EyeforTravel Blog

This presentation and panel discussion will be featured on Day 1 at the upcoming EyeforTravel North America 2018 Summit on Oct 18-19 in Las Vegas.
Expert speakers to present on this topic include:

•  Sean Brevick, VP - Marketing and Digital Services, Marriott
•  Eliot Hamlisch, VP - Worldwide Loyalty & Partnerships, Wyndham Hotels & Resorts
•  Abhishek Mago, VP - Product & SEM, MyFlightSearch

The panel will cover:

• Perfect your multi-channel engagement strategy and omnichannel approach - how can you continue to deliver on the guest experience on all fronts?
• What is the role of personalization, particularly given the consolidation in the industry?
• The blending of marketing + sales + CX on your overall strategy - using data more effectively to better personalize and drive loyalty in your business

Will your marketing strategy stack up in 2018 and beyond? Click here to learn more and don’t miss your chance of what is set to be the travel event of the year!
The EyeforTravel North America Summit currently holds the hottest attendee list in digital travel with brands confirmed to attend including: Expedia, Marriott, Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, Hilton Worldwide, Twitter, Cathay Pacific, Accor Hotels, Hyatt, Air Canada Vacations, Choice Hotels, Cosmopolitan Las Vegas, Booking.com, American Airlines, Lufthansa Systems, The Travel Corporationand many more!
The summit will tackle topics such as the changing distribution landscape, utilizing data driven customer insights, the role of emerging technologies in travel, diversifying your revenue portfolio, and developing global partnerships. And this is just the start.
Click here to get your copy of the brochure and to view the full speaker line up and agenda
Contact the team directly at – renu@eyefortravel.com  
EyeforTravel is a community where the world's top online travel brands – from hotels to airlines, online travel agents, cruise, car hire firms and more – come to meet to drive forward growth and innovation in the industry. We aim to provide you with industry focused news, events, reports, updates and information. EyeforTravel Limited is a registered company. The Company Registration number is 06286442. It is also registered in England & Wales. Registered office is 7-9 Fashion Street, London E1 6PX, United Kingdom.
Renu Kannu EyeForTravel | Project and Research Director (+ 44 20 7375 7197 |renu@eyefortravel.com)

Hilton Worldwide, Hoteles City Express, Royal Resorts and Castle Resorts & Hotelsare among the latest brands to have confirmed their attendance at EyeforTravel’s 20th Annual North America Summit. As the attendee list grows exponentially, this year’s event is set to provide better networking opportunities than any other travel conference in the US. Aside from making valuable contacts, attendees can expect to leave with a firm grasp of the latest opportunities and threats facing the industry - with industry influencers across all areas of online travel presenting their answers to the most pressing questions.
This year’s summit centres on the following five key areas:
1.       Distribution - Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, VTrips and Las Vegas Sands are gearing up to evaluate how we can use the crowded field of distribution to our advantage. Find out how voice search will impact distribution and consider the role that metasearch plays in the power play between OTA dominance and driving direct sales.
2.      Partnerships – Magnuson Hotels, HotelsComined.com, MGM Resorts, Spirit Airlines and Hotwire explain how you can build strategic partnerships that enhance personalization, boost revenue and drive customer loyalty. Hear from the experts about the kinds of distribution partnerships that will guarantee success, about how to pair customer insight with partnership strategies, and discover how API partnerships could improve your revenue portfolio.
Click here to download the brochure and view the full speaker line-up and agenda
3.      Marketing –Marriott, MyFlightSearch, Accor Hotels, Lufthansa Systems, Melia Hotels International and Twitter join to help us rethink traditional marketing strategies. Discover the latest innovations in travel marketing, from using social media and the mobile interface to boost personalisation, to establishing loyalty through the mobile interface.
4.      Data & Revenue Management – Join American Airlines, Margaritaville and Amazon as they present how their business models have been overturned using data. Discover how customer-centric revenue management and cross-selling can serve to optimize profits.
5.      Travel Technology – Booking.com, Expedia, Winding Tree, United Airlines and CruiseBe.com evaluate the latest trends in travel technology and explain which ones travel brands should be investing in. From AI to Voice, the expert speaker line-up will help brands decide suitable technology for their business models. This summit is truly the only place you will be able to meet the cream of the crop in travel and walk away with insights you can action as soon as you get back to the office.
Will your CX strategy stack up in 2018 and beyond? Click here to learn more and don’t miss your chance to be a part of North America’s largest travel conference on Oct 18-19!
Contact the team directly at – renu@eyefortravel.com  EyeforTravel is a community where the world's top online travel brands – from hotels to airlines, online travel agents, cruise, car hire firms and more – come to meet to drive forward growth and innovation in the industry. We aim to provide you with industry focused news, events, reports, updates and information. EyeforTravel Limited is a registered company. The Company Registration number is 06286442. It is also registered in England & Wales. Registered office is 7-9 Fashion Street, London E1 6PX, United Kingdom.Renu KannuEyeForTravel | Project and Research Director (+ 44 20 7375 7197 |renu@eyefortravel.com)

Wyndham Hotel Group, United Airlines, Caesars Corporation, And Hopper Among the Many Confirmed to Deliver Keynote Presentations In Las Vegas
With just over three months left until the EyeforTravel North America Summit 2018 (October 18-19) the line-up of keynote speeches is shaping up to be one of the most diverse and informative yet.
The summit will tackle the industry’s most pressing concerns including the importance of data as a tool for marketing and customer insight, the heightened importance of investing in cross-industry partnerships as well as staying afloat the ever-changing distribution landscape.
Other leading brands confirmed to speak include Wyndham Hotel Group, United Airlines, Accor Hotels, Marriott, Choice Hotels, Cathay Pacific, Jet Blue Ventures, Amazon, Skyscanner and Twitter.
The summit’s first few keynote sessions will shed light on topics including:

•    -  What are the real threats and opportunities that the latest developments in technology pose to your business? Wyndham Hotel will evaluate how price, sale and distribution of travel are being impacted by technological innovations and the rise of digital
•      How can travel companies capture the travel customer at the point that they show intent without renouncing to Google? The Travel Corporation, Mozio and Bond Brand Loyalty will provide case studies considering the ‘ideal’ digital product, so efficient that it guarantees loyalty
•     How can the mobile interface be used to enhance customer engagement and satisfaction? What is the value of design in relation to mobile? Caesars Corporation, Jet Blue Technology Ventures and Hopper will shed light on the relationship between mobile and marketing, providing tips on how best to use digital to ensure customers love their experience with the brand

Click here to see the full agenda and the confirmed speaker line up
Given the scope of content to cover, EyeforTravel have included keynote debates at the end of Day 1 as well.
The first keynote debate on Day 1will consider key strategies required to remain competitive in today’s platform-dominated world. Considering how to thrive as a travel brand without giving in to the media monopolies are:
-        Oliver Dlouhy, CEO, Kiwi.com-        David Armstrong, CEO, TravelPirates-        Tim Hentschel, CEO, HotelPlanner
The second keynote debate on Day 2 will consider the innovation potential held by the latest technologies – particularly looking at how AI, Machine Learning, AR and blockchain are set to change the way your brand works. Speakers include the VP – Commercial Technology & Corporate Systems, from United Airlines and the Chief Technology Officer & Co-Founder, from CruiseBe.com.
The summit will be buzzing, with insight on other topics including:
-          Integrating the Augmented Reality Ecosystem into your Travel Brand-          Creating a Boutique Approach while Maintaining Brand Affinity in your Global Brand-          Incorporating Blockchain Technology to Reduce Distribution Costs-          Adopting a Multi-Channel Marketing Approach to Enhance Customer Engagement-          Diversifying your Revenue Portfolio with Yield Management Technology-          Investing in Customer Intelligence-          Video, Social Media and Influencer Marketing and much more!
Click here to see the full speaker line up
With some of the biggest names in the travel industry appearing as speakers and attendees, the EyeforTravel North America 2018 Summit is the only place you’ll be able to catch up to your competition and network with industry elite – giving attendees the formula to truly own the booking.
Don’t risk missing out on insights that will propel your business into the future. Click here to reserve your pass at the Super Early Bird rate or contact Renu on her details below.
Contact the team directly at – renu@eyefortravel.com  EyeforTravel is a community where the world's top online travel brands – from hotels to airlines, online travel agents, cruise, car hire firms and more – come to meet to drive forward growth and innovation in the industry. We aim to provide you with industry focused news, events, reports, updates and information. EyeforTravel Limited is a registered company. The Company Registration number is 06286442. It is also registered in England & Wales. Registered office is 7-9 Fashion Street, London E1 6PX, United Kingdom.Renu KannuEyeForTravel | Project and Research Director (+ 44 20 7375 7197 |renu@eyefortravel.com)

In this week's free video, Stuart Greif, Practice Lead - Travel & Hospitality at Amperity presents at EyeforTravel's San Francisco Summit 2018. Stuart's subject is trapped, unusable customer data: Breakthroughs in machine learning, solve marketing's biggest problem.




All videos from EyeforTravel's events are available at through our content hub, EyeforTravel On Demand. You can also find a selection of videos from our events and webinars through our YouTube page. 
Sign up to our newsletter to get our free Friday videos direct to your inbox, along with all the great white papers, articles and reports we make throughout the year. 

Thsi week Krista Bekkevold, Director of Hotel Supply at Hopper, presents on capitalizing on the proliferation of mobile for travel search, planning and customer engagement at the San Francisco Summit 2018.
All videos from EyeforTravel's events are available at through our content hub, EyeforTravel On Demand. You can also find a selection of videos from our events and webinars through our YouTube page. 
Sign up to our newsletter to get our free Friday videos direct to your inbox, along with all the great white papers, articles and reports we make throughout the year. 

This week Facebook gives us a case study showing us how to supercharge your engagement strategy. Bring your story to life by utilizing digital tools and delivering relevant content by Will Farnan, Client Partner - Travel Suppliers at Facebook.

All videos from EyeforTravel's events are available at through our content hub, EyeforTravel On Demand. You can also find a selection of videos from our events and webinars through our YouTube page. 
Sign up to our newsletter to get our free Friday videos direct to your inbox, along with all the great white papers, articles and reports we make throughout the year. 

Wyndham Hotel Group, Amazon, United Airlines, Skyscanner, Google, Booking.com, Marriott, Accor Hotels, Twitter, Cosmopolitan Las Vegas, Winding Tree and more are just a handful of experts confirmed to speak at the upcoming EyeforTravel North America 2018 Summit, taking place at the Mandalay Bay Las Vegas on October 18 -19.
400+ heads of marketing, distribution, revenue management, data analytics, mobile innovation, and travel tech experts from some of the biggest brands will meet with one goal: to identify the strategies, partnerships, innovations and business models that will make their companies thrive in the future, and to discuss business critical trends affecting the online travel world today.
Navigating the crowded field of distribution, the potential of artificial intelligence and emerging technologies, delivering a superior customer experience(CX), catapulting profits through industry partnerships and innovative ways to diversify revenue portfolios are just some of the topics  being covered at this 20th Annual US flagship show. Click here to receive your copy of the brochure and to view the full agenda
The internet’s control over the travel consumer, mobile innovation and the potential of emerging technologies such as AI is forcing travel brands to evolve the way they work, deliver frictionless CX, leverage data-driven insight and create new business models and industry partnerships says EyeforTravel Project Lead, Renu Kannu. 
She adds: The industry is demanding higher profits, increased loyalty and tools to personalize to deliver that exceptional CX throughout the booking cycle – all of which are real concerns that can be solved by joining a hotbed of senior-level travel execs in Vegas this October.
The Unrivalled Speaker Line-up for 2018 includes:·         Barry Goldstein, Executive Vice President & Chief Marketing Officer, Wyndham Hotel Group·         Michael Almeraris, AR/VR Head of Developer Partnerships, Google ·         Michael Marino, SVP & Chief Experience Officer, Caesars Corporation ·         Ravi Simhambhatla, VP – Commercial Technology & Corporate Systems, United Airlines·         Adam Hayashi, VP – Revenue Management & Business Intelligence, Accor Hotels ·         Mamie Peers, VP – Digital Marketing, Cosmopolitan Las Vegas·         Sean Brevick, VP – Marketing and Digital Services, Marriott ·         Connor Smith, VP – Brand, Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants ·         Christina Heggie, Principal, Jet Blue Technology Ventures ·         Robecta Ma, VP – Marketing, Cathay Pacific Airways ·         Eduardo Erazo, Data Scientist, Amazon ·         Gil Harel, Head of Partnerships Hotels & Content, Skyscanner·         Erin Gilmore, Head of Travel & Mobile App Partnerships, Twitter ·         Pedro Renaud Anderson, Founder, Winding Tree·         Michael Childers, Chief Consultant, Content & Media Strategy, Lufthansa Systems                                               View the full speaker line up here
Here’s what some of the 2017 attendees had to say:
·        eftusa delivered tenet challenging and thought stimulating presentations followed by the opportunity to network informally with industry peers and thought leaders. This type of event re-energizes and resets one enthusiasm for the travel industry (Chief Technology Officer, Hostelworld)·        Eye for Travel brought great insight into the potential future developments, technologies and strategies that we may see emerging in the next 5-10 years (CEO, RoomKey)·       Tremendous value from many of the sessions, with actionable inspiration to take back to work with me (Brand Marketing Manager, Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Las Vegas) ·       This conference drove home the necessity of personalizing and contextualizing data in customer interactions (Chief Consultant - Content & Media Strategy, Lufthansa Systems) ·      Very happy with the event. I felt like the standard of attendees were top-notch and very knowledgeable! I also appreciated being sent the attendee list (mobile app) in advance so I could set up meetings in advance during the networking breaks (CEO & Co-Founder, Globespinning)Don’t miss out on the opportunity to join some of travel’s most inspiring and innovative brands coming together to learn, network and pioneer change in the industry. Learn more about the summit and get the latest event updates here!Companies confirmed to attend this year include: Expedia, Air Canada Vacations, Allegiant Air, Choice Hotels, MGM Resorts, Magnuson Hotels, Las Vegas Sands, Hopper, and a whole lot more. Take a sneak peek at the 3-minute wrap up video from last year: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7T00Jd8omwY&t=40s Contact the team directly at – renu(at)eyefortravel(dot)com. EyeforTravel is a community where the world's top online travel brands – from hotels to airlines, online travel agents, cruise, car hire firms and more – come to meet to drive forward growth and innovation in the industry. We aim to provide you with industry focused news, events, reports, updates and information. EyeforTravel Limited is a registered company. The Company Registration number is 06286442. It is also registered in England & Wales. Registered office is 7-9 Fashion Street, London E1 6PX, United Kingdom.

As part of a new regular feature on EyeforTravel, we are posting some of the videos from our events every Friday, so you can see what the leaders in travel are thinking about and what the key areas of focus are. To start us off we are looking at EyeforTravel's San Francisco Summit 2018 and a fireside chat with Todd Henrich, SVP - Corporate Development at Booking Holdings. In the interview he reveals how the company sees loyalty, where it is focusing and what will drive growth.



All videos from EyeforTravel's events are available at through our content hub, EyeforTravel On Demand. You can also find a selection of videos from our events and webinars through our YouTube page. 
Sign up to our newsletter to get our free Friday videos direct to your inbox, along with all the great white papers, articles and reports we make throughout the year. 

The San Francisco 2018 summit was all about helping travel industry professionals separate the real from the hype. Check out the Round-up to see where the industry is placing its bets for the future.

Click here to view the report. 
EyeforTravel’s San Francisco Summit 2018 brought together the industry to dissect the technological transformations that are constantly shifting the ground on which we stand and to plot a safe path through the change. Read the Summit Round-up now to see what top brands had to say about artificial intelligence, loyalty, mobile marketing, data management, blockchain and moreA host of brands attended the Summit and you can read what they had to say in this round-up, including:

• Lyft

• Booking Holdings

• JW Marriott

• Expedia

• Turkish Airlines

• Accor

• Hipmunk

• Utrip

• Lola

They came to answer a host of critical questions facing the industry, including:

• What is the true potential of artificial intelligence and machine learning?

• What does an effective digital strategy look like?

• Where should a company invest, and how does an organization measure the effectiveness of the strategy?

• What has been the digital age’s impact on customer expectations?

• Even with a new set of digital tools, how do traditional business principles still apply?

• Is the hype behind blockchain real, imagined, or some combination of both? 

Click here to view the report. 

Travel brands everywhere are rushing headlong into data and analytics to try and get closer to their customers but what are the keys to success? A new report investigates …
EyeforTravel’s new report series into behavioural analytics is looking at what makes customer tick and how travel brands can use data techniques to improve every part of their sales process. In the first report in the series, Understanding the Travel Consumer, EyeforTravel alongside leading travel brands, is opening up the data processes and techniques necessary to drive insight. Core to this is how to treat the data itself. Here are some key pieces of advice from the reportthat can help you to unlock the potential in your data.
Concentrate Data In the report, every travel brand featured advocated consolidating data into centralized systems. This is because it then becomes easier to drive reporting, analytics, automation, and personalization from a single source.
For car hire company Hertz, they realized that they needed a ‘golden record’ for each customer. Ricardo Rangel, senior director of data architecture at Hertz defines this “a single, well-defined version of all the data entities in an organisation.”
First, they had to pool their data before they could run it through a customer matching engine, which has “the capability of searching, indexing and giving back the information about that customer.” Layered on top of this is an “application network” that interfaces across the business to provide a wide variety of services via Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), from alerting about a flat tire or issue with a particular model of car, to giving customers their preferred car type.
NH Hotels moved their property management system, central reservations system, customer relationship management and revenue management solution to the same database and Eurail has one “data warehouse” accessible to all employees via desktops or mobile phones. 
Travel digital marketing expert at McKinsey & Co Del Ross advises looking at your needs and budget – especially for smaller firms – working with a third-party specialist, and holding your data remotely in the “cloud”. “Storage space, speed, access, and security are all important considerations in data strategy,” he advises. “These factors combine to make cloud sourcing more compelling.  Using the principle, ‘only do what only you can do,’ brands should capitalize on the technical expertise of specialty service providers and invest their resources into analytics and gathering actionable insights.”
However, Maria Gómez Bada, manager of analytics and data insightsfor HomeAway.com, points out that “If you have data internally, you will always have more actions on the data and be able to get more insight. If you have it externally, it’s probably cheaper short-term but you have a black box.”
Ask What Are You Asking?When it comes to data, it is easy to get lost and find yourself tied up in a tide of requests and dead-ends that don’t lead to actual improvement. The key is to define the requirements in crystal clear terms before setting out. “What we learned … was that we needed to understand the question or the problem that we were trying to solve and our audience so that we could structure the dashboards to serve them,” says Priti Dhanda, director of revenue management analytics at Hyatt. “The properties had very different requirements to the above property people. So, a key goal was how do you use the same data and answer questions for the different audiences?”
Deploy First, Test Later If you’re looking to expand your organization’s data analytics then the experts in the report recommend getting solutions set up and operating so they can be tested and perfected rather than trying to build a great system from the outset. “It doesn’t need to be perfect [on release] and then we continue to improve it,” says Dhanda. “If we just focus on building that most perfect solution, we would never get there, and we would still be thinking and trying to get even a sample out.”
The testing of systems then becomes critical. “In the CRM space, we test absolutely everything,” said Darrin Rowe, director, customer insights & loyalty at Greyhound Lines speaking at Smart Travel Data North America 2018. “It’s an A/B test for every single thing we do. So, thinking about creative, thinking about copy and subject lines. There’s no magic bullet here, it’s just a ton of A/B testing and figuring out what resonates with our customers.”
According to Steven Consiglio, product performance manager at Booking.com, his organization has found that “It is impossible to even have hypotheses turn out to be accurate in our findings,” which makes testing vital to uncover those unintuitive findings. Therefore, on their site, “The amount of different site experimentations is countless. The experimentation is ever-present.”           
Visualize for SuccessVisualization is critical for data-led analysis. As the quantity of data exponentially increases, visual means are frequently the only way to comprehend and extrapolate meaning. Furthermore, data has been found to be far more convincing than just presenting the bald numbers, making it vital for gaining buy-in from colleagues.
“Visualizing does not need to be difficult – it turns difficult content and relationships into understandable information,” says Ina Hoppe, data analyst and systems development manager at Leonardo Hotels. “Pre-think what you want to show, or you will draw sophisticated dashboards no one will use. Ask your teams what they want, and keep it simple,” a sentiment that harks back to Dhanda’s advice when creating a project.  
Let the Law Lead“I think data is the future of everything that we do and we’re scraping the surface,” says Alessandra di Lorenzo, Chief Commercial Officer, Media and Partnerships atlastminute.com group. “We must never as companies, even as individuals, underestimate the power of data and the importance of managing that data in a compliant way that doesn’t damage the company’s relationship with customers. My answer is [to] probably get some help if you’re not very big, because it’s tricky and even the big players are still learning.”
This is now all the more vital as the European General Data Protection Regulation has come into force and means that customers must agree explicitly to all uses for their personal data, that data must be protected, and they can delete it.
Practical solutions brands can take to comply and still have a strong set of customer data include separating and anonymizing data. Amer Mohammed, head of digital innovation at Stena Line ferry firm says it now splits data into two copies: The first is anonymized, the second is personal. “In the marketing you have personal data where you can identify the individual, in the second we have anonymous, aggregated data,” he told the EyeforTravel Smart Travel Data Summit 2017. “If a customer asks us to delete their data, we only delete the first one. The second we use to get to know our customers.” This allows them to continue drawing conclusions whilst protecting the data and allowing customers to delete it easily.
Click here to download the Understanding the Customer report, part of EyeforTravel’s Behavioural Analytics Report Series. This report features insights from: 

• Booking.com
• HomeAway.com
• Hyatt
• Hertz
• Expedia
• Lastminute.com Group
• McKinsey & Co
• Stena Line

We want to thank everyone that came to EyeforTravel Europe for three days of fantastic speakers giving amazing insights. For us, it's back to the drawing board to plan more great events but for all of you, here are some pictures from the event. See if you can spot yourself or your colleagues and stay tuned for more event coverage, including a post-summit round-up report, more stories and loads of video content. 

Thanks to all of our attendees, 

The EyeforTravel Team 



EyeforTravel Europe Summit 2018 from Alex Hadwick

Knowing your customer is critical but complex journeys across multiple devices present travel brands with huge challenges. A new report investigates how travel brands can conquer attribution.
Travel brands should attack the issue of attribution from multiple angles says EyeforTravel’s new Understanding the Customer report, a completely free report, which can be downloaded now. Approaches range from tracking through cookies, data-driven attribution and encouraging customers to log-in to own brand sites and apps, all of which needs to be underpinned by a strong data program that measures changes over time.
Travel brands need to undertake an extensive and multi-faceted approach because attribution requires capturing interactions at so many touchpoints over extended periods and with different devices.
Mobile bookings in particular have additional complexity in terms of attribution, as mobile remains a last-minute channel, with short leads times leaving limited room to build up tracking data. In EyeforTravel’s Mobile Industry Survey 2018, 80% of accommodation business surveyed reported that mobile lead times were shorter, with 58.7% saying that they were much shorter. Just 1.3% found that mobile lead times were longer.


This can leave brands reliant on just last touch attribution, particularly when it comes to mobile bookings, and often looking at an incomplete view of their customer’s journey.
Maria Gómez Bada, analytics expert at HomeAway.com, argues that travel firms should fight the tendency to analyse just the last click, and see the whole picture. She believes that Google Analytics default attribution model, which will show you your customer’s last known direct click, gives an incomplete picture. Instead, she proposes data-driven attribution models for most online, complex companies.
“Data-driven attribution understands the value of the whole path, not only considering clicks but also impressions,” she explained. “[For example], a customer has seen your ad in Facebook, doesn’t click on it but recalls your brand, and might come in later through SEO [search engine optimisation] or SEM [search engine marketing]. Data-driven attribution gives a value to each medium and channel, considering clicks and impressions. Not only that, it works with predictive models to try to understand how you can invest in better marketing channels and ultimately get more conversions.”
To do this however, you need a strong foundation of data around your customers. “We’ve implemented a data management platform that basically enables us to very much look at our audience,” says Alessandra di Lorenzo, chief commercial officer, media and partnerships at lastminute.com group. Core to this is tracking, particularly cookies: “We call our cookies essentially unique users who come to our site [and when] altogether, make up our audience. What we do is look at this audience and combine segments… that we then use to personalize all of the messages that pop up on the website. This information enables us to make the customer journey more intelligent and more profiled, and therefore more relevant, we hope, to the unique users coming to browse our pages.”
Combining data from your sites cookies with third-party tracking enhances the potential to build out profiling and increases the accuracy of data-driven attribution. “Access to a person’s behaviour from retargeting sites and affiliates helps us, with a breadth of exposure,” says Steven Consiglio, product performance manager at Booking.com. “A map site, a luxury vacation site, it goes on-and-on. [Through these] you learn increasingly more, because your learning platform is not your own page: it’s wider.”
However, Lorenzo argues that even when armed with a host of information, “Unique identification is pretty much impossible from one device to another. Our solution to this is giving customers a value that brings them to log in… [for] a more tailored experience.… We have implemented all of the social log ins to make it very seamless. It’s about exchanging value and creating something special for our users.”
“Who can argue if a probability-based algorithm is right or wrong unless you benchmark it against another probability-based algorithm or a deterministic approach – which is what you have with a log-in base? This is the power of the Googles and Amazons, Facebooks and eBays who have a massive amount of logged-in customers and can deterministically tell if you are the same person.”
Del Ross, senior advisor at McKinsey & Co and a travel distribution and digital marketing expert, adds that the most important thing is to ensure that your data methods stay the same over time, so you can understand trends. “Behavioral insights have much more commercial and strategic value than transactional data,” he believes. “Transactional attribution is useful, but it is more important that the attribution method be consistent so that changes over time can be understood.  The absolute data is less important than pattern changes, which can reveal shifts in customer preferences and needs.”
Click here to download the Understanding the Customer report, part of EyeforTravel’s Behavioural Analytics Report Series. This report features insights from:

• Booking.com
• HomeAway.com
• Hyatt
• Hertz
• Expedia
• Lastminute.com Group
• McKinsey & Co
• Stena Line

We are proud to announce the launch of a band new free report.Understanding the Travel Consumer looks at how top travel brands are tackling the challenges of profiling, attribution and analytics to get closer to their customers.
Click here to download the report for free now. 
When it comes to human behaviour, deciphering the thought process is a messy business. This is especially so when it comes to travel, as consumers switch across devices and build complex itineraries throughout extended research periods. Travel brands are left with an uphill battle to understand their customers, reach them at the right times and give them personalised products. This is why we are putting together a new report series into behavioural analytics that seeks to demystify the process behind understanding the modern traveller through the application of data and analytics.
Click here to download the report for free now. 
This is the first report in this series covers attribution, profiling, and best practice in data storage and interpretation, featuring insights from:

• Booking.com
• HomeAway.com
• Hyatt
• Hertz
• Expedia
• Lastminute.com Group
• McKinsey & Co
• Stena Line

Through this free report we seek to uncover how brands can understand the modern traveler to drive higher conversion rates, lower acquisition costs, and ultimately give them the best possible product.This first report in the series covers the data and analysis groundwork that travel brands need to put in place to understand their customers, including:

• How to successfully tackle the challenge of attribution.
• What data to gather on consumers and how to build accurate profiles from this data.
• How to manage your data so that it is well-constructed, legally compliant, and useful to your whole organization.
• How to present information effectively.
• How to build a successful, data-led organization.

Click here to download the report.
Sign up to our newsletter to be notified when the next free reports on improving conversion rates and dynamic, personalized pricing are released. 

PPC, SEO, content marketing, social media, email marketing, TV ads – it’s easy to watch a travel brand’s marketing budget spiral out of control but it doesn’t have to be that way …
It’s hard to be heard in travel and for many that means spending more and more to try and reach the customer. However, innovative brands in the industry are doing things their way and not only reaching the customer for less but getting them to come back too!
HolidayPirates, a German company started out of a single travel blog, has grown to the stage of having more than 30 million Facebook fans and 20 million visits per month through the power of social media alone. “We don’t invest any money in Google ads, we don’t do TV – no traditional marketing, offline, and so on,” says David Armstrong, CEO of HolidayPirates, who will be speaking at the Eyefortravel’s Europe Summit in London this June. “We only go into social media, our own app of course, but also into messaging.”
He says their recipe for success was based around getting people’s attention on social media and then keeping it through being authentic, transparent, entertaining, relevant and trustworthy.

For HotelTonight, another brand speaking at EyeforTravel Europe that has learnt how to reach customers cost-effectively, they focused on the being relevant to their customers through data-driven operations. “We have hundreds of models running for specific markets, specific days of week, then also for specific segments of users,” said their chief technology officer Sam MacDonnell at EyeforTravel North America. “We dialled in these models to be super accurate. A 90% probability that you’re going to book the results we serve. We have been able to increase our conversion just in the last six months using this system by 15%, and not only for repeat bookers, where we have more data for how they are actually behaving, but also for first time users.”  
They have also focused on their loyalty program, launching a new in-depth rewards system that gives users immediate money-off bookings, with discounts levelling up as consumer spend more. Alongside this they have created a live-chat personal concierge service to cater to customers as they travel. Potential uses include “requests at the hotel itself, so if you want to check-in earlier, check-out later, if you want to have something waiting for you in your room,” says Amir Segall, VP of global supply, up to “local tips about the city, like ‘I want recommendations for a restaurant.” This has created “enormous lift in their engagement says Segall.
Airbnb has also taken a data led approach, using ‘machine learning at almost every step of the user experience,’ says company data scientist Theresa Johnson speaking at EyeforTravel’s Smart Travel Data Summit North America 2018. “So, when a guest comes to search for a place to stay, they are presented with tailored results to them based on our categorizations and collections, based on what we know about them and what we know about the properties, and that is improving all the time.” This has allowed the company to grow to more than 200 million guest arrivals since its founding in 2008 despite a relatively low paid media budget. The company has also announced that it is heading towards a loyalty program, trialling its ‘Superguest’ reward program this Summer.
If you want to hear from these brands and more then attend EyeforTravel’s European Summit. The Summit features many innovative brands who are finding ways to reach the consumer for less and keep them coming back for more, including:

• Airbnb
• HolidayPirates
• Choice Hotels
• HotelTonight
• Red Carnation Hotels
• Hostelworld
• Rome2Rio
• Hotels.com
• Icelolly.com

Join four cutting edge travel conference under one roof and change how travel is sold. Get your ticket to the EyeforTravel Europe Summit 2018 today!

Do you work in digital marketing, distribution, data analytics, revenue management, or travel tech?
The EyeforTravel North America Summit will be back at the Mandalay Bay Las Vegas, set to take place on Oct 18 -19 2018.
The overarching theme for this year sees a huge focus on the customer experience and the formula to own the booking: Frictionless CX + Data Driven Customer Insight + Cross Industry Partnerships = Super Charged Travel Sales. 
EyeforTravel are excited about the growth, competition and disruption in the industry and have positioned their next US flagship summit to tackle the burning issues currently facing the online travel sector.
Travel experts confirmed to take the stage include: ·         Barry Goldstein, Executive Vice President & Chief Marketing Officer, Wyndham Hotel Group·         Michael Almeraris, AR/VR Head of Developer Partnerships, Google ·         Thomas Magnuson, CEO, Magnuson Hotels ·         Heather Richer, Chief Marketing Officer, RedAwning (ex-Kimpton Hotels)·         Eliot Hamlisch, VP – Worldwide Loyalty & Partnerships, Wyndham Hotel Group·         Eduardo Erazo, Data Scientist, Amazon ·         Del Ross, Senior Advisor, Mckinsey & Company ·         Ravi Simhambhatla, VP – Commercial Technology & Corporate Systems, United Airlines·         Adam Hayashi, VP – Revenue Management & Business Intelligence, Accor Hotels ·         Sean Brevick, VP – Marketing and Digital Services, Marriott ·         Emmanuel Arnaud, CEO, GuesttoGuest & HomeExchange·         Bill Ramsey, Senior Director – Mobile & Emerging Channels, Choice Hotels·         Mamie Peers, VP – Digital Marketing, Cosmopolitan Las Vegas·         Esteban Velez, VP – Information Technology & Cyber Security, Classic Hotels & Resorts ·         Blake O’Rafferty, Head of Partnerships – Americas, HotelsCombined.com ·         Kathy Halpern, VP – Marketing, Palace Resorts Click here to get a sneak peek of the full agenda and the confirmed speaker line up.
The summit will tackle keynote topics such as the evolution of technology and the impact on distribution & marketing, managing market share and consolidating with the right partners, the life-time value metric in travel, the impact of GDPR on your strategy, the changing face of P2P travel and much more - this is just the start! In addition, the afternoon of both days will be split into three dedicated conference tracks: Marketing, Commercial and Innovation.   Other leading brands confirmed to speak include Allegiant Air, Mozio, Winding Tree, Air Canada Vacations, Jet Blue Technology Ventures, Hopper, Hotwire, MGM Resorts and more.
EyeforTravel North America is truly the only place you will be able to hear from and meet with the cream of the crop in travel, and more importantly to walk away with insights you can action as soon as you get back to the office.
Click here to secure one of the limited discounted pre-launch passes today!

Contact the team directly at – renu@eyefortravel.com  EyeforTravel is a community where the world's top online travel brands – from hotels to airlines, online travel agents, cruise, car hire firms and more – come to meet to drive forward growth and innovation in the industry. We aim to provide you with industry focused news, events, reports, updates and information. EyeforTravel Limited is a registered company. The Company Registration number is 06286442. It is also registered in England & Wales. Registered office is 7-9 Fashion Street, London E1 6PX, United Kingdom.Renu KannuEyeForTravel | Project and Research Director (+ 44 20 7375 7197 |renu@eyefortravel.com)

Ancillaries are the powerhouse growing travel brand revenues around the world and the industry has only just got started.
Technology is powering a massive growth in partnerships across the travel industry as brands race to enhance their offering to customers and also their bottom lines. Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), AI-powered personalization and streamlined booking processes are helping travel brands to cross-sell a growing amount of inventory and make the customer’s journey easier.
Ancillary sales are expanding to cover more and more inventory. From trains, ridesharing and buses, to dining, to an exploding tours and activities sector that has drawn the attention of all the largest online travel players. In TripAdvisor’s latest set of results from Q1 2018, its non-hotel revenues soared 36% and it is banking on tours and activities to push up results further this year. Clearly their strategy of focusing on the area after acquiring Viator, who are speaking at Eyefortravel’s Europe Summit in London this June, is beginning to pay off and indicates the growing importance of new revenue streams.
Elsewhere, rail travel is becoming one of the biggest focuses in travel, with digital giants like Expedia jumping in with their acquisition of SilverRail Technologies, Skyscanner launching a train booking feature for mobiles (both brands are speaking at EyeforTravel Europe), and major existing players stepping up their online presence.

As Cameron Jones, chief commercial officer at SilverRail, who will be speaking in London, puts it: “Rail’s time is now. Expedia, Rail Europe, Rome2Rio, Trainline, GoEuro and more are raising the profile and relevance of rail as a key product line in a comprehensive retailing strategy. Rail gives travellers greater choice and flexibility when trip planning and, being a high frequency product, drives traffic and loyalty enabling retailers to lower their customer acquisition costs. And Skyscanner/Ctrip’s recent move into rail in Europe highlights the momentum.”
The growing realm of potential partnerships means that travel brands can cater to more aspects of the customer’s journey, even if they are only a small player – both generating more revenues and greater customer satisfaction.
If you would like to find out more about the expanding role of partnerships across the industry, there’s only one place to go – the EyeforTravel Europe Summit 2018.
The Summit features a host of speakers from across the spectrum who can help to transform the ancillaries you sell from a variety of diverse sectors, such as tours and activities, ride sharing, transportation. These include

• Viator
• The Trainline
• Blablacar
• Eatwith
• Withlocals
• SilverRail Technologies
• Hertz
• Amadeus
• Checkmybus.com
• routeRank
• Eurail
• Rail Europe
• Insight Guides
• Urban Adventures
• TripCreator
• Livn

Join four cutting edge travel conference under one roof and change how travel is sold. Get your ticket to the EyeforTravel Europe Summit 2018 today!

Huge global smartphone adoption across the globe presents a massive opportunity for travel brands to reach consumers but where should they be focusing their efforts to maximise returns?

EyeforTravel and SAP Digital Interconnect’s new Driving Intelligent, Interconnected Mobile Engagement Throughout the Travel Journey report, which is free to download now, identifies the four key areas where travel brands need to target mobile consumers:
1. AwarenessIt is becoming increasingly critical to create inspiring content that will work on mobile as consumers are most likely to be using their mobile devices early on in travel research. As more detailed, late-stage research is undertaken, most consumers in major markets move over to larger screens on desktops and laptops. Consumers therefore need to be engaged with content and made aware of the travel options and offers available. This is the first stage of influencing the buyer journey and a key mobile phase.
2. Purchase decisionDespite desktops and laptops being the main booking devices for travel purchases generally, some markets such as China are mobile-first throughout, and overall it is increasingly an omnichannel experience. Mobile is also growing globally. J.D. Power found that 25% of hotel online reservations were made using mobile in 2017, up from 14% in 2014. EyeforTravel’s 2018 research similarly finds that the median share of mobile bookings reported by travel brands is between 10% to 19%, with 58% reporting more than 10% of bookings come through mobile. Customers now expect a relatively seamless transition and look for consistency across platforms as they move down the purchase funnel.
This purchase funnel is broadening, with new channels and communication services growing. Although mobile bookings are still largely through web browsers, leading to 45% of travel brands focusing on the mobile web compared to the 22.5% focusing on apps, brands will need to shift and widen their focus. For the modern traveler, alongside established SMS, web and email channels, social media services, such as WeChat, WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, are increasingly important. Not only can they now allow bookings but they are also great touch points to help the consumer get more information for their purchase journey and help them feel safe about their purchase. However, just 29% of travel brands currently have instant messaging capabilities and this will need to increase as consumer tastes change and travel brands chase low-cost distribution routes.
Improving a brand’s ability to use these emerging mobile channels can also help to address the main issues that exist with mobile booking for consumers. Key among these is security. The channels mentioned above can be used for two-factor authentication (2FA), sending security codes to approve payment, access secure pages and complete bookings. This helps drive consumer confidence in making online purchases and therefore mobile conversion rates, which are far lower in the travel industry than for desktop and laptop visitors.
3. Throughout the trip itselfBeing able to reach consumers with key information as and when they need it is becoming a core competency for travel brands that want to drive a relationship and build loyalty with their customer. Among US consumers, 87% report that they find travel notifications useful and travel brands that can reach a traveler in a moment of crisis can win over a consumer for life.
Becoming the trusted source of information to the consumer as they travel is a way to wrest control of the traveler and their journey from third parties and reposition the travel brand at the core of the journey. Customer satisfaction rates are higher when they have been actively reached out to by a travel brand with relevant messaging or if they have downloaded a brand’s app.
Travel brands and technology players need to provide channels that are truly global and not just accessible in the home country or continent of the consumer. The channel has to have the presence to reach the traveler throughout their journey, especially when disruptions happen, such as a delay or change in flight.
4. Post travelIt is extremely important to get the voice of the traveler as feedback. One single bad review can influence future purchase decisions, and travel brands need to use technologies to interact and strike when they happen. Emotions run very high most recent to a bad experience and if you are able to address that then you can calm a situation and possibly turn a negative into a positive. Encourage positive reviews and social interaction post-travel to not only influence other buyers, but to also engender brand loyalty with your traveler.
Among travel brands that had automated messaging capabilities, 47% reported that they sent out satisfaction questionnaires and 37% sent out post-stay marketing. This shows that travel brands are awakening to the potential of using mobile in the post-travel period but they still have a long way to go to make the most out of this time.
Get ahead of the competition now and download this completely free mobile market report to access:

• A major industry survey of all travel verticals uncovering their mobile strategies and technology deployments.
• Analysis of how consumers are using the mobile channel.
• Projections for mobile’s growth across travel.
• Where you should be investing to reach the mobile consumer.
• How you can ensure mobile-focused communications are effective.
• An overview of how you should be measuring and overseeing an m-commerce operation.

Search engine and social marketing are the priority spending categories for 67% of travel brands’ mobile marketing budgets finds new research.


New research from EyeforTravel and SAP, which surveyed nearly 300 travel industry professionals on the topic of mobile has found that search and social have a stranglehold over mobile marketing, likely reflecting the dominance of Google and Facebook in the digital marketing sphere.
When respondents were asked what is the largest component of their mobile marketing budgets, 35% selected search and 32% social, according to EyeforTravel’s new Driving Intelligent, Interconnected Mobile Engagement Throughout the Travel Journey report, which is free to download now.
Search spending was even higher among hospitality and accommodation brands, where it was the most important category for 45.3% of brands. This preponderance is a result of the way in which consumers search for hotels, with mobile still a last-minute channel when it comes to booking and at that stage consumers are looking mainly for specific locations, largely through search engines. However, it may also indicate an over-focus on the latter stages of consumers booking journey and an acquisition-driven strategy that doesn’t fully take into account the role of mobile in inspiration and initial research phases.
One area where travel brands might look to expand spending and make the most of mobile’s role at the inspiration stage is video marketing, which was rated as most important in just 4.4% of budgets.
The small role of video marketing currently would seem to be a major missed opportunity for travel brands given the growth of mobile video consumption in recent years. A multi-country study by AOL estimated that 57% of consumers watch videos through their mobile every day and Zenith estimated that there was 20% growth in global video consumption in 2017.
Get ahead of the competition now and download this completely free mobile market report to access:

• A major industry survey of all travel verticals uncovering their mobile strategies and technology deployments.
• Analysis of how consumers are using the mobile channel.
• Projections for mobile’s growth across travel.
• Where you should be investing to reach the mobile consumer.
• How you can ensure mobile-focused communications are effective.
• An overview of how you should be measuring and overseeing an m-commerce operation.

How will mobile change the travel industry in 2018? A new mobile market report investigates.
Mobile is a growth category for the travel industry as established markets experience rising usage and emerging markets add millions of consumers who look and book with their smartphones. It is even more vital tool for in-trip engagement as the majority of travelers globally report that they use their smartphone as their main conduit for information and communications as they travel.  It is therefore an area that travel brands must address in 2018 in order to maximise their return on investment and avoid falling behind competitors.  
Based on EyeforTravel and SAP’s new Driving Intelligent, Interconnected Mobile Engagement Throughout the Travel Journey report, here are three key ways in which mobile will influence the travel marketing in 2018.
1.      Getting to customers through their smartphones as they travel is going to be key in building a relationshipSmartphones are used most during the actual trip itself, presenting a golden time to reach them through this medium. For 67% of British, French and German consumers, the smartphone is their key device during their trip and 98% of Chinese international travelers report that they use their smartphone whilst abroad, with 65% reporting that they use their smartphone to search for restaurants or to use navigation tools.
What’s more there are more ways than ever to reach the consumer through their smartphone, none of which are being fully exploited by travel brands so far. First and foremost there are apps. Although these are difficult to get installed on a user’s device, they have excellent engagement rates and allow owners to send push notifications, which were found to be the most effective form of in-app advertising by our research. However, just a third of travel brands currently have an app. Beyond this, consumers can receive or request messages from travel brands through SMS, used by 24% of travel brands, MMS (8%), QR codes (16%), and instant messaging services (29% of travel brands). The latter of these could be key, as IHS Markit predicts that there will be 7.5 billion messaging and communication app accounts by 2020, giving unrivalled reach.
2.      Automated outreach is going to go wider and get a whole lot more effectiveIn order to get relevant and engaging messages to consumers, travel brands will need to automate the process through data analysis and AI-enabled services. We found that among the 41% of travel brands that have automated mobile outreach, 83% report that is effective at driving satisfaction. These services can be used to build loyalty and drive revenues through a variety of services that give the consumer key pieces of information that makes their journey easier and upsell and marketing messages. Currently, 78.4% of travel brands that have an automated messaging service report that they can send booking confirmations and reminders but just 37% can send post-stay marketing messages and 35% emergency notifications. We can expect the number of travel brands with automated outreach to grow in 2018 alongside the type and content of their messages. Brands will take on a multichannel strategy with their messaging, using the most appropriate format for the customer based on where they are in the journey. For example, SMS for a change in gate, or push notifications from an app for excursions at the destination.  
3.      Mobile sites will become better at grabbing the last-minute bookingAlthough mobile is a fast-growing channel when it comes to the booking itself, desktops and laptops still rule the roost when it comes to share and even more so when it comes to spending. Instead, mobile appears to still be a last-minute channel, especially for hotels. Just under 65% of respondents from all verticals in the survey say that mobile lead times are either much shorter or slightly shorter than desktop bookings, with 40% answering that they are much shorter. Nearly double the rate of respondents from the accommodation group report that mobile lead times are much shorter – 59% to 31%.
This makes the mobile web experience critical, as smaller screens and a need for swift information will make relevancy and presentation critical. In our survey 39% of brands reported that they were prioritizing the mobile web and a further 6%, said they were shifting to mobile web, far above those who said they were prioritizing apps. We can expect the number of travel brands who have a responsive or adaptive website to rise from the 58% who currently do.
Optimizing this experience will be driven by growing abilities to personalize landing pages and streamlining the moments from arrival on the site to the check-out based off growing data analysis capabilities and A/B testing. Furthermore, advances in revenue management and yield maximization techniques will increase the profitability of last-minute mobile bookings.
To access the research and get ahead of the competition, download this completely free mobile market report to access:

• A major industry survey of all travel verticals uncovering their mobile strategies and technology deployments.
• Analysis of how consumers are using the mobile channel.
• Projections for mobile’s growth across travel.
• Where you should be investing to reach the mobile consumer.
• How you can ensure mobile-focused communications are effective.
• An overview of how you should be measuring and overseeing an m-commerce operation.

Mobile innovation and the internet’s control of the consumer, integrating voice into your business, a smart customer journey, how the death of cash in travel will change the industry forever are just a handful of market opportunities you should be considering today… and this conference will help facilitate this change.
“It was my first time to TDS and I have to say it really exceeded my expectations in terms of quality and variety of presentations, networking options..2 days well spent!”“We started big business partnerships with two individual organisations as a direct consequence of sponsoring the EyeforTravel Summit in London this year” Hjalti, CEO, Bokun  
With speakers from Airbnb, Hilton and Booking.com covering the macro questions we all want answered, Hostel World, Edwardian Hotels, Rail Europe discussing next steps of AI, to Hotels.com and Hotel Tonight discussing loyalty andNH Hotels, Expedia talking about the partnerships you need this is the event to be at.  
Whether your interest is smart hotel rooms, open source APIs or firming up your ancillary strategy, this is the one event which unites practical people in the industry who are building new travel architecture that revolutionizes the industry and creates profit. Want in?
With a bigger and better agenda, it’s now three days and boasts big hitting keynotes, three topic specific tracks, a hackathon, a start-up village and dedicated workshops for B2C brands to attend!Click here to see what they are covering in the 2018 agenda
If you are looking to get face to face with over 450 of Europe’s leading travel brands comprising heads of mobile innovation, technology, marketing and innovation from Europe’s biggest transport, hospitality and travel brands looking to meet for one goal … identify the strategies, partnerships, innovations and business models that will make their companies thrive in the future. Then there’s options for you.
Ways you can bring your brand to the event is through sponsorship opportunities, they have limited booths available and currently have a final discounted ticket price for you to attend. So, what are you waiting for?Need help making a decision you can request the attendee list here.
A mixture of active debate, insightful presentations and 1-2-1 networking will be at the heart of this year’s conference.Get your hands on one of their discounted passes today!
For more details contact Leo Langford leo@eyefortravel.com
EyeforTravel is a community where the world's top online travel brands – from hotels to airlines, online travel agents, cruise, car hire firms and more – come to meet to drive forward growth and innovation in the industry. We aim to provide you with industry focused news, events, reports, updates and information. EyeforTravel Limited is a registered company. The Company Registration number is 06286442. It is also registered in England & Wales. Registered office is 7-9 Fashion Street, London E1 6PX, United Kingdom.