Staying ahead with Worldhotels in a time starved world: Michael Ball - CEO Worldhotels talks to ABTN.Within the UK, as across Europe and much of the World, time has to be recognized as the greatest global commodity. We are always short of it and everyone in the business world wants to stay one step ahead of it.
As a result to save time, the modern world is one of constant access to information and communication channels, where decisions and purchases are made with maximum efficiency and effort. Retailers have had to respond to this changing marketplace, hence the ability to buy clothes and DVDs in supermarkets, to fill up on groceries when you buy petrol, in addition of course to the absolute need for an effective web presence.
This is never more prevalent than in the tourism industry where online bookings account for over a quarter of the total travel market within Europe. Consumers have decided that the best use of their time is to book online. But how best can we answer the travel consumer needs and indeed even stay one step ahead of our competitors? How can we ensure price transparency and rate parity on third party distribution channels? Or how best to deal with customer feedback sites? These are the greatest challenges but also opportunities for the hotel industry especially independent hoteliers and small chains, which within Europe account for over 70% of the hotel inventory.
Here at Worldhotels, we continue to overcome these challenges with our new revamped website, www.worldhotels.com. The site has been designed to deliver on all functionality aspects; from offering an effective online booking service to customer feedback facets and effective customer relationship tools.
But it is the extra functionalities of which we are especially proud, the rich content that enables us to be a full service website for all of our customers; be they business travel and meeting and incentive planners, end consumers, travel agents or hoteliers.
These tools include the Google Map Search, a five day weather forecast for every destination in addition to destination information, independent reviews on every hotel through the leading travel website, TripAdvisor and the unique ”Get Inspired" search function. With this, consumers can choose their preferred climate, experiences and activities and then match their personal choices with relevant hotel offers.
Travel agents and meeting planners also benefit from this tool because it is an extra service to compliment the hugely important GDS. Some of these facets are available on other travel sites, but we have them all together onto one site in order to save users valuable time.
Specifically for agents we offer a dedicated portal. WORLDHOTELS.beconnected, where registered agents will receive trade discounts, commission payments and loyalty bonuses, a must for any agent. Additionally, the meeting planners tool, WORLDHOTELS.events is being further developed.
Introduced in 2005 as the industry”s first comprehensive meeting product online, the site has been further enhanced to maximise time efficiency. This includes a quick search function for meeting destinations, detailed presentation of hotel facilities and amenities and services offered.
But this isn't the end of our developments ” we will continue to create and implement time saving devices in order to keep our website users and every one of our hotels one step ahead of time. There is a saying, "time is what prevents everything from happening at once" ” we are doing our level best to disprove this theory!