[ TTL NEWS]  Although the travel market is being reorganized with new digital technologies, the hotel business still lacks new digital technologies, and hotels that have been used to offline reservation sales have lost their competitiveness from the early online booking market due to the appearance of OTA.

Deluxe hotels are actively moving to regain this market advantage with their membership, but only a few of them respond. Moreover, for independant travellers, the biggest concern is how much I can book at my favorite hotel.

Currently, the hotel industry faces challenges to understand the flow of the digital travel market that is beingreorganized online.

D-EDGE offers Hoteliers a place to learn, enabling hoteliers to increase their revenues in a data-driven digital world yearly.

Digital Lab Seoul event, held on September 24, was the theme of 'Hotel online distribution: whatreally sells rooms today?' It was eye-catching with advice on how to do it just becauseD-Edge, as well as professional partners, drew attention by providing advice on identifying trends that have a real impact on the hotel industryand how to effectively apply them to the hotel.

Christine Tan, Managing Director of D-Edge Hospitality Solutions Asia, met at the event, highlighting the importance of the event as "an opportunity for hoteliers to reconsider and re-conceptualize the flow of reservations through a broader revenue management strategy."

Christine Tan Managing Director D-Edge Hospitality Solutions Asia

1.This is D-Edge’s 4thyear hosting the Digital Lab event in Korea.

A. D-EDGE's Digital Lab Seoul aims to provide a wealth of information to hoteliers who want to maximize their online sales. The digital lab motto was to provide inspiration to hoteliers. In other words, the course was designed to learn a variety of information about the latest trends, the latest technology, and current issues.

2. What are the differences between the Korean market and other regions where the same events are held in each region?

A. The Digital Lab mission is the same in all the countries. We aim to address hoteliers’ current hot topics and provide tips of deciphering trends that are impacting the future of hotel distribution. What we try to do differently is to offer a local market’s perspective looking at what’s currently happening in Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Sydney, etc.

For example, Google has taken over the world,but in Korea, Naver has a stronger market share, however with Google’s interest in the market, has sparks a lot of speculation in the Korean market. Google also participated in our Korea’s event and talked about how to use its products effectively. In thecase of Japan, there are lectures on how Japanese airlines are doing business well, and the hotel industry and the aviation industry share the same business philosophy.

In Sydney, our audiences were interested in cloud based property management systems (PMS) so these companies are partnering with us at this event.

3. In an interview with a media in the past, D-Edge said that we would look at small and medium sized hotels in Korea. Small and mid-sized hotels in the region, in particular, are reluctant to see that their concept of digital reservation is small and that their profits increase because of the digitalization.

A. Currently, 30% of the hotels signed by D-Edge are international franchise hotels and the remaining 70% are local hotels. In major tourist city like Seoul, small and mid-sized hotels arealso interested in growing online business. We have seen good growth performance for hotels when they offer best exclusive rates and use digital marketing to boost traffic andconversion.

D-Edge offers booking engine and digital marketing services formid size and small hotels, even those with less than 50 rooms. If you're interested in working with us, we can consider as the size of the room numbers doesn't really matter.

4. How do you collaborate with partners like Ideas, Google, and Triptease? It is unusual to have a group of leading specialists who can work independently work together.

A. These companies and D-Edge are originally business partners. Since more than 11,500 hotels in more than 100 countries are unique, and integrated solutions should be delivered for the hotels, so they are connected with partners in a wide range of fields.

If you need a specific solution for your hotel, we can connect you with what your company needs.

5. In the field, hoteliers have a poor understanding of digital technology and blame budget problems. Korea, a proud IT powerhouse, is no exception. How will the hotel industry overcome the situation in which new technologies cannot be quickly adopted?

A.To put it bluntly, the hotel industry is predominantly shortsighted and lacks long-term investment. This is not just a story in Korea, but hoteliers are generally less aware of technology and digital marketing.

Some hotels lack theunderstanding of how to use technology to tools that can help them sell rooms. This is a continuous education that we are committed to do for our hotel clients. 

Although D-Edge’s price is not huge, hoteliers have lack of sense to invest for their online business and to drive new business.

Therefore, D-Edge will act as a stimulant or catalyst through Digital Lab event toenhance the long-term view of hotels. Seoul progresses somewhat, but Busan and Jeju, where relatively less hotels are located, may be conducted as a small event in Korea.

Unlike in the past, reservations are made directly through mobile rather than through a travel agency. This trend is happening at an extremely high speed. It is not too hard to stress the need for two-way communication with customers and the preparation for the emerging online e-commerce market.

6. What do you want to emphasize?

A. Werealized that awareness improved much more than when we started the event four years ago. Korean market has great potential. But ultimately, you have to invest a lot in technology so that you are not totally dependent on OTAs.

Diversify your channel distribution, not just on one side of OTAs, and pursue a balanced strategy. In addition, the company's salesstrategy needs to be reviewed and improved so that customers can get enough information they need from your website and lead to room reservations.

In order to survive in the competitive online market, constant efforts must be accompanied by diligent efforts such as technology investment or detailed strategy execution.

The difficult part of this process will be provideda solution that will enable D-Edge's diverse professionals to be sales-enabled and grow.

♦  What is D-EDGE?

D-Edge, a merger of two hospitality digitalsolution providers, provides cutting-edge cloud-based e-commerce solutions for more than 11,500 hotels in more than 100 countries.

Combining Availpro's superior technology and Fastbooking's digital marketing expertise, D-Edge provides a holistic accommodation technology infrastructure. The integrated solutions are dedicated to all stages of hotel distribution, including Central Reservation System, Data Intelligence, Connectivity Hub, Digital Media, and Website Creation.

With over 350 professionals in 20 countries, D-Edge provides localized support, services and tools. With a global network of more than 500 partners, D-Edge's ecosystem for starting and growingbusinesses continues to expand.

♦ She is...?

Christine has over 25 years of leadership experience with a huge passion for the online travel and distribution industry.  Christine has built a career in building and maintaining strong and effective customer relationships and helping companies successfully monetize in a constantly changing technology environment.  Christine's motives are driven by a sense of purpose to continue to build confidence and build a strong organization.  Christine creates a high performing team by providing clear instructions, facilitating collaboration, and challenging the current situation.  He believes that because organizations are organic and autonomous, they can take the initiative, drive change and develop.  As a result, the organization's sense of accomplishment is overwhelming, and the organization achieves something no other person can accomplish.  BELIEVE.  Based in DO IT !, he serves as president of the D-EDGE Hospitality Solutuin Asia Regional Headquarters.

EDIT= Yeonbi JEONG 

jyb@ttlnews.com