#THINCAfrica: why digital investments are crucial for the hospitality sector

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“M-Pesa, launched from Kenya, has reinvented financial services, along with brands like Uber, Airbnb, TripAdvisor and Booking.com who have reinvented ways of doing business in their sectors,” said Taylor.

A direct correlation between digital investment and balance sheet value

Taylor told delegates most hotel groups now outsourced their digital solutions, enabled by the cloud. These services include competitive shopping, rate parity management, reviews, remarketing and upselling additional services at the time of booking, as well as website content management, including regular monthly forensic reporting.

“There is a direct correlation between digital investment and balance sheet value. It works in tandem. The more you invest in digital, the more your balance sheet will be worth,” said Taylor.

Being proactive on social media is crucial

According to panelist Sam Matthews, CTO at Gosh Digital in London, being proactive on social media in the hotel industry is crucial as is understanding the audience, picking the appropriate channels and creating great content. Reactive social media must include timeous response to inquiries and complaints as well as tracking responses.

“Speed is king,” he says when it comes to download times and recommended hosting in Europe as opposed to Africa for optimum performance and speed.

Data and relevance key when it comes to CRM

Michael Schäffner, director of sales and marketing at Serenata, said data and relevance were key when it comes to CRM. “CRM is about cleaning data and building a central infrastructure. There is so much data coming into our industry and to get that one central data profile is a really big challenge. It’s becoming more and more challenging with more devices and more data. Our vision for CRM is to make the most relevant offers to guests,” he said.

Secure payments

The hospitality sector has very complex payment requirements and security is the biggest issue,” said panelist Barry Coetzee, CEO of Ivery. “Today we have many hospitality clients who only work on e-commerce. All their income comes in through a website which means internet security is the front door to all their cash flow, which is a very big deal.”

According to Ivery, there is generally very low card fraud in Africa compared to the rest of the world. “We’re very conservative and our payment infrastructure is heavily regulated and complicated,” he said.

Technology adoption a priority for the transformation of tourism

James Vos, MP, DA shadow minister of tourism, addressed delegates earlier in the day and said that technology adoption was a priority for the transformation of tourism in South Africa. “We must use the many technologies available to market destinations, connect stakeholders, promote products and provide services. In fact, the recently hosted Africa World Travel Market in Cape Town selected the use of technology in tourism as its theme,” he said.

Vos told delegates the DA supported the application of electronic visas as a means to streamline tourist facilitation to the country. “The DA favours e-visas for visitors to South Africa for these simple reasons: They protect jobs in tourism, present significant advantages by cutting turnaround times for issuing travel documentation, and are, in fact, more secure than existing permits.

Electronic visas have proven highly effective in countries like Turkey, which is widely regarded to have the best international practice when it comes to visa applications,” he said.