For some reason, I’ve got frogs on my mind. Perhaps it’s the fact that my favourite character in Phare, The Cambodian Circus I caught on Saturday night in Siem Reap was named “Froggy”.
(What a fantastic show by the way, make sure you catch it next time you’re in Angkor Wat. That's me with some of the performers.)
Or perhaps it was due to the fact that on the roadtrip we did last week, covering Manila, Ho Chi Minh City, Kuala Lumpur and Siem Reap, I was constantly reminded of an old Malay saying I learnt in school – “macam katak di bawah tempurong”.
Literally translated, it is “like a frog under a shell” and it means that if you’re like a frog that just sits under a shell and never leave it, well, you will never know what’s going on outside your world.
And as we hopped from place to place with our WIT Hospitality Workshop, holding half-day events in the four cities, I felt like the frog that had been awakened and kissed by Prince Charming – okay, I am getting carried away – but the point is, it was great to get out there and meet with local industry folk to fully understand what’s going on in the different markets.
And here’s what I learnt first and foremost – the four markets we visited are the best examples of the leapfrogging (there’s that amphibian again) phenomenon everyone keeps talking about.
People bypassing the browser to access the web via mobile, folks bypassing traditional (ie official) media channels to get their news and information from the social verse, destinations which have blossomed thanks to social media and not traditional marketing efforts and consumers emboldened by new affluence, new accessibility and new power and a new generation (pictured) weaned on digital devices. (Pictured in a remote village outside Siem Reap, a boy shows off his iPad while his sister is happy with her apple)
Across the markets, it is clear mobile is the common driver of change.
In Vietnam, nine out of 10 people access the web via mobile and Vietnam is #2 in the world in terms of growth of active Android/IOS devices. And one in every five search queries comes from mobile devices.
Cambodia was the first country in the world to claim more mobiles than landlines and a quarter of Internet activity comes from mobile, ranking it 15th in the world in terms of global use.
In Malaysia, hotel and accommodation searches via mobile grew 148% Q12013 vs Q12010 (Google).
In the Philippines, travel and tourism related clicks are up 362% from Q1 2013 over Q1 2010 and on mobile, growth is being seen on mobile devices with full browsers and tablets with full browsers.
In polls we did with our audiences in these markets, it was evident that social is huge with the local populace with some even admitting that they’ve not only found dates on the Internet but have broken up on the social network. Filipinos are particularly social with more than 80% of travellers sharing their travel experiences either on SNS or on their social networks, according to a survey Google did with TNS in the country.
Of course, each market had its differences in terms of its hotel business and online travel trends.
Manila is going through a high demand period and the country is seeing a pick-up in inbound tourism, with Korea one of its biggest growth markets. Rajah Travel, a major traditional tour operator is seeing a boom in incoming business and plans to launch a B2C portal soon. There are signs that consumers are moving online, so expect more start-ups to be launched in the coming months as players jostle for positioning in this new space.
Ho Chi Minh is seeing a price war among the higher end hotels and new online players are emerging. Alehap.com, a social OTA, whose users are primarily women is hoping to get more Vietnamese consumers to travel not only domestically but overseas and book hotels through its social platform.
Kuala Lumpur hotels are experiencing pretty robust times in terms of corporate business. Tune Hotels will soon have 30 hotels and group CEO Mark Lankester told our audience that ancillaries form almost 30% of its revenues (the most purchased item is air conditioning), women are its best customers and that the group, modeled on a low cost model, is not shy of putting its best rates on its website to get customers to book directly with it.
In Siem Reap (pictured), Korea, Vietnam and China are now the top three markets and hotels are still heavily reliant on traditional tour operators, making it difficult for them to shift business online, let alone to website direct.
But the times, they are a-changing, because underneath the differences there were commonalities.
• Business is getting more competitive for everyone and the winner will have to differentiate and dare to be different.
• There are more and more intermediaries entering the space, and hotels have to choose very carefully who they want to work with and dare to negotiate terms that make sense for their business.
• Mobile is the game changer and the next big wave is the IM apps such as Line and WeChat that are expanding in these markets.
• To increase direct business, hotels know they need to invest in new technology, tools and talent that will help them own the customer either through loyalty or social outreach.
And so it was sort of fitting that our roadshow should end with the Phare circus where we watched “Froggy” and friends perform stunts that made us hold our breath and made us laugh at the same time.
The circus is run by the Phare Ponleu Selpak Artistic and Social Center of Battambang which takes in Cambodian kids at risk and teaches them visual arts, drama, dance and music and thus far, 1,400 youths have been through the school. The artistes we saw that night were of the first generation, some of whom were victims of child trafficking.
Through the circus and other performances (it’s been touring round the world for many years), Phare hopes to become a self-sustaining social enterprise.
Anyway, Froggy’s particular talent is juggling and watching him, I couldn’t help but think hoteliers should get a few tips from him on how to keep all those distribution channels up in the air and not have one drop on their heads.
Pictures of our roadshow can be seen on our Facebook page.