Tourism in South Africa is recovering, with increased volumes of both local and foreign travellers. With the removal of the final Covid-19 restrictions, this is expected to increase further, especially in coastal areas which have become increasingly popular with remote workers. To take advantage of this uptick, Max Urban, co-founder and managing director of Propr, says it’s crucial for hoteliers and short-term rental owners to note that guest expectations have changed as a result of the pandemic. Consumers’ appetites for digital technologies and experiences have grown, but unlike other industries that swiftly adopted tech solutions, the hospitality sector has lagged. “The industry needs to innovate and adapt now more than ever to meet consumer demands for accommodation that caters to the changing world of business and leisure, unique stays, instant communication on their preferred platforms, and smarter technologies to enhance their experiences, amongst others.” These are the five trends reshaping the hospitality space: 1. Flexibility The pandemic ushered in the era of offering flexible cancellations, and when new travel restrictions can be imposed at a moment’s notice, Urban says guests may be unwilling to book accommodation with strict or moderate cancellation policies. Accommodation providers have no choice but to embrace the last-minute nature with which guests book. “Gone are the days of looking at next year’s forward bookings.” 2. Digital nomads are the new business travellers Telecommuting has exploded since the start of the pandemic and businesses are becoming more accepting of remote workers. This has resulted in an upsurge in digital nomads travelling the globe and staying in places for weeks or months at a time. “Properties that can offer dedicated workspaces and high-speed internet are much more likely to get booked.” 3. Becoming load shedding-proof With load shedding being the new normal, he says properties need to offer solutions that minimise the impact on guests. This ranges from special lamps and bulbs to inverters that can power internet routers. Doing so is a great way to be set apart from other listings at the moment. 4. Standing out, not being standard “Today’s guests are looking for something special beyond the stock standard hotel room, prompting the hospitality industry to experiment with their offerings,” Urban says, adding that Marriot, for example, has carved out separate portfolios of properties under the Homes & Villas by Marriott International banner which enables guests to book self-catering accommodation. Other hotel chains, he says, are expected to jump on this trend to make their properties unique and, in doing so, use their assets more efficiently. “An example of this could be renting out a hotel room during the day for use as a home office and hiring it out to a traveller at night.” 5. Smarter technology Advances in technology will not only benefit the guests but property owners and professional hosts too. Urban explains that pricing algorithms are becoming increasingly sophisticated and can adjust pricing to capitalise on specific demand spikes. For example, a premium could automatically be applied to one-night gaps in the calendar to make those bookings more worthwhile. “IoT tech will also be able to synch an establishment’s calendar and switch the geyser on or off to save on electricity. Additionally, automatic inventory checks based on photographs will cut down the time it takes to check properties. Some of these technologies are already in existence and others are not too far off.” Soon the days of guests picking up the phone or walking down to reception to speak with staff at hospitality establishments will be no longer. “They increasingly want their communication to be instant and digital, sparking the need to automate processes to assist guests and enhance their experience. Guests nowadays prefer to interact via WhatsApp and chatbots and the industry needs to catch up,” Urban states. However, this needs to be done in a way that does not allow communication to become robotic. “Guests still expect a personal touch for certain types of interactions, even if they are automated or executed electronically. One of the ways that we have managed to get the balance right is by automating highly structured communication which gives our team more opportunity to spend quality time with guests on things that computers don’t handle well yet such as planning a custom itinerary and talking about missed expectations. “We also use tech to alert us to opportunities where we can delight or help our guests. For example, we automatically flag certain key words like ‘anniversary’, ‘birthday’ or ‘locked out’ and then notify our guest experience team.” Copyright https://www.iol.co.za/

Booking.com, Takealot, UberEats, Google and others under fire in South Africa online market inquiry – here are all the major findings South Africa’s Competition Commission has published its report outlining provisional findings and recommendations of its Online Intermediation Platforms Market Inquiry.In response to the growing importance of the online economy and competition concerns in these markets emerging in other countries, the Competition Commission launched a probe into competition and participation in the online economy in 2021. The inquiry identified leading platforms in each category of e-commerce – those that get the most consumer traffic – upon which the business users are relatively dependent, and which are, or are likely to be, entrenched. These leading platforms are: Booking.com Apple App Store; Google Play Store; Takealot; com; Airbnb; Mr Delivery; Uber Eats; Property24; Private Property; AutoTrader; Cars.co.za; Google Search. General recommendations In terms of competition among platforms, the inquiry made the following provisional findings and recommendations, amongst others: Payments:In software application stores, there is no effective competition for the fees charged to app developers with in-app payments, resulting in high fees and app prices. The inquiry’s recommendation is that apps should be able to steer consumers to external web-based payment options, or alternatively, a maximum cap is placed on application store commission fees. Parity clauses:Price parity clauses, evident in travel and accommodation, eCommerce and food delivery, hinder competition and create dependency. The inquiry recommended their removal. Wide price parity clauses prevent businesses offering lower prices on other platforms and narrow parity prevents businesses from offering lower prices on their own direct online channels. Market dominance:In property classifieds and food delivery, new entrants and local delivery platforms face challenges signing up large national businesses, undermining their ability to compete. The Inquiry found in property classifieds this is a result of the investment and support of large estate agencies in Private Property and recommended the divesture of their stake. Facilitating the interoperability of listings on the leading platforms is a further recommendation to support entrants. In food delivery, national restaurant chains often prevent franchisees listing on local delivery platforms and the Inquiry recommended this practice ceases along with any incentives provided by national delivery platforms to steer volumes their way. Food delivery:The inquiry found that the business model of substantial eater promotions alongside high restaurant commission fees can result in large surcharges on menu items which is not transparent to consumers and distorts competition with local delivery options. The inquiry recommended greater transparency on either the menu surcharge or the share taken by the delivery platforms. Search rankings:Across all platforms there is a tendency to sell top-ranking search positions to businesses that are not the most relevant to the consumer and constitute a form of advertising that is not transparent. This impacts consumer choice and competition, especially for SMEs that cannot spend as much as large businesses. The inquiry recommended that advertising is clearly displayed as such and the top results be reserved for organic (or natural) search results. Fee discrimination:The inquiry found that the extreme levels of fee discrimination against SMEs in online classifieds, food delivery and to a lesser extent travel & accommodation, hinders their participation and has no coherent justification. The inquiry recommended that a maximum cap is placed on the fee differentials between large and small businesses, potentially at 10-15%. In food delivery, it is recommended that more equitable treatment also occurs in terms of marketing commitments made in exchange for lower commission fees. Online stores:In eCommerce, the Inquiry found that conflicts of interest arise in operating a marketplace for third-party sellers and selling their own retail products which can result in certain self-preferencing conduct such as product gating, retail buyers given access to seller data to target successful products, preferential display ads and promotions. The lack of a speedy resolution process also adds to the costs of sellers. The inquiry recommended an internal structural separation of retail from the marketplace to implement equitable and competitively neutral processes. App stores: In software application stores, the inquiry found that South African apps face challenges in being discovered in competition to larger global app development companies. The inquiry recommended that app stores provide country-specific curation of app recommendations and provide free promotional credits to South African app developers to help get visibility. The provisional findings and recommendations will now be subject to a period of public comment and stakeholder consultation before a final report is released in November 2022. This means that the Inquiry may change its views on the findings and recommendations during this period of consultation and public submissions. Copyright https://businesstech.co.za/

1. Optimize the customer journey, not just landing pages Although the digital landscape is rapidly changing, many of the same core conversion rate optimization principles apply. You’ll always want to align intent with a relevant ad and subsequent landing page. But as I mentioned above, there is more to CVR than just landing page optimization. You’ll want to ensure that the user’s entire journey from search to ad to landing page is fully optimized. This requires mapping out your customer journey, constantly gathering customer insights, and using your data to identify key touch points, pain points, drop off points, and more. 2. Consider more top-of-funnel offers Landing pages are effective when optimizing for the intent of the user who searched and clicked on the ad to get them to take action quickly. Someone with either many options (several players in an industry) or increased cautiousness with purchasing decisions will need more time. This mindset is rather antithetical to many landing page best practices. It may not be that the ad or landing page did not convince the user to convert, but possibly that it made them explore your website for more information, look at competitors, and make a more elongated decision. Given the above, you may want to consider adding more top or mid-funnel offers to your PPC strategy, such as ebooks. Or you can support the increased focus on buyer research by offering comparison tools. 3. Prioritize keywords by intent You’ll want to take into consideration the level of intent behind the keywords you are targeting. This has a domino effect because it will either raise or lower the probability of the user clicking and converting on your ad. Prioritizing keywords by intent is a good practice as you can focus solely on those specific terms and queries in order to guide the rest of your approach. If you have a search term that has very high intent, it may also be highly competitive. Your energy spent on optimizing the ads and landing pages for these keywords should help improve your conversion rate. My advice would be to monitor the search terms report to the best of your ability to add negative keywords and reduce the amount of potentially irrelevant queries from triggering your ads. 4. Have multiple ad copy variations Ad copy is one of the biggest needle movers when it comes to paid advertising as a whole. Slight changes in headlines and descriptions can go a long way with regard to click-through rate and overall ad performance. Having multiple compelling ad copy variations will allow you to find which language works best for each ad group. You should then be able to eliminate any variations that are underperforming from a CVR perspective. Google’s Responsive search ads give you a wide variety of flexibility in terms of headline and description variations that the machine learning optimizes for over time. 5. Optimize your landing pages The main focal point for most conversion rate optimization posts is typically the landing page. Although I stress the importance of the other variables in the equation, PPC landing page optimization is still a critical component of advertising on any platform. You want to ensure that the copy and intent of the page aligns with both your ad copy and the intent of the keyword that you are targeting. 6. Choose the right bidding strategies Fully utilizing automated bid strategies like Max Conversions, Target CPA, and TROAS can make a massive difference in the performance of your ads and landing pages as Google uses its machine learning to align with the goal of the bid strategy. This is important because will selectively serve your ads to users it believes have a higher propensity to convert and within the costs that you specify. Take these steps to improve your conversion rate There are a lot of variables that contribute to industry-wide averages on nearly any metric. With economic uncertainty, changing consumer behavior, and Google’s rapidly changing ad platform, it is hard to identify a smoking gun. But on an individual basis I believe it is entirely possible to improve CVR across your campaigns amidst all of these variables. Paid search is a complex ecosystem of intent and competition. CVR will improve for those who choose to focus on improving what they have and to do so in a methodical and strategic manner. Copyright www.wordstream.com