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eCornell Success Stories: Ted Teng, CEO, The Leading Hotels of the World

Ted Teng is CEO of Leading Hotels of the World. eCornell’s online courses remain central to professional development programming at LHW’s Leading Learning Institute, which offers training opportunities for staff at member properties and for LHW corporate employees.

With more than 450 member hotels in 80 countries, LHW’s global workforce can access online training and earn Ivy League credentials, with courses covering hotel revenue management, leadership, strategic management and marketing. eCornell’s collaborative social learning platform also enables LHW to better develop core competencies and consistent values among member hotels across the globe. Click here to learn more.


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What you need to know about new media right now

This article, written by eCornell CEO Christopher Proulx, was originally published in HotelsMag.com.

As the marketing landscape explodes with new media channels, hospitality marketers have an increased number of methods by which to raise the visibility of their brands. Gone are the days of relying solely on static print ads or run-of-the-mill television commercials. Instead, in the world of new media, hotels can reach customers in a more dynamic and engaging way. Finding the ways in which to maximize this opportunity starts with an in-depth understanding of the new media landscape.

Here are the top three things every hotel marketer needs to know right now:

Evolving media brings more opportunity for creativity

As dollars continue to shift away from traditional media to new media channels, there is a world of opportunity for marketers to shine from a creative perspective. By leveraging new media tools, hotels can offer guests a chance to more fully engage with a brand before making a decision to book travel. For example, some hotels provide virtual tours of rooms and unique property features (such as world class pools, water slides, spas). This allows customers to try before they buy in a way that’s much more meaningful than a static marketing piece. Video has also become an integral part of new media marketing as we see premium brands create professional pieces in an effort to convey what a guest might experience during a hotel stay. (The Ritz Carlton does this very well). Because there are now so many new ways to connect with customers, creative elements can go a long way in a new media campaign. Now more than ever, generating creative social media content needs to be built into a hotel’s marketing strategy.

Consistent messaging is key

With the increase in marketing channels comes the increased need for hotels to monitor their marketing message. One major change as it relates to communication is the consumer’s ability to influence the brand. Consumers routinely recommend hotels online, and reviews, both positive and negative are widely accessible online. That means that variation in the way that a hotel is discussed online should both be anticipated and addressed. In addition, the way a hotel is described through social media channels can differ from the rest of the messaging if the social media strategist is not working closely with the brand team. The result? A diluted message about what a customer can expect from a particular hotel experience. Now more than ever, hospitality marketers must be mindful of all marketing communication, including monitoring online reviews and discussion, responding where appropriate, and develop a tight messaging to be used throughout all channels.

The importance of search will continue to grow

Over the last several years, search engine optimization (SEO) has become critical to the hospitality industry. According to a recent Google study, 78 percent of all hotel transactions involved search at some stage of travel selection by the consumer, and 61 percent of people making online hotel transactions were directly referred to a hotel website by a search engine. With the migration fromhorizontal search (i.e looking at options a thousand miles wide but one inch deep) to vertical search (i.e. looking more narrowly at one particular point in the search process), the specific focus on the travel industry and the introduction of social filtering through search, today’s hospitality marketers must understand how to leverage search marketing in order to stay competitive.

The bottom line is this. In the fast-paced world of new media, hospitality marketers must stay informed and nimble. Each day is a new opportunity to reach potential customers in a meaningful way, which is why a deep understanding of new media tools is a must for hospitality marketers.

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The Best Way to Handle Variable Pricing?

Broadway-style. In hospitality, a huge part of successfully managing revenue lies in striking that perfect balance between price, inventory/availability, demand–and, of course, anticipating buying behaviors. Here Felix Salmon heads down Broadway to see how variable pricing in ticket vending has led to sold-out shows, happy customers, and overjoyed theater owners.

 

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Actual Human Beings Now Booking Travel

How do you explain a 10% bump in leisure and business travel booked through traditional agencies that are staffed by real people? Two reasons:

1. Emerging from the wreckage of the global recession, the travel industry is picking up steam. In both 2010 and 2011, there’s been a 10% increase in bookings through traditional travel agencies. Their bookings account for a third of the $284 billion U.S. travel market. In 2009, however, things were really grim, nearly hopeless: bookings through brick-and-mortar agencies plummeted 23% that year. But as the economy goes, so goes corporate travel.

Here’s where it gets interesting…

2.  About the convenience and immediacy of booking travel online? Turns out it’s a drag for many people. It’s way too time-consuming and there are simply too many options. Time-consuming? In a survey of 2,000 travelers, Steve Peterson of the I.B.M. Institute for Business Value found 20% complaining that it took them over five hours to search and book travel online. Almost 50% of respondents said they spent more than two hours booking travel. “It’s come to a point that it’s too much information to be confident that they have the ability to book the lowest fare,” or uncover the best place to stay, says Peterson. “Consumers are hungry for that one-and-done shopping experience.”

And to think that for over a decade, we thought that flesh-and-blood travel agents would go the way of the dinosaur. Turns out they’ve mastered the very technology that was supposed to bring about their extinction, providing around-the-clock service via text, email, instant messaging, and social networks. The rest of us don’t have the time to book our own travel anymore.

[via HotelMarketing.com]

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Does Pinterest Work for Hospitality?

The jury’s still out on whether Pinterest is the new Facebook. But note that in a mere 9 months, Pinterest went from 50,000 users to 17 million, where it took Facebook 16 months to get there. Whether or not the phenomenon lasts, of course, remains to be seen.

However, if you’re curious about Pinterest and want to throw something new into your marketing mix, think about how you’d like to convey the customer experience in a creative, original way. Say you operate a restaurant in an eclectic, hip, buzzworthy part of town. Pin photos of places of interest around and nearby your place, as would a tour guide. Pin photos of unsung landmarks, living, breathing culture, street musicians and artists then pin photos of elaborate drinks served at your bar, enticing dinner specials, even candid staff shots.

Pinterest can be just as useful for hotels, in that a majority of your guests are out-of-towners who are largely unfamiliar with the lay of the land. Pin photos of popular destinations, recommended dining establishments, event coverage from the hotel, perhaps you can feature architectural flourishes in the hotel that don’t convey in marketing materials. Don’t these possibilities sound exciting?

This is your chance to play tour guide/concierge/ambassador to the city for your guests. “When it comes to pinning, the breakdown should be approximately 70% about the city and 30% about the hotel”  says Kelli Crean, eCommerce Manager for the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City. You’re free to play around with those percentages any way you like, but that’s a good rough guideline to follow. Creating your own pinboard is free, and easy to manage and maintain, from a human resource standpoint. Why not give it a shot?

[hat tip to Carol Verrett]

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Building a Global Talent Management Strategy

If you missed the eCornell webinar titled Building a Global Talent Management Strategy and would like to view it, or would like to share with colleagues, the archive is available at ecornell.cornell.edu/mar14archive. The presentation slides are at ecornell.cornell.edu/mar14ppt.

In today’s marketplace, going global is more necessity than luxury, as businesses regularly find customers, suppliers and partners from all over the map. That broader focus for business requires a global talent management strategy to properly support a global initiative.

We’ll show you what a global talent management strategy consists of, how to build one that delivers measurable business outcomes and how to deploy to a diverse global workforce. During this interactive webinar, Heidi Spirgi, co-founder and president of Knowledge Infusion, will walk you through the process and steps organizations need to go through to build and deploy a global talent management strategy:

  • How to tie your talent management strategy to business initiatives.
  • The importance of developing a long-term talent management strategy to have better business results.
  • How a successful talent management strategy is one designed for the workforce, not the HR department.
  • Why HR departments cannot focus on “go live” when deploying talent management solutions, but rather must focus on user adoption and outputs, ensuring the new system is driving outcomes aligned with the business, not HR goals.

 

 

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Case Study: Helping the U.N. Keep the Peace

“People are more motivated than ever before, which has unquestionably led to improved delivery of the missions’ mandate.”

Staffing Field Missions Around the World
The United Nations Department of Field Support (UNDFS) manages personnel, finance, logistics, information and communication technology for United Nations’ field-based peace operations around the world.

There are currently 464 DFS staff at UN Headquarters in support of 33 field operations involving over 100,000 military, police and civilian personnel. Among other things, the UNDFS is charged with providing human resources training and certification for 600 United Nations HR personnel, particularly in developing and strengthening HR practitioners’ core capabilities so that performance is consistent with UN objectives.

Solving a Global HR Training Challenge
However, the UN had discovered core-skills competency gaps in a large contingent of global HR practitioners. There were also specific deficiencies in leadership and strategic management skills among higher-level supervisors and managers. Because HR practitioners and supervisors face all manner of social, political and physical challenges in the field, establishing UN-standardized practices and protocols for human resources is particularly vital. Ensuring a global standard, however, was proving difficult within the UN framework for HR training.

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Invitation to eCornell’s Cocktail Reception at the HR in Hospitality Conference & Expo

Network with members of the eCornell team, as well as faculty from Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration and School of Industrial & Labor Relations.

Tuesday, February 28
5:30pm – 8:00pm
Hilton San Francisco – Financial District
750 Kearny Street
San Francisco, CA
RSVP Online

Are you attending this year’s HR in Hospitality Conference & Expo in San Francisco? If so, we invite you to join us for a cocktail reception at the Hilton San Francisco following the conference. Join your peers at the bar, meet eCornell’s Hospitality Group and make connections with faculty and staff from Cornell University’s world-famous School of Hotel Administration and the School of Industrial and Labor Relations.

We’ll provide an open bar for the first hour and appetizers throughout the evening. We hope you’re able to join us for this unique networking opportunity at this year’s HR in Hospitality Conference & Expo.

RSVP Online

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“Advanced” is the key word in Hospitality Revenue Management.

This isn’t your mother’s Revenue Management program, that’s for sure.

What does eCornell’s new certificate program Advanced Revenue Management: Pricing & Demand Strategies have that other programs don’t?

  1. For starters, this certificate program was developed with one of the world’s leading authorities on Revenue Management, Dr. Chris Anderson from Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration. He advises leaders at world-renowned hotels, airlines, rental car and tour companies, in addition to consumer goods and financial services firms on how to update, fine-tune and execute their revenue management strategies.
  1. In 2012, knowing how to manage revenue is simply not enough. Since Revenue Management broke into the mainstream years ago, strategies for pricing, inventory and demand manipulation need to be kept current. Knowing the fundamentals will only get you so far in this game. This new program shares advanced pricing and demand strategies.
  1. With the proliferation of mobile technologies, consumer behaviors and purchasing patterns change rapidly from one day to the next. Hospitality 2.0 comes with a whole new set of rules for driving profits and steady growth. And that begins with high-level strategies that more accurately anticipate consumer behaviors.
  1. This is essentially the only advanced Revenue Management program of its kind. If you’re a general manager, revenue and finance manager, operations manager, or a sales or marketing professional with over 3 years of experience working on the financial performance of your organization, this program is most certainly for you.

To learn more about this unique new online certificate program, please go here.

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Building a Global Talent Management Strategy

In today’s marketplace, going global is more necessity than luxury, as businesses regularly find customers, suppliers and partners from all over the map. That broader focus for business requires a global talent management strategy to properly support a global initiative.

We’ll show you what a global talent management strategy consists of, how to build one that delivers measurable business outcomes and how to deploy to a diverse global workforce. During this interactive webinar, Heidi Spirgi, co-founder and president of Knowledge Infusion, will walk you through the process and steps organizations need to go through to build and deploy a global talent management strategy:

  • How to tie your talent management strategy to business initiatives.
  • The importance of developing a long-term talent management strategy to have better business results.
  • How a successful talent management strategy is one designed for the workforce, not the HR department.
  • Why HR departments cannot focus on “go live” when deploying talent management solutions, but rather must focus on user adoption and outputs, ensuring the new system is driving outcomes aligned with the business, not HR goals.

Presented by Heidi Spirgi, Co-Founder & President of Knowledge Infusion
March 14, 2012
1:00pm Eastern
Register Online