Marketing

📅 Christmas, New Year’s Eve, and Chinese New Year provide opportunities for hotels to engage guests through digital campaigns. An Advent calendar campaign boosts website traffic during Christmas. A New Year’s Eve countdown drives bookings with striking visuals. From February 10, a Chinese New Year campaign targets travelers in China, Korea, and Singapore, offering personalized incentives. Blue Monday, the third Monday in January, offers a 30% discount to lift spirits. Personalized, timely offers can maintain guest engagement throughout winter.

📈 Travelers in the peak season consider six brands before booking. Hotels can boost demand by partnering with DMOs, offering direct bookings, and using incentives like digital prize wheels. For loyalty, optimize SEO and use centralized booking engines to enhance visibility. Franchise hotels should balance brand consistency and local character, leveraging GDS campaigns and group contracts. Effective channel strategy reduces reliance on single markets, enhancing long-term resilience by catering to diverse audiences.

📅 Spotnana partnered with Booking.com to integrate their global itinerary for partners and customers. This integration allows access to corporate rates and supports the entire travel journey from booking to servicing. Travelers and agents can manage trips through Spotnana's platform. Benefits include flexible payment options, loyalty rates, last-minute deals, and multi-language support. Mark van der Linden of Booking.com and Bill Brindle of Spotnana highlight the partnership's aim to ease travel management and enhance inventory access.

📅 Emerging Travel Group (ETG) partners with H10 Hotels Group to offer over 65 H10 properties directly to ETG's 20 million monthly users. H10 Hotels, known for premium seafront and all-inclusive resorts, operate in 25 destinations, including Spain, Italy, and the Caribbean. This integration, facilitated by Connectycs, aims to boost booking management and visibility. Spain leads ETG's platform bookings, with a 25% year-on-year increase. Victoria Shamshurova emphasizes the milestone's significance in expanding quality accommodation options.

🛩 Fliggy, Alibaba Group's travel platform, reported a 30% year-on-year surge in gross merchandise value (GMV) during the Double 11 Global Travel Festival. Over six million promotional products were sold, including nearly one million flight passes. Premium 88VIP memberships rose by 30%, contributing 70% of top merchants’ sales. GMV for promotional items via livestream increased by 70%. Major brands like Marriott and ANA surpassed RMB100 million in GMV, with outbound travel making up nearly half of the orders.

🛫 Global fintech, Revolut, teams up with Booking.com to broaden its travel offerings. With almost 9 million Revolut users already booking via Booking.com, this partnership enhances payment options for millions. Revolut Pay, now with 2 million monthly active users, allows seamless one-click booking with biometric security. From November 17 to January 3, users earn 10x RevPoints. Revolut's Alex Codina highlights faster, secure, rewarding checkouts, while Booking.com's JC Rodriguez emphasizes the value for travelers globally.

🏨 Expedia and Airbnb are closing the gap with Booking.com, with Expedia's room-night growth recently surpassing Booking.com, reshaping the competitive landscape as of November 18, 2025. Hotels need strategic adaptation, focusing on diversifying demand sources and enhancing direct booking funnels. Airbnb expands into hotels, enhancing its discovery platform. Expedia leverages loyalty and AI for growth. Despite Booking.com's strong position, its competitive edge faces challenges. The shift in distribution dynamics requires hotels to rethink strategy.

🧦 Apple has introduced a $230 "sock" for phones, sparking lessons for the hospitality industry. Despite its irrational concept, it sold out, highlighting that emotion trumps logic in consumer behavior. The product evokes 2000s nostalgia, suggesting hotels could leverage retro themes for high perceived value. Apple’s strategy emphasizes creating demand through small details rather than expensive renovations. Targeting niche markets instead of a broad audience can boost revenues, as demonstrated by Apple's targeted approach.