Q&A with Marriott’s e-commerce marketing manager Euan Mitchell

Euan Mitchell, Marriott Hotels’ e-commerce marketing manager, shares his views on hotel distribution trends with Linda Fox

Q) What’s happening in hotel distribution online, what’s working?

A) I think the brands have improved their interaction in the past two or three years. We have seen significant growth in the Marriott’s UK site. What we’re trying to do is attract the source market. We have come a long way, more so in the UK than some of the European markets where online has not developed quite so quickly. In the UK people are not quite so frightened to put their credit cards online and hotels have been helped by the growth of the low-cost carriers in terms of people being able to book online. The difficulty with any website is people coming to the site have different levels of expertise and experience. There are the novices and those that have booked whole holiday so you have to be all things to all people and offer a solution that is simple to understand.

Q) User-generated content and reviews, how do you engage in them and control them?

A) The word control is interesting. There has been a shift in balance in terms of power and it’s no longer the brands saying who they are and what they do. Now, it’s a community of people saying they like the brand and why they like the brand. It’s all about building up trust. In January, Bill Marriott launched a blog and it is updated two or three times a week. He covers a number of issues and some are controversial such as the smoking ban and it has to be treated very carefully. There is a danger for any brand where unpleasant PR can come out and its important to take heed and resolve it. It all goes back to trust, integrity and transparency. If people think you are doing the right thing and have the best intentions they will trust you and come back. It’s not rocket science. We are reviewing a number of opportunities in UGC and reviews.

Q) What will we see in terms of third party distributors – will hotel groups look to cut out the big aggregators?

A) The big aggregators offer a much wider audience so they will continue to be valuable partner for the hotel industry. It’s eyeballs that we would not have had before and it’s complementary, not detrimental to our own distribution strategy. We like to touch customers through out own website and you start to get that interaction with them before they have walked through the door. If you use an aggregator you don’t have that contact in the early stages.

Q) What do you see happening in the online travel space in the next six months?

A) There is an increase in the use of videos, more so from a leisure point of view. As more and more people have high-speed internet access, we can be much more interactive even in terms of advertising. If you have a movie it’s much more engaging and you can get a much better feel for a place. You can almost start to smell the sea air and feel the breeze rather than just looking at still images and copy. It’s also about how it is all tied into the website and around the brand. Some customers have put their clips on Youtube so it will happen anyway so why not show the brand’s views.

Q) What would your dream hotel website have if there were no budgetary restraints?

A) One of the elements we have recently launched is personalising it more particularly to our Marriott Rewards customers. When they sign in they can see how many points they have and what they have spent etc. We can also show them a saved list of hotel favourites and we will start to target to them with a selection of hotels that people have stayed in but, who have also stayed in the same hotels as they have. It’s an Amazon-type solution and it’s about more relevant content. There are other things we have looked at and Second Life is a good example but the number of people who engage in it is nowhere near the likes of Facebook or other social networks. We’ve looked at how we could change our own internal network to offer a Facebook-type solution and leave best practice tips. It’s all very exciting but there are a whole host of privacy issues. We’re continually looking at the next buzz, whether it will last the distance and what’s the best approach for us.