Category: Hospitality

QUO: How have consumers’ attitudes changed towards the digital expression of a hospitality company, and why do you think that is?

BA: The consumer expectations of digital experiences, whether hospitality or otherwise, have evolved radically over the past two decades. With so much time spent online, browsing, researching and consuming media, the digital experience is now perceived as a central factor in the credibility and desirability of your brand or product. That is, it must be accurate, functional, inviting and mirror the brand values the consumer expects to engage with.

The impact of a subpar experience, or one in which the expression is not a coherent reflection of your brand, or in which the user experience has not been considered, is concrete and highly detrimental to brand credibility and perception, as shown through many studies since the late 90s. Hotel websites and other transactional-style business websites and apps, take this to the next level. They offer direct bookings and active customer service, emphasising both direct revenue and guests’ operational requirements. It has never been more important to ensure the digital channels through which your guests research, book and seek support, are considered core business assets.

QUO: How does the team ensure the essence of the brand is brought to life through the digital platform?

BA: We’re fortunate and fairly distinct within the digital design space as we work within the context of a strategic branding agency. Our digital team is integrated into the brand identity and expression creative process. This makes us well situated to gain a comprehensive conceptual and visual understanding of the brand. Indeed, our visual identity services, when formulating new or adapted brands, now include digital expression components by default. Client typography, colour use, logo alternates, graphic devices etc, are all developed in this integrated way, for online and offline use.

However, when the UI (User Interface) design process begins we need to balance many different needs: A website is almost always a business tool, designed to drive active marketing objectives with both tactical and strategic results. Business objectives then become primary, so the digital design challenge is to blend these objectives with clear expression of the brand – visually and interactively – across design, functionality, image selection, layout, copy production, UI and interactivity, as well as the many technical components to ensure a website is usable, accessible and popular to the target audience.

QUO: What are the biggest challenges with coordinating complex digital projects?

BA: The UI design and technical work is actually the most straightforward part of the project. The most challenging aspect is clearly identifying the competing needs, preferences and opinions of the client, both at the outset and during the design process. This is most apparent where a client has relatively little digital experience, or where there is a flat hierarchy and multiple executive stakeholders. In such cases, the challenge becomes balancing competing opinions and preferences and ensuring clarity of understanding.

QUO: QUO has developed the digital assets for both newly created brands as well as established iconic brands. Is there a difference in how you approach these?

BA: Very much, yes. New brands have an openness to possibility as a result of being fresh and new. It becomes a highly creative process that tends to have more experimentation than with established brands, which tend to be more focused around articulation, reconfiguration and reimagination.

In general, the digital work we do for new brands goes hand-in-hand with the brand identity creation so we benefit from an environment where this brand creation and its digital expression can go forwards simultaneously, under the same integrated team. Established brands are more challenging as the refreshing of the brand user experience is more subtle. The re-invention – whether part of an overall brand refresh or an independent revisiting of the overall digital experience – requires a less apparent interpretation of brand value or expression changes. Having said that, the wider the field of creative opportunity, the more challenging to push a design to completion!

“Primarily, know your customer: Who are they, what do they worry about, what frustrates them, what brings them joy, what are the obstacles to happiness and wellness.”

QUO: Is there anything a luxury brand in particular needs to consider when projecting itself to the world? What are the nuances you’ve picked up?

BA: Guest expectations have changed dramatically from the time that luxury was a clear differentiator – an idea that started as a class signifier – then a wealth signifier. Now it is just one of many signifiers for guests seeking experiences that resonate with their lifestyle and experience aspirations. However, it still has a fairly distinct set of visual and UI tokens which convey a sense of luxury and prestige, such as classic mixed typography (serif and sans serif, minimalism with plenty of white space), considered and subtle motion effects, reliance on highly selective image use, etc. Ironically it’s very challenging to effectively design for white space and minimalism within a digital UI. The goal is sophistication, and minimising embellishment, without sacrificing information and communication.

However, as noted above, pure classic minimalist luxury design is less common now as the design is enhanced with experiential components, with selective colour use, graphic devices and UI innovation designed to reflect the many other factors which define and differentiate modern luxury brands.

QUO: Wellness is a growing area. How do you capture such an encompassing, sensorial experience in a digital context?

BA: The digital experience of a wellness brand should follow all of the fundamental principles of good experience design within any vertical. Primarily, know your customer: Who are they, what do they worry about, what frustrates them, what brings them joy, what are the obstacles to happiness and wellness. By researching these core ideas and building a picture of what your target customers actually want, you are in a position to design an experience which gives them the inspiration and confidence they require to engage and commit to your services. This is the basis of all effective digital experiences – ask the customer. From there we model and test, model and test, to get the best website communication and conversion architecture, then we wrap that in an iteration of the brand identity which is designed wholly around digital needs, undeniably your brand, but extended into an interactive experience. In this respect, the process is the same, though the audience needs and goals, and your brand identity itself, will always be different, so the outcome will always be bold yet relevant.

QUO: If a hotel business doesn’t have the budget for a bells-and-whistles revamp of all their digital platforms, what are some of the quick wins, areas of improvement they could focus on?

BA: Given a hotel website is almost always a critical part of revenue generation through direct bookings, any interim revamp project should focus on usability and CRO (conversion rate optimisation), as well as any other subtle realignment with brand changes and evolutions. Usability audits which focus on maximising the conversion rate of your website will focus on readability, accessibility, CTA (Call To Action) positioning and the overall user experience, ensuring there are as few obstacles as possible to decision making information and the page elements to drive the enquiries or bookings. Brands evolve, and it’s important to ensure the alignment is clear between the guest experience off-site and the expectations set through the website content and visual experience.

As we come to the end of Mental Health Awareness Month, QUO Chief Branding Officer Catherine Monthienvichienchai asks how can the hospitality industry engage in this critically important issue.

The health app on my smartwatch isn’t happy. My sleep patterns are poor, my exercise routine is off and my heart rate has been spiking slightly more than it should. I—like millions of others around the world—am stressed. I’m juggling a full-time job with parenting two children, amongst other demands and challenges. Life post-covid seems more intense, more pressure-filled and more anxiety inducing than ever before. Time feels like it’s constantly out to get me and balance a state so far out on the horizon I’ve lost sight of what it looks like.

Thanks to social media, I know I’m not alone. Platforms like Instagram, TikTok and others are awash with stories about anxiety, depression and other mental health issues. On TikTok, #MentalHealth posts accumulate almost 50 billion views, whilst on Instagram it’s close to 40 million. The Reddit community on depression has reached nearly a million members. Mental health—once a point of shame, a topic shrouded in stigma and negativity—is now suddenly an open, engaging topic that everyone wants to be part of.

With society as a whole talking more openly about mental health issues, it has become increasingly important that brands also join the conversation. In fact, according to YPulse data, 71% of Gen-Z consumers like it when brands make mental health a part of their marketing and messaging.

This younger demographic (those born between 1995 and 2012) may be at the forefront of the conversation—as many as 70% report their mental health needs the most improvement over any other element of their wellbeing—they are not the only ones struggling. In fact, the World Health Organization revealed that the pandemic triggered a 25 per cent increase in anxiety and depression globally.

It’s perhaps no surprise then to see a number of hospitality brands make a concerted move in the right direction, as they move away from the traditional gym and spa-type offer towards a more holistic, integrated approach to wellbeing—one that includes addressing mental and emotional health.

Last year, for example, Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants ran a year-long partnership with online therapy company Talkspace, providing up to 1,000 free therapy sessions to its guests. Hyatt, meanwhile, has partnered with meditation and mindfulness app Headspace. Headspace’s content is available to World of Hyatt members via the World of Hyatt app, as well as in-room at select Hyatt hotels. The alliance with Headspace builds on Hyatt’s holistic wellbeing strategy, which focuses on positively impacting how employees, corporate customers and guests feel, fuel and function.

Hyatt’s multi-prong approach, including its guests and employees, is key. It is perhaps no surprise to learn that hospitality—an industry associated with long hours, shift work,  and physically demanding jobs—is one of the worst for mental health issues. A recent study from RSPH found that mental health and wellbeing is under significant strain amongst hospitality employees. In its latest report, Service With(out) a Smile, over four out of five (84%) hospitality workers reported increased stress, whilst, almost half (45%) of respondents said they would not recommend working in hospitality as a result.

It is critical then that brands address the issue from all sides. This is not just about your public face—what you say and offer to your guests, but also what goes on behind the scenes. Consumers are quickly and easily turned off by superficial marketing speak. As with any social issues—whether environmental concerns, CSR or #MeToo— empty messaging and posturing will do more harm than good. In the context of mental health, ‘bliss baiting’—like greenwashing before it—will quickly lead to mistrust and a negative brand image.

So how do you start to address this extremely topical, important and yet highly sensitive issue? The first thing to remember is that hotels—unless they are specialist wellness/medical retreats—are not mental health experts and nor should they try to be. Instead, they should start with the basics. Many of us are dealing with a plethora of stresses in our daily lives, so when we travel the first thing you can do as a hotel is simply ensure those stresses aren’t exacerbated by unnecessary pain points.

In a recent article about smart design, Ross Dowd, an award-winning industrial and interaction designer, talked about this point: “By subtly removing unnecessary friction from any hotel experience, guests are empowered with spontaneity and more engagement… The less stress a guest has to deal with, the more healthy and fun their experience can be.”

Technology, data and automation are likely to play a significant role in enabling this in the very near future, but in the meantime hotels would be wise to start with some simple questions: Is the check-in experience as quick and seamless as possible? Are the guest rooms calm, quiet and conducive to sleep? Are my teams happy, engaged and supportive of individual guest needs? If the answer is ‘yes’, then you’re already making the first steps towards better emotional wellbeing.

We’ll update this dynamic resource with new tips and fresh insights as we receive them. Stay in touch and check back often.

Our Digital Director, Brian Anderson, is actively surveying the market to help QUO’s clients adapt their digital strategies in the current climate. As he develops theories, tests ideas and interacts with other industry specialists, he’s compiling this list of up-to-the-moment insights.

Read on for tips on short-term messaging, longer-term planning and a host of COVID-19 strategies in between.

Digital is Now De Facto

As hotels close their doors to guests and wait out the spread of the Covid-19 virus, many are now looking to the digital world to maintain communications. Across social media and property websites, owners and managers have been posting updates, blogs and video content to communicate with their customers and teams during this incredibly difficult—and constantly evolving—time.

What, how and where you communicate though is critical. It’s important to remember that the actions you take now will define your brand perception for years to come. The challenge is to balance both immediate practical, informational content with more aspirational messaging that keeps the travel dream alive.

As we continue to support our clients, developing a wider range of solutions to rapidly evolving digital needs, I would like to share some of the communication and marketing measures which you too could be considering as part of a response strategy.

The actions you take now will define your brand perception for years to come.

Pivot Your Marketing, Evolve Your Messaging

Although a reduction in marketing and online advertising spend is inevitable for those running tactical revenue generating campaigns, we are now seeing some properties maintaining their marketing across a number of different approaches.

Book and deposit now; travel later

Some properties are attempting to maintain their forward booking pipeline by offering discounts and incentives to travellers willing to pay deposits now on future flexible bookings.

Focus on domestic audiences

They’ll be the first to recover in countries where the epidemic is under control or receding. Budgets set aside for international travel, albeit significantly reduced, will be spent on local and regional vacations.

Offer flexible booking conditions

Waive cancellation or modification fees. Automatic room upgrades where available. Consider changing rapidly to an all-inclusive model, as travellers will want simplicity and ease once this is all over.

Keep the dream alive

The guests that should be basking on your private beach or in the paddling pool with the kids are currently worried, concerned, wondering what the future holds. Show them that this too shall pass, and pretty soon they’ll be soaking up the sun in your luxury rooftop lounge. We all need to dream, now more than ever.

Share your outreach and support work

We know of a number of hotels opening their doors to the homeless and repurposing as emergency-treatment facilities. This compassion deserves to be shared widely. Social media is generally a captive audience, so consider paid CPM media to double down on your credentials.

Collaborate and combine budgets

Collaborate with other properties and businesses locally and reach out with messaging about your destination. Reassure past and future guests that as soon as you are able, as soon as it’s safe for them, you will be back in the travel dreams business. Likewise for MICE, work with local organisations and business leaders together on recovery plans, at least to lay the foundations.

Consider your distribution networks

Some of the online distribution networks you have been using may not survive. They work on very low margins with high marketing and technical overheads, they are highly sensitive to any sort of disruption. Now would be a good time to discuss options with them for positioning, promotions and rates, and their commissions. With so many properties going offline they may be open to new positions and offers, eager for any sort of inventory, and with guaranteed rates for x months you could help yourself and the OTAs survive.

Review your scheduled marketing

I just received what appears to be a pre-scheduled marketing email from a travel company using the now-famous ‘follow me to’ motif—where a person in the foreground the viewer forward by the hand to an intriguing group-travel experience. Probably not the best graphic device to be using at this point.

It would pay to review any longer term scheduled marketing you already have in your plans.

Show them that this too shall pass, and pretty soon they’ll be soaking up the sun in your luxury rooftop lounge. We all need to dream, now more than ever.

Practical Measures

Apart from marketing and advertising communications, what other online tools and techniques could you be considering to bolster your response to the challenge?

Website announcements

We are seeing a great many hotel websites with little or no updates or news on the crisis, or any sort of support for guests. We have all been taken by surprise, and no little shock, but as hospitality companies we owe our clients the benefit of our concern, the least of which is knowledge and guidance.

Whether in the form of simple popups leading the user to an information page, a blog post, or at the very least a press release, your website is a news channel and is likely right now being bombarded with people looking for your response.

Live chat

A great many people are in panic mode, stranded or cancelling, unsure of the next step. If you can organise for live chat on your website, routed through to bookings or reservations, you can offer a voice and a person instead of an email hours later. No better way of easing burdens and worries, while guaranteeing a good impression. It may even cut down on the massive volume of emails you are probably receiving.

Dedicated pages

As discussed above, if you are providing special services to governments or on behalf of owner or group brands, beyond the responsibilities of a hotel, then please share the knowledge, on social media of course, but also on your website. Your site is a destination in itself and reference point for persistent knowledge and service. Create a dedicated blog category or updated media and news page detailing what you are doing for the community and how you are responding as a team.

Prepare for Recovery

Digital audit

Many of our hotel and resort clients have entered a waiting game, and for some who have scaled back or closed the doors, they are casting around for next priorities on their crisis response list. When the tasks become less critical you may want to consider getting your ducks in a row for the recovery phase throughout your digital strategy as it’s the first channel people will be looking at with recovery on the horizon.

Here are a set of tasks and projects you could look into with your agencies:

Channel strategy review
When was the last time you looked closely at the sales and ROI through each of your channels? Now could be a good time for a quick review.

We know that some properties don’t consider changing channel investments from one year to the next, due to lack of familiarity, lack of knowledge or expertise, or because they just don’t see the return. Some of the biggest hospitality brands in the world invest the majority of their budgets on B2C sales, and online, because they see the results in black and white. Take another look and consider it.

Do this with half a mind on the recovery demographic:

• Origin: Obviously the countries that recover fastest
• Demographic: Probably younger audience—not likely to be older or have families
• Psychographic: Adventurous, travel addicts—and of course those who feel the sting of having missed out and are ready to rebook after cancellations

But above all, look to business travellers. The catastrophic impact on the MICE industry should come back hard and fast as businesses scramble to make up for lost ground.

SEO Audit
While revenue from online bookings remains largely driven by PPC and other direct advertising, organic SEO is the ticket to long term high value bookings. Optimising a website for specific sets of keywords once, then maintaining the presence of those keywords and related content through time is a low budget to long term presence in the search engine results pages of Google, Yahoo and other global search engines.

If you haven’t done keyword research then you need to consider it now, then rewrite your page content accordingly. Then have your agencies collaborate on building out the more technical aspects of SEO to ensure the maximum value of the new keyword/phrase oriented content. It’s a longer term tactic as Google can take months to reindex all sites online according to content, but the payoffs can be distinct and clear.

Performance review
And while you’re at it, check your site speed. Many industries suffer from significant dropoff in user engagement and rate of abandonment if the website experience is too slow. Hotel and hotel brand sites don’t suffer from this so much since the average user on your site is there for a reason, with purpose, which adds a higher level of forbearance. However nobody will wait around for too long for your images to load.

Conversion optimisation audit
So the site is fast, and it’s getting into Google organic search, why are bookings still low? You may want to spend a bit of time looking at conversion optimisation. This is the process of analyzing the website to understand what forces of design and layout are affecting booking intent and completion. It is often because your booking mask is not sufficiently visible, or you have no call to action, maybe your website looks old fashioned and outdated and people just don’t trust to book on your site, or maybe you offer no best price guarantee or other direct booking benefits (which has come standard). There are many different possible reasons, a tiny change could be the difference between an extra 20 bookings or 200 bookings per year. That’s a big potential return.

Analytics audit
Finally, do you actually know who visits your website and what they do on it? What age range they are, nationality, gender, what banner ads they clicked on, what pages on the website they prefer to visit and which ones get the most natural organic visitors, what website they were on previously, what general industries they work in, interests they have? All this and more is data readily available in Google Analytics, a free tool, amongst many tools, which provides extensive essential insights into the audience for your brand and property.

Look to the Future

These practical audit measures are things to consider as a means of maximising the value of what you already have. They won’t reduce your exposure to the inevitable risk and losses we all face, but they will position you better in the inevitable other side. These measures are simple short introductions to techniques and ideas that are wholly embraced by some properties and sadly neglected by others, but were crucial in 2019—and more so in post Covid-19 2020.

Above all, look to business travellers. The catastrophic impact on the MICE industry should come back hard and fast as businesses scramble to make up for lost ground.

Check this Page Often

To learn more about how QUO can help during this challenging period, send Brian an email, but we also want to hear from you. How has your organisation adapted their digital strategy during the COVID-19 crisis? Get in touch to let us know, and we’ll share those insights here with your colleagues across the digital marketing world.

We will update this page regularly with new tips and recommendations as we hear from you, and as this situation actively unfolds. Check back regularly to see the latest developments.

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Being real and relevant with the alphabet’s final generation

Tired of pandering to the whims of millennials? Well here comes some good news: there’s a new gen in town, and they’re coming to a hotel near you very soon.

The less-good news: they’re fiercely independent, switched on (in more ways than one) and totally resistant to all the usual marketing garbage.

So crank up your social spaces, update your Snapchat and get ready to redefine the rules of hotel branding, because this crowd plays to a different kind of beat.

Eyes Wide Open

Millennials may have helped to shape The New Collective, but the rise of Gen Z is set to redefine it.

Born between 1995–2000 (although no one can quite agree on the exact years) Gen Z’s influence and spending power—especially in the travel space—is set to make some serious waves in the near future.

As a group, they already outnumber millennials, making up 32% of the global population. They’re also on pace to be the largest group of consumers worldwide as early as 2020.

And they’re bringing with them a new, hyper-realist perspective on the world. While the millennial generation is a story of innocence lost, The New York Times observed back in 2015, “Generation Z, by contrast, has had its eyes open from the beginning, coming along in the aftermath of… the War on Terror and the Great Recession.”

Gen Z is on pace to be the largest group of consumers worldwide as early as 2020.

Just Cause

One outcome of growing up in that environment is that Gen Z carry a healthy dose of cynicism and a fierce commitment to social issues. In other words: They’re passionate, they know when you’re faking—and they aren’t afraid to call you on it.

“I don’t need brands to use their ads to tell me that they are ‘woke’ or that their brand is ‘lit’. The worst. If you are saying it, then you aren’t it,” 18-year-old Mimi from San Francisco told last year’s Irregular Report.

The brands that stand out to them are the ones that “seem to care about people rather than just profit,” said 20-year-old Tosin from London.

And while they may not buy into traditional loyalty programmes, they are loyal to causes they care about. Nearly three-quarters, or 69%, of Gen Z, for example, are more likely to buy from a company that contributes to social causes. Conversely, some 33% have stopped buying from a company that contributes to a cause with which they disagree.

Bottom line: All the slick marketing in the world won’t work on this crowd unless your brand has a real purpose that’s backed up with real action.

All the slick marketing in the world won’t work on this crowd unless your brand has a real purpose that’s backed up with real action.

Sharing is Caring

Of course, Gen Z wouldn’t be redefining The New Collective if they weren’t social animals, thriving off face-to-face interactions and drawn to social situations.

Focused on aligning with a community culture, Gen Z values the ability to meet and mingle with others even more so than their predecessors.

The New Horizons survey from 2018 found 42% of Gen Z travellers list building friendships as a key purpose for travel, substantially more than 32% of millennials.

Communal seating, social hubs and common areas tick all the right boxes—but also look for the rise of co-living hotel brands that take this community spirit to a whole new level.

Plugged in, Switched on

Gen Z is the first true generation of digital natives, and they’ve learned from the mistakes of those before them.

As keepers of their own brand, they are more careful about their privacy than millennials, with Gen Z favouring vanishing media like Snapchat and Whisper. The usual suspects, like Facebook, are barely even on the radar—according to a survey by Piper Jaffray, just 9% of teens list it as their favourite platform.

Visually driven apps like Instagram (24%) and Snapchat (47%) are where they’re spending most of their time, making it a crucial moment for brands to start reassessing their social-media strategies.

Gen Z also uses social media differently than others. “Humour and entertainment are top motivators for Gen Z to create and consume on social media,” according to a 2018 Snap Inc-commissioned study—they watch an average of 68 videos a day—while millennials tend to see it as a place to chat with friends.

Meanings to an End

Central to all this is a quest for meaning and authenticity.

Instagram to Gen Z, for instance, “isn’t as much about how they look, as it is about what they know, believe and do,” Irregular Report found. While millennials are more focused on the exterior, Gen Z care more about substance and representing their inner lives online in a genuine way—it’s why 67% of Gen Z say being true to their values and beliefs makes a person cool.

“Gen Z’s selfies are in the caption, not the picture—or in the tension between flattering selfie and self-deprecating comment that demonstrates their wit, cultural clout, intelligence and authenticity via confessional,” Irregular Report added, noting their peers are more likely to respond to their captions rather than the photos themselves.

Gen Z say being true to their values and beliefs makes a person cool.

The Bottom Line

As Gen Z comes of age and brings fresh perspectives to The New Collective, it’s never been more important for brands to build around a genuine purpose.

If you want to appeal to this newest generation, stand for something (but no need to shout about it). Be personable. Maintain a sense of humour. And always keep it real.

But perhaps most importantly, don’t read too much into articles like this one—Gen Z will see straight through it.

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