The direct connection

Prague (January 11, 2019). In Europe, the battle between hotels and OTAs for direct bookings has been on for years. Chinese address guests directly. For them Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become a commodity, chat bots are taking reservations and travellers check-in with face recognition solutions. The conference "Marketing to China" (m2C) on March 29-30, 2019 in Prague will explain the different approach to the Chinese customer and how to anchor the own hotel brand in the Far East. Subscribers to HospitalityInside's paid content magazine and participants of the HospitalityInside Think Tank (HITT) still receive a discount - even last minute.

The new year 2019

Dear Insiders,
We wish you all a happy New Year! We hope that the world remains peaceful, because only then will businesses be able to operate in a reasonably reliable framework in order to manage their already large challenges.
One of these is and remains digitalisation. But we have to manage – all of us! The looming changes are massive and have a deep impact on the structures and processes of businesses. With today's edition, we changed our category "Distribution & IT" to "Digitalisation" in the magazine, and from now on, we will collect weekly "Digi News" for you, similar to the market news under "News Mix". In addition, we will be starting our "Digi Talk" shortly: interviews and reports about new digital ideas, products and start-ups.
At the same time, we are working on the programme of the 2nd HITT Think Tank! Save the date: May 19/20, 2019, on the ship again, in Berlin again! The 2019 title is "Digitalisation: The new value creator. Learn from others". After our speakers explained "Emerging Technologies" last year, the participants will learn specific things from other industries this time. Details will follow.
The participants of the HITT premier are invited to participate in another post-event workshop in February; here, we will look at the research status of an "intelligent property". Today, Susanne Stauss already plunged deep into the topic and describes which synergies and handicaps investors and operators encounter.
The consultancy MRP from Vienna looks back on 2018 and, on our behalf, analysed the number of overnight says in Germany, Austria and Switzerland in its guest contribution. The markets cannot be compared directly but show similar trends: one of them is the fact that the gap between strong tourism cities and weak countryside destinations is increasing.
Ready to move in only with a suitcase or turnkey letting? These are not the only questions in the complex topic of FF&E. The teams of Horwath HTL Germany and the audit firm Trinavis describe the dealing with FF&E, from an owner's and operator's perspective, in four parts starting today.
Today, Austria's tourism companies are much happier than 10 years ago – and not only because the current masses of snow will last until the Easter holidays. Preferred Hotels are also happy about their development: The consortium will soon be nearly twice as large as The Leading Hotels of the World. A judge in New York delivered a verdict in favour of Airbnb again. The Asians are increasingly determining the global flows of tourists. Because tourism booms enormously, Venice has decided to collect admission fees from day visitors. But this is only one of several problems that bothered Italy in 2018 in regard to tourism. And here are two short memos. EXPO REAL 2019: The first early booking period ends on 15 January 2019. Those who are determined to exhibit should book now. You can find the PDF with the conditions under this link.
Moreover, the premiere of the first "Marketing to China" (m2C) conference in Prague will start in just three weeks: the marketing and e-commerce hot spot with Chinese partners. Our subscribers and HITT participants still receive a last minute discount.
From now on, we are back for you every Friday! We look forward to a continuously inspiring exchange with you in the New Year!

Yours, Maria Pütz-Willems, Editor in Chief

Your opinion? maria@hospitalityInside.com


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