, location is rarely a differentiator if your competitors all face the same piazza.  While it may satisfy criteria 1 (the location is absolutely good), it fails criteria 2 (it isn’t relatively better — at least not discernible to most guests evaluating where to stay when all hotels are in the same piazza).

Design, however, can be a differentiator.  For example, let’s say you’ve recently renovated, “modern rooms in a classic building” could be a differentiator, and an especially strong one if other hotels in the piazza haven’t renovated in the last 10 years.  Service can also be a differentiator.  For example, “fresh-picked fruit from own garden” or “regional cooking lessons” can all be differentiators.

And herein lies the absolute beauty as it comes to the Italian hotels: it’s easy to spot the differentiators in independent hotels once you move away from the “obvious” criteria that often appear on guest satisfaction surveys.  In most cases, you can find the answer in social media about your hotel.

Spotting Design as Potential Differentiators

According to the Italian State Tourism Board, Italy is consistently one of the of the world’s top 5 destinations (the other four being USA, France, Spain, and China).  In 2007, for example, 42.8M visitors contributed to 163.5M bednights, with cities of historical and artistic interests contributing to nearly 1/3 of the bednights.  The rest is primarily made up by visits to sea, mountain, and lake locations.

This information suggests that travelers to Italy are naturally inclined to seek out picturesque things (artistic, sea, mountain, and lake).  To find out what are the picturesque things that guests find exciting about your hotel (and want to share with their friends and strangers), go to Google (or Flickr and Picasa), type your hotel name in, and look at the “Image” search results to see the pictures that are available about you.  And then follow the pictorial links to sites that have user-generated content to see what pictures your guests are sharing and how they are describing your property.

You might find pictures of your amenities, rooms, certain design elements, or you might find pictures of nearby attractions, or you might find pictures of the outside of the hotel, or the view from the balcony at sunset.  Whatever it is that you find will tell you precisely what guests found to be interesting about your hotel — and took the time to download the pictures from their camera into their computer, uploaded it from their computer to their account on the social media site (assuming that they’ve already created an account), and then told their friends that they’ve uploaded these wonderful photos about you.  These photos give you a pretty good idea for what in the design of your property (either internal or external) could be differentiators.

Leveraging History as a Potential Differentiator

Secondly, travelers to Italy who are interested in historical cities might also be interested in the history of your property.  For example, what did the building used to be?  How did it become a hotel?  Is it a family business?  Did anything interesting happen on premise?  Hotels in Italy (and many other countries around the world) have built-in stories that make the stay experience even more special.  Why not share them?

Even though it may be more relevant if the property’s history is connected to the historical attraction in the city, sometimes it’s the people that own the building or run the property who have the interesting history.  For inspiration from a familiar source, think of the wineries that are all over Italy.  Many of them are run by families who have owned the same winery for generations.  Behind each of these wineries are stories of colorful characters overcoming (or facing!) problems.  Even most wine labels have a story behind them.  Can you relate this to your hotel?

The great thing about the history of your hotel is that it’s always unique to your property.  If you share your history and your guests begin to write about it in their reviews about your property, then that history might very well be a differentiator — one that you don’t have to spend any more money on improving.

However, you won’t know until you share and see how your guests respond.

Getting People to Talk About Your Service

I have a third tip on differentiators.  In the past 12 months I’ve sat on more planes crisscrossing the globe than I can remember.  On a recent KLM flight the safety video projection was not working, so the flight attendants had to demonstrate in person.  I saw that most people actually stopped what they were doing to watch the flight attendants demonstrate how to buckle and fasten a seat belt.

This is because people pay attention to people.  Extended to hotels, especially good service will not be ignored, and can become a differentiator that is not easily replicable by your competitors.  Whether it’s in the way of a welcoming attitude, or thoughtful anticipation, or speed to solution, or personal recognition, or something else quirky but wonderful, what you and your staff create in terms of the human experience can often be your strongest differentiator if you construct the experience with empathy in mind.  For Italian hoteliers, empathy can solve guests’ language obstacles, dietary needs, lack of familiarity with local culture, attractions and customs, bad/long transportation experience, etc. and win your guests’ loyalty.  If they are so moved as to recommend you to their friends, they also become your best marketers.

4.5 years ago I stayed at Villa La Favorita in Alba which was up in the hills.  I had bought some wine and needed to get to Turin, but this would have required me to get down the hill with a bulky box, take a train from Alba to another town, and then switch trains to get to Turin.  Roberta, the owner, after helping me decipher the train schedule, voluntarily offered to take me to the train station.  At first I thought it was nice of her to take me to the Alba train station, but she ended up driving me right past it and on to the 2nd train station.  To this day, I’m still referring people to her 6 room property, and look forward to going back.  On TripAdvisor, Villa La Favorita has a 100% recommendation rate and is ranked #1 of the B&Bs in Alba.  Roberta is mentioned by name in several reviews.  The most recent one reads:

Last but not least the owner Roberta goes out of her way to make each guest feel special and welcome. She provides for most anything you could ask for and will arrange for special tours or activities in the area if you wish. She will definitely succeed with Villa La Favorita.

An Example from an Independent Hotel in Italy

To summarize, let me use Villa La Favorita as an example.  If you go to the Villa La Favorita website, you’ll see the following description amidst beautiful pictures of the property and Roberta.  My analysis of why this is so effective is in parentheses below each paragraph:

Welcome!  It gives me great pleasure to present my country home.  Dating back to the early 1900’s, it is officially recognized as a historic residence, and has been meticulously refurbished in recent years.  Set amidst a 10,000 m² estate of vineyards and fruit orchards, it is located on a hillside just 1 1/2 kms outside Alba.

(Roberta displays her pride of ownership and introduces the historical significance of her property)

The farm produces fine doc-status wines – Nebbiolo d’Alba and Grignolino Piemonte – which can be tasted free-of-charge, as well as a large variety of organically-grown fruit (cherries, apples, pears, apricots, plums, persimmons, figs, mulberries, peaches and pomegranates), some of which are used to make delicious jams.

(introduces potential differentiators: tasting of fruits, jams, and wines made from on-premise orchard and vineyard)

The villa’s four highly original, en-suite bedrooms are tastefully furnished with period family pieces, and have satellite TV, air-conditioning, bath with shower and hair-dryer.  Each “room with a view” brings guests into close contact with the hills.and the towers and roofs of ALBA’s old town centre.  A stroll along the path leading through the vineyards to enjoy the picturesque view of the sunset from on high is warmly recommended before the sun disappears behind the rooftops and bell-towers.

(with the pictures available on the site, introduces design as potential differentiators of the guest experience, both internal and external)

Every morning a plentiful breakfast offering a wide choice is served outdoors in the large garden, on the terrace or in the bright lemon-house. I will recommend the best restaurants in the Langhe and Roero, and visits can be arranged during your stay to the countless castles in the area, as well as to wine cellars – famous estates or family-run concerns just waiting to be discovered.

(service as the strong differentiator, addressing convenience and access to local knowledge backed by her personally )

Alba is a lively town, standing at the feet of the celebrated “Langhe” hills. It is famous for its mediaeval towers, “Via Maestra” (the main street, animated by plenty of shops and a busy Saturday morning market), and cultural and food & wine events. It is also the starting point for many interesting outings, on foot or by bicycle, motorbike or car.

(sells Alba.  Note that she isn’t selling her proximity to the town center — those may be strong differentiators for other B&Bs that are competing with her)

What is effective about this simply laid-out page is that the description presents the property’s strong differentiators and sets guest expectations on the location.  The property is exactly where it is, and not only is the description transparent and upfront about it, it moves the value proposition to design, history, and service.  These differentiators are then further backed up by social media.

All in all, a consistently great story, which makes for a great business.

Last week was a great week for us as we were able to connect with most of our customers and partners in Asia Pacific at Web in Travel, ITB Asia, and our 1st half-day workshop, Brand Karma Day.  We shared our thoughts on the social media phenomenon and how businesses can best leverage it to turn it into a strategic asset for their brands.  Below is a recap of the top 10 ideas that we recommend for brands in the travel industry who want to venture into social media.

1. Understand your true differentiators.  Sometimes what you’ve identified as differentiators don’t mirror what customers think.  It’s important to monitor what is being said about you and reconcile your customers’ opinions with your story so that the brand message is consistent and credible.
2. Maintain operational excellence around your differentiators.  Your brand differentiators can’t be temporary.  Unlike ads, social media has permanence.  Since what’s expressed about your brand is permanently searchable, changing the differentiators constantly will confuse your audience.
3. Set up your social network hub where your customers are.  We recommend minimally a presence on Facebook because it is the largest social network with over 300M users and is one of the top-trafficked site in many countries.  The volume and the intent (sharing, lifestyle) make it suitable for just about any consumer brand.
4. Use content about your differentiators as “landing lights.” Guide interested consumers to your hub with great content.  You want consumers (current and future customers) to be attracted to and stay loyal to your brand because of your differentiators.  If the content is timely, all the better.  Of course, point #2 above is of the utmost importance.
5. Make fans not friends.  Fans on Facebook and Followers on Twitter give users the power to opt-in to being associated with you, which is exactly what you want.  It’s low risk for your fans, and you can stay focused on sharing the great things about your brand.
6. Engage, not advertise.  The impression ads and click-through ads of the portal/search paradigms don’t work well in this channel.  Think of your fans as people who are already or will eventually be in your CRM — and use your hub to please them digitally.  Share things that would interest them, do things that would please them, reward their loyalty, and personalize whenever possible.
7. Link to allies.  Chances are, brands in other parts of the world tout the same differentiators.  Why not ally with them by cross-linking your hubs?  The narrower your niche, probably the easier it will be to find non-competitive allies that can cross-authenticate what your brand stands for.
8. Partner with brands that complete you.  Travel is a holistic experience involving many components.  In your hub, introduce the partners that best complete the guest experience.  Depending on the business your brand is in, points of interest, transportation options, accommodation choices, local eateries, and ticketing agencies are all possible partners to complete the experience your brand offers.
9. Respond immediately, and with empathy, to negative posts.  Brands, like people, show their true colors when they’re under attack, so complaints, though unpleasant, can be opportunities for you to shine.  Unless it’s a systemic problem, other fans will likely ignore the complaint, rise to defend you, or understand that the issue is between the complaining fan and you.  In all cases, they will appreciate that you did something, even if all you do is to request to address the issue offline with the complaining fan.  Doing nothing makes observing fans wonder what happened.
10. Develop a social media policy for your employees.  How many of the 300M Facebook users also work for you?  Chances are, quite a few.  Employees can be your biggest promoters… or unintentional detractors.  As you venture into social media, make sure that your employees are on the same page as you.

A few days ago I was at a conference in Taipei where I presented data about the major shifts in the Taiwanese market.  I compared the outbound traveler data from the first half of 2009 to the first half of 2002.  Both 2002 and 2009 were preceded by events that negatively affected the travel industry (i.e. September 11, the financial crisis, and H1N1).  As the total outbound travelers January-June was 3.7M in 2002 vs. 3.8M in 2009, it appeared that those events had a similar degree of impact on the overall market and I could compare them to see the shifts.

There were a few insights that I shared at the conference based on this analysis, including how outbound destinations shifted in this time period due to the opening of direct flights between Taiwan and Mainland China this year.  However, the most interesting insight to me was this: for all age groups, the relative % of market remained the same except for the 20-29 year-olds vs. the 50-59 year-olds.  The 20s group experienced a 15% decrease v. the 50s that had a 44% increase.

To ensure that this wasn’t an aberration for 2009 only, I also compared the first half of 2008 (a more prosperous time) with 2002.  It turns out that while the overall market grew by 19% in 2002, the 20s segment grew by only 2%.  In fact, every other age segment grew by double digits except for the 20s.  Meanwhile, the 50s grew by 53% between 2008 and 2002.

The data is counter-intuitive.  Travel is about discovery, and we associate that with something that younger people would be excited about.  But the data suggested just the opposite.  As the 20-29 year-olds are the youngest of the independent travelers (below 20 the travel activities tend to be largely as a result of family travel), they are an important bellwether segment to observe.  And the data showed bad news.  I shared this with a few Taiwanese friends and industry insiders and they were puzzled and surprised.  No one had a good explanation for what was going on even though there were quite a few plausible suggestions related to the economy.

The down trend bothered me so much that I did some more research in the last few days.  Here’s what I found.

According to government statistics, The population of 20-29 year olds in Taiwan from 2002 to 2008 decreased by about 6% whereas the population of 50-59 year olds increased by about 44%.  However, the % of 20 year-olds and the % of 50 year-olds who traveled remained relatively constant in these years (monthly, about 3% of the 20s  vs. 4% of the 50s).  Taking the additional data into account, it made sense that:

Trend of Taiwanese Population by Age, 20s v. 50s (in 000s)

• In absolute numbers, there were now many more Taiwanese in their 50s than 20s traveling to destinations outside Taiwan, whereas in 2002 the numbers were about the same

• The reason for this may not be behavioral or socio-economic, but simply due to the decrease in the overall population of 20 year-olds in Taiwan from 2002 to now versus the increase in the overall population of 50 year-olds during the same period

A 29 year-old in 2008 would have been born 1979.  I decided to look and see the birth rate of Taiwanese babies from 1979 through present day to see how that will impact future population.  What I found was alarming.

Population trend of 20-29 year-old Taiwanese based on births from 1979-2007 (in 000s)

The birth rate in Taiwan has been in sharp decline.  For example, there were more than twice as many babies born in 1979 than in 2007.  The chart on the left shows the population of 20-29 year-olds for the next 20 years.

This means that in 2027, there will be 35% fewer Taiwanese in their 20s than today.

If the percent of people who travel stay roughly the same and there is no big influx of people immigrating to Taiwan to offset the decline, then this segment of travelers will severely impact the travel industry as they grow older and move into the older (and more affluent) age categories of the 30s, 40s, and 50s.

I think the travel industry in Taiwan needs to reconsider their strategy targeting outbound Taiwanese travelers, starting with how to attract young travelers and win their loyalty.  Also, with the young population declining, Taiwanese airline and hotel operators need to have a better strategy for attracting inbound travelers.

Further, destinations like Japan and Hong Kong where a large number of Taiwanese visit should also take note.  It’s kind of downhill from here.

While on the one hand I was glad to see that young Taiwanese people are still out discovering the world, I was sad to realize that there are going to be fewer Taiwanese people in the future.

Invitations to Brand Karma Day have been sent out, and we’ve begun preparing for the event.  Given the emergence of social media as a critical component of branding, we thought it’d be a good idea to share what we’ve learned in the last 12 months with our clients, partners, and friends of the company.  Brand Karma Day will take place on Monday, October 19, the day before Web in Travel (October 20-23), which opens ITB Asia (October 21-23).

Brand Karma Day has been designed to help hoteliers turn their social media into a strategic asset.  We’ll cover 3 topics:

1. The Numbers Crunch — This session kicks off Brand Karma Day and will be a good foundation for anyone whose brands are impacted by social media.  We’ll discuss the numbers behind social media, their implications, and recent best practices.  Also for the first time, we’ll share the results of our analysis on the Asia-Pacific hospitality market.
2. Chatter Clutter — The 2nd session builds on the insights from the first session and focuses on the operational aspects of the customer experience, including both the physical attributes (or hardware), and services.  We’ll explain the “Diamond” framework that integrates guest satisfaction surveys with Brand Karma data, and show brand owners how they can use it to prioritize operational improvements.
3. Money Matters — The final session brings it all together by focusing on how hotel owners can use social media to increase RevPar.  We’ll teach brand owners about Swing Travelers and how to micro-target them.  As a part of this, we’ll show brand owners how to identify and communicate their operational differentiators versus their competitors to create more value in their rates.

I hope you can all make it! To register, go to Brand Karma Day

News broke early today that Facebook acquired FriendFeed.  Pundits question whether this combination = a Twitter killer, a Google killer, or both?

Facebook has bad search for the vast quantity of content generated by its users worldwide.  Google has good search but is not optimized for breaking news or user generated content.  Twitter has adequate search for its content, generated by a small percentage of its users generating to keep the rest of the world up to date on breaking news; however, at 45M users it’s dwarfed by Facebook’s 250M users.  FriendFeed has a powerful search engine on status and aggregates from multiple sources, including Twitter and Facebook, but doesn’t have the cache of any of the aforementioned players.

So Facebook + FriendFeed combination becomes interesting because 1) it allows Facebook to tap into the real-time stream of consciousness that Twitter does so well, and 2) it acquires a real-time search engine to further support its efforts to improve search (which has been in beta testing since June), including the recent incorporation of Microsoft’s Bing.  This, on the surface, would seem as though the “FaceFeed” combination is taking direct aim at Twitter (#1) and Google (#2).

It’s clear that social media is becoming a core asset that the big players want to protect and cultivate.  Once the dust settles, it will have a fundamental impact on how brands communicate with consumers.

A little over a week ago I passed around a video that featured a couple’s wedding entrance.  At that time, there were a little over 10,000 views of the video on YouTube.  I wanted to share the video with my friends because I had found the video to be quite entertaining, as it was an entire wedding party having a great time introducing the bride and groom, grooving down the aisle in a church to a pretty hip song.  They were having a good time genuinely, and though a bit goofy and dorky at times, was a nice break from the usual gloom and doom news.

Fast forward to today.  The video of Kevin and Jill’s wedding entrance has gone from 10,000 to 15M.  The song has been identified to be Chris Brown’s “Forever,” which enjoyed a windfall from the exposure despite the fact that the song was released more than a year ago.  The success prompted Google to blog about it, citing encouraging numbers that are sure to make Brown’s label very happy given his recent problems.  Among impressive chart numbers on both Amazon and iTunes, according to Nielsen SoundScan’s report for sales ending July 26 Chris Brown’s “Forever” was downloaded over 50,000 times.

The couple, not wanting to benefit directly, have instead set up a website that directs traffic to donate to charity at http://www.jkweddingdance.com.

Here’s the video below.  Enjoy.

Recently I was trying to buy a ticket online on Tiger Airways, a budget airline that operates out of Singapore and serves Asia.  Though I knew about Tiger, I’ve never flown it.  So I did 2 searches, one on Google, and one on Twitter, both using the keywords “tiger airways.”  Here’s what I found: Google’s first search result page returned 10 results, 6 led to a booking engine, 4 to information (including wikipedia).  Twitter returned 20 results, 0 led to a booking engine, 4 tweets were positive, 3 were neutral, 2 were questions, and a whopping 11 were negative (for math lovers that’s a -35% net favorability if you consider questions to be neutral).  Below are screenshots of the top 5 results from each service (click the image to zoom in).

google v. twitter results for tiger airways, July 2009

As you can see, while Google does a sufficient job at presenting facts, Twitter is much more human with personal pet peeves for all to see.  Also, I had no idea how old the sites Google pointed me to were, but I had a pretty good idea that the tweets about Tiger were all very recent, and therefore, more relevant to me.  Finally, Google abstracts are often an incomplete description of the website, whereas Twitter posts are mostly complete thoughts.  This slight difference is the pivotal one as it relates to brands.  In this example, whereas Google invites travelers to find out more, Twitter users unabashedly present their point of view so travelers don’t have to find out more.

For a traveler deciding, let’s say, between Tiger and Air Asia (another low cost carrier), you don’t have to read a lot of tweets to quickly form an opinion for how they’re regarded by their customers.  As the tweets predicted, I encountered a problem buying my ticket on Tiger’s website, and was instructed to call customer service.  While on hold, I was reminded at least 5 times that Tiger won the Best Low-Cost Airline of the Year in 2008 from CAPA within the on-hold loop music, which ironically made me question the validity of the award.

Why?  Not because I don’t respect CAPA, but because the tweeters’ complaints were entire consistent with each other and with my booking and customer service experience.  Some were further backed by links to news reports that reported on similar incidences.  On the other hand, I had absolutely no idea who at CAPA selected the airline and under what criteria.  The tweets I read made the professional CAPA opinion and award seemingly obsolete and dated, and the award did not lessen my growing doubts about Tiger Airways.

Is my brand experience typical?  I think more and more so.  A brand’s story becomes fragmented when there’s dissonance between what it tries to portray vs. the actual customer feedback.  That “promise gap” can shred a brand and render its messaging useless if the feedback is antithetical to the brand portrayal, and the brand either ignores the feedback or insists that the opposing feedback came from outliers.  In the past, customer feedback have been exclusively behind the brand’s firewall or embedded in private conversations and emails.  Message forums led to review sites led to blogging, each made customer feedback more public.  Twitter is all of those combined, with rocket boosters, and equipped with efficient search internally and to be externally discovered (via Google).

While consumers may initially approach Twitter with high skepticism, if they consistently read tweets that mirror their own experiences, they’ll start to accept and believe in the wisdom of the tweeters.  This is why the “follow” function is so powerful.  On Twitter, you can follow anyone you trust, and stop following anyone who gives bs, which is unlike Facebook where the person you want to friend (in order to see what they have to say) has to accept your friend request.

Given the rapid growth of Twitter, learning from travelers who are otherwise inaccessible to you but who happen to know what you need will become even more pervasive in the coming days.  The operative word here being days.  Where else in the world can a traveler go to find the right micro-segment of travelers who have the exact relevant, current, and credible knowledge they need?  Not travel agencies, not brands, not travel books, not travel magazines, not CAPA, and I posit, not even their friends and family.  This, coupled with the speed and reach of Twitter discussed in part 1, are the key ingredients to a paradigm shift for brands in the travel industry.

If you want more context about why Twitter works, you can read Granovetter’s seminal work on the Strength of Weak Ties.  For a non-academic version, Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point covers the main idea as well.  From Wikipedia, the central premise is,

In marketing or politics, the weak ties enable reaching populations and audiences that are not accessible via strong ties.

That, is exactly what Twitter does with amazing efficiency.

If you’re in the travel industry, or are a traveler, you can not ignore Twitter.

On the surface, Twitter may not be impressive.  You tweet (or broadcast, for the non-Twitteratis) what you want in 140 characters or less.  People who follow you receive your tweet instantly.  You can follow people whose tweets you like.  People who like your tweets can follow you.  You can do a keyword search on all the tweets.  If so inclined, you can re-tweet (RT) someone else’s tweet that you found to be particularly useful (it’s the Twitter version of email forward).  You can also embed a tag with a # in front of the tag name to denote important topics that you think (or hope) other people will follow.  For example #iranelections (vs. a keyword search on “iran elections“) or #followfriday, whose trend was analyzed by Mashable.

Twitter also has a direct message capability which is just like private messaging, but it’s really not the reason you use the service.  When I first began using Twitter, I got the feeling that the service was making public my tweets (which were like SMS or Facebook status).  But it turns out what ingenious Twitter users can do with 140 characters has made Twitter really an incredibly useful tool.

With an URL shortening service like bit.ly, which is very popular among Twitteratis, 140 characters is more than enough to express one’s brief opinion about a web page (very often, blogs).  There’s a further element of mystery added the the tweet because a typical shortened URL does not contain the web site name per se, it’s more like http://bit.ly/188bbf or http://bit.ly/12QgiZ, so the click-through rests solely on the credibility of the tweeter and the copy they used to describe the link.  Yes I used the word “copy” because I believe the tweeter is trying to recommend or sell the link to compel a click-through.  Combined that with the ability to RT, Twitter can have a profound impact quickly and virally.

Recently, an esteemed hotel chain posted agency-made videos that were meant to be viral to promote itself.  The videos were viral, but in an unintentionally negative way.  Within hours both bloggers and tweeters denounced them and the brand.  The combined forces, bloggers tweeting and tweeters retweeting with escalating commentaries quickly spread the bad idea, the impact so great that the chain pulled the videos down within 24 hours and issued an apology.

Also celebrity blogger, Perez Hilton, was assaulted recently in Toronto.  When police did not respond in a timely manner, Hilton tweeted an SOS to his over 1M followers, a good number of whom inundated the police department with calls.  When the police finally arrived Hilton had to tweet out another request asking his followers to stop calling on his behalf.

Those response times are considered to be slow.  Both the NY Times and MSNBC recently published articles about travelers receiving attention via Twitter.  In the case of the NY Times, here’s an excerpt:

Take Tony Wagner, 34, a new-media director for an academic group in Washington. When he found out he wasn’t seated next to his wife and 2-year-old daughter on a JetBlue flight to San Francisco over the Memorial Day weekend, he first called up customer service. But the agent told him to take it up at the gate. So Mr. Wagner indirectly sent JetBlue a message, by posting a plea for help on his Twitter account: “@jetblue Advice to get both parents and 2 yr old seated next to each other on flight later today? Right now only one parent. Full flight.”

Exactly 19 minutes later, JetBlue tweeted back, suggesting they correspond privately, using Twitter’s “direct message” feature: “@tonywagner Please follow us so we may DM!” After a brief exchange, JetBlue flagged his tickets as a priority concern.

And from Chris Elliott of MSNBC Travel:

“Dear Virgin Air,” she wrote. “My children have been on the tarmac for one hour with 90 more minutes to wait. I am at JFK gate b25. Pls RT.” That last request — please “RT” — is shorthand for Gottlieb’s nearly 10,000 followers to “retweet” her message, or rebroadcast it to their followers. And retweet they did. Within minutes, Virgin had phoned Gottlieb to reassure her that her kids would be fine.

“They contacted the gate agent manager and explained to us the entire weather situation,” she says. “Within 20 minutes of that conversation, the plane took off.”

Chris is a tweeter I follow.  He tweeted his article and to see RT in action, you can see how many tweeters have since retweeted his article to tell other travelers how they can use Twitter to improve their travel experience.

So if travelers are using Twitter and also being coached on how to use it (in Chris’ article he recommends 6 ways in which travelers can use social media services like Twitter to improve their travel experience), what are you doing to meet your customers on Twitter?

Like swing voters, swing travelers could hold the key to your hotel beating this economy.

Most hoteliers’ performance is measured not only by absolute revenue, but also market share.  Swing travelers can make all the difference in market share.

Let me use a simple example to illustrate the importance of swing travelers.  Let’s say there are 10 travelers making a reservation today and 2 hotels in your city, yours and your competitor’s, and normally you’d get 5 travelers each.  That means you and your competitor each have 50% market share.

If your hotel wins 1 traveler from the other hotel, then your market share would be 60% and your competitor at 40%.  That’s a 20% difference in your favor.  Now let’s calculate RevPAR.  Assume that both hotels have 10 rooms, all travelers stay 1 night, and the ADR for is $100/night.  Your hotel would achieve a $60 RevPAR vs. your competitor’s $40 RevPAR.  In fact, for your competitor to achieve the same RevPAR as you they would have to increase their ADR by 50% — to $150/night to achieve the same RevPAR as yours just to make up for the loss of 1 swing traveler.

Now, let’s suppose that your competitor manages to attract 1 new customer to the market, the market share would be 6/11 vs. 5/11, which is 55% vs. 45% in your favor.  To achieve the same RevPAR as you they’d still have to raise their ADR to $120/night vs. your $100/night.  In fact, your competitor would have to attract 3 new customers to the 1 that you swung over originally to win market share back.  In other words, in this simple example your competitor would have to grow the market by 30% (increase the number of travelers from 10 to 13) as a result of 1 swing traveler, in order to win against your hotel.

No wonder brands like Holiday Inn and Hyatt are not slowing down to win share despite the downturn.

How many swing travelers are there?  According to loyalty research and consulting firm, Colloquy, the total number of memberships from US travelers in hotel loyalty programs increased 26% to 161.9M memberships from 2007 to 2008.  This increase happened despite a sharp drop in demand in the second half of 2008.  While I believe first-ever loyalty memberships might account for some of that increase, the remainder comes from travelers that registered for their 2nd, 3rd… nth membership, making them swing travelers.  And remember, this is just amongst the segment already considered to be most loyal.

Carroll Rheem, Director of Research at PhoCusWright, recently said,

“The era of transparency ushered in by the Internet evangelizes faith in content, not faith in brands.  Companies need to understand the Long Tail of travelers and how its disloyal constituents make decisions: they don’t care about miles or points, can easily find another flight and don’t need a hotel flag to tell them what their experience is going to be like.”

Swing travelers are looking for stay experiences that fit their personal needs.  Because most hotels are using pricing as a strategy, impressive discounts are now the norm, not the exception.  What swing travelers are looking for then are the differentiators that give them the value they seek within a comparable price range.  Do you know what your differentiators are and are you communicating them loudly and clearly where travelers are researching where to stay?

Just for fun, I pretended to be a swing traveler looking for “hotels san francisco” on Google to see the ads that come up from hotel suppliers (I excluded the OTAs because they all uniformly tout discounts).  Removing identifiable info, below is the text of the first 8 hotelier ads I found:

1. There’s more to enjoy! Book unique offer. Instant Service 800-XXX-XXXX
2. Official Site. Book Now for Great Rates & Our Exclusive Packages!
3. Official Site. [brand name] San Francisco Hotel. Book Online.
4. Stay at [brand name] in San Francisco. Best rates online. Book online now!
5. Boutique [brand name] Hotel in Downtown San Francisco. Book online now!
6. Book a luxury hotel in the heart of San Francisco & enjoy access to all
7. Why pay high prices downtown? Free hot breakfast & airport shuttle!
8. San Francisco. Great locations. Free internet & breakfast bar.

What’s remarkable to me is that half of them (1-4) are virtually indistinguishable because they don’t offer anything meaningful other than to let the consumer know they can book online.  But the fact is these ads come from 3 different hotel suppliers (2 and 3 are different brands from the same hotel management company).  The other half offers some differentiation, but boutique and luxury are much less specific than free breakfast, free internet, and free airport shuttle.  Incidentally, 7 & 8 are actually from the same brand, 7 is an individual property where 8 is the brand ad.

I don’t think swing travelers would be convinced by the non-specific ads.  The way consumers think about the total price isn’t just the room, but all the costs associated with a stay.  Breakfast, internet, and transportation all make the value greater because it means less additional money out of a traveler’s pocket.  In recognizing their short attention span, those ads clearly communicate the differentiations that really matter in a direct and concrete way.

A swing traveler would almost always follow-up by reading reviews about the quality of the breakfast, the speed and reliability of the internet, and the timeliness of the airport shuttle.  Hence communicating the differentiations is only half of it, hoteliers need to make sure they’re backed up by solid reviews from previous guests.  Or alternatively, communicate in these ads what their guests have already complimented them on.

We’ve looked at one channel to win the swing traveler’s attention, and hopefully, their business.  But there are other ways.  The biggest paradigm shift that hoteliers must undergo is to market to and win the swing travelers one at a time by focusing on their specific needs.  Massive blocks of reservations and contracts with corporate clients, both fundamental business drivers in the past, are becoming increasingly rare and don’t deliver like they used to.  Like the swing voters that determined many elections in the past… swing travelers will be the group that determines who wins in many markets.

I was on a panel with Karthik Siva at the Asia Luxury Travel Market in Shanghai where we discussed traditional vs. “new wave” branding.  Karthik is the visionary behind Global Brand Forum.  The panel was moderated by Siew Hoon Yeoh of Web-in-Travel (aka WIT), the conference where we launched Brand Karma last year.  Though he represented traditional marketing and I represented “new wave,” I found much in common with his thinking.

One such common perspective revolves around the purpose of a brand and its importance today.  Luxury brands have long understood the need to define a unique purpose and have been fulfilling it by manifesting features to not only justify their price point, but also to retain customers.

But what about non-luxury brands?  Does price trump all?

I don’t think so.  Some of the businesses that have filed for bankruptcy actually used price as a key differentiator (e.g. Mervyns) or resorted to using price as a tool to stimulate volume (e.g. General Motors, Eddie Bauer).

Hoteliers around the world are dropping prices.  At the same time, in the eyes of travelers, hotel stay experiences have become more generic.  I hear a lot more statements like “I can’t tell the differences between these hotels,” and “the rooms are all pretty much the same.”  I also see it on the trend graphs in Brand Karma.  If customers don’t feel passion for their product, hoteliers may have to use pricing as the strategy because it typically has an immediate impact of driving volume… at least for a while.  But that’s not sustainable in the long run.  Both General Motors and Eddie Bauer created products that customers didn’t want to buy… eventually even lower prices didn’t work because both brands failed to inspire or stand for something that consumers cared to spend any money on.

Hence hoteliers, if you haven’t already done so, now might be a good time to do a quick check up on your brand purpose.  You don’t need to hire a consultant to do this.  Just answer these questions honestly:

1. Why does your brand exist?
2. How is that relevant today?
3. What are you and your staff doing to deliver on the brand promise?
4. How is what you’re doing different from what your competitors are doing?
5. Would your customers agree with your answers?

The answer to question 5 is critical, and the impact of a “no” or “I don’t know” could be devastating.  Check out AT&T’s change in its upgrade policy for the iPhone and also the site about consumer credit card rules for a sense of how things could evolve.

As a starting point, take a look at what’s been publicly expressed about your brand.  This will give you a pretty good idea, whether you agree or not, at how your guests really felt about their stay experiences.  Because their reviews are public, their words also shape potential customers’ impression of your brand when they research your brand — which has a direct impact on whether consumers book a room at your property or not.

Finally, even when not reviewing your brand, users express strong opinions about what ought to happen, echoing general consumer sentiments or raising expectations.  This may have a significant impact on the relevance of your offering.  For example, Gary Arndt recently tweeted something I’m sure many travelers think of:

• “So many places say they have ‘internet’ but do not mention if it is free or if it is just a computer in a common area”
• “I know free wifi is becoming the deal breaker for me and a lot of other people. Hotels should take note”

How influential will people like Gary Arndt be?  His tweet currently reaches over 72,000 followers.