Travel Industry

This post is part II of a series we’re doing on detecting travel trends and holiday weekend hotel booking patterns, based on an analysis of data collected by UpTake. In Part I, we saw the trends and patterns in the San Francisco market. In this post, we’ll be looking at the New York area data, which shows significant differences as compared to San Francisco.

W New York Union Square

The first data sample was taken on June 19, and the results of successive rate checks were noted down all the way through the 4th of July weekend and onwards to-date, leading up to Labor Day. The hotels included are all 3 or 4 star hotels in New York City, and spots ideal for drives out of New York City, like the Hudson Valley and Cape May, NJ.

Rates for the 4th of July weekend at hotels in New York City start creeping up surprisingly late. As of June 19, the 4th of July weekend rates at the W New York Union Square and The Benjamin Hotel were actually less than the weekend rates offered for bookings 4 weeks on. At the Sofitel New York, both the weekend rates and the 4th of July rates were exactly the same.

The same thing happened again, in the next sample taken on June 26. What does this mean? To make sense out of this, you have to look at the data for the rest of the New York region. In samples taken for both Cape May, NJ and hotels in the Hudson Valley, most units were completely sold out - as of June 19 – for 4th of July stays, which made the June 26 sample redundant.

In places perfect for getaways from the City – where bookings were still available as of June 19, such as the The Bell House in Hillsdale, rates were at a premium  -$175 for 4th of July bookings, as compared to $150 for weekend bookings 4 weeks on. 

This heavy demand in areas surrounding New York City, taken in conjunction with the lack of demand in New York City itself, suggests that during the 4th of July weekend, more people actually leave the City, than come in to visit. Mayor Bloomberg might want to dispute this notion, but numbers don’t lie.

Moving on to the Labor Day bookings, the trends are much brighter – and faster – for New York City. In the previous post, we saw that the cutoff date for Labor Day bookings in the San Francisco market is August 6 – beyond which the prices start going up beyond standard rates.

For New York, the cut-off date starts much earlier. In five successive rate checks conducted between June 19 and July 20, the Labor Day weekend rates for New York hotels held steady at rates less than advance booking rates for non-holiday weekends. But in the sample taken on July 26, the Labor Day rates for all sampled hotels in New York City shot up. 

The W New York Union Square offered $249 nightly weekend rates and $344/night for the Labor Day weekend. For the Sofitel New York, it was $225/$265.

Rates outside the City – in the Hudson Valley and in Cape May, NJ – did not go up for Labor Day. On the contrary, Labor Day rates at NYC getaway hotspots like the Albert Steven Inn in Cape May actually dropped to $165  in comparison to weekend rates of $210. Rates at the aforementioned Bell House in Hillsdale remained the same ($150) as weekend rates.

This means that less New Yorkers go out of the City for Labor Day, as compared to the 4th of July. The overall inference here is that New York City’s hotel booking patterns depend not only on incoming visitors to the City, but also heavily depend on the vacation patterns of NYC residents. Why this is so a matter we’ll discuss in a forthcoming post.

Photo courtesy Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide

YTB, the travel agency that has been accused of running a multi-leveling marketing pyramid scheme, won’t have to appear in an Illinois courtroom in the near future.

That’s not to say it’s off the hook for the labels — just that the former YTB referring agents, as they’re known internally,  haven’t done a good job of explaining their position. U.S. District Court Judge G. Patrick Murphy declared the complaint paperwork from the group action  “a good deal of flabbiness in the sprawling pleading before the court consists of paragraphs of legal argument challenging the courts earlier dismissal of the ICFA claim of the non-Illinois plaintiffs.”

Had he himself been more pithy, that would read, “I’ve already told you that non-residents can’t file in this lawsuit.”

This same judge, however, did tell an Illini gentleman who filed a case in June that his original complaint wasn’t the U.S. District Court for Southern Illinois’ venue, but he could refile if he shows how the gripe “implicates consumer protection concerns.” So the show could go on.

2009 not smooth sailing for YTB

Meanwhile, YTB is settling a similar lawsuit brought by the attorney general in California.

Yet the outcome in any courtroom shouldn’t matter to a hill of beans. For starters, if the travel industry deems that it has a rogue player in its midst, the other players certainly have the strength to shut it down. Take, for instance, the Cruise Line International Association (CLIA), which implemented tougher standards to join and attain accreditation this year. Pure MLM recruiters don’t have time to earn no stinkin’ badges. And as more suppliers demand a CLIA or IATA card to claim a discounted price on tours, this forces folks to either get educated in the field or scrub the perks.

MLM recruiters are big on perks.

Some suppliers, like Royal Caribbean Cruise Line and Norwegian Cruise Line, simply refuse to accept bookings from YTB agents. This, of course, forces the serious travel agents to move to host agencies that are in good standing. And never underestimate the power of snubbing: A common observation among YTB agents is that they are treated with disdain when they call suppliers for quotes and questions. It may be high schoolish, but it did work then and continues to work now.

Finally, there is a third leg of this stool known as personal responsibility. Anyone who forks over money to buy a YTB franchise today and claims they were duped can’t spell YTB at Google. The accusations, complaints and earnings reports are extremely visible. They’re currently selling stock at .12 a share, according to Motley Fool — yet another pithy remark from someone in authority.

Photography: Nattu

mobile computing heaven

The race is on.

The Westin St. Francis in San Francisco’s Union Square is among the first hoteliers to sign up with LodgeNet Interactive Corporation to implement its Mobile Internet Devices and integrate them into their own hospitality system.

In English, this means Westin guests can order in-room dining, book a spa appointment, make golf reservations, sign up for their reward program points and even change the in-room temperature and electricity controls through their iPhones and Blackberries. Basically, guests’ smart phones replace the concierge function, which will no doubt trigger a rebuttal from the National Concierge Association. But let’s face it: the name of the game has always been “be relevant or be run over.”

The project is in the pilot stages this summer; LodgeNet says it should roll out more test markets between now and the end of 2009. Anyone who wants to see this technology in action can stop by the company’s booth at HITEC at the Anaheim Convention Center June 23 – 25.

It’s a smart move for anyone who read the American Hotel and Lodging Association’s 2008 study on customer satisfaction. A whopping 82 percent of guests say they care most about their wi-fi services, even over in-room entertainment systems and airline check-in kiosks.

Which could explain why Omni Hotels — the first luxury hotel brand to give guests free wireless access in their rooms — is focusing more on the basics. It signed with BelAir Networks to upgrade its network design to accommodate mobile computing. “With nearly 50 percent of our guests using wi-fi and their bandwidth demands continuing to accelerate, we sought a high-performance network partner” says Richard Tudgay, Omni’s IT veep.

Photography: Westin St. Francis

The Miami International Pow Wow (May 16-20) is expected to raise $4 billion in bookings for US tourist destinations from buyers worldwide. And the California Travel and Tourism Commission (CTTC), accompanied by 20 California travel industry partners, is all set to rake in a big slice of all that dough at the Pow Wow.

Miami International Pow Wow

This stunning $4 billion is generated in a few days of intensive pre-scheduled, computer-generated business appointments, with more than 1,000 U. S. travel organizations from every region of the USA, and representing all industry category components, and close to 1,500 international and domestic buyers from more than 70 countries.

In a press statement, Caroline Beteta, CTTC president and CEO and chair of the U.S. Travel Association, said that “Pow Wow is the largest travel marketplace for international buyers of U.S. destination products, so this is an important marketing opportunity for us.”

International tourism is big business for California, contributing about $18.3 billion to the state economy in 2008. Since over 80% of California’s visitors are residents, international visitors pose a great growth market. To increase the Golden State’s market share of global visitors, CTTC expanded its efforts last year by committing more than $20 million to international marketing, including new broadcast advertising outreach and more in-market sales and public relations offices – a 250% increase from 2006.    

“Because our funding is more stable than many of our U.S. competitors, we’re able to maintain our recently expanded international marketing efforts while others are drastically decreasing overseas efforts,” Beteta added. “We see this as an opportunity to expand our share of voice in the global marketplace, and we believe investing more now will pay long-term dividends for California’s travel industry.”

Meanwhile, Miami is all primed and ready to milk the convention-goers. The Greater Miami CVB hosted a rally on monday to spread the word about Pow Wow, to make sure residents knew how important it was. And being the convention host has it’s advantages, and Miami is looking to pull in over $400 million in vacation bookings at Pow Wow.

In addition to the commerce, there’s also scope for both buyers and sellers to garner some free media attention, and spotlight their own destinations, products & services. Last year, over 450 travel journalists from over 40 countries participated in International Pow Wow 2008 in Las Vegas.

Related Links:-
Miami International Pow Wow – www.tia.org/powwow/
California Travel and Tourism Commission – www.visitcalifornia.com/
Greater Miami CVB – www.miamiandbeaches.com/

The Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy (LAANE) has come out with a study which says that tourism promotion by Long Beach is responsible for fostering poverty.

The study – A Tale of Two Cites: How Long Beach’s Investment in Downtown Tourism Has Contributed to Poverty Next Door – says that Long Beach has spent in excess of $750 million in subsidies for the tourism industry, and $100 million since the early 1980s on hotels alone. (goodjobslongbeach.com)

According to the study, workers in Long Beach make 13.6% less than their counterparts doing the same jobs at hotels and motels in Anaheim, 12.2% less than their counterparts in the LAX area, 25.4% less than their counterparts in Santa Monica and 26.9% less than their counterparts in Downtown Los Angeles.

For a bit of background, consider that LAANE’s daily schedule  includes making life miserable for at least one of the few remaining non unionized hotels in Los Angeles. And they usually take down these hotels one or two at a time, with a potent mix of placard and banner waving marches and sit-ins, class action lawsuits filed by LAANE approved lawyers on behalf of the targeted hotel’s workers, and a media blitz.

But some bright spark at LAANE probably decided that it would be a lot easier to raise wages across the board if they threw the book at the City and blamed the growth of tourism for creating low wage jobs which they say has engendered poverty. The plan here is to hold the City responsible and make them put pressure on the hotels to hike wages and health insurance coverage for workers. This would have the practical effect of unionizing all the hotels in Long Beach in one stroke.

LAANE conviniently focuses only on the wages as a form of return for the City’s investment, while completely discounting the positive impact of the hundreds of millions of dollars being spent every year by tourists on the local economy.

Leaving aside the authority (or lack thereof) of the study, if you focus on who gets what out of this fight, a few surprising things pop up. First, that it’s in the City’s interest to promote industries like tourism and hospitality, instead of manufacturing, considering the higher income from sales and room taxes. On the other hand, manufacturing jobs provide higher wages and benefits for workers, while providing less income for the City from taxes.

Secondly, LAANE’s voodoo economics report is no laughing matter. It won’t raise any wages, but it could guilt trip the City, at a time when the recession has hit industrial workers very hard, into stopping promotion of the tourism industry and start focusing more on industries which offer higher wages to workers.

Lastly, it would be ironic if the LAANE study succeeds in its effort to kill the tourism industry in Long Beach. The hotel workers end up unemployed, the City loses the tax revenues, and it puts hundreds of tourism service providers out of business. 

Photo by krcla via flickr (creative commons).

Benbow Inn is for sale for only $13.25 million

There is a small hotel…

in the far reaches of Northern California for sale for just $13.25 million. In the opinion of the San Francisco Chronicle, it ranks as one of the finest in the world.  In this beautifully written article, the Benbow Inn is described as an oasis from routine and a destination in itself.  Given the description, I am not sure if $13.25M is a bargain price, a sign of difficult economic times or if the current owner is just ready to retire from life as a hotelier.  What’s more, I was astonished at the room rates–they start at $125. That seems to be a true bargain. Can this be correct for a hotel that is in the same league as some of the most famous resorts in the world? Here is a brief description:

“Few hotels and inns rank as destinations in themselves: the Peninsula in Hong Kong, the Villa d’Este on Italy’s Lake Como, the Greenbriar in West Virginia, Claridge’s in London, the Ritz in Paris. They are grand, usually, and expensive. They demand that you live up to them. Cozy is not a term that suits. Historic they may be; homey and snug they are not.

In Northern California, there’s a destination place named Benbow: small (54 rooms) and comfy, with a welcome as warm as your grandmother’s and a setting so Victorian it brings tea to your eyes.

And, it’s for sale – along with a golf course and motor home park – for $13.25 million.”

I also looked at UpTake to see the reviews:

Collected Reviews on UpTake

All were positive.

If you are looking to snap up the property, this may be an auspicious time or you may just want to book a room.

If the travel industry can deliver great travel experiences at a reasonable cost, we will weather the economic storm and do well in the upcoming months. After all, what else can so easily transport us from our economic woes but a little trip to a great hotel.

Travel Innovation Summit

This is the first in a series of posts reviewing the travel sites selected to participate in PhocusWright’s 2008 Travel Innovation Summit in Hollywood, CA next week. These first four entries show the variety of sites selected and offer information about adventure travel, personalized travel itineraries, CRM and hotel deals.

Detailed travel itineraries

AdventureLink was formed in 2006, and now “offers 30,000 trips from more than 1,500 tour operators covering 164 countries.” They offer tour operators the largest possible online distribution via conventional travel agency, online travel agency and web affiliate channels. They “make it easy for travel agents to search, compare and book trips anywhere in the world and with the widest selection of operators at the very best prices.”  The site is easy to navigate, inspires a desire to explore the world and their site and the trip selection is fantastic.

In the “See Our Trips” tab they offer 55,000 trips from VAX/Vacation Access including far flung destinations such as Antartica, Botswana, Burma & New Zealand.  I like the roll-over on specific trips that offers more detailed itineraries.  The site makes me want to pack my bags and book a tour.

New Zealand Planning Page

Cadabra offers online travelers “the tools to interactively build complex personalised multi-destinational itineraries.”  Their itinerary wizard allows visitors to specify the type of trip they want including the number of travel days, the type of accommodation, places they know they want to visit, and the experience and the types of activities that they are interested in.  Currently, the site offers only New Zealand and Cook Island information but promises other destinations soon.  Overall, the New Zealand information is comprehensive, but the site definitely has a ‘beta’ sensibility. I am looking forward to seeing more.

Full Circle Managment

Clairvoyix offers data mining to the travel industry and promises to take customer-relationship marketing to the next level by providing “actionable business intelligence.”  They offer data hygiene and enhancement, data management, targeted strategy, design and execution and campaign ROI.  Their homepage headline offers clients they can “effortlessly identify your best guests with Clairvoyix.”  As a marketing professional, I wonder about that because I have never found anything about data effortless.  Never. As a result, I will be watching this demo closely to see if it lives up to its promise.

Dealbase hotel deals

Dealbase offers more hotel deals than anyone else- as of today, 9492.  That is a lot of deals.  But the site is comprehensive and unbiased because they list any deal regardless of the source, is consistent in its presentations, and their touted feature, “the Deal Analyzer”allows a traveler to understand how much they are saving.  The site is by no means beautiful but its straightforward design is easy to use and the deals easy to find.  A good resource in this new economic climate for the value conscious consumer.

Hope you enjoyed this brief tour.  The next four sites will be reviewed this afternoon.