Capturing the millennial market has been on hoteliers’ agendas for a while now, and lifestyle-branded properties are springing up on every corner.
Hotelier speaks to some of the GMs heading properties that have managed to get a slice of the Gen Y cake to find out what really works
Millennials, also known as Generation Y, are a puzzling bunch. While they can be loosely defined as young adults born after the early 1980s, they desire a seemingly paradoxical mix of experiences. They want international standards, along with cosy authenticity; the most seamless technological connectivity, combined with a personal touch. Getting to grips with these preferences is key, since everyone agrees that millennials are, of course, the future of the travel industry.
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“Millennials will represent 50% of travellers by 2025, and will probably spend 80% of the total income coming from the tourism industry,” comments Safak Guvenc, general manager, W Doha Hotel & Residences.
“We really need to understand what they require, their demographics, their expectations, and make immediate changes in our operations to accommodate them,” he adds.
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There is no denying that millennials are becoming a force to be reckoned with, as more young people travel.
Vida Hotels and Resorts general manager Stefan Viard says: “In the past, millennials didn’t make up a large portion of our hotel guests; however, we are slowly seeing a shift in these numbers, observing a growth from the millennial segment in our customer base.
“Keeping this in mind, it is imperative to instigate a relationship with this segment and to start to attract and retain these millennial travellers from now on by aligning our strategies with their travel requirements.
“Once they are captured, these increasingly powerful travellers will no doubt substantially contribute to the overall profitability of the property.”
Creating New Roles
Anticipating the growing power of this segment, W Doha created a special role four years ago to capture, serve and make loyal customers out of Generation Y.
“We realised the importance of millennials about four years ago, and created an e-insider role. We do have an insider role as a brand standard but we were the first hotel to create an e-insider role.
“This person is in charge of social media and offers personalised service to our guests through these mediums.
“They post what is new and happening at W Doha, and also follow feedback on TripAdvisor, and Twitter, etc,” says Guvenc.
This practice is now much more common, and Hotelier is seeing dedicated social media and community managers in hotels leading the conversation. Their objectives go beyond social media posts and promotions and involve creating relationships with existing and prospective guests.
Monitoring is an important function of a community manager, Viard explains: “We know that the younger generation looks at each other for opinions and travel advice, whether it is through Facebook, TripAdvisor, Yelp, travel blogs, etc.
“Having recognised the importance of social media, we have a specialised ecommerce manager at the property who is dedicated to monitoring all social media activity related to the hotel, which allows us to be as proactive as possible when dealing with reviews, regardless of whether they are negative or positive.
“For example, we have seen that the travel forums, TripAdvisor and Yelp are two of the most visited hotel/restaurant review sites, which to our benefit, provides us with the option to respond to any negative feedback.
“We are able to track these through the findings of our ecommerce manager,” says Viard.
Media One Hotel general manager Mark Lee, adds that hiring a millennial for this role adds to the objective, as they can communicate successfully.
“Appointing a community manager enables us to reach out to millennials in a format that they feel most comfortable with, and aspire to be communicated in.
“We are putting a lot of emphasis on both manpower and marketing spend to further develop these channels,” says Lee.
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