I’m back talking SMAC. In the last post, we introduced the concept of the “SMAC Stack” – the way Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud are interacting to change the way we operate online. Now let’s continue that conversation and take a look at some ways this evolution is already happening in the hospitality industry and what this means for hotels.

First off, we should mention that there are lots of people doing interesting things in this space. If we can toot our own horns for a minute, we were among the first to move from premise-based Property and Revenue Management Systems to a true Cloud solution. We’ve engineered our solutions so that they’re very light on the users’ end of things, which helps a great deal when operating in a mobile environment or less-than-ideal conditions.

Another company that’s really been out in front in this area is TripAdvisor. In Social, the company dramatically increased its user base through a concerted effort to reach new customers through Facebook. And at least 36 million people have downloaded the TripAdvisor Mobile app (through which users connect to detailed information in the Cloud).

However, the item of greatest interest to property owners and managers might be the company’s push into Analytics.

Years of market research have found measurable business impacts from online reviews. One study, performed at the Center for Hospitality Research at Cornell University, found that improvements in a hotel’s online reputation score significantly increased occupancy and RevPAR. Companies with improved reviews can charge more while still maintaining occupancy levels.
All else being equal, hotels with more and better reviews will see more bookings.

What TripAdvisor does for property managers is collect and neatly display all the data that’s being shared on its system – both for an owner’s property and for its competitors. This feedback can point to areas requiring operational improvement, but also help solve the puzzle of why two similar properties in two different locations are seeing such different results. It may be that not offering shuttle service / free breakfast / cheaper parking is fine at the first property, but a real drag on business at the second.

One limitation in this offering, of course, is that for now the only data being provided is from TripAdvisor itself. Property owners might miss what’s being said on Yelp, Twitter or Facebook. Other companies offer a broader look at social trends, but monitoring customer sentiment on third-party sites is still just one (very important) piece of running a successful hotel.

And at any rate, this is all just what’s happening today. In the next post, we’ll start looking at what the future of the SMAC Stack might hold for managing guests.