NEWS YOU CAN USE — TECHNOLOGY NEWS
TECHNOLOGY NEWS YOU CAN USE
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Digital strategy, apps and online loyalty were among the themes of the Travel Distribution Europe 2015 summit. LEE HAYHURST and JENNIFER MORRIS report from the London event
TECHNOLOGY NEWS IN BRIEF
Hotels ‘can’t match new loyalty to online retailers’ Hotel companies should embrace online travel agents rather than resist them, according to the director of distribution at citizenM Hotels. Lennert de Jong said there is a new loyalty to booking intermediaries that hotels will struggle to match.
citizenm.com
OAG boss warns of perils of using data erroneously An over-reliance on data is leading to “paralysis by analysis”, according to a data provider. John Grant, executive vice-president of airline data supplier OAG, said: “Are we becoming over-reliant on using data in wrong ways? It’s all just in an Excel pivot chart. That’s dangerous. The brain knows what to do in ways a computer doesn’t.”
oag.com
‘Peel the onion to digitally transform your business’ Lee Hayhurst
Digital transformation in business is like peeling an onion to get to the core – an anology much-used in the world of physics. That is what former physicist
Joerg Esser, now head of longtail at Thomas Cook and managing director of bed bank Hotels4U, told the summit.
“It’s about finding the core and shaping everything the company is doing around that core,” said Esser. “Many companies, particularly incumbents, just scratch the surface.” Esser offered some key
action points to drive digital transformation, starting with having a clear strategy, Citing US low-cost pioneer
Southwest Airlines, he said: “There is something about a simple strategy – we recognise it when it works but the difficulty is coming up with it. Simplicity is about
App users have a positive impact on the bottom line – Tui
California Dreams...
I’ll never forget playing the piano in the lounge
of Frank Sinatra’s Twin Palms Estate during a Travel Weekly Cover Stars photoshoot – a slice of cool in the baking heat of the desert.
Robin Searle, Travel Weekly
Customers who engage with brands via apps are significantly stronger advocates than those who don’t, Tui reported. Mobile strategy director John Boughton said Tui had some “hard lessons to learn” when it started developing its mobile app two years ago. Tui designed its app to be a
‘digital assistant’. It is intended to help the customer throughout their journey, from researching their holiday to finding things to do when they get there. Boughton said that in some markets 50% of customers
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travelweekly.co.uk — 21 May 2015
‘Firms that know how to peel the onion will come out on top,’ says Cook’s Joerg Esser
finding a solution for something. It does not work if you have to explain too many exceptions.” Esser, who previously worked for Thomas Cook in the Netherlands, said Southwest focused on online conversion, taking the proportion from 10% to 80% 18 months ago. He added that the challenge
was not to add to customers’ options but to strip some away and provide a friction-free world.
downloaded the new app within nine months of its launch. “We did some research and app users have a Net Promoter Score 14 points higher than non-app users,” he said. “So if an app is done well, it can have a really
App design: Tui’s guide
1. Focus on simplicity, especially if your business model is complicated.
2. Eliminate friction points and customer effort.
3. Make the app exciting. 4. Remember that consumers today are impatient.
5. Be warned: an app is more like a baby than a parcel.
Firms should approach the
problem scientifically, but should not get carried away with data, said Esser. Finally, he said firms should mimic Apple and run their organisations like a network of individuals and “declutter”. “Firms that know, thoroughly and
vigorously, how to peel the onion will come out on top,” said Esser.
thomascook.com
positive bottom line impact.” Boughton outlined five lessons
Tui learned for developing a mobile app (box). He added: “In September last
year our app went down for four days and its rating was decimated to 1 star. We’ve only now got it back up to 5 stars. “The score is very public. Assume customers are going to be impatient.” Talking about the importance
of keeping the app ‘exciting’, Boughton added: “We have a calendar countdown feature which is really popular.
“These types of shiny features
may sound frivolous, but often it is these that keep people coming back time and time again.”
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