Albert Einstein once said:"The deeper the crisis, the bigger the growth". I concur.
We had never experienced such a downfall in our economies but even more importantly, experienced emotional distress as we do and did in the past 4 months. It has not been easy, but we are becoming better and stronger
The good news is that soon enough we will have more than 2 billion vaccines to cure our humanity and 3 large pharmaceutical companies are already talking about a December 2020 production.
A recent study done by Revinate shows that more than 74% of travelers will prefer a hotel over Airbnb due to cleanliness and the new protocol´s implementation.
I have traveled for a weekend to Puerto Vallarta 3 weekends ago with 3 friends and it felt like we were on a different planet, to start with it was amazing to go out of Mexico City and change the mood we are in. Then to go to the beach and walk barefoot on the sand, eat the local food, and enjoy the warm climate, it is priceless!
The weekend went very well, the airport and Aeromexico's staff seem to have a good grasp of the new protocols and procedures and were pleased to have costumers traveling more than ever.
We chose an Airbnb for our first travel experience since we wanted to have social distancing practices as much as possible. The apartment we selected had been available for the last 3 months and we were the first to stay there since February.
I hope that people will want to travel very soon. It's now a matter of trust.
As everyone in our industry has suffered one way or the other from the effects of the pandemic, owners of big establishments got hit harder trying to keep employees on board if and where possible.
Here in Odentio, we ended up losing some clients that couldn't pay since they were closed and didn't generate income, others postponed our services to the end of the year, and others are still and will work with Odentio in the coming next months through this crisis. One of our main roles is generating cash flow for them to be able to operate wisely. Get business coming in for November onwards and selling for a short term 60 days ahead is a good base of business.
If you want to get a higher market share of the business to your hotel in the coming 3 years, you will need to invest and become digitally savvy and up to date.
In Odentio we just recently started to offer our services on social business networks, and in the last week alone we generated more than 4 new clients that are interested in having all their sales and marketing efforts concentrated and focused on the most important changes in the marketplace. We are privileged and grateful!
See below the latest market behaviors:
- Short stays of one or two nights are now a thing.
- The national market is not reactivated as expected due to the COVID-19 situation and development in Mexico. More than 80% of our customers that are still booking, are from the USA.
- More walk-ins are received since guests can afford to arrive in a destination with no Hotel reservation and choosing where to stay and negotiate the best deal at the front desk.
- Increase direct booking.
- Only 36% of the airlift is available vs last year and every month more flights and hotel rooms are opening.
- Quick responses and flexibility in policies and offerings.
- More rooms offer and less demand.
- Last-minute booking is increasing.
- Length of stay is reducing by 1.2 nights vs last year.
- New cleaning and sanitization policies are applied increasing operational costs by up to 8% vs last year.
- Possibly all hotel guests will need to use a mask in the coming few months.
To be able to compete with international chains and big regional collections, one needs to step up and reengineering the entire sales and marketing plans and strategies.
- Today more than ever a digital marketing campaign needs to be very well thought of and assuring to communicate the right message to the right client in the correct geo origin, at the right moment with the right attractive offer to make people book a room.
- Reservations and front desk agents should be empowered to give better deals online to close the deal before the client hangs the phone.
- Seamless messages in all channels to assure branding is key.
- Sales Agents should be trained to understand sales in a pandemic
- Evaluation of the main actors in operations and administration should be conducted.
- Consistency and organizational restructure should be considered.
- The cost of your actual sales and Marketing areas needs to be reviewed and changed.
- Reporting and measurements are more important than ever.
- Using the right operational and reservation systems is imperative, CRM, GDS, Booking engine, channel manager, PMS among others.
In today's business, it's not about doing things, it's about rethinking all that we used to do and change it to become an ROI based.
It is all about how you will build your plan and strategies from scratch.
Our teams and our people are the most important asset in the industry, and we need to continue to nurture and take care of them. Provide them and their families with the right working conditions is a priority to assure the wellbeing of your organization.
Stay safe,
Hannan Zanzuri
CEO & Founder