OTAs have often been seen as a disruptor of the hotel industry, as a competitor and a negative force. However it is becoming more apparent that hotels and OTAs can coexist and work together, as Christopher Michau discusses in this TV show.

OTAs will help market hotels

We really see it as a long term business. We are not there for the short term, we want to develop a profound relationship and partnership will different hoteliers. So it’s really about telling us why those hotel chains and independent hotels want to work with us. I think this is really the misconception that is happened in the past. You work with OTAs and Expedia, just for having heads in beds basically, but really every single hotel is different and they can really benefit from what we can do. At the end of the day we are spending over a billion dollars in marketing per year. It’s really about how you leverage that investment that we’re doing for your own needs as a hotel or hotel chains. If you found this video about OTAs interesting, why not watch more TV shows on The Hospitality Channel?    

The connected economy puts an emphasis on engaging with people. In this TV show Christopher Michau discusses how Expedia is a part of the customer's travel process from start to finish.

Connected economy means being at every touch point

We’ve really grown from a web based only business to, no matter where the consumer is coming from, and wants to communicate with us, we have to be there. It’s important. We are not there just for the transactional fee, but we be there for people to start dreaming about the vacation up to, when they come back from their trip and share that. There’s a lot of different ways they can do this whether it’s over the phone, on the web or on mobile, or speaking to someone physically as well. We are there at every one of those touch points. Actually everything we do internally, we always think of our travellers first. I think it is really down to this communication that we have with consumers. We need to be there at every single point in their journey. So if they need you at the time of booking, we need to be there. If they need it when they travel because something happens at the airport and they cannot make it to the hotel, we need to help them to rebook. Their whole trip at the point of their fingertips on mobile for instance. This is something we are investing in a lot so we can really deliver a full scale experience to those consumers. The Hospitality Channel will continue to follow discussions around the connected economy. Look out for more from Christopher Michau.

Business models can be very prescriptive, but at Expedia, they try to give employees room to action their own ideas. In this TV show Christopher Michau discusses giving employees the power to deliver.

Business Models: Expedia

It’s actually something that our CEO is pushing us every single day. If you think about this company and the scale of it, we only have ten thousand people. It sounds like a big number but it’s actually really a small number if you compare to how much revenue we generate. We really try to give ownership to the people, and so if they have an idea, they can walk it from A-Z, the idea up to the delivery of it. So we make sure we manage as much as possible.

If you found this TV show interesting and want to hear more about hospitality business models and similar subjects then please browse our videos.

Social media usage is happening among your consumers regardless of what you do . In this TV show Christopher Michau of Expedia discusses integrating social media into the business model.

Social media usage in hospitality

We really perceive that as really important. We started with the reviews a couple of years back, which was kind of disruptive to this industry. Suddenly you could be talking about the cleanliness of the bathroom. So that became disruptive, but then we said, well that’s actually what we call social media, it’s about those traveller that trust your brands who have decided to transact with you but don’t only transact but also have that experience. So it’s something that is obviously, travel being so emotional, it’s something that you really really need to integrate into your business model. It’s really really a deep link with the business that we do on a daily basis. If you enjoyed this video about social media usage, why not watch more TV shows on The Hospitality Channel?

In this business growth show Christopher Michau explains how Expedia has adapted it's strategy as disruptors have hit the hospitality market.

Business growth show: Expedia

Well Expedia today is the number one travel company, not even online, travel company by itself. We do 37 billion of customers booking per year, and that’s throughout the globe, now it has different brands with Expedia, you have the leisure brands, you have the opaque brands and you also have the business travel brands. The beauty of it, is that it is a business that keep reinventing itself. It’s a business that dated back from 1996 with Microsoft at the time when you had only a brother, and today you know, we have to invent our-self with things like mobile, which are you know completely disruptive to this industry, so it’s a really fast paced business there.

The Hospitality Channel will continue to follow the impact of new disruptive forces in hospitality. Look out for more business growth shows.

Mobile digital platforms are being used increasingly for hospitality bookings. But the motivation for customers using these platforms can vary and companies need to consider this in their platform development. Christopher Michau of Expedia explains in this TV show.

Mobile digital platforms are crucial

Mobile is becoming crucial. Today we are going into the double digits of our bookings are made with a mobile device. Now you have to differentiate what is a mobile from an iPad, which you use most of the time, when you sit on the coach and surf and dream about your vacation, to that last minute traveller, who needs to stay in London tonight and really need to make that booking. So there’s a lot of different needs with mobile. It’s not just mobile, have an app and that’s it. It need to be localised which we do in 36 languages. It needs to be apps, it needs to be mobile webs and with all of that today we’re running 130 of those, and today we have over 30 million people who’ve actually downloaded our apps. So there’s a lot of different things to do on the mobile in order to answer all those different customer needs. If you found this TV show interesting and want to hear more about mobile digital platforms and similar subjects then please browse our videos.  

Data strategy is evolving as the amounts of data continuously increase. In this TV show Christopher Michau of Expedia discusses making the best use of big data for individual travellers.

Data strategy for football fields of servers

Data is becoming so important. Today we measure this in football fields, which keep growing. Every single quarter we add a football field of servers with all this data. We manage all of this in house, we think it’s a critical company advantage. We use it at everything we do. We really see this data as what can it deliver, you know, we asking ourselves, this is the question, how can this data help us, and then you know, thanks to this data we are able to run tests all the time. This idea is really to run test in order to find, what’s right for you as a traveller.

The Hospitality Channel will continue to follow ideas around data strategy and there are more TV shows from Christopher Michau.

Strategy development at Expedia is moving towards increased consumer choice through the Expedia Travel Preference Programme, as Christopher Michau explains In this TV show.

Customer experience strategy development

One of the things that we have been working on over the last two years now has been working out how we can deliver a better experience the consumer. One of the things that we are doing for that is launching our Expedia Travel Preference Programme where we really give the choice to the consumer to either pay directly at the time of booking or they can also pay directly at the hotel when they check in and that’s something that no one else has done in history up to the scale that Expedia is doing it. If you found this TV show interesting and want to hear more about hospitality strategy development and similar subjects, then please browse The Hospitality Channel for more great free content.

Current hospitality industry trends include the growing use of mobile devices and social media. In this TV show Christopher Michau of Expedia shares what he has seen happening.

Hospitality industry changes

I think on trend, obviously we talked about mobile, but that’s more than trend, it’s really the way that people transact. It’s something that overtime we are expecting will become the majority of our bookings. We are seeing countries that don’t even go through the web, they don’t even transact with, they never actually had a pc or a mac to do something, they always had a tablet or a smart phone. So that’s really a big trend out there. Then there’s this whole social thing, which today we are not seeing yet in terms of transactions but really about the inspirational phase, how do you master the channel in order to be able to attract people to you. We actually in the US, for the first time launched a campaign first through social media, and it was such a huge success that we decided to put it on television. So you know it started as an experiment on social and there was so much great customer response that we decided to put it on the television.

If you found this TV show interesting and want to hear more about hospitality industry trends, please browse The Hospitality Channel for more great free content.