3+3+3 Ep2: Personalised Pricing, Always On and Booking Decline

Speaker A: Welcome to another discussion with one of our expert partners. Before we get into the main conversation, here are a few sound bites to give you a feel for the topics we touch on. Hope you enjoy it and feel free to suggest other topics or ideas you would like us to discuss in the future.

Speaker B: The first point that I wanted to bring up is probably a bit controversial in parts, but also certainly something that we can observe, uh, in other industries. As of right now, basically it's personalized pricing versus what we are doing currently still in the hotel industry, which is publicly transparent rates to, um, a large extent. And uh, the question behind it is obviously where should our industry go with that and which sort of implications would it have for revenue management in itself and uh, for the profession? Obviously in theory, um, personalized pricing could actually be something that is actually, um, you know, doable for us because we are sitting on large amounts of data. We know how guests behave, uh, we know which, uh, you know, loyalty, um, tiers they are coming in, what the willingness to pay is also in most of the cases, and it's sort of for me like the logical evolution of revenue, uh, management in our space.

Speaker C: Limitation is where people start to feel that, um, it's not fair. So there's a fine line between, um, personalization, discrimination and ah, finding it fair for everyone. I know, if you follow me here in a way that, um, it really depends on which, um, attribute you will personalize your pricing and your offers. If it's based on gender, for example, I don't find it very fair. Uh, if it's based on country, which is actually the case, um, again, I don't find it fair neither. But there's some differences. So the line between true personalization and discrimination. We need to be very careful.

Speaker A: How does someone react, um, if just a conversation comes up and they realize they're sitting in exactly the same room next to somebody else they happen to meet at a bar, somebody's paying €100 more than somebody else just because maybe their search history or where they live or their address has triggered it, that the hotel should charge them a premium. I kind of get it from a revenue maximization perspective. I kind of don't get it from a point of. Hold on a minute. We're still about hospitality and guests.

Speaker C: I mean, um, that's a topic, um, which I've been, um, pondering and reflecting a lot in the last few months. I won't say years, but it's actually quite for a while, um, is more about those kind of work, um, life boundaries, um, okay. The kind of the buzzword is work, life, balance. But more is more about boundaries. But I realize that by being drained, you start to lose into clarity, into, into your decision making. You start to be a bit tired, then you start to be sick. So you need to be careful. You need to balance this. So it's not a sprint, is a, uh, is a marathon. And to, to win a marathon, you need to maintain a pace, not too fast. Because if you go too fast, you just burn out.

Speaker B: If we put it in simple words like that, always on mentality, if it is a default behavior, obviously it's bad, it's bad for anyone, um, in that respect, if it's situational or deliberate, um, and you're helping out in a crisis, if, I don't know, you work on a deal that is on the line, you want to retain a client, uh, where something goes south within a day or something, or you have, in your own company have an urgent, uh, revenue drop and you need to work against it. Obviously. Yeah, you gotta be on. Right? There's no other choice. And it has so much to do also with, uh, leadership. At the end of the day, um, you can only be obviously a good leader. And now let's say in our roles, obviously, where we're leading people, where we're leading a team as well, um, you know, true leadership is also defined by how well you lead yourself as a person, right?

Speaker A: With the speed of technology and AI, with everything happening quicker and faster. And there's this. Everyone talks about greater productivity. No one is actually talking about, okay, it should give us more time to ourselves. It's like if, if I am producing enough in a week for my pay, then if I can suddenly do that in four days, do I not get a day off because I'm just more, just more efficient or effective. But you know, the argument is going to be, well, no, we could just be more productive. We could generate more revenue. Let's pick up on our, uh, third question and the final question. Ah, Thibaut. Uh, you could talk about this, but I'll tee it up because I happen to be reading an article and I don't know your name got mentioned on it. But, um, the article was saying that their recent numbers are showing an increase in direct bookings, which correlates with a decline from booking.com.

Speaker C: i mean, for me that's more like a trend we are seeing across the portfolio where this year sudden, uh, 80 to 90% of our portfolio has, uh, been down on booking outcome compared to last year. Uh, and we saw A shift from uh, booking outcome, um, towards um, Expedia, for example, where we saw a bigger Expedia, much less on Booking with much

Speaker B: more Expedia, let's say like this. As a broader observation, I think we've also seen that uh, year to date. Um, there are some markets, or at least some hotels in some markets where we've seen booking.com production going backwards, um, on last year. However, m. Um, what I'm not entirely sure about is obviously if that sort of business that fell away from booking is then being made up with um, Expedia or any other um, OTAs, or if that is really going into the direct distribution pocket.

Speaker C: Um, now one reason which I could, I could buy on the. Why Bookcom is dropping is because the number of listings for apartments on booking.com just crazy this year.

Speaker A: Well, I hope those clips gave you a sense of what the conversation is all about. Let's get into it. Hi both. Good to see you again for another episode of this. Well, I started calling it three plus three plus three because I thought three bald men might be like a. Just a bit, uh, a bit derogatory. But here we are again. Three. Three bald men.

Speaker B: Exactly.

Speaker A: So we're going to kick off again, as we did last time, formats exactly the same for those that watching and listing. We've got a couple of points that we're going to pick up on. We're just going to randomly discuss it and hopefully in amongst that there's going to be something of interest, uh, that will keep people listening, watching and prove some value. So let's kick it off. Um, Vi, you got a point from you. So do you want to just introduce it, tee it up for us and then we'll run into it.

Speaker B: Exactly. Then we run into it. Um, the point. Hello everyone. First of all, um, welcome back. But the first point that I wanted to bring up is probably a bit controversial in parts, but also certainly something that we can observe uh, in other industries. As of right now, basically it's personalized pricing versus what we are doing currently still in the hotel industry, which is publicly transparent rates to um, a large extent. And uh, the question behind it is obviously where should our industry go with that and which sort of implications would it have for revenue management in itself and uh, for the profession obviously. Now, uh, maybe to just give a bit of flesh on the bones, where are we actually like, in my opinion, I think what's called personalization as the term is flying around, you know, numerous times and also for a while already, um, in hotels for Me, this is mostly, let's say sort of segmentation with lipstick. So we have mobile only rates, we have member rates, OTA versus Direct, uh, loyalty tiers, uh, geo targeting. But like I feel true personalized pricing down to a one to one approach basically that barely exists and I haven't seen any examples unless you have Tibo maybe. Um, but this is the feeling that I have. But in theory, um, personalized pricing could actually be something that is actually um, you know, doable for us because we are sitting on large amounts of data. We know how guests behave, uh, we know which uh, you know, loyalty um, tiers they are coming in. What the willingness to pay is also in most of the cases and it's sort of for me like the logical evolution of revenue uh, management in our space. And we've just recently seen examples for example from Delta Airlines, um, trying that personalized approach, obviously with the help of AI, um, and uh, there's surely also a couple of examples in retail where that actually works. Um, but I do feel we're in a bit of a tricky spot and maybe it's worth asking um, what would hold us back actually, um, to go into that direction of personalized pricing in hotels.

Speaker C: I believe it needs to be fair for everyone. I think the limitation is where people start to feel that um, it's not fair. Uh, so there's a fine line between um, personalization, discrimination and finding it fair for everyone. I don't know if you follow me here in a way that um, it really depends on which um, attribute you will personalize your pricing and your offers. If it's based on gender, for example, I don't find it very fair. Uh, if it's based on country, which is actually the case, um, again I don't find it furnisher, but there's some differences. So uh, the line between true personalization and discrimination, we need to be very careful. Um, but again if you look at the example of um, um, Rhino or any kind of low cost um, um airlines, what they do is that if you need to add more services then that's personalized to you and you will pay a higher price because you added more services. So it's fair because you pay more, but you get more. Um, so for me I think the line between this, it needs to be accepted, it needs to be fair and uh, not go into the line of discrimination. Uh, but again dynamic pricing and personalized pricing, I think it's highly relevant. Um, but it needs to be accepted and fair for everyone. That's my point.

Speaker B: Yeah. I think it also has to do with deferring um, definitions of what personalization actually means. The example of Ryanair that you just brought is uh, one thing how you can see personalization because you have something that is obviously um, not discriminating anyone but then also gives the um, ability for everyone basically to tailor the offer, um, or let's say the end price to whatever they need in terms of services. Also, um, whereas if we're thinking about true personalization with the understanding of one to one, you would obviously look at a price X for that person with that sort of history and that sort of behavior and the price Y for someone else with probably the same service requirements, same understanding of what the value of the property is that it is going to go to, but obviously a different history in let's say purchasing power and uh, loyalty and stuff like this. So it's different definitions of what personalization could mean. And I think one other piece that could hold us away obviously from you know, going into that one to one direction is, I mean we're in a bit of a tricky spot, um, especially also with technology because most PMS or masses, they are simply not ready to actually serve like dynamic individualized pricing at scale. Um, because they are built around segments, they are built around rate codes. Right. And this is what obviously would fall away if you go into that direction of one to one pricing. And yeah, consumer trust as you said is certainly uh, the other thing.

Speaker C: You see like I'm giving like more popular examples like Spotify. See if Spotify will charge me um, more um, than you guys for exactly the same service. I will find it, uh, I will complain, I would say like there's something wrong uh, because I'm um, because I'm bold or because like I'm French or whatsoever. But you see we're paying a premium. Yeah, but that's because I, I don't find it, I don't find it fair. Uh, and I think that's um, the transparency on what is base and uh, and so maybe I'm not in a good job actually because Robbie manager needs to take those kind of opportunities and advantages. But I always put myself in the shoes of the, of the, of the, of the guests and the cost as the customers. And um, if I don't find it fair I think there's something wrong. But um, yeah, so there's again it's a balance, it's a balance between finding those kind of opportunities, personalization, making sure you do your segmentation correctly. Um, but again if it's publicly Compared. If you're able to compare publicly enough from an opaque way and you're able to have a bit more transparency to understand and to accept it, I don't think any issue, but it needs to be all fully opaque. So you cannot compare apples to apples or if it's publicly available, it needs to be very, um, transparent.

Speaker A: Yeah. From my perspective, I don't know, I think there'll be a lot of kickback on it. I mean, I can remember we both use, all three of us use various apps for our fitness. And I know there was a point, uh, about a couple of years ago where it came out where they were changing the prices and the prices were different for every single country and they were like, why am I paying more? Or um, why are they paying less? It's like, I don't see how that decision has been made. I think also you've got a moral perspective, you've then got a technological perspective. And then linked within that technological perspective possibly is, well, what are you basing the decision on? And over what period of time? What is it actually looking at? How am I, what am I giving authority to, for it to check, to evaluate? I think also what you're, what do you have a problem with is that how does someone react if just a conversation comes up and they realize they're sitting in exactly the same room next to somebody else? They happen to meet at a bar, somebody's paying €100 more than somebody else just because maybe their search history or where they live or their address has triggered it, that the hotel should charge them a premium. Kind of get it from a revenue maximization perspective. I kind of don't get it from a point of. Hold on a minute, we're still about hospitality and guests and at what point do we just, and I've always, just as a, I've always had this thing, it was about 10, 10 years ago, I started the phrase for me internally, revenue per available wallet. And if I could have a little cartoon, it would kind of be hotels. And actually you just got walk in wallets walking around. And that's sometimes the perception that you kind of feel you get. And to me personalized pricing feels a bit as if we stop looking at the individual as a guest and we're just looking at how much revenue can we generate from that individual. And I kind of, yeah, I just, I wonder how that would play out on many different levels. That's my view, revenue manager, uh, the

Speaker C: big thing in my opinion, and that's an issue with uh, society as such. I'm trying to explain a bit is that we are trying to manage everything based on Excel spreadsheet and data and we are trying, we are becoming like an AI driven society and we need not to forget that we are human to human, we are making business with human, we are serving humans and we are serving guests. So the customer centric in everything we do needs to be at the focus and the attention of everything. That's something we don't need to forget. And I do believe a lot of companies are starting to forget this and customers and guests are not stupid and they will start to fight back and boycott the companies who are not looking at those kind of customer interest. Now, customer personalization meaning like for example, if you push me, I know first because you know that I love, um, I'm supporting Benfica in Portugal and you want to send me tickets to see the game.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker C: Uh, I love it and I will pay more because I'm a fan of this and that was exactly targeted for me. Personalized offer. Exactly for me and I'm happy to pay. And now if you, if you charge me more because I'm based in Vienna, uh, and I'm French or an expat, whatever, then I will complain. You know what I mean? Personalize is more like you look at my interest, uh, what I love, and then you push those kind of pricing and offers to me based on my interest, but not based on the data that you have. This is different.

Speaker B: Yeah. I think what I would take away is that uh, I think we somehow all agree that we'll never see the, let's say sort of 100% transparency around pricing, but we'll also never see like a full personalization. At the end of the day it's something where we're going to be meeting, um, or let's say where a middle ground somehow is forming. And um, that would probably mean segmentation is going to get sharper. So it's going to be more based on interest, uh, more based on loyalty, booking window, obviously, different metrics that we all know, device, channel, whatever. Um, and I think the hotels that will come out on top actually and um, playing that game are those who actually start experimenting with different dynamic pricing approaches. It's going to be staying dynamic pricing in that version. Um, but um, obviously it's probably going to be a more loyalty, more interest driven, um, more conversion driven most probably at all. And that's what we're going to be heading to now.

Speaker A: And I think your point about people trialing things, I think we will probably see A degree of personalized pricing. Because someone will try it.

Speaker B: Yeah, someone will.

Speaker A: And then we'll. And then we'll see how the response is. I think we could enter, uh, I mean, we've spoken before a m. Couple of years ago. I know veit about attribute based selling and actually breaking down. So if you start like Ryanair, the fundamental point being, okay, you're paying for a seat now, everything else you want above and beyond that, you can pick and choose what you want, how much of it you want, and um, personalize these services that you wish to access. So I think I could see a direction of travel where that could go, and you have your standard room price and then all of those additional factors where you could actually personalize the facilities that you want to utilize. I can see how that would develop. And that probably should be something that is already being done. I mean, that's how we do that with lots of other things in the world. I then think you've got that second layer on top that you mentioned, Thibaut, which is then, okay, has this guest been with us before? What can we learn about them? Um, how can we actually now personalize the stay? And maybe there'll be some marrying up that you'll see as well. If they start selecting certain attributes that they're prepared to pay for with experiences that you've seen, you've had with them, that might give you some funky algorithm would make a connection about, okay, push this incentive or push this offer. Uh, but I think you kind of have the hotel side, which is its features and its functions, and then the individual side, which is that individuality of promotions and tying up with local events, uh, that may be going on. I could see that being a level of personalization that puts the individual in control and the engagement with the hotel. So you're feeling, you're being welcomed as a guest and thought about as an individual. That I could totally get behind that. That to me seems sensible. Good revenue management, good maximizing gives uh, that sense of you being valued, uh, and important to them. I think that's where I could see the personalization piece going from my side, from the outside looking in.

Speaker B: Uh, good points.

Speaker A: Makes sense.

Speaker B: Thank you. Yeah, sure, sure, sure, sure.

Speaker A: Thibaut, you had a, you had a question that you wanted to pose. So throw it, Throw it out. To throw it out to our audience. Throw it out to us. What do you.

Speaker C: Yeah, I mean that's um, that's a topic which, um, which I've been, um, pondering and reflecting a lot in the last Few months, I won't say years, but it's actually quite for a while. Um, is more about those kind of m. Work, life, boundaries. Um, okay, the kind of. The buzzword is work life balance. But more is more about boundaries. Uh, and of course in consulting, but as well, uh, um, in working remotely, but of course that's applicable for pretty much everything in business. Um, my question is more about. Is always on and the client responsiveness actually a strength or recipe for burnout. I can't tell you my point of view after my reflection, but I would love to hear from you guys just, Just clarify that.

Speaker A: So that's about. As a consultancy, whether you are just always there at the beck and call of the. Of the client 24 7, 365.

Speaker C: Even with. As a revenue manager. Because, um, revenue, it's uh, it's something which is always ongoing. And um, when I'm, When I'm. Tomorrow, today, when I'm finishing, I'm preparing already for the next 365 days ahead even more in advance. So it's never ending.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker C: And there's always something and the email are always full. So the question is more, is it good to remain always on, always, uh, available, or is it just a recipe for burnout?

Speaker A: Vice, I'd be interested in your.

Speaker B: Yeah, I see your question, I think. Yeah, yeah, no, but, uh, you surely also have a couple of things to say on that. I think you can see that from different angles. If I'm defining always on for me to say I need to be always on for any client request coming in and then also answer them in a timely manner, let's say within, I don't know, a few hours or so, um, then that would certainly be something that drains me a lot. And that would be a recipe for burnout. If always m on, however means. And this is how I try to handle it for myself at least. And which is also something that we spoke about here internally at Bernard Becker to say, you know, there's nothing wrong about, you know, thinking about work every now and then, even though you're not, let's say, in service right now. Um, and that means being aside from the client work that you, that you do. Um, but more like, you know, when you have your best ideas coming, when you're standing under the shower, obviously, and you take, uh, the effort and note them down just after you step out of the shower. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Um, so, yeah, like, it's just if I would ever be in the situation to um, be urged, uh, by clients to, you know, uh, try and be always on for them. I would make a hard stop there because that is something that drains my energy, and that, uh, is certainly not healthy. Um, in that respect, that's what I can think of right now.

Speaker C: I think that's. Reverend, what about you, Trevor? Can you add on this?

Speaker A: I, uh, will. I'd be interested in your. I'd be interested.

Speaker B: We are.

Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, no, I will. I do have some thoughts.

Speaker C: Yeah. I mean, for me, uh, I've been fighting a lot with those kind of boundaries because at the very, very beginning of the company, um, I was always on, really, like, always on day and night. Uh, 363M65. I didn't take any days off, any early days for at least, uh, four to five years. Uh, but I realized that at some point I was just drained. And, uh, and the more you. You don't put any boundaries. The more you reply, the more, uh, clients ask. And, uh, that's also applicable for GM's owner and so on when you're on property. Um, so the more you give, the more they ask. Okay, so if you give this a guy, ask for this, and so on. Okay, so I was kind of resisting saying no, because if I was saying no, I didn't want to piss anyone off, and I just wanted to be available and make them happy. But I realized that by being drained, you start to lose in clarity into your decision making. You start to be a bit tired, and you start to be sick. So you need to be careful. You need to balance. So it's not a sprint is a marathon. And to win a marathon, you need to maintain a pace. Not too fast, because if you go too fast, you just burn out. And that's also what I'm teaching myself. And I'm still like, uh, padawan in this way. Um, but nowadays I say no by default and just to leave space for the big yes. So it's more about, um, energy management and making sure if I spend my time and my energy, uh, should be on the right thing, where I add value and where I'm good at. Because if I spend time on things, which I'm not good at, or maybe someone in my team, uh, is actually better than me. That doesn't make any sense. You know what I mean? And I'm also teaching the team at Qatar Consulting to have, uh, very strict boundaries. The team with the clients, to say, of course, to be always on for true emergency. That's also a very good point, because sometimes it seems Everything is an emergency, which is not so clearly define with your client and with your team. Kind of the level of priorities and the level of emergencies. Uh, okay, my, my PMS is off and completely offline. Um, that's an emergency, of course. Uh, but uh, upload this one and we need to do it tomorrow or we need to do it in the next hour. That's not an emergency. That's still important, but not a true emergency. You know what I mean? So I think those kind of boundaries are very important. And when actually I ask my team on Slack, when I see them online after hours, I told them like disconnect, uh, uh, and uh, do something else.

Speaker B: Why are you online at this time? Why are you online at this time?

Speaker C: I'm checking if they are online actually. Maybe after checking the podcast people will play me this. And that's important. Like the same in, uh, Japan. When I was working in Japan, people were just had this kind of mindset of staying always on until the boss leaves, that they don't want to leave before. But actually it was counterproductive with their own mindset, their own productivity, their own efficiency for the company. Um, so I think we need to find the right balance being very focused on what is important, where we add value and focus our energy on this. And that's for me the most important. But it all start by educating the client as well that we are not always on because we want to remain on for the right things at the right time. Uh, and then putting clear boundaries with everyone.

Speaker B: Yeah, correct. And ah, I'm totally with you. And it has so much to do also with uh, leadership at the end of the day. Right. Um, because like you can only be obviously a good leader. And now let's say in our roles, obviously where we're leading people, where we're leading a team as well, um, you know, true leadership is also defined by how well you lead yourself as a person. Right. And um, if you don't make room for, you know, what makes you happy, what gives you energy instead of what is draining your energy, if you don't uh, make time for rest, if you don't make time for family and friends and if you are always in that always on mindset, I think uh, it's just also has kind of bad consequences basically for what you're doing, um, in that team environment. And so for me it's clear, like I have my boundaries. And um, yeah, okay, there's one or the other email that I answer late at night. But um, you know, otherwise, um, it's mhm. It's what it is.

Speaker C: Uh, it's very fun because I, I had a discussion recently with some AI expert in Zurich and I told them like um, um, on one to one saying like if I want to implement AI in my company, where should I start? And they all replied actually before going into AI, be very clear and work on yourself making sure you have the right culture, making sure you are aligned with what you are doing. Uh, because a lot of companies now, they deploy AI, a lot of tools and so on, they want to increase productivity. Instead of replying to emails in five hours, they reply in one hour or 30 minutes. Well done. Bravo. But they can do this in a very short period of time and then everything crash and the company is gone. So you need to be very careful with uh, uh, tools or processes or being always on and bring always like bang bang bang, which is important, don't get me wrong. But not too much bang bang bang. If not we will crash and burn. And again it's more marathon and less than the sprint. And that's important in everything we do.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think it's interesting, it's an interesting question, poses many strands that you can pull on it because I guess looking at it when you, I mean both of you have been involved in businesses starting up so you know when you are breaking into a market, um, I think there's a tendency to always over service because you also want to retain that your new customer, you want them to be happy, they're the uh, voice that helps you win other business. Um, you have a pride. But ironically the first time you start hiring your first person or your team, you wouldn't want them doing the same thing that you were doing and you would want to treat them differently and make sure that they're having the balance and sometimes that can ensure that you're maybe reflecting on yourself to find balance. I think it also comes down as well. I wonder if there is this tendency with the speed of technology and AI, with everything happening quicker and faster and there's this, everyone talks about greater productivity. No one is actually talking about okay, it should give us more time to ourselves. It's like if I am producing enough in a week for my pay, then if I can suddenly do that in four days, do I not get a day off because I'm just more, I'm just more efficient or effective. But you know, the argument is going to be well no, we could just be more productive, we could generate more revenue, you could, you could earn more bonus whatever, whatever it may be.

Speaker B: So retire earlier.

Speaker A: Yeah, possibly. So that comes down. So that comes back in my mind to leadership culture values about setting expectation with your. With your customers, your clients, what they should get from you. Your point about emergencies, what constitutes an emergency? Well, it's like if you're ill, isn't it? You kind of get triaged and you go to the hospital, they'll triage you and then you'll wait in a queue and they'll take care of the one that's the most serious emergency. Well, if in your business you've identified what you constitute as an emergency and your clients and customers are clear what that emergency is and how you respond to it, which doesn't necessarily mean you have to always be on, because that would trigger a response that is appropriate, because that's what you've defined. I think in answer to your simple question, I remember a quote once, and I won't try an attribute to it is because I can't remember. But if someone said, if I had five hours to chop down a tree, I spend the first two hours sharpening the ax. And, and it's. And unless we take that time out, uh, to have that space to think, to breathe, to process our day, for our brain to logically structure it so that we can then do something with it at an appropriate time, then all we're gonna. All we're doing by being on all the time, we may as well be driving down a motorway or an autobahn at 100 miles an hour, man. It might seem fun to start with if the road's not very busy, but if you've got to keep going and it start getting a bit crazy, that becomes pretty stressful. And there's probably an accident about to happen at some point soon. So where do you find the time to slow down, to pause, to breathe and to break? And I think part of it is that communication. And I actually think you can win and retain clients from a consultancy point of view, if you're honest with them and say, these are the values we have, we will not let an emergency happen to you. But we won't necessarily respond within an hour because we're not using AI to just send you an email response. That's generic. I'll make sure one of you know, one of your team that's supporting you responds, but it will be considered. And they are a human being and we want to make sure that they have a life as well, and they can be with their friends and family so that when they're working for you, they are at their optimum performance because that's your responsibility as a leader to make sure that they're, they're there to support the, the customers. So that's. Yeah, it's, it's not, it's more general than specific viewpoints, but that's kind of

Speaker C: how I make sense.

Speaker B: Yeah. Um, no, what I just take away from me is obviously, um, if we put it in simple words like that, always on mentality, if it is a default behavior, obviously it's bad, it's bad for anyone, um, in that respect if it's situational or deliberate, um, and you're helping out in a crisis, if, I don't know, you work on a deal that is on the line, you want to retain a client, uh, where you know something goes south, uh, within a day or something, or you have in your own company, you have an urgent revenue, uh, problem, you need to work against it obviously. Yeah, you got to be on. Right. There's no other choice in a way. And I feel if you openly communicate about that also from the very get go, if you in liaison with a new client, for example, um, there's, you know, there's a whole other level of understanding and there's also something that you can always refer back to. Right. If you should ever find yourself in a situation that doesn't go according to this. Um, so yeah, it's that it's all about transparent golf rails, I think, setting

Speaker C: um, boundaries and setting up the right expectation from the beginning, making sure it's discussed and so on. And to your point as well, Trevor, I do believe with a team, and even for us, we're quite a small team, but we are focusing much more on the output than the input. So in a way that um, if you do your job in one hour a day and everyone is happy and the performance is on the roof, I don't care. But if this hotel is m underperforming, in distress and you need to spend 12 hours a day on this one, that may be worth it. You know what I mean? So it's more on the output than the input and then it's up to you to manage your time. But I'm a big believer by focusing on the rents, on the right thing, by purposely slowing down, you can actually service the customer and the guest better. Um, because when you do something, you do it with 100% of your attention and if you do too many things at the same time and you're always on and so on, you do a bit of everything but nothing really fully dedicated to it at 200%. So that's more of this kind of energy management which is important for everyone in my opinion.

Speaker A: Yeah, there's some interesting points in that. Let's pick up on our uh, third question and the final question. Uh, Thibaut, uh, you could talk about this but I'll tee it up because I happen to be reading an article and I don't know your name got mentioned on it but um, the article was saying that their recent numbers are showing an increase in direct bookings which correlates with a decline from booking.com I guess my question is is this a one off or is it a trend and what are the factors behind it? But do you just want to tee this up a bit for us and what this article was about and uh, what you were highlighting?

Speaker C: Uh, I mean for me that's more like a trend we are seeing across the portfolio where this year suddenly uh, 80 to 90% of a portfolio uh, has been down on booking outcomes compared to last year. Uh, and we saw a shift from uh, booking.com um, towards um, Expedia for example where we saw a bigger piece on Expedia, much less on booking, with much more Expedia direct booking. That was an angle on the article which um, I agree but didn't agree much. Uh, we saw it but not as.

Speaker A: So it's less an OTA direct and more a specific booking that you're booking.com issue you're noticing. Okay.

Speaker C: And uh, I was wondering if it was only me and uh, booking.com you don't like me and uh, targeting my portfolio specifically or if it was a trend uh, across, across Europe and we did some survey. It seems it's not only me hopefully, but I'm not sure about VAIT and the rest of the portfolio.

Speaker B: Yeah, no, um, let's say like this as a broader observation I think we've also seen that uh, year to date, um, there are some markets or at least some hotels in some markets where we've seen booking.com production going backwards um, on last year however, um, what I'm not entirely sure about is obviously if that sort of business that fell away from booking is then being made up with um, Expedia or any other um, OTAs or if that is really going into the direct distribution pocket. Now saying that um, I know obviously of examples that we work together on um, very closely so us as a company together with our clients where we've been on purpose obviously driving business uh, away from booking.com and try and direct us more towards the direct channel. Um but then obviously also have underlying help with digital marketing activities and so on because otherwise you're not going to be in that place. Actually on making that let's say purposeful shift. Right. Um, it's um, I think it's super early to say if that's a one off or trend. Um, I know obviously if we're thinking about you know developments coming up in agentic AI and then probably also um seeing the first couple of first mover hotels um probably having their own um, let's say agent in a way um with you know the ability to connect to different systems via APIs and uh, making it available also for um individual searchers or guests, potential guests, um to basically book direct um via generative AI, let's say engines. Um, that might also mean that there could be more shift happening away from booking.com towards the um, direct channel. But then again I think also with booking.com and any of the other OTAs they are probably in the, in the better spot actually. Um, you know bringing a bit of movement in that direction um, and probably going to eat the bigger piece of the cake rather than the individual hotels um, if they ever come to that point. So I, I don't really know if that's a one off or trend right now. Might um, be on purpose um driven by actions of the hotels might otherwise also be just something that is observed.

Speaker A: What did you see Timo, when you were I mean you obviously contributed to the article.

Speaker C: What I mean first of all I do believe there's a big impact on ChatGPT and all those kind of uh, agentic um search where people are using more. So that may have an impact on the people on booking outcome, spending on Google Ads and so on. There's a shift happening that's clear everywhere. Um now one reason which I could buy on the wise Bootcamp is dropping is because the number of listings for apartment on booking.com just went crazy this year. So that's kind of ah of diluting. That's my perspective. I don't know if it's real or not. That's diluting the overall demand for hotels who have been here for a while. So now if you look at um, um a search for for London before you add a lot of hotels, now you get kind of a mix between apartments, uh, first apartment, long stays and hotel. So maybe the Demand overall for Booking.com remains the same but there is kind of a dilution for hotels and the one we have been relying a lot on booking sees this kind of share being Decreased and then you have other players who actually are uh, um, maybe doing a better job on marketing or who didn't do this kind of dilution such as Expedia. And Expedia right now is getting market share in my opinion.

Speaker B: Mhm. Um, how would you see Airbnb obviously with the change of their compensation model, um, playing into all of that.

Speaker C: Airbnb now is becoming a booking.com moving

Speaker A: into the hotels or something earlier this week or last week.

Speaker C: I was saying this for a while and people didn't believe me. I was saying like um, you see a lot of Airbnb on booking.com and reverse you see a lot of hotels on Airbnb that has been used by um, a lot of hotels in the past and now it starts to accelerate. So again distribution in hotels, it was a wide wide west. It's still the wide wide west, just more chaotic and every day uh, is becoming more and more chaotic. So trying to keep up to speed but it's tough.

Speaker A: I think it's interesting as well. We've done a couple of videos with Mirai. Uh, um, Javier has been very much involved with representing or part of the voice in the discussion that's going on with the EU around the Digital Markets act and the impact that that's having on Google and booking.com uh obviously have been identified in that to having to comply as well being uh, the significant majority player in Europe as opposed to Expedia which is a much smaller player in uh, how they clarify or the criteria that they apply. Um, so I don't know whether that's having an impact. There's also there's lawsuits going on at the moment, isn't there? There's been a big reach out. I think there's been a big uptake over the last couple of weeks of hotels signing up for this uh, lawsuit that's being brought against booking.com as well. Uh, so you don't know whether that's driving. Uh, I don't know whether that, I mean that would require hotels to have to change their behavior and, and not be doing things with booking. They're necessarily affecting people booking through booking.com uh, so I can't quite understand why there would have been that drop off created by those two, those two legal issues that are running. Um, yeah, it's an interesting statistic that you flag and the fact that it is specific to bookingbooking.com um, and you saw Expedia was same or, or more so it.

Speaker C: Yeah, I was thinking the articles like we uh, saw some Properties with more than 300, uh, increase compared to last year. Maybe that's starting from very low. Yeah.

Speaker B: I just wanted to say if they come from two roommates, okay.

Speaker C: But it was a beginning.

Speaker A: It's still shifted. Gone somewhere else, huh? Yeah, they're under, they're under a bit of pressure from a lot of places at the moment then looks like, huh? Yeah, I think it is a bit of a. Watch this space. I mean, uh, and there wasn't anything because to your point, Veit, you know. Yes, there are a lot of people, you know, you're seeing a lot written at the moment about putting people putting a lot more effort into try and drive the direct bookings. But I mean that conversation's been going on for years and years and years.

Speaker B: Years and years.

Speaker A: So you know that, that can't be a factor in what you saw Thibaut. Because that would have been, that would have been happening anyhow. I'm not convinced either. Uh, and I'm happy to be convinced and someone can put a comment or whatever they, they want if, if I get it wrong. But this whole AI search where it's pulling from the people that have the greatest amount of content about any hotel tends to be the OTAs fishing to pick up a single property in a location somewhere in a country that means it might happen to come up and there it is ready for you to book. Just feels a bit like a very small needle in a very big haystack. And so I actually, from what I've read, the conversations I've had, it still feels as if it's falling in one of two camps. But I kind of wonder if the laziness in a sense of these chat GPTs, perplexities, Geminis, just, just, you know, scanning the web, it's going to pull stuff in from booking and Expedia and then Airbnb. And so, you know, is it going to drive? Is it going to drive? Direct bookings? And didn't I see something. Wasn't it one of them. Was it booking was doing something with Tick Tock that had something where they could be booking straight through from Tick Tock. M. Yeah, I mean that, that, that, that feels it's moving further and um, further away from bookings the direct hotel. And that, that's, you know, as someone who is an advocate for hotels and hoteliers, that's a, that's a broader worrying trend that I have about the power of the uh, the power of the OTAs.

Speaker C: So uh, that's discussion, that's a discussion for next time the death. Death of the hotel website.

Speaker A: Yeah. Well, could. Could well be. Could well. And you teed up.

Speaker B: We should put this down.

Speaker A: Yeah. Nicely for us to make a note of that. We'll wrap this one up and have that. And have that for our next conversation. Uh, three. Very interesting topic, guys. I love the directions these conversations take us in, but really, really appreciate, really appreciate your time. Look forward to catching up with you again soon.

Speaker B: Thank you.

Speaker A: Take care, guys.

Speaker B: Ciao.

Speaker A: Thank you for listening and I hope the conversation was of interest. Please do feel free to suggest any topics you would like discussed in the future. We're always open to ideas. Thank you once more and I hope you will join us again. Goodbye for now.