Each week, we give you a run down of the latest hostel industry news and offer our insight (we can also provide a variety of GIFs for your entertainment, too!
SELINA SET TO BOOM IN THE NEW YEAR
“Selina’s ambition to provide work-life balance to millennials who travel internationally has been more of a work-in-progress than a consistent offering. Yet massive fresh funding this year will help drive Selina to become one of 2019’s most fascinating experiments in hospitality.” – Source.
Last week, Selina announced they have secured $150 million in real estate funding for their future plans to expand worldwide.
Offering a ‘one-stop shop version of a simplified travel promise to millennials’, Selina have big plans for the next few years intending to open 15 spots in the US alone by 2020.
Delays in development saw its US debut halted slightly, with the opening date of their 220 bed property in Miami moved from September 2018 to February 2019. It will open its 60,000-square-foot property in the Bowery district of lower Manhattan by the middle of 2019.
Yoav Gery, Selina’s president, said the company’s mission is “to inspire meaningful, authentic connections between people.” Exciting times ahead…
TRIP ADVISOR LAUNCH BRAND NEW SOCIAL APP
“More brands are recognising that customers want experiences, and TripAdvisor is promising a great deal more to help the consumer achieve all their vacation needs all in one place.” – Source.
TripAdvisor, the world’s largest travel site, has launched a brand new app which will act as a one stop shop for travellers to get information from over a thousand brands, publishers and influencers alongside user’s reviews.
In the ‘discovery and inspiration’ stages, travellers visit hundreds of sites while thinking about taking their next trip and TripAdvisor is setting out to bring all of that content together in one place. Interestingly, they have created a “feed” of everything a user’s friends, family and people they follow have to say about a place – honing in on the trust millennials and Gen-Z have in their peers when it comes to travel advice.
Another interesting feature of their app is called ‘Trips’, enabling travellers to collaborate with others by saving, organising and sharing lists or destination guides which highlight their favourite activities, accommodation or restaurants in an area. These trips can be made public to other who are looking for valuable information about a certain place.
With millennial and Gen-Z travellers often swerving platforms like TripAdvisor in favour of more visual apps such as Instagram, this is an interesting move – they have clearly listened to what modern travellers are looking for and know they needed to adapt to stay relevant. We will be interested to see how this takes off in 2019…
EUROPEAN TRAVEL DWINDLES IN 2018
Europeans did more outbound international travel this year than last year. The pace of growth was not as torrid as in the past, however. Experts forecast a similar modest growth rate for 2019. – Source.
A survey conducted by IPK International has found that Europeans have not left their countries to travel quite as much in 2018 as they did in 2017, ‘though year-over-year growth was still significant’.
While European outbound trips increased by 5% in the first 8 months of the year, it fell short of the 7% growth experienced the previous year. In comparison, international outbound trips have grown 6% worldwide during the same time period.
Industry professionals state a number of reasons for the decline in European travel including the World Cup (which prompted many people to stay home to watch TV) and the unusual warm weather in many Northern European countries.
Interestingly, one of the most popular kinds of trips in recent years – international city trips – has seen flat growth in 2018. With modern travellers taking a particular interest in ensuring they are exploring the world as ‘green’ as possible, talk of over tourism is said to have deterred people from visiting extremely popular cities such as Barcelona and Prague.
Hostels must put particular emphasis on the steps they take to be as ‘green’ and sustainable as possible – it is an important factor for modern travellers and will significantly influence their travel purchasing decisions.
PERSONALISE, PERSONALISE, PERSONALISE
In order to create a more meaningful version of brand loyalty, travel marketers need to use data more effectively to deliver more seamless, personalized, and rewarding experiences. – Source.
For hostels, brand loyalty doesn’t begin when a traveller joins your rewards programme, it begins with a great experience with you.
According to Skift, rather than focusing on offering transactional loyalty that rewards bookers with points for their purchases, ‘today’s travel brands need to get smarter in how they use traveler data to deliver more personalized experiences’.
The key to delivering a great, personalised experience is by gathering the right data and using it to gain insights into each traveler’s behavioUr and preferences. Data from your hostel’s PMS can unlock a wealth of valuable information and travellers want you to do so – a 2017 survey from Epilson found ‘87% said they were much or somewhat more likely to do business with a travel brand that offered a personalized experience’.
However, even when this information is available to hostels, it is not being fully utilised. In a time when competition is heating up in the industry, hostels cannot afford to miss opportunities to build stronger guest loyalty.
No matter the stage of the traveller buyer journey, using what you know about your guests is absolutely pivotal. Travellers are demanding and expecting more and more of the places they book with – hostels have the power at their fingertips (and keyboards) to succeed in delivering a seamless experience. So let’s do it!
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