Insignia founder & CEO Gaurav Sinha predicts the key trends in the industry this year...
1. Mobile-embedded engagement
From initial awareness to advocacy, mobile technology will play a significant role in how guests will engage with hospitality brands. Wearable technology and mobile phones will create seamless experiences for guests, from searching for hotels, booking a room, checking in with their phones upon arrival and accessing their rooms, to ordering room service and uploading their playlists on completely integrated mobile-embedded technology platforms.
2. Flashpacking, cotels and poshtels
A new breed of traveller will seek higher value and simpler experiences, resulting in hybrid hotel concepts that offer no-frills simplicity, but elegantly designed rooms. This will result in the emergence of new independent lifestyle brands that will create a new generation of hospitality experiences.
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3. The independent restaurant renaissance
Guests will seek more from restaurants and pursue ‘bigger stories’ and ‘bigger hearts’. The demise of formulaic all-day-dining restaurants has already commenced and hotels will start embracing the virtues of leasing space to independent operators who can create more authentic experiences that connect to the social fabric of a city.
4. Designer sustainability
Well-curated, authentic and impactful sustainability will evolve with third-party consultants playing an even more critical role in bringing consumers’ voices, opinions and needs to the boardroom. From eco-friendly policies to talent management, sustainability, stamina, retention, social responsibility and community engagement will be topical discussions across many organisations.
5. Earned media versus social conversations
PR agencies will need to re-invent themselves as digital outreach, online visibility and social media engagement blur traditional borders and we see the emergence of PR 2.0, a whole new discipline where social conversations
will rise above the influence of traditional editorial coverage.
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