The current state of Okinawa and Fukuoka after a sharp decrease in inbound tourists–Will the solution of the “air ticket problem” change the hotel industry? -CNET Japan

The accommodation industry has been struggling for a long time due to the corona misfortune. However, some accommodation facilities are surviving this difficult situation by utilizing IT. Here, Kazuhisa Takahashi of tripla, which provides a reservation engine for hotels and inns, will explain the future of the accommodation industry from examples of companies that are practicing accommodation x DX.

It goes without saying that the travel industry has been hit hard by the novel coronavirus. In particular, the situation continued to be quite severe for hotels and tourist destinations that benefited from inbound tourism, but from October 2022, border controls for overseas travel and stays will be eased. These days, there are more opportunities to see foreigners in the city.

However, Okinawa, which was popular with inbound tourists, is still not as busy as it used to be. According to Masayuki Kondo, director of Resorts Ryukyu, which operates multiple hotels in Okinawa and Fukuoka, “Inbound tourists accounted for about 80% of the hotels we operate in Okinawa before the pandemic, but now there are still many. About 20%.”

In that respect, Fukuoka hotels are seeing a rapid return of visitors from South Korea. With the relaxation of tourist visas in October, the number of Korean tourists is increasing rapidly.

In the past few years, Fukuoka has become a popular tourist destination for Koreans, but the reasons why the company’s hotels have come to be liked by Koreans are “recruitment of Korean staff” and “spread on SNS”. said to be large.

“From 2017 to 2018, when our company opened three hotels in Fukuoka, we also actively recruited in South Korea. The reputation of the hotel has increased, and the recognition has increased.Currently, there are two Korean staff, but even so, many Koreans have stayed at the hotel, partly because of the reputation it has had for a long time. (Mr. Kondo)

On the other hand, on April 1, 2022, the company launched the “The BREAKFAST HOTEL” brand with the aim of becoming a hotel group with the best breakfast in Japan, and is planning rebranding. Based on the idea that “we want our guests to go to the hotel, not just to stay overnight,” we strengthened our breakfast menu by incorporating branded ingredients and other items. “Highly rated word-of-mouth!” Ranked 3rd in Japan and 1st in the Kyushu area in the ranking of inns with high food ratings (business hotels).

Since such rebranding is inevitably limited to a domestic approach, attention should be paid to the changes in how users use OTAs (online travel agencies) before and after the corona crisis in order to recover inbound demand.

Before COVID-19, foreigners tended to use overseas OTAs such as “Expedia” and “Booking.com,” while Japanese tended to use Japanese OTAs such as “Rakuten Travel” and “Jalan.” On the other hand, more and more Japanese people, especially young people, are using overseas OTAs. Therefore, he believes that devising ways to present the hotel in overseas OTAs will lead to attracting domestic and overseas guests.

Eliminates the “flight ticket problem”, one of the factors that causes users to go OTA

However, if hotels rely on OTAs, not only will the hotel be required to pay OTA fees, but there is also the risk of being involved in price competition with competitors, leading to a shortage of human resources and not being able to provide the original hospitality to guests. .

In addition, when traveling by plane, fares for package tours are often set cheaper than fares for air tickets only, but package tours with air tickets cannot be sold to members of the official hotel website. , OTA often missed guests. This is a troubling problem for hotels located in tourist destinations such as Okinawa where airline tickets are essential.

In order to solve these problems, our accommodation reservation engine “tripla Book” has started cooperation with the dynamic package provided by “White Bear Family”, which plans and sells domestic and overseas travel. Accommodation facilities that use “tripla Book” can now sell accommodation plans with air tickets for major domestic airlines and LCCs on the official website.

“Increasing the reservation rate on the official website seems to be an issue for each accommodation facility. Improving the convenience of the official website and creating an environment that makes it easy for users to buy, including the provision of dynamic packages, is an OTA It will lead to the acquisition of users who were drifting to the past, and it will be possible to maintain an appropriate ADR (room charge) that is not affected by the prices of other companies.” (Nobuo Shimomura, Director of White Bear Family)

If you keep ADR, it will of course lead to an increase in the hotel’s revenue, but the increase in revenue will also allow you to allocate the budget to the introduction of the latest system that converts specific services and operations into DX.

If the human resource shortage problem is solved in this way, it will lead to the expansion of “plus alpha services” that are heartfelt and unique to people. By focusing on “plus alpha service”, it will be possible to differentiate from competitors, and especially for inbound visitors to Japan, it will be a memorable experience as a “special experience in a foreign country”.

It is said that modern consumption behavior is shifting to “crested consumption” that can only be experienced on that day, at that place, at that time, but the hotel’s “plus alpha service” is exactly the consumption of crested ibis. Customer service is an essential part of hotel management, but perhaps the time has come to put its true value to the test.