Is this a relationship that is one premised upon the positives or negatives, is it a friend or foe type set of circumstances. I think ultimately what will be successful are those who can at least embrace it as a partnership opportunity, be mindful of where the OTAs can truly add incremental value. Many talk about the OTAs adding, if they can add incremental room nights, that’s definitely extra revenue you might not otherwise have achieved and that's serves a purpose. I think the reality at the moment is, yes you’re getting some of that but you’re also facing a challenge from quite a large amount of business not necessarily being incremental. So, I think it’s working on the ways that you can ensure that what you get is incremental and at the same time as we touched on before, ensuring that when we do gain access to that customer who may have arrived via the OTA channel, you try and make the most of the opportunity to cement your relationship as a hotelier with that customer going forwards to maybe cut out the OTA going forwards.

Deal-making is a hurdle for growing business. In this TV show Tom Walsh of Staycity discusses a strong development pipeline.

Deal-making in alternative markets

It is a very limited marketplace. I mean our our objectives, were 900 units today, by the end of next year we'll have 2000 keys. There are deals that we did over the last few years that are under construction at the moment, many of them, a couple of them opening this year, and four or five properties opening next year. It's hard to find the properties that's, you know, that's, that's you know, par for the course, you really are competing with other users, whether it's office use or residential use, or hotel use, you're generally competing for, you know, scarce real estate in city centre locations. We're, we're seeking city centre locations, so you're, you know, you are by definition really, uh, competing with other users. Our growth plans will see us having about 5000 keys by 18 or 19. We're quite comfortable we'll be able to find sufficient properties for that we've, as I said, 2000 open by the end of next year, and a pipeline of 1300 on top of that. And, a good strong unsigned pipeline, so you know, we're able to ferret them out, you know, bit by bit, deal by deal.

Browse more videos by the Hospitality 250 experts and find more insight into deal-making and other hospitality topics.

Africa is more than a great opportunity, it's the biggest market to come. Just to keep in mind, a few numbers; first, 1.5 billion inhabitants by 2050, it will be bigger than uh, China or bigger than India. In the continent of Africa fits more or less all the whole world; uh China fit in Africa, India, Europe, US, and Brazil, just to give you the size of Africa. And today, if you take the market, only 5%- 5.3% of the sub-Sahara Africa, just to give you uh, the, the- the mass market that we are developing, uh, branded hotels, 5%, versus 44 in, in Europe, and 70 in the US. Then, to show you the massive opportunity we have, all together, bigger than chain original player like Mangalis Hotel Group, or small independent hotels, to support the growth of Africa.

The perception of Africa is always different. If you are well connecting with Africa, this is our case, because our ownership is Africa; we are belonging to a company, we are based in, in Ivory Coast in Senegal for the past decade, and we know all the issues of Africa that we need, and we know we need to understand how we work in Africa, which is, I agree, totally different than in Russia or Western Europe or in even in the US. And as far you know all the issues and how to deal with, it's more easy to work with than, you know, and Africa, probably there is more administration, more bureaucracy than in Europe, but the way of doing business is more the same, the wish of doing business is the same, and the acceleration of doing business is clear, then all in all, at the end, it's not to say complex to do business in Africa. It take more times, according some countries, logistics is an issue, logistics to bring the stuff from Europe or from Asia, it's an issue to build, it's an issue, but with the new technique of the approach and the new logistics that we deploy, it's more easy to in Africa, and the time frame from day one, the construction and delivery to operate, the time has reduced by two, at least for past 5 years, and even with take modular construction we proposed a construction for 10 to 11 month, which is track record in the industry.

It is a collection of properties, they're all luxury properties, so that's the common thread right throughout. The level of service is right up there with the very best of our peers. That's very much part of the proposition when you come and stay at a Trump, you're not coming just to stay in a physical property with a fantastic room in a great, iconic location, you're coming for the experience and to live the life of Trump. The other thing that makes our brand different is we have a family that sits behind it, and is very actively involved in the development of the brand.

Customer demand will drive which concepts take off and which get left behind. In this TV show Tim Helliwell discusses how consumers are looking for something different.

Customer demand for alternative accommodation

Well, I think these really are arguably the future in terms of where the sector is going. The established brands and the established offerings will always be there and there will always be a market for them, but as we've heard today, you know, people are equally looking for something different, whether that's the brand offering and everything that goes with it, or indeed, in terms of the concept that's been offering. So, whilst, as I said on my panel, that you know I, I'm focussed on hotel finance, I'm actually focussed on aparthotel finance, hostel finance, anything which has got a hospitality angle to it, because frankly that's what consumers are looking for, and that's exactly why I'm here.  

Hospitality TV will continue to feature shows about customer demand and alternative accommodation. Why not take a look at who else has been featured in the Hospitality250.

Why do it? Because number one, if you don’t, somebody else will. And we’re already seeing the first hotel chain that's tied up with a retailer coming together to go in there. They’re going to bring their retail marketing ideas over. Secondly, it provides an ability to monetise the wireless. So you could put great wireless in, so you've taken away the worry about having to have great wireless and it being a complaint point, but you've done it in a way that it pays for itself by increasing the spend of your customer when they're on site with you by personalised their visit.

Real estate funds can be a part of the development process for hospitality projects. In this TV show Andrew Pratt explains what Patrizia is all about.

Real estate funds and commercial investment businesses

Patrizia was set up in the mid 1980s, basically as a residential property company investing in residential property in Germany. Went through an IPO in 2005, now has over fourteen billion euros worth of assets, mainly in central Europe, fifty residential and commercial, we have thirty funds in Germany, we're the second biggest house builder in Germany as well now, the market in Germany's changing from being a, er, rental market to home ownership. Similar model to the UK. We act for a hundred pension funds across Europe - well across the world, actually. The strategy for Patrizia was to replicate that model, in the UK. Came into the UK, about - just under two years ago now we've been setting up both residential and conversion, commercial investment businesses.

Hospitality TV will continue to feature shows about real estate funds and development. Why not take a look at who else has been featured in the Hospitality250.

The serviced apartments hospitality sector is gaining more prominence in the industry. In this TV show Marcel Lindt discusses Frasers service apartments.

An expanding hospitality sector

So Frasers is a leading operator of serviced apartments, we have about ninety properties and about fourteen thousand units under operation and in the pipeline at the moment, we are from Singapore originally, and so we have a very strong presence in Asia, but we also have a good presence in Europe, and in the Middle East. More recently we have also started to look at Africa as a region to grow. So, I would say the main difference to a hotel is, that you get larger rooms, you have a separate living area, you have a separate kitchenette, sometimes even a full blown kitchen, we often have a separate bedroom, essentially we've giving more space to the traveller. On the other hand, you have less, open spaces, so you have less public areas, typically. So, we are - we tend to be in areas where there's lots of restaurants around, so we feel we don't need to have a lot of F&B offering in our properties. Same with conference and banqueting, you probably find is more in a hotel, for us that’s more sort of, you know, we have a small meeting rooms for - for smaller events, but we are not doing big conferences, like the one here now at the moment.

Hospitality TV will continue to feature shows about serviced apartments and other hospitality sectors. Why not take a look at who else has been featured in the Hospitality250.

The digital economy offers many opportunities to connect better with guests. In this TV show Riko van Santen discusses three areas to improve relationships with guests.

Digital economy and communication

Working with partnerships, the distribution channels, that's been about for a while now. So we are there and we are working with many channels of distribution in order to partner to make reaches into the markets where we perhaps couldn’t establish ourselves. So we use the internet to extend our reach in terms of the distribution channels, that's the first area. Another area is to understand also the behaviour of the guests on the internet. So not only through the existing booking channels but also how do they search? How do they read about hotels? How do they understand experiences that hotel companies are offering? There are different kinds of portals, there are different kinds of platform and search behaviours that we try to tap into to ensure we can anticipate the guest’s behaviour and to be there with our brands to provide solutions for their travel experiences. Finally the third area is to connect to say once we have made that connection and we establish the relationships with the guests, both before, during and after the stays, we can actually use that information from those 3 touch points to better serve the guests in the future or during the stay. How do we find them, where do they come, where were they searching from. What is their experience or what are they wanting to have during their stay in our hotels and post-stay after they check out, how do we make sure that we can keep the relationships with the guests without being - you know, without spamming them with emails. It’s not just a question of just sending them an email to remind them, oh thank you for staying in the hotel, come again, it’s to really understand how did they enjoy the stay, what can we do to make sure that we can anticipate their stay next time to make it even better and to grow our data base of the profile and the understanding of our guests.

The Hospitality Channel features many TV shows and briefings discussing the digital economy. Browse all the hospitality briefings here.