ABT-ACTE Russia seminar for hoteliers: run hard to remain competitive
Moscow hoteliers gathered in one of the conference halls of Izmailovo Alfa on October 6: the topic of ABT-ACTE Russia educational seminar was world trends in the market of hotel marketing and advertisement. Participants discussed what the expectations of the new generation of business travellers were like, how to manage guest opinion and why hotel brands should act like publishers.
Accompanied by the aroma of morning coffee, invited speaker Ekaterin Scherbakova met seminar participants. Global sales director of Preferred Hotel Group in Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan, she started her professional career in Marriott Tverskaya reservation team. Having gained working experience both in international and Russian hotel chains and acquired professional education apart from two higher educations and having completed the course of the oldest Swiss hospitality school Ecole Hotelier de Lausanne, Ms Scherbakova has proved her worth as the leading expert in business travel and hotel business. «For the past 10 years the hospitality industry has experienced such tremendous changes that we just can’t ignore them», Ms Scherbakova started her speech. «Do you remember the words from „Alice in Wonderland“? „It takes all the running you can do to stay in the same place“. Now we have to run as hard to remain competitive».
Taking into account that another 150 hotels are going to be opened in Moscow in the next few years, the problem of keeping the customers you already have and attracting new ones is getting more and more important for hospitality industry representatives. The generation of people who are the main hotel customers is changing. At the same time it leads to changes in hotel marketing. Ekaterina Scherbakova spoke in detail about four generations of guests and their different attitudes to hotel services.
«We position Aminevskaya as a business hotel, but also want teenagers and kids feel at home, because they are our future customers», Marina Biruykova, sales department assistant of the hotel says. «We have rather few guests of this category, but it is important for us to make a good impression on them as well, and to make them return to our hotel when they grow up. So today’s educational seminar has been very useful for us».
The seminar was also devoted to ten trends in hotel marketing that would shape industry development in the coming years. In the modern world bush telegraph in the Internet works very quickly and influences the traveller’s choice. Bad name spreads much quicker than the good one: data show that a satisfied customer can affect the decision of another 9 prospective customers, and an unsatisfied one — the decision of another 17 customers. Ms Scherbakova paid special attention to the process of working with reviews and creating your own content marketing, when hotel brands virtually act like publishers (it is important to publish news and photos of your hotel before someone else does it instead of you).
At the same time, according to the speaker, the main problem of the Russian hospitality industry is its weak reaction to customer reviews, poor work with social networks and the website, as well as the lack of leadership on the part of management. It is crucial to put into the heads of your team the importance of establishing relations with guests and colleagues, sharing your knowledge, learning and being an example of words meeting actions.
Ekaterina Scherbakova provided up-to-date information, as well as brought examples of global hotel chains already working with trends and introducing new developments. Participants exchanged their opinions and experience. «Behind-the-scenes discussion is a very important part of educational sessions, because public information and statistics provided by official sources differ from the real market situation considerably. The facts that are declared do not always reflect the real market», Andrey Mikhailets, commercial director of Astrus Moscow City Hotel notes.
Natalia Travova