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hotel information on the net
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(This article is reprinted from Marketing Tools magazine (MktgTools@aol.com) and may be freely redistributed in its entirety so long as this attribution and email address are included.)
Live from Mars Hotel
Planning a trip? Need a vacation? Big conference coming up? Let your fingers do the walking-across your computer keyboard, that is. THISCO (The Hotel Industry Switch Company), an organization that links the reservation systems of 20 of the largest hotel companies with those of the world's airlines, is putting information about hotels and motels on the Internet. And if it's not already possible to actually book a room in cyberspace by the time you read this, it soon will be.
Last fall, THISCO unveiled TravelWeb, an interactive electronic color catalog for the hotel industry. The response was immediate and most gratifying. Within two weeks, the TravelWeb was recording 2,400 visits per day, and the number was growing by a rate of 10 percent daily. "In all candor," THISCO President John Davis confides, "we're overwhelmed by the response."
The first THISCO member to use TravelWeb was the Hyatt Hotels Corporation. Hyatt began by showcasing 16 of its resorts in the U.S., Caribbean, and Hawaii. Each property has 21 "screens"-electronic pages providing information about and color photographs of the resort: its special features, its services, destination information, and so on.
"It's very sophisticated," says Hyatt public relations director Carrie Reckert of TravelNet. "Between all the color information and all the written information, there's a lot more there than if you picked up a printed brochure and got a paragraph of copy."
Besides, says Davis-with an enthusiasm that would make a printer's blood run cold-"Where else can you put up a five-page brochure in full color with pictures for $500, and it's available to 20 million people, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and you can change it, real-time, for nothing?"
Eventually, 87 other Hyatt hotels in the U.S. and Canada will be added to TravelNet, along with properties owned by Westin Hotels and Resorts. "We see this as another avenue of reaching our customers," Reckert explains. "People want more information about the products that they're buying; they're increasingly sophisticated in looking for more information; they want to buy when they want to buy; they're getting used to purchasing products and services of different types on their PCs. And we see the demand for travel services there as well."
As Marketing Tools went to press, it was still a little early to be talking about purchasing through TravelNet; although there was talk of bookability by early 1995, no one was putting any money on that prediction.
"We're working on it," says Davis. "There are two elements. One is transmitting credit card information over the 'Net, and the need for security. You've got all kind of companies working on that, and different software being released almost weekly that'll do it.
"The other side is that when we allow for real availability, we're really putting you directly into Hyatt's reservation system," Davis continues. "And the need for security there is enormous. The last thing I need is a bunch of guys sitting around their dorm at MIT trying to figure out how to cancel all the Hyatt reservations. So we're building an enormous number of firewalls that would prevent anything like that from occuring."
In any case, Davis says TravelNet's primary purpose is not to book rooms-although that could change if the hotels decide independently to offer favorable "Internet rates"-but to provide users with a full complement of information about travel opportunities. It's also a research tool for THISCO.
"I view it as the world's biggest focus group," explains Davis. "Which pages do people want to look at? We've all made assumptions that everyone wants to see what the room looks like. We'll put it up, and I'll be able to tell you exactly how many people look at that page. In creating these electronic brochures, we'll be able to say, 'Here are the three key things that people want to know.'"
Full details about the users and their habits weren't available as this issue went to press, but some facts had already been gleaned. Half the users had corporate addresses, most of them for large computer companies. Whether they were signing on from their offices or from home, during the day or at peak Internet usage hours (7pm until 2am), and whether they were investigating TravelNet for personal or business reasons had yet to be determined. Visitors spend at lot of time at TravelNet-most look at more than five pages while they're there.
Furthermore, they represent a fairly global community, says Davis. "The biggest surprise is that 10 percent of the users are from Japan; four percent come from the UK. I don't know how they know about it. We put it out on some bulletin boards, and obviously there's an enormous amount of press in the US on it, but we really haven't been advertising it."
From the information gathered in the early weeks, THISCO has begun to form a blueprint for creating travel brochures in cyberspace. "There should be a minimum of five pages per property," Davis advises. "Page one ought to be consistent. Page two should have to icons for the amenities, and those icons need to be consistent. Page 3 should be a picture of the room or property. After that, it's up to the properties; if they want to put ten more pictures, that's fine. But it needs to be consistent at the start, so people don't have to wander through each one of them looking for the information they want."
THISCO's early success has attracted notice from outside the hotel industry. "I've gotten calls from all over from people wanting to know if they can get on," says Davis. "One of the largest cruise lines called and asked if they could put their ships on TravelWeb. Absolutely! We 're going to end up providing a worldwide travel catalog."
But let the novice beware: The Internet isn't all a bed of roses. Its two-way nature "also creates the wonderful world of interactivity," observes Davis. Users, he says, leave messages evaluating hotels and resorts based on their own experiences-good and bad. So far, Hyatt has received good reviews, but "It goes both ways," Davis points out. "It's up to the hotels to ensure that their level of service is as good as it possibly can be." Those who are slack in this regard can expect word to spread far and wide: "Talk about a different sphere of influence! In the past, if you had a terrible time at a property, the worst you could do is tell your friends and acquaintances," Davis laughs. "Now you can put it on the Internet and tell 20 million people about it!"
For more information about TravelNet, call THISCO at (214) 528-5656. If you're on the Internet and you have a World Wide Web browser (Mosaic, Cello, Lynx), you can accessTravelNet at www.travelweb.com.
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