rate,” says Youssef. “There could be adjacent rooms at different prices. Selling won’t be based on price and location as in the past.” What might this mean for comparison shopping? He says: “I don’t think we understand the full implications of this yet, but there are parallels with the airlines. “I don’t think anyone thought 10 years ago that airlines would be making $80 billion from ancillaries. What airlines have done with ancillary services is what attribute shopping will look like in some ways.” Does he foresee a similar process
unfolding in hospitality to that in aviation, where airlines are seeking to extend ancillary sales and personalised fare offers through third-party retailers via new distribution capability (NDC) technology? Youssef says: “Eventually online travel
agents will need to have the capability to offer consumers attribute-based offers. But it’s in the hands of the hotels. “We work with all the industry players. It is up to the hotels when they choose to do that [make attribute-based shopping available]. It could be an advantage to them.”
Evolving hospitality technology The shift towards attribute-based shopping requires evolution of the supporting technology. “The property management system [PMS] is not the centre of gravity anymore [in hospitality],” says Youssef. “We see a convergence of the property management system and central reservations systems [CRS]. There is a lot of common functionality
within the PMS and CRS. We are converging these into a single platform.” Youssef notes: “There are at least 15 customer touchpoints in a hotel. Data must be shared between systems, and future platforms will enable this in a seamless fashion.” He suggests: “There are still several challenges to overcome. Our new Amadeus Hospitality Platform is the first of its kind. “While many in the industry are talking about attribute-based retailing capabilities, what they are actually selling is attribute filtering. True attribute-based shopping requires complex control and management of attribute inventory at the central reservations level and at property management levels. “We’ve made significant progress on this
front and we’re excited to begin seeing the technology in action.” Amadeus completed the rollout of a guest
reservation system with InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) at the end of 2018. IHG’s more than 5,600 properties across 15 brands are now live on the system and updates to the platform will include attribute-based selling. Youssef dismisses the suggestion that
OF EUROPE’S major markets, the
UK shows the highest rates of online cross-border purchasing (Figure 40).
France has the most accommodation businesses of Europe’s markets, but Germany the most enterprises of medium size and the UK and Spain the largest number of big businesses (Figure 41)
technology threatens jobs. He insists: “Hospitality is a human-to-human business. Human-augmented technology will help hoteliers offer more information about guests so they can create personalised experiences. But it’s not people or technology. You need the right balance between automation and human interaction.
“A rich, personalised experience will become normal.”
FIGURE 41: ACCOMMODATION BUSINESSES Top-8 destinations, total enterprises
10,000 20,000 30,000 40,000 50,000 60,000 52,000
0 46,500 50,000 30,000 22,000
27,000 17,000 16,500
Enterprises employing 50-249 Enterprises employing 250-plus
1,000 1,500 2,000
500 0
275 1,660 1,260 780 370 385 230 270
100 150 200
50 0
40 190 140 100 35 40 25 20 Source: Eurostat
France Germany Greece Italy Portugal Spain UK
Austria
Travel Weekly Europe Report 2019 | 25
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