[ad_1]
In today’s consumer-driven market, the hotel industry faces the huge challenge of adapting its content strategy to meet the changing preferences of potential guests. This consumer-led shift requires hotels to not only display content that resonates with what consumers want to see, but also navigate the complexities of distributing that content across ever-expanding booking platforms. The task of content management becomes even more complex due to the need to synchronize with the diverse needs of global partners. This creates a scenario where curated content becomes as dynamic and multifaceted as the consumers it aims to attract.
focus
-
Prioritize investments in technology or services that manage images, content, and translations.
- Explore tools that support content delivery and distribution across channels.
- Create versatile and reusable content rather than just thinking about a single pipeline, product, or locale.
- Conduct frequent content audits.
- Engage with your reservations team or call center who will engage directly with guests who are experiencing content issues on your site. Use this feedback to resolve any bugs.
content complexity
The digital age has ushered in an era where consumers are king, determining the content they want to engage with. This translates into the hospitality industry’s insatiable demand for specific, granular content, pushing hotels to the limits of content creation, management and distribution.
The challenge becomes even more complex when you factor in the various content and image requests from partners around the world, resulting in a frantic exchange of materials that often feels like a daunting administrative task. But what is the source of this complexity?
Legacy systems and content management
Much of the complexity is due in part to an industry made up of legacy systems built many years ago. Global distribution systems (GDS) are a good example. GDS was started by major airlines decades ago and was built specifically for in-house reservations staff and travel agents.
Users use travel knowledge to learn and understand GDS-centered data query and response information. At the time, content was written for different audiences who were trained to use abbreviated formats, coding and systems (travel agencies, in-house agencies).
Typically, there is no single source of truth for hotel information. This includes hotels and their outlets such as restaurants, bars, spas, etc. Different systems (such as CRS, CMS, and PMS) may have multiple sources of content, resulting in inconsistent content across platforms.
Although the industry has made progress over the years in solving these problems, the complexity and connectivity challenges of legacy repositories remain. We are now seeing companies developing innovative solutions that can become the source of truth for all content for hotels and resorts, and use artificial intelligence to help hotels improve the quality of their content.
Despite these challenges, the hospitality industry is making significant progress in adopting innovative solutions to overcome these obstacles and provide guests with a better experience.
Today, narratives have shifted to direct-to-consumer models, and the constraints and limitations of these heritage systems increasingly conflict with the need for immediate, relevant content.
Improve content quality and relevance
Content tells the hotel’s story to potential guests. However, curating content that meets the myriad requirements of various booking pipelines poses quite a challenge. Each channel’s unique needs, from images and videos to character-limited descriptions and specific attribute lists, require a careful approach to content management.
At the heart of this challenge is the need to keep content current and reflective of the high standards expected by consumers, which requires a significant investment of time and resources.
Misuse of static content and dynamic content
In the traditional sense, hotel content is divided into “stationary” and “Dynamic.” Static content refers to factual and graphic information about the hotel, while dynamic content includes pricing, inventory, and promotional information.
However, classifying content as static can be misleading because it does not reflect how often the content changes. Providing up-to-date, detailed information is critical to today’s consumers, who are looking for more specific and timely information than ever before.
Restaurants often struggle to keep up with the volume of essential and time-sensitive content required and the ever-changing requirements of distribution and online partners. As a result, the distinction between static and dynamic content is becoming increasingly blurred as consumers now seek detailed and up-to-date information on all types of content.
Another challenge is the diversity of third-party distribution channels—OTA, social media, short video apps, etc.—and the different content requirements for different channels. As online channels enable/run special events and different promotional programs throughout the year, restaurants may need to create and distribute short-term content, e.g. some content is only for promotion on a specific channel. This is especially common in Asia.
The important role of content delivery
Consumers often visit multiple online booking sites, and content differences between these platforms can cause confusion. Distributing content across different global channels can inadvertently introduce problems, such as important information such as room names not being shared or displayed correctly.
In addition to confusion, in some cases it can lead to guest complaints if a hotel’s content isn’t updated – for example, if the pool is closed or parking is no longer free. Restaurants will update their content, but this content may not always reflect accurately on all channels. This can lead to dissatisfied guests and could result in guest claims – on the other hand, if there are no updated pictures of the latest renovations showing on the OTA, you will lose the booking.
These challenges are rooted in the systems used to distribute content to booking platforms, which were originally designed for non-consumer audiences, namely GDS systems. These systems face limitations such as text length and character limits.
As marketing and e-commerce platforms become more influential, improving content quality becomes critical. Without advanced content management tools that support cross-channel functionality and scalability, content updates can become inefficient and error-prone, complicating the booking process.
Striving for content equality
The concept of content parity, while less discussed than price parity, is equally important to ensuring a level playing field across all booking pipelines. Online booking sites have the ability to quickly update and add new content, often surpassing direct hotel channels in terms of freshness and relevance.
This imbalance may drive consumers to third-party sites, highlighting the need for restaurants to adopt strategies that prioritize fresh, engaging content on direct channels.
A strategic approach to content management
Effective content management in the restaurant industry starts with a clear, cohesive content strategy. The strategy should cover all content creation, management, distribution and regular content scoring reviews to improve content quality and treat content as a valuable asset rather than just an operational task.
By taking a holistic view of content management, hotels can identify and resolve inconsistencies, streamline processes, and ultimately create a more engaging and informative online presence.
It’s critical to think of content as a valuable investment rather than just a business expense. By taking a holistic approach to content creation, it becomes easier to identify redundancies and inconsistencies, creating opportunities to resolve them.
designated content champion
A hotel’s content must be updated frequently to maintain its relevance. Appointing a person responsible for content and outlining their role, strategy and oversight responsibilities is important to any content strategy: it sets the stage for leveraging content to achieve business goals and satisfy consumer needs.
Further reading:
in conclusion
Outdated systems will be eliminated, standards will advance, and technology will improve. The process of streamlining hotel content management is complex and characterized by the need to overcome the limitations of legacy systems, improve content quality, and meet the evolving expectations of the modern traveler.
By embracing technology, prioritizing content relevancy, recognizing the dynamic nature of content, implementing efficient distribution strategies, and striving for content parity, restaurants can address the challenge of content clutter head-on.
In the process, they enhance their digital presence and build stronger connections with potential guests, resulting in increased engagement, bookings and loyalty. The future of restaurant content management requires agility, innovation and a deep understanding of consumer behavior.
About Shiji Group
Shiji is a multinational technology company that provides software solutions and services to companies in the hotel, catering, retail and entertainment industries, including hotel technology platforms, hotel property management solutions, catering and retail systems, payment gateways, data management, online Distribution etc. Founded in 1998, Shiji Group is a hotel network solutions provider. It currently has more than 80 subsidiaries and brands in more than 31 countries, has more than 5,000 employees, and serves more than 91,000 hotels, 200,000 restaurants and 600,000 Services provided by retail stores. For more information, please visit www.shijigroup.com.
View source code
[ad_2]
Source link