Good news for the airlines (if not for travelers): international and domestic airfare rates are at their highest since pre-recession levels.  Despite that, international business class ticket purchases in particular are up substantially compared to the same period last year, and international trip volumes have seen double digit spikes.  Overall airfares have increased substantially versus the first half of 2009, climbing steadily towards pre-recession levels as of June 2010.

Hotel rates, however, decreased slightly overall compared to the first half of 2009, although individual rate changes varied dramatically from region to region.  Gradual upticks over the first half of the year with further increases in demand indicate that hotel price declines will likely cease and even begin to rise in the 2011 negotiating season.

As ever, this points out once again that the hotels best placed to take advantages of the demand patterns specific to their location will be those that make the best, most informed use of revenue management systems to guide their rate and availability decisions.  Equally, those companies that have a good handle on their travel expenses will be best positioned to send their key people to the right places to close new business.

As evidence of this demand a veritable stream of travel expense-tracking announcements came out of the conference (see below), but just as meaningful as their quantity is the common thread they share: integrating data from multiple sources to present a consolidated picture of overall costs.  As always, the key to successful decision-making is complete, accurate and timely data collection, coupled with intelligent analysis; it’s good to see real progress in the technology that permits and supports that.

But the reverse is also true; vendors are equally cautious about entering into a long-term relationship with someone whose main purpose during the negotiations seems to be to squeeze ever-greater amounts of money out of the proposal.  Maybe it’s that when hotels hit the recession they seemed to try to chase each other down to ruin by constantly undercutting each others’ rates, and don’t see why software vendors shouldn’t follow the same route.  That’s a self-defeating way to go, though; if you’re buying a complex piece of software on which you’ll rely completely to track your crucial information – client history and operating data – you really do want the vendor (a) to stay in business to support and enhance it and (b) to answer the phone with a smile and a willing attitude when you call for help.  A fair price for both is a decent compromise that ensures an ongoing spirit of partnership.

My advice to vendors is the same as to hotels; if you have confidence in the value of your product (including service) and know (not just believe) how it stands out from your competition, hold the line and convince your client that you’re worth the price.  Business that puts you out of business is no business at all.

It’s true that the individual interacting with the customer makes all the difference.  Someone who truly cares can give even an indifferent organization a rosy aura it may not otherwise deserve, and all employees have bad days when they don’t represent a good company at its best.  When multiple interactions with the same company all leave the same impression, though, it’s clear just how much the leadership’s attitude permeates the whole organization and defines the overall experience for the great majority of customers.

Examples from my recent travels:

-          On a brief overnight stay at a limited service Hyatt Place, several front desk staff cooperated to sort out why my on-line reservation hadn’t made it into their front office system and found a way to make it happen, giving humorous reassurance the whole time.  The property also offered free on-demand rides to and from local restaurants in its airport shuttle van, a great service for a remote operation with limited F&B options.  No problem, no fee, happy to help, have a good time.  WIN

-          At a Marriott Renaissance, my room had no information on the hotel restaurants or other facilities.  When I asked about F&B outlets at the front desk later, the clerk pointed them out and immediately comp’d the next day’s breakfast “because you had to ask.”  Later, other front desk agents were happy to recommend outside restaurants, offered maps and provided discount coupons for several.  WIN

-          To get to HITEC I booked what United described as a non-stop flight from Seattle to Orlando.  Turned out it stopped in Washington Dulles for an hour en route, and to continue I had to change planes even though the flight number was the same.  United failed to transfer my baggage, eventually delivering it to my hotel six hours after it arrived in Orlando the next morning.  Looking for my bag in the airport at midnight I met one of my clients, who’d flown there directly from San Francisco on a true non-stop United flight.  Her bag had never made it onto the plane at all, and United took two days to find it and get it to her. On the approach into Orlando the cabin crew announced they’d be making one last pass through the cabin before landing and asked us to pass any remaining unwanted items to them.  When I tried I was met with an angry glare, and was told “I don’t have a bag, I’ve walked this aisle four times on this flight already.  Why couldn’t you have given it to me earlier? Just leave it in the seat pocket.”  The Friendly Skies?  Not so much.  FAIL

-          Flying to and from Indianapolis on Frontier took two flights each way, through Denver.  The gate staff on all four flights were clear, friendly and firm about boarding procedures, turning back passengers trying to board ahead of their row number, trying carry-on bags in the size checker and gate-checking any that would have taken up too much room, and, in the cabin, ensuring that passengers used only the overhead bins by their assigned seats.  All flights left and arrived on time, they transferred my checked bags between flights despite the challenge of a 30-minute layover – United, please note – and despite the thunderstorm-laden skies and turbulent approaches managed four of the smoothest touchdowns I’ve experienced in a long time.  Thanks, people; Frontier may be my new favorite airline.  WIN

Who sets the tone for customer service in your organization?  How do you make your standards real and instinctive for all staff at all levels?

Technologically, the two key themes were clearly the shift to cloud computing and the strength of the mobile platform. The proliferation of iPads on vendor booths everywhere showed the convergence of both themes, with demonstrations or pilots of freshly-ported applications pulling in data from both cloud-based and on-property systems. The appeal of the iPad is obvious (though communication challenges among too many competing WiFi networks on the exhibit floor showed that work still remains to be done), and the form factor seems just right to be taken as a serious, professional tool; iPhones are great, but there’s always the nagging suspicion that staff and managers using them may be checking Facebook instead of hotel data…

iPads are also a good illustration of two over-arching trends spreading through the industry. One is that the ability to combine data from multiple systems via Web services has become an assumed function for any application. “Augmented reality” may be the most sci-fi example (projecting data about an object we’re looking at directly on to it, or onto its image on a smart phone’s camera screen), but in general combining data from multiple sources into a single screen provides a quantum leap in the usefulness of the base application, and is now a given. Narrowly-focused applications without Web services integration abilities need not apply.

The other is the importance of the user experience. After all, touch-screen wireless tablet PCs have been around for years but it took Apple’s intuitive user interface, combined with the above ability to pull in and consolidate data from multiple sources, to transform the platform into something immediately and obviously useful.

And therein lies another challenge for software developers; when data is shared freely between systems, the one that presents it to the users in the most appealing and useful way will be the one they gravitate to, and it may not be the one that originated and stores the data. Good user interface design has never been more important.

In April my wife and I flew from Seattle to England for a big family occasion.  Running on autopilot after 16 hours of travel and an 8-hour time difference, I needed to tidy up my beard for the big show.  Yup, you guessed it: I forgot to check the setting on the beard trimmer.  In a different bathroom with no mirror over the sink.  By the time I woke up to the fact that the trimmer was being way more productive than usual, it was too late.  The resulting three-days-of-stubble look got a firm thumbs down, so off it all came.

It was actually much less traumatic than you might think for someone who’s had a beard for the last 26 years and a mustache for at least 40.  It had been getting pretty gray and patchy anyway and I’d been wondering what it would look like “naked”, but if I’d had to make the decision deliberately I would probably never have done it.  Once the decision was out of my hands, though, it felt right to have made a change.

Time to face the family…  Fortunately, after the initial shock reactions the general opinion was favorable.  I kinda like it too, and as an added bonus I now have a new hobby – shaving!

One challenge to the wider adoption of cloud-based systems has always been their need for interfaces to other systems, which is why they’ve mostly been adopted first by limited-service properties.  Their appeal is spreading up-market as more applications become available in a cloud-based format, though, because it’s easier to link systems there.  IT consultant and pragmatist Bob Lewis points out, though, that getting systems to work together is only the start; you need to keep them working together as their vendors upgrade them.

If a hotel chain hosts its main applications in its own data center, it can thoroughly test vendors’ (or its own) enhancements to make sure upgraded systems still integrate well before being put into operational use.  However, if your main systems are hosted by their vendors, each will need to provide advance notice of planned changes to all its interface partners, as well as a test environment for them to verify any impact on the interfaces.  Each should also provide two-version support, for clients who for whatever reason can’t upgrade when the vendor’s ready.

This can raise issues about confidentiality and about vendors’ natural desire to make surprise announcements of new features, but these can be overcome through mutual non-disclosure agreements and a partnership mentality.  It also sounds like yet another reason for adopting interface standards (such as HTNG’s) wherever possible, to minimize the rework ripple effort.

We don’t want the Facebook effect to spread to hotels, whereby the vendor changes functionality overnight without notice.  Surprises can be fun, but shouldn’t extend to hotels who find that their main system is suddenly on a new version and now doesn’t talk to its peers.

The name has always been misleading.  To apartment or commercial property managers, as well as to the general public, a property management system does just that; it manages the property itself, its maintenance, equipment, furnishings, environmental controls and anything else to do with keeping the place in good condition and running efficiently.  Besides which, the acronym can be awkwardly inappropriate.

So what would be a better description?  I thought about Guest Stay Manager, which implies a breadth more in line with current system abilities, but it also seems to exclude the CRM marketing and central reservations functions that precede the stay itself.  “Guest” also seems to exclude “groups,” and there may be some minor confusion with the GSM (Global System for Mobile communications) cell phones used by most of the world.

The best I could come up with is Hospitality Management System (or Suite), HMS, which is more accurate but also a bit of a mouthful.  I don’t see a problem with keeping existing names and acronyms for the various functional sub-sets found within a modern system, such as S&C, POS, RMS and so on (and GSM, perhaps!), whether they’re modules of the full Suite or separate systems from different vendors.  But I do think it’s time we dropped PMS.

What do you think?  If you have a preference, another suggestion or think there’s nothing wrong with staying with “PMS,” drop me a text or e-mail and let me know.

The top five items on their wish list were:

- HDTV content in every room: flat screen TVs are the new standard, yet only 10% of hotel rooms offer High Definition TV content. Cost is a factor, certainly, but it’s still surprising that most hotels still haven’t moved even to flat screens.
- Clearer direction on in-room entertainment systems: rapid changes in consumer technology place great pressure on hotels to keep up, but the pace is fast and the options many. A clear, endorsed directive on the options, their impact, and the pros and cons for each, would go a long way toward helping hoteliers make a smart choice.
- Enough bandwidth for all guests: Is there any such thing? “WiFi available” means nothing if it’s too slow to be usable, but providing enough to keep up with demands for streaming video takes investment.
- Smart management: integrating intelligent mobile devices with hotel management systems can really improve efficiency in locating staff members and allowing efficient dispatches to meet guest requests.
- More virtualization: Running multiple applications and desktops on far fewer central servers brings major, proven benefits – lower capital, support and energy costs, reduced space requirements – but not all vendors permit it yet, chiefly due to licensing issues.

Other ideas that came up frequently:

• Free, ubiquitous Internet access.
• Multiple profiles per guest to support that person’s diverse travel purposes (ex. business vs. leisure travel).
• Internationally-available entertainment options that allow foreign travelers to see their native-language show .
• One-click mobile reservations.

And above all, larger technology budgets. The above trends are inescapable, but all require investment. In this economy more than ever hotels must choose their priorities wisely, focusing on the areas that bring the best return in their own market segment.