The upcoming No Vacancy Southeast Asia 2013 travel conference hopes to help hoteliers drive down vacancy rates by providing insight on the increased convergence of the accommodation and Internet industries.
Travel executives from around Asia Pacific will descend upon the Sofitel Sukhumvit next Tuesday, June 25 for the conference, which this year has elected the theme “Beyond Price.”
Right now the Internet is the number one distribution channel that potential customers use when booking hotels. Booking sites like Agoda have changed the way we choose hotels by organizing options based on price, rather than quality. This has led to a decrease in consumer loyalty as fewer consumers are turning to their preferred hotel brands and instead solely focusing on price. In addition, the Internet has become somewhat of a dumping ground for cheap rates, and while cheaper prices might appeal to consumers, the hotel brand value is diluted at the same time.
Furthermore, the majority of the Asian hotel market is suffering from problems that seem to defy basic economic principles. Five-star properties backed by local families with deep pockets are springing up but the demand simply just isn’t there. The high-end market is becoming flooded, and thus prices are dropping.
No Vacancy’s eighteen speakers will address these issues and offer solutions to deliver value at the right price, and also win customers back through building a trusting relationship with them.
Martin Kelly, the man behind No Vacancy, says, “there is still plenty to look forward to, there are tons of places that haven’t been discovered yet, Asia is still an incredible market.”
Thailand’s travel market is trending inland currently, and as it’s being marketed less as a tropical beach paradise, travelers are looking at smaller, lesser-known destinations. The low cost carrier revolution has, in part, allowed this shift in travel patterns as more and more previously inaccessible cities are becoming easier to access. This brings about another problem that is to be addressed at the upcoming No Vacancy conference: how do we deal with the influx of mass tourism? 2013 has been the year of the Chinese tourist, and we’re finally learning that mass tours can completely trample a destination if they aren’t handled properly. What do the experts say can help create a more sustainable tourism industry in Asia? We’ll find out at No Vacancy on June 25th.
Coconuts is a media partner with No Vacancy Southeast Asia. Tickets (A$449 + GST) can be booked here.
NO VACANCY SOUTHEAST ASIA 2013 SCHEDULE:
9.00am – 9.30pm Keynote – Beyond Price: Being cheaper than everyone else isn’t a marketing strategy, it’s a ticking time bomb. So why does everybody discount? Because everyone else is doing it of course. But that’s no excuse. Surely now is the time to break from the pack and create a future that takes your business ‘beyond price’.
· Karthik Siva, Chairman, Global Brand Forum
9.30am – 10.00am Take It From The Top… Ignore the white noise and focus on the facts. And they are that Southeast Asia is still a region of immense opportunity, though not without challenges. Succinct presentations from two of Asia’s most influential hoteliers outlining their perspective on regional growth opportunities and challenges.
· Lothar Pehl, SVP Operations and Global Initiatives, Starwood Hotels and Resorts AP
· Andrew Langston, VP Hotel Operations APAC, Banyan Tree
10.00am – 10.15am Loyalty and Trust – The New Front Line: There’s a battle on for the hearts, minds and wallets of the global travelling public. The key is to get repeat business – loyalty. Our next speaker is one of Asia’s leading accommodation loyalty experts.
· Javier Cedillo-Espin, VP Communications and Loyalty, Accor Asia Pacific
10.15am – 10.35am Panel Discussion: Conversational wrap of the opening session involving all four participants with moderation from Director of TravelTrends.biz, Martin Kelly.
10.30am – 11.00am Morning Tea
11.00am – 11.20pm Ten Things I Hate About Hotels: The title says it all. Welcome to the Willy’s Wonky World of Hoteldom. In a world of fractured ideas, our next speaker believes the hotel business sits front and centre as a proponent of silly works. These range from service, design and of course the arcane sector known as ‘brandspeak’. Here him vent here…
· Bill Barnett, Director, C9 Hotelworks
11.20am – 11.40am Flying High – A Presentation With Altitude: An overview of which SEA destinations will be winners/losers in terms of aviation capacity over the next year or so. Source markets will also be an important part of the story, giving hoteliers an insight into future customer demand trends.
· Brendan Sobie, Chief Analyst SEA, Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation
11.40am – 12.05pm Designing The Future: Design has never been more important than right now. Witness the new wave of design hotels. Design, good or bad, determines the customers you attract and the rate you charge. In this session, two of Asia’s leading hotel designers reveal the latest design trends and what’s next. Stay ahead of the curve here. Better still, learn what’s timeless and never dates.
· Clint Nagata, Founder and Creative Director, BLINK Design Group
· Stephen O’Dell, Director, SODA
12.05pm – 12.40pm Flashpackers, Backpackers and The Changing Face of Life on the Road: Backpacking has always been at the cutting edge, the place to look for the latest trends. In 2013 these include the rise of the ‘Golden Backpacker’, a dramatic increase in independent Chinese, Singaporean and Korean travellers and the use of mobile to research and book. This session will also discuss the accommodation side of business with one of Vietnam’s leading players.
· Nikki Scott, Publisher, SEA Backpacker
· Max Lambert, Co-Owner, Vietnam Backpacker’s Hostels
· Nalin Kalayanamitr, Marketing & Sales Strategies Manager, Lub d Bangkok Hostel
12.40pm – 2.00pm Lunch
2.00pm – 2.20pm Hotel Search – Stats, Behaviour, Insights: Google is having an enormous impact on the hotel industry with most travel bookings starting with the familiar clean white page. How you play in this forum can make or break your business. This session examines at accommodation search trends plus insights into the latest Google search tool such as Google Hotel Finder.
· Bambos Kaisharis, Industry Head, Travel, Southeast Asia, Google
2.20pm – 2.35pm Last Minute Booking Models: The rise of mobile has catered perfectly to the just in time nature of our world. It has also spawned a new distribution model – mobile-only last-minute booking apps for hotel rooms.
· Tomas Laboutka, CEO and Co-Founder, HotelQuickly
2.35pm – 3.00pm Hotel Website Design, Marketing and Conversion: This session looks at the latest hotel web design trends gleaned from building more than 1300 sites for some of the world’s leading accommodation brands. Covered will be consumer engagement, conversion, booking engines, search engine visibility and social media integration. Build a better website.
· Anthony Green, Digital Director, QUO Global
3.00pm – 3.30pm Driving Pricing, Revenue & Distribution: Travel has always been about selling the most rooms at the highest rates but this seemingly simple task has never been more complicated with globalisation and consumer fragmentation having a profound impact. This session kicks off with a presentation on the latest thinking on revenue management followed by a robust panel discussion on key issues including discounting, dynamic pricing, rate parity, commission, distribution strategies and more.
· Tarandeep Singh, Director Revenue Management For Hire – AMEA, IHG
· Tejinder Sidhu, VP Sales & Marketing, Compass Hospitality
3.30pm – 4.00pm Afternoon Tea
4.00pm – 4.20pm Experience at Any Price. The Customer Is Always Right. Are you offering customers an experience or just selling a room? If it’s the latter, maybe it’s time to rethink your strategy because consumers will pay premium for experience over a basic bed. This is especially true at the luxury end where the habits of affluent western travellers are changing, swapping marble lobbies for roadside beers.
· Daniel Fraser, Director, Smiling Albino
4.20pm – 4.50pm Agents of Change: Asia’s biggest accommodation companies don’t own hotels, resorts or rooms of any kind. They are the Online Travel Agents, enormous businesses that wield enormous power in determining who books where. Interview session with several of the region’s leading OTAs.
· Rob Rosenstein, CEO, Agoda
· Scott Blume, CEO, Wotif Group
· Vikram Malhi, GM, Expedia South & SE Asia
4.50pm – 6.00pm Drinks: Sponsored by Sabre Hospitality Solutions
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