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EyeforTravel Europe 2017 Round-up By Pamela Whitby
EyeforTravel Europe 2017 Round-up By Pamela Whitby
www.eyefortravel.com EyEforTravEl EuropE 2017 round-up | 2
author: Pamela Whitby
disclaimerThe information and opinions in this report were prepared by EyeforTravel Ltd and its partners. EyeforTravel Ltd has no obligation to tell you when opinions or information in this report change. EyeforTravel Ltd makes every effort to use reliable, comprehensive information, but we make no representation that it is accurate or complete. In no event shall EyeforTravel Ltd and its partners be liable for any damages, losses, expenses, loss of data, loss of opportunity or profit caused by the use of the material or contents of this report. No part of this document may be distributed, resold, copied or adapted without EyeforTravel’s prior written permission.
© FC Business Intelligence Ltd ® 2017
EyeforTravel Europe 2017Round-up
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About EyeforTravelWe bring together everyone in the travel industry, from small tech start-ups to international hotel brands, to form a
community working towards a smarter and more connected travel industry.
Our mission is to be the place our industry goes to share knowledge and data so that travel and tech brands can
work collaboratively to create the perfect experience for the modern traveler.
We do this through our network of global events, our digital content, and our knowledge hub - EyeforTravel On
Demand.
our valuesWe believe the industry must focus on a business and distribution model that always puts the customer at the
center and produces great products. However, to deliver an outstanding travel experience, the strength, skills, and
resources of all partners in the value chain must be respected and understood.
At EyeforTravel we believe the industry can achieve this goal by focusing on a business model that combines
customer insight with great product and, most importantly, places the traveler experience at its core.
At our core, we aim to enable the above by valuing impartiality, independent thought, openness and cooperation.
We hope that these qualities allow us to foster dialogue, guide business decisions, build partnerships and conduct
thorough research directly with the industry.
These principles have guided us since 1997 and will continue to keep us at the forefront of the industry as a vibrant
travel community for many more years to come.
our ServicesOur events are the heart of EyeforTravel. These draw in experts from every part of the travel industry to give thought
provoking presentations and engage in discussions. It is our aim that every attendee takes back something new that
can help their business to improve. This might be in the fields of consumer research, data insights, technological
trends, or marketing and revenue management techniques.
Alongside this we provide our community with commentary, reports, white papers, webinars and other valuable
expert-driven content. All of this can be accessed through one place - the On Demand subscription service.
We are always expanding the content we create, so please get in touch if you want to write an article for us, create a
white paper or webinar, or feature in our podcast.
EyeforTravel in numbers
ab
ou
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70,000+ database contacts
2,500+ annual event
attendees
100,000+ monthly
online reach
1,000+ online conference
presentations
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About EyeforTravel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Our Values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Our Services. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
EyeforTravel in Numbers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1 Distribution & Disruption. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.1 Taking on Google . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.2 The Facebook factor and the rise of WeChat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.3 The hotel direct debate. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.4 Planes, trains, buses and automobiles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2 Creating great customer experiences to drive loyalty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2.1 The commercial reality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2.2 The right people . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2.3 Partnerships & promotion tactics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.4 The importance of data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.5 APIs, relevance and humanised marketing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.6 Knowing your customer drives conversions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2.7 How to deliver the best customer experience. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
3 Emerging technologies, trends and challenges. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
3.1 Mobile – mainstream in 2017 but apps on the move. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
3.2 Mobile payment issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
3.3 AR, AI, NLP…what is hip and what is hype? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
3.4 Augmented intelligence and the data trail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
3.4.1 Case study: Edwardian Hotels shares tricks of a chatbot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
3.5 BOX: Startup Stardom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Contents
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On May 3-4, at a swanky new venue to celebrate
EyeforTravel’s 20th year in business, the great and the
good of the travel industry gathered to share strategic
insights with 300-plus delegates.
With the strapline of ‘win the digital and data war to drive
distribution, revenue and loyalty,’ this year’s revamped
flagship show renamed ‘EyeforTravel Europe 2017’
promised strategic insights from some big industry
names. So, who better to set the high-level tone in
Europe than Day 1 opening keynoter, Glenn Fogel, the
chief executive of Priceline? With a market cap of more
than USD90 billion, Priceline is the world’s biggest online
travel company but in 2016, 80% of its revenues came
from the Amsterdam-based Booking.com.
Before Fogel sat down for his ‘fireside chat’ with
conference Chairman Paul Richer, EyeforTravel MD Tim
Gunstone had a few words. At this tumultuous time for
the travel industry, driving loyalty, he said, must be a
priority. With increasingly demanding and discerning
customers, the ability to create memorable customer
experiences is a real challenge. This could only be
achieved, Gunstone said, through diversifying with the
right partnerships, data insights and technology.
This view was reflected in the results of opening poll in
which EyeforTravel Conference Director Leo Langford
posed the question the ‘What’s the biggest issue facing
your digital strategy? The two top responses to this
were ‘having the right systems and technology’ (33%)’
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What’s the biggest issue facing your digital strategy?
Having the right systems and technology
Working out how to measure
success
Designing digital products
Understanding customers
Finding the right people and training
Other
35%
30%
25%
20%
15%
10%
5%
0%
Perc
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31%
28%
18% 17%
5%
1%
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Over the two days there was numerous presentations,
panel sessions, case studies and interactive debate
between speakers and the audience. Some of the big
themes were how to manage the Google factor, the rise
of emerging technologies like artificial intelligence and
machine learning, the power of the partnership and,
of course, how to drive loyalty through great customer
experiences.
While all brands are in the business of making money,
Rome2Rio Executive Chairman Rod Cuthbert had this
to say in the opening keynote of Day 2: “If you focus on
money too early you miss opportunity to build loyal
users.”
and ‘understanding customers’ (28%).
These two things Priceline has strived hard to achieve
and continues to do so. For Fogel, who shared insights
into Priceline’s M&A and hiring strategy, as well as future
travel trends and the rise of emerging technologies, the
customer must be at the centre of everything. Crucial to
this was delivering a personalized experience. “Nobody,”
he said, “wants to be a demographic slice.”
The conference was well-attended by senior executives
and innovators from a broad section of the travel
industry including OTAs, aggregators, hotels, airlines,
airports, rail distributors, car rental companies and more.
Among the brands present were Priceline, Momondo
Group, AccorHotels, Eurail, Rome2Rio, Voyages-scnf.
com, KLM and Gatwick Airport, to name a few.
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Credit: Jennifer Moyes Photography.
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1.1 Taking on Google In 2016, Google earned an estimated USD12.2bn
from travel advertisers, with a big chunk coming from
Priceline, Expedia, Ctrip and TripAdvisor. For years, this
was mostly a win-win relationship but the search giant’s
continued move up the trip-planning funnel is now
seen as a growing concern.
EyeforTravel’s Gunstone articulated the dilemma by
saying that while Google undoubtedly did a “fantastic
job at finding customers,” he wondered just how many
were seeing Return On Investment (ROI) on advertising
spend increase.
If Google is increasingly surfacing its own products –
Google Flights, Google Hotels and Google Trips – at the
top of search, then presumably that is diminishing the
success of other brands’ investments.
It’s this behaviour that CarTrawler CTO Bobby Healy and
Rome2Rio’s Rod Cuthbert, keynoters on Day 1 and Day 2
respectively, find problematic. Cuthbert said its not “just
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Distribution & Disruption
CarTrawler CTO Bobby Healy addresses the audience during the Day 1 keynotes. Credit: Jennifer Moyes Photography.
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wrong”, it’s “morally and ethically reprehensible behaviour”.
And even worse, it is having a “chilling effect on innovation”.
CarTrawler CTO Bobby Healy addresses the audience during
the Day 1 keynotes. Credit: Jennifer Moyes Photography.
Healy called Google the “elephant in the room” and
argued that only if travel companies controlled the top
of the funnel, could they truly understand customer
behaviour and drive loyalty in the way they needed to
survive. Referring specifically to airlines, he said handing
over inventory to Google, as Lufthansa had done, was a
very bad idea in his opinion.
So, in their view Google is fast becoming more than “just
another intermediary,” as CitizenM Chief Commercial Officer
Lennert de Jong put it in the afternoon panel on Day 1.
So, what to do about it?
Healy would like to see the European Union focus
its attention more closely on the travel industry. And
Cuthbert argued for a “clear and unified message” for
Google, which he was hopeful would listen.
“Google is a great search engine and platform,” he
said, “but it should stick with that and leave the travel
industry alone
1.2 The facebook factor and the rise of WeChat
Speaking with Cuthbert on a Day 2 panel titled Which
Way Now: Google, Partnerships or Going Direct? was Brian
Harniman, a former Priceline executive who now runs
strategy firm Brand New Matter.
He wondered if the power of Facebook, which is investing
in infrastructure to support the commerce experience, was
being underestimated. So far, the OTAs have underfunded
Facebook marketing somewhat “just because they haven’t
seen yet the results that they want to”.
However, some travel brands have seen the power
Facebook and are already investing with satisfying
results. “Everybody knows the power of Facebook and
messenger,” said Arnaud Masson, CTO, Voyages-scnf.
com, who stressed that: “It [Facebook] should be an
extension of any website or app”.
Indeed, with 1.2 billion people now using Facebook
Messenger, you need to be there if you want to deliver a
great customer experience, said Masson, “otherwise you
aren’t where your customers are”.
One of the problems, said Anaal Patel, VP Marketing
Sparkcentral, is that “a lot of brands are scared [of
Facebook] as they don’t know how to manage
everything”. His advice was for brands to just take the
first step and start experimenting.
For a global travel brand, and especially those
wishing to capture a slice of the Asian market,
WeChat, which is used by 900 million people in
China to communicate, share and transact, cannot be
ignored. “The opportunity here is huge and untapped
across the board. And if the suppliers don’t integrate
The Top Questions from the Conference1. Why do hotels moan about a marketing cost of 15%. Every business has a cost to
acquire new and incremental customers. Moan about OTAs bidding on your brand, ok!
2. Re: Forbes & travel pubs - many steps occur prior to booking. What are your thoughts on content publishers as facilitators/owners?
3. How hard is it to get chatbots to interface with other systems, such as CMS, PMS?
4. What are you doing with the data to improve personalization and guest recognition?
5. How do you see the competition of Google Trip?
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it, the intermediaries will,” said Roy Graff, MD, EMEA,
Dragon Trail Interactive.
This point was highlighted again on Day 2 when Joel
Bravo, MD UK of Travelzoo said that while 72% of its
business comes from emails, that wasn’t enough to
drive growth, particularly in China, where they had
found that engagement and conversions were better
on WeChat.
1.3 The Hotel direct debate No travel industry conference would be complete
without a discussion about whether the hotels should
be investing time and money in driving direct bookings.
This also raised question of what a direct booking
actually is. As straight-talking de Jong put it, you can
hardly call a booking secured via Google ‘direct’.
Admittedly, strategies vary from hotel to hotel, with the big
chains putting their budgets into building a more loyal and
direct customer base. On the other hand, for smaller chains
and independent hotels OTAs, intermediaries and others
often play a central role, so it’s crucial to choose partners
and technology wisely. Here is some advice for hoteliers
that emerged over the two days…
focus on cost-per-acquisition and guest
experience
In speaking about disruption to traditional suppliers
from the OTAs and metasearch, and yes that includes
Google, as well as firms like Airbnb, CitizenM’s Lennert
de Jong said: “I don’t like it. But I have to accept it and
be smart about it.”
At CitizenM, they are not “religious” driving direct
bookings. Instead de Jong recommends focusing on
areas where you really can make a difference. In his
view, the priority should absolutely be on cost-per-
acquisition and on the experience at the hotel. “The
competitor is not the guy who sells your rooms. You
need to make sure the customer comes back – period,”
he said.
Richard Lewis of start-up what3words (formerly CEO of
Best Western and Landmark Hotels) agreed: “Travellers
rarely meet an OTA”.
And as Alex Saint Co-founder & CEO of flash luxury
hotels site Secret Escapes put it: “Without the
fundamental experience in-hotel, there will be no
loyalty.”
understand what technology can deliver and use
it wisely
All hoteliers agreed that it’s about leveraging the
customer experience at the hotel.
Ali Marreli, Head of Strategic Initiatives Group, Starwood
Hotels Group said when it made sense, hotels should
leave tech companies to focus on the technology.
Technology companies like the OTAs and metasearch
are “valuable partners,” he said, because they are,
ironically, also competitors. Explaining his view, Marreli
said the OTAs had helped hotels to become more
tech-savvy, and to think more carefully about how to
invest in technology.
Valuable they may be, but Harniman stressed that
hotels should never let anybody dictate their RM
practices. In fact, he believes that they should think
carefully about signing up for products like Priceline’s
RM product Booking Suite.
price dynamically
Formerly at Premier Inn (which has a focused direct
strategy) Arnout Groen, VP Business Development and
Hospitality, Fornova, said hoteliers need to be more
aware of indirect parties [like wholesalers] selling their
product at a much lower rate. Hotel strategy, he said,
should be “underpinned by data and tech, platforms
and technology and price parity.”
Price parity, in particular, was a big problem for
distribution and e-commerce, and hotels needed to
be more dynamic in the way they provide inventory. If
England is playing at Wembley, for example, there is no
point investing in other channels, for example, because
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people will be searching for hotels near Wembley.
Even the intermediaries agree: “The secret is
diversification. You need to make sure you are
distributing the rates to right channels,” said Jose Murta,
Global Head of Hospitality, Trivago. Trivago also argued
that the hotel chain should be the ultimate source of
information.
Most agree that it’s okay to acquire customers through
higher paid channels, but then it is crucial that they are
signed up to the CRM system and engaged with in the
way that good hoteliers should.
learn from the airlines and rM
Fernando Vives, CCO, NH Hotels Group said that in
taking lessons from the airlines, NH guests can now
choose their room in the same way fliers can choose
An emerging theme throughout the Summit was the growing importance of incorporating rail travel into the digital travel experience. Arnaud Masson of Voyages-sncf.com told attendees of how his company is creating bookings from Facebook Meesenger. Credit: Jennifer Moyes Photography.
their seat, or other supplementary products. In addition,
NH guests can book a range of ancillary products
through the website or app.
As de Jong highlighted later on Day 1, hotels
always have their “own stuff to sell”. So even is a
guest has come through another channel, offer
them something else – breakfast, late checkout or a
discounted spa treatment.
Pointing to the growing importance of RM, Vives said
many commercial roles at NH Hotels now require
people with a background in revenue management.
1.4 planes, Trains, buses and automobiles In travel distribution, there is a lot of excitement
about bringing the USD300 billion rail industry online,
and at EyeforTravel Europe, tech firms like SilverRail
Technologies and Voyages-sncf.com shared their
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insights into how they working to bring rail distribution
into the digital world.
Speaking to the conference theme of the need for firms
to diversify, Voyages-sncf.com CEO Arnaud Masson
said the plan is to sell more than just train tickets
via its online booking tool. Though “bloody difficult,”
Masson spoke of the importance of keeping it simple.
“Technology is the ‘how’, simplicity is the ‘goal’,” he said.
For Eurail CEO Brenda van Leeuwen, it was about
starting small. Her organisation is testing and trying
out various possibilities on the landing page, and then
looking for customer insights based on data.
As an indication of the shift of rail and bus travel online,
multimodal firms like Rome2Rio and Gopili, as well as
pure rail and bus aggregators, Loco2 and CheckmyBus,
were also well represented at EyeforTravel Europe.
According to Cuthbert, the move to multimodal had
been made possible by technology. “We couldn’t have
done this 20 years ago,” he said. However, there have
been challenges, not least collating schedules, some of
which has required Rome2Rio to go down to a bus stop
and take a photo of a schedule.
In this area, more consolidation is expected. As Cuthbert
put it: “Everything that is good gets bought.” Indeed,
just a few days after the conference finished Expedia
announced that it was taking a majority stake in
SilverRail Technologies.
The good news for rail and bus aggregators is that
they could have the upper hand on Google – for the
moment at least. “We don’t believe Google can become
critical in the bus space,” said Marc Hofmann, CEO,
CheckmyBus, simply because very few bus providers
are on Google. And the same is true of rail, where many
tickets are still paper-based.
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2.1 The Commercial reality All the talk may be about getting truly personal, driving
loyalty and building lasting relationships but the
bottom line is the bottom line. Saying what is often left
unsaid, Dirk Tietz, CTO of European travel group DER
Touristik, said: “We want to make money. We don’t just
want to be nice to customers.”
Goods news then, as the two naturally meet according
to Richard Harris, Chief Executive Officer, Intent Media
Inc: “Dollars will follow if you deliver on user experience”.
How this is achieved varies from brand to brand, but
most agreed that a crucial part of this is forming the
right partnerships, employing the best people and
choosing the right technology.
2.2 The right people Both Priceline’s Fogel and Momondo Group Managing
Director Pia Vemmelund stressed the importance of
corporate values and choosing the right people. Fogel
said in any merger or acquisition of a service company,
people were the biggest asset. Vemmelund said an
Creating Great Customer Experiences to Drive Loyalty
2.
Instilling company values have been critical to Momondo Group’s success said Pia Vemmelund and Hugo Burge. Credit: Jennifer Moyes Photography.
www.eyefortravel.com EyEforTravEl EuropE 2017 round-up | 13
early lesson what keeping on an executive just because
they were highly skilled wasn’t enough if they weren’t
aligned with corporate values.
Hotelplanner CEO Tim Hentschel said if you treat
everybody in your own organization with respect, the
feel-good factor would soon reach the customer too,
and drive loyalty as a result.
2.3 partnerships & promotion Tactics The travel industry is built on partnerships and day 2
keynoter Suzie Thompson, VP of marketing, distribution
& revenue at Red Carnation Hotels, said they were “an
absolute focus”.
Red Carnation is one of The Travel Corporation’s 30
brands and many share similar demographics, so the
objective, she said, was less about new customer
acquisition and more about sharing information and
data, that can be used for cross-marketing purposes.
One example of this was how the group uses
e-Learning techniques to educate travel agent partners
about products within each brand.
On the same panel was Alessandra di Lorenzo, Chief
Commercial Officer - Partnerships and Media, Lastminute.
com Group. She explained how the intrinsic synergy
between music and travel, backed up by data, led to
the Spotify-Lastminute.com partnership. According
to di Lorenzo, data showed that a high percentage of
lastminute.com customers use Spotify, making it the ideal
opportunity for cross-promotion. The two companies
have joined forces to offer a series of interactive maps,
playlists and podcasts, linked to ten different destinations.
Partnerships have also been crucial to the success
of ridesharing firm BlaBlaCar, which is working, for
example, with AXA to provide insurance for carpooling
and Total to encourage new drivers to sign up with a
EUR20 petrol voucher.
It is the customer that is driving this need for
partnerships. As Hjalti Baldursson, CEO, Bokun – a
distribution platform for tours and activities put it. “I
don’t see one company ruling the market. The customer
doesn’t want to be owned by anybody.”
On a similar note, Lufthansa Day 1 keynoter Roland
Schütz, EVP and Head of Information Management &
CIO Group Airlines, Deutsche Lufthansa (Eurowings,
Swiss, Austrian) said: “You can shape the customer
experience but you can’t shape the customer.”
2.4 The Importance of data As the opening conference poll showed, having the right
systems and technology was top of the agenda for 33%
of delegates. Central to the technology is investment in
data & analytics. As EyeforTravel’s recent Data & Analytics
Report reveals, 75% of executives looking to invest in this
area, and are expecting budgets to rise in 2017.
Eurail’s van Leeuwen stressed the point in an afternoon
session on Day 2: “Everybody in the organisation should
have an affinity with data.”
Schütz said having the “best data is the only chance of
being a preferred travel company”.
Through a series of digital programmes, including its
controversial partnership with Google, Lufthansa is
looking to transform into an “insights company”. Schütz
stressed that the inflight experience represents a unique
selling point for airlines and a huge opportunity, even
on short haul flights.
Access to data, however, requires “great responsibility”
and he emphasized that “you need to be 100% compliant
when it comes to permissions and preferences”.
2.5 apIs, relevance and Humanized Marketing
API partnerships are seen as another way to boost
the customer experience. Guy Stephenson, Chief
Commercial Officer Gatwick Airport, said opening their
API had helped airlines like EasyJet harness rich data to
deliver a highly successful app experience.
On how to address the user behaviour of the younger
generation, Lufthansa said APIs had a role to play too.
Said Schütz: “We have to enter their comfort zone. We
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have to meet them in their home turf. Even indirectly
through APIs, we need to be omnipresent in all channels,
and managing a consistent customer experience.”
Stephenson also pointed to shifting customer
behaviour in more general terms. In 2011 queues at
security were the big thing, he said, but today it’s about
making the airport experience more relevant so that
people can feel in control.
“Technology has transformed our passenger journey,” he
said. Since 2009, for example, queues had reduced from
40 to five minutes. In the airport environment customer
experience and productivity go hand in hand, and
operational efficiencies had revenue benefits because
“happy customers spend more money”.
In the marketing space, KLM has made some technology
choices in recent years that had a huge impact on the
customer experience. By using plug-and-play technology
from Relay42, the Dutch airline is doing what it describes
as “humanized marketing”.
In essence, this involves combining all data sources
to eliminate irrelevant and unnecessary messaging.
Curbing push messages is one example of how this
has worked. “[These] can be quite intrusive,” said Kevin
Duijndam, Cross-Channel Marketing Manager, KLM
Royal Dutch Airlines. “By removing those [unnecessary
notifications], we sent a lot fewer messages for almost
the same commercial result.”
2.6 Knowing your Customer drives Conversions
One company that has understood its high-end
demographic, and is driving value as a result, is UK luxury
tour operator Kuoni UK, which is owned by DER Touristik.
According DER Touristik’s Tietz, Kuoni’s goal is to
connect its customers to experts because the data
shows the average basket value rises in value when this
happens, potentially by as much as up to as 60% higher.
Although people no longer go into the physical store
as a first step, Kuoni took the decision to open 50 stores
in the UK, as part of its click-and-connect strategy. One
of its investments has been a marketing strategy brings
destinations to life through perfume in stores.
Guy Stephenson, Chief Commercial Officer Gatwick Airport, told the Summit how technology was transforming operations and customer experience from APIs to drones. Credit: Jennifer Moyes Photography.
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2.7 How to deliver the best Customer Experience Creating an unforgettable customer experience is difficult but established brands, which have invested heavily in the digital experience, had some advice.
Have the best ideation
Having a great concept is important and, according to Gerritt Goedkoop, CCO of edreams ODIGEO, early and continuous customer involvement is the best way to get this right. Qualitative and quantitative research is also crucial.
Smart small, then test and learn
At Voyages-sncf.com, for example, 300,000 volunteers tested the first version of its website, with feedback gathered from 18,000 people to inform what changes needed to be made. The e-commerce arm of the French rail operator has recently established a community of customers, and places great value on face-to-face interaction. A/B testing is another important step and to become more agile, eDreams ODIGEO has increased the number running by between two and three times. Fast-growing cheap flights company aggregator Kiwi.com also uses A/B tests for a whole variety of things, right down to the color of forms. “When we something doesn’t work, we just change it,” said Zdenek Komenda, Chief Business Development Officer, Kiwi.com.
If you have scale, use it
Goedkoop stressed that having scale helps. It means you can develop once, and roll out globally. If leveraged properly, this can “create multiplication factors” for any given project.
be speedy
Brands agree that agility is really important in today’s environment with many working to flatten hierarchy so that can teams can work more autonomously. With 400 developers in 50 agile teams, eDreams ODIGEO has seen a 70% reduction in delivery time in the past 12 months.
Take care of the customer
At Kuoni, customers are asked structured questions at three different stages, and their feedback is followed up. eDreams ODIGEO also has an integrated three-step service support strategy which involves pro-active care, self-care, which gives customers access to relevant information at their fingertips, and assisted care which includes increasing the quality of service and skilling up travel agents to upsell and cross-sell.
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3.1 Mobile and the March of the appsPriceline’s Fogel was of the view that the trend to
mobility is here to stay, and this seemed to reflect the
experience of numerous speakers. Healy, for one, said
20% of CarTrawler’s traffic is now mobile, and some
of its European partners had gone from 5% to 20% of
flights booked on mobile.
What this means is that “we can deliver notifications, we
have their location and we know their behaviour at the
destination. Obviously, that’s a bit scary, but it allows us
to be more relevant.”
According to Paul Barnes, Northern Europe and Middle
East Territory Director, App Annie, however, apps are
where it’s at today, a point he backed up with data (see
box).
Barnes was quick to stress, however, that it’s a privilege
to be one of the six to eight travel apps that a user
typically retains on their phone. This is, he said,
“a tremendous opportunity to engage with your
customers better than ever before.”
However, Reinhard Hochrieser, product manager of tech
firm, Jumio, pointed out there is still a lot of friction in
the mobile experience. Jumio has been working with
EasyJet, where one in four mobile bookings are now
made in-app, to streamline the in-app experience.
According to Hochrieser, the time it takes to check in on
a mobile has, as a result, fallen from 120 seconds to just
20, cumulatively saving consumers around 4,500 hours.
Agreeing that more work is needed was Amadeus’s
Ghassan Teffaha, the tech firm’s global head of sales and
business development, mobile, said that that around
20% of the apps in the app store need to be rewritten.
3.2 Mobile payment Issues In Europe, one major hurdle is the payment and
regulatory hurdles in some countries. “It’s ridiculous to
book on mobile if you have to take out your 3D secure
system,” Teffaha said. He added that until the continent
achieves advanced one-click payment, mobiles
bookings in Europe will continue to lag the rest of the
world.
As Emilie Mouquot, director of SEM, Viator, a Tripadvisor
company, pointed out, 68% of consumers have
abandoned an online retail site due to its payment
process.
How to deal with that is something that travel brands
will need to address.
3.
Emerging Technologies, Trends and Challenges
2016: apps in numbers ■■ 900 billion – hours spent in apps in
2016
■■ 3 billion – the number of travel apps people downloaded
■■ 10 – the number different apps used daily
■■ 6-8 – typical number of travel apps installed on a phone
■■ 2 hours – the time users spend using apps each day
Source: App Annie
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Asked where he thought the travel industry was
heading with emerging technology Fogel said the
use of artificial intelligence – machine learning, deep
learning and natural language processing, “which do
things like personalization” would help to solve the
problems that customers face today faster. While he was
hesitant to predict how long this would take, he said
3.3 ar, aI, nlp…What Is Hip and What Is Hype?
In opening the event on May 3, EyeforTravel’s Langford
conducted a short poll, which asked ‘which emerging
technologies excite you most?’
Coming up trumps was machine learning and artificial
intelligence (AI), with 44% of the vote, followed by
chatbots and natural language processing (29%),
Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR; 14%),
and blockchain (10%). Although machine learning and
AI came top in both EyeforTravel’s European and San
Francisco summits, Europeans were far more excited by
natural language processing, whereas in North America
AR/VR was generating the most excitement behind AI.
The hype around emerging technologies is certainly
growing, but Rome2Rio’s Cuthbert argued that there
is ‘no silver bullet technology’. The only thing that
mattered, he said, was the user experience.
Singing from a similar hymn sheet was Healy who
believes there is a role for machine learning and AI but
warned: “Don’t make a huge investment unless you have
a large data set”. He was among several other speakers
to emphasize the importance of data at scale being
necessary before findings could be derived from it.
Which of the Following Emerging Technologies Excites You Most?
50%
45%
40%
35%
30%
25%
20%
15%
10%
5%
0%
Perc
enta
ge
Machine learning / AI
44% 45%
Augmented reality / Virtual
reality
n EyeforTravel Europe 2017
n EyeforTravel San Francisco Summit 2017
10%
27%
Robotics
0% 0%
Chatbots and natural language
processing
29%
14%
Internet of things
8%
3%
Blockchain
9% 8%
Other
0%
3%
Glenn Fogel, CEO of Priceline, predicted that voice search would be a big technology of the future. Credit: Jennifer Moyes Photography.
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center stage in travel, there is still much work to do with
analytics and uncertainty remains. Artificial intelligence
and algorithms can solve certain problem, but “to
recognize uncertainty requires humans – at least for the
moment” said Esser.
Overall, the panel remained optimistic that in the
future humans will continue to be more innovative
and creative than AI and the two working together
will drive value and deliver new services. For example,
Skyscanner data scientist Neal Lathia, said that in the
past 12 months, the company had rolled out machine
learning to understand how travellers are searching and
browsing for destinations, leading to engagement rise
by as much as 10%.
3.4.1 Case Study: Edwardian Hotels Shares the Tricks to a Chatbot
For some there may not be ‘no silver bullet’ technology,
but a case study from UK luxury hotel brand Edwardian
Hotels, showed how fully committing to a technology
can reap rewards. Speaking on Day 1 on a panel on
using conversational commerce to engage, sell and
drive loyalty, Director of Technology for Edwardian,
Michael Mrini shared their chatbot tricks.
What really got Mrini, a hotelier and programmer,
thinking about a chatbot were regular emails from
guests, with queries ranging from ‘Can I have spaghetti
bolognaise when I arrive at 2am?’ to ‘Is breakfast
included?’ and most commonly ‘Is my room ready?’
All were queries that could be dealt with by a system
and so Edward, the virtual host, was born. Using
check-in data from Opera, its hotel management
system, Edwardian automatically texts people who
share their mobile number with a link that enables
them to message the Edward.
Not only has the system help free up staff time by
handling both simple and complex requests to improve
the guest experience, it has also provided additional
insights into guest behavior. With location data, the
hotel can, for example, better understand a customer’s
needs while they are away from the hotel.
when the technology is able to deliver for people, “they
will keep coming back to your brand”.
One trend he felt sure about was voice-activated search.
“I have a daughter of 16 and son of 13 and I don’t think
they know how to type: they speak into the phone.
That’s the trend that’s definitely coming down the road,”
he said.
For Masson, whose company Voyages-sncf.com was
one of the first to create a chatbot for customer service
through Facebook Messenger, continuing to invest in
customer interaction methods is a no-brainer. In a nod
from Facebook, Voyages-sncf.com was invited to the
tech giant’s F8 conference to highlight their successful
partnership.
Gatwick too is on the bandwagon of emerging tech.
It’s experimenting with a virtual shopping assistant, an
electronic nose to replace the sniffer dog, and drones
for runway inspection. It already has a chatbot with
AI working in the background and is, according to
Stephenson, “hoovering up data, which will eventually
be used to make the customer experience more
relevant”.
Interestingly, Gatwick is working to make the building
more intelligent by installing things like passive WiFi,
which finds the customer, rather than the customer
having to search for it. In doing this, Stephenson
says they are able to make more intelligent decisions
about which shops are first in flow, leading to direct
commercial benefits.
3.4 augmented Intelligence and the data Trail
In the conference closing debate, titled Man vs
Machine: Is the Data Future Tech or People, there was
a discussion about redundancy of humans if emerging
technologies become mainstream.
Former Thomas Cook Group Director Joerg Esser, a
theoretical physicist and now consultant at Roland
Berger, said he preferred the term “augmented
intelligence”. Because while data is now absolutely
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If there was any doubt that a chatbot can’t mimic
humans, Edwards has been left feedback on TripAvisor
and even tips by guests. Says Mrini: “Hardly any of the
guests realized this was a system.… It has fooled our
guests into thinking it was a human being”.
Having said that, he insisted that “it’s not taking a
human place but assisting the humans,” echoing
the sentiments expressed by the AI panel. “Edward
is helping staff, allowing them to spend more time
doing what they enjoy doing, interacting with staff
face to face. Try answering the phone and giving the
hotel address again and again: it drives you crazy. Let a
machine do that.”
What Mrini was also clear about was this: “Any type of
bot or automated system is only as smart and capable
as the data. You need to start with API-level access, to
access the data you need.”
With the right data, such as accumulated feedback
on how quickly towels were delivered after Edward
was asked for them, the firm can better understand
year-on-year improvements.
The chatbot has also helped identify missed revenue
opportunities. For example, some guests didn’t know
there was a spa in a hotel until Edward alerted them to
availability.
3.5 Startup Stardom What3Words, the winner of this year’s Startup & Innovation competition had the conference hall abuzz with excitement on Day 2.
Winning 83% of the audience vote over runner up Dazzle, a voice-activated application for hotels that using Amazon Echo, this exciting newcomer proved that innovation is anything but dead.
The firm has divided the world into 57-trn three-square-meter blocks, each with a unique, unchanging three-word geocode that has been translated into 14 languages.
CMO Giles Rhys Jones said the codes are already being used by tourist organisations and hotels, as well as event and transport firms, and more. Using this advanced addressing system, travellers need never get lost again. And in the UK, where people spend 22 million hours getting lost each year, that can only be a good thing.
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