Please outline your strategy for 2013?
The MENA region represents our second largest growth market after China, and it continues to evolve as an international and leisure travel hub.
To underscore the importance of the Middle East as one of Starwood’s fastest-growing markets, Dubai was selected as the site of Starwood’s leadership meeting in May 2012.
This marked the first time the annual leadership conference was held in the Middle East. During the visit, our CEO Frits van Paasschen also announced the senior leadership team’s month-long relocation to Dubai in March 2013, from their offices in Stamford, US, to understand and appreciate this region and to further strengthen our relationships with owners, as well as with the development and investment communities.
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While we are focused on growing our nine distinctive brands across the region, it is also important for us as a company to ensure our existing hotels are operating under brand standards.
We will look at key renovations across the region and in some cases, the possibility of exiting certain properties.
Lastly, our most important asset as a company is brand loyalty, so we continue to focus on strengthening relationships with our guests by offering more personalised experiences.
A key driver for this is our loyalty programme, Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG), which continues to offer more choices, recognition and services by breaking away from ‘points and perks’, to introduce personal services that drive loyalty beyond reason for our guests.
Digital marketing and online direct reservations are expected to be key trends for 2013: what’s your strategy to grow these?
Technology is reinventing the travel business in terms of how people search, select and book hotels. Consumers can find the best value proposition with technology at their fingertips which has led to an increase in mobile bookings.
In fact, 25% of travel-related searches today are done via mobile. We have also noticed, of travellers who book via mobile devices, 50% of those bookings are for same-day or next-day arrivals, which is a big contrast from typical advance bookings via traditional channels.
We live in a data-driven world today and it is only natural that travellers expect a dialogue with their favourite brands. Travellers today know what they want and when they want it and expect personalised attention and experiences.
This is the reason we launched Ratings and Reviews, which gives our guests the opportunity to review their experiences directly on our websites.
Since we launched this, we’ve learned that guests who interact with Ratings and Reviews have a 50% higher conversion rate than those who don’t.
What guest/traveller trends do you predict for 2013?
We are on the cusp of a new ‘golden age of travel’ and the opportunity in the travel and tourism industry is bigger than it ever was.
The world has transformed more dramatically in the last 20 years, and it’s only accelerating due to forces such as a growing middle class, rapid advances in digital technology and higher expectations for personalisation from global brands.
These things are impacting the travel and hotel business – in a good way. Inbound travel from China and India will continue to grow exponentially over the years to come. This is great news for Starwood because when travellers from these markets visit, they will stay with the brands they know and trust.
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