Share your room?

Travelling with Google: The search engine covers all phases of travelling by own platforms - clockwise, starting with the travel inspiration to information search, booking, trip and travel reflection. At least, the U.S. giant dreams of it.

Munich. On the one hand, the future-oriented speeches on Google, Facebook and more held at HSMA's "E-Marketing Day" about two weeks ago could be regarded as pure PR. On the other hand, they revealed the next steps of development of the digital world of travel. Social networks and search engines melt together transforming into a new e-commerce dimension. In addition, there is the enormous speed of mobile development. Concretely this means: a European airline offers the possibility of defining your own seatmate, and a hotel in Stockholm allows guests to check-in, enter their room and carry out payments via mobile phone. Is this the brave new online world?

"Reality is going to be digitized," predicted Florian Bauhuber, Managing Director of the Tourismuszukunft Institute in Aichach. Refrigerators will send an online message when tomatoes are missing, and hotel guests share their experiences online with their friends. Since February 3, KLM passengers have the possibility to name their seatmate on some international flights via the new "Meet & Seat" programme, or agree to meet for a coffee in advance. The airline has integrated social media into its reservation process: Airline passengers with a seat reservation reveal personal information which other passengers are allowed to access on their Facebook or LinkedIn profile.

The participants of the HSMA conference reacted to this news with a laugh and asked questions like "What comes after social seating? Social sleeping? Share your room?" A lot of things are possible facing the exceptionally rapid technological development. Thanks to an NFC chip, the Clarion Stockholm now offers checking in, opening the doors to hotel guests, and carrying out all transactions related to the hotel via mobile phone. NFC stands for "near field communication", a radio standard that was developed back in 2002. NFC embodies a wireless communication technology that is meant to enable data sharing between devices that are only a few centimeters away from each other. They are working based on the RFID chip, among other things.

Mobile devices are the future. Stefan Niemeyer, Head of the IC Tourismus agency, calculated in his speech that 83 percent of the German population has a mobile phone today, and 32 percent, a smartphone. By 2013, 20 percent will own a smartphone with an NFC chip, and these NFC mobile phones will generate 50 million euros of revenue by 2014. Moreover, further payment systems like "Google Wallet" are advancing.

"f-commerce" – the symbol of interconnection

Mobile pocket devices will inevitably become constant companions of the people, and particularly when they are travelling. The goal is to analyse their habits and control their behaviour – especially their buying behaviour. Facebook could become the biggest "friend" of transparent travellers. The social media giant is well on the way to catch them indirectly – via company websites. The "friendship portal" is thus turning into a connector between social commerce and e-commerce creating "f-commerce", as Jens Wiese, Editor-in-Chief of the unofficial allfacebook.de Facebook blog, put it.

70 percent of the users still use Facebook to communicate with friends or family members. Only 23 percent of its users use it for interacting with brands, meaning there is still a lot of potential. However, the speaker eliminated wrong expectations: a survey revealed that users primarily expect to find discounts when they open brand websites, while the companies expect that users are actually interested in their company.

Stefan Niemeyer: NFC is the future.

Service for customers, but ranking hunt for hotels

On February 29, Facebook will present "Facebook Pages" in the US, and starting in April, the tool is going live worldwide for the free of charge company profiles. Wiese unemotionally cleared up objections related to George Orwell: Facebook already knew where the users are located – via mobile phone. Even the IP number could be directly allocated to a place of residence ...

What is therefore behind the free Facebook Pages tool? Companies are supposed to enter as much information in their profile as possible, as the amount of information will soon influence rankings. And that, in turn, influences buying decisions. The US company is obsessed with collecting data – it's Google's core business.

For several months, Facebook USA has been operating a new database: the "Like" button will be expanded to "I plan", "I recommend", "I do" ... The friendly intention behind this: "Users are meant to tell an even bigger story." Talking turkey: "recommending" a certain jeans brand to your friends is worth its weight in gold. Or even better: in the jeans store, users can check the most popular jeans among their friends via Facebook and take their buying decision afterwards. Hotels are now invited to think about ways how to implement these new planning, recommendation, and action buttons in their favour.

Jens Wiese: It's all about  'f commerce' - facebook commerce…

Google portals control travellers at every turn

And what are the latest Google trends? The "Travel" field has proven to be the third most important group among Google's adwords, explained Tim Schuetrumpf, Consultant of the Institut Tourismuszukunft. And the search engine aims at literally accompanying travellers at every turn. To achieve this goal, Google is developing more and more portals and also buys the necessary content – via company takeovers.

For travellers, this could look as follows: if you are looking for a hotel in San Francisco, you look at Google Places. At the same time, you receive the OTA offers and hotel evaluations. These will immediately forward you to Streetview photos and video channels such as YouTube. The latter, by the way, is the first address when it comes to choosing a hotel in the US.

And the development goes on: in the US, it is possible to book a flight via Google. Entering the search term "Flight from New York to San Francisco" will lead you directly to the websites of the corresponding airlines. OTAs are already locked out in this process. "A hint for hotels!" said Schuetrumpf explicitly, as it implicated a true chance for direct hotel distribution.

In the USA, there are already "Google City Pages" for five cities. These pages provide links to deal portals or restaurant guides. If a tourist in San Francisco wants to know where he needs to go, he calls up "Google maps", which provides route calculation, a pedestrian modus and even displays bus connections. In the US, you can also check for movies via City Pages.

The new click society

Online-controlled travellers are becoming a reality. The next generation, the so-called "digital natives", will take all these things for granted. And as mainly US companies that are not interested in any sorts of data protection are the driving force on the market, it is likely that nobody will get worked up about it anymore.

Offering services and products, hotels are being caught up increasingly by search engines and social media giants. And they will pay for every single click. Google is in the process of extending its still rudimentary "Google Hotel Finder" and connecting more and more portals with one another. This is praised as sensational service towards travellers, but hoteliers have to pay. In future, they will no longer pay per reservation, but per click volumes. At HRS, they pay for confirmed reservations, at Facebook and Google, they pay for their mere presence without being sure that business is being generated.

Hotel sales face a totally new dimension. Enlightening conferences such as the E-Marketing Day at HSMA are most welcome information platforms pointing the way to the future. / map