H & C News is pleased to introduce a series of articles authored by experts from Buell Consulting Group who participated in the panels and seminars at the recent Independent Hotel Show. The articles will assist independent hotels to address the challenges facing their businesses in the competitive UK market.
Keith Slowey, Chief Executive of iHotelligence was a panellist at the recent Business Solutions seminar on New technologies and the Independent Hotel, and summarises below the key points that emerged from the panel.
- Smaller hotels can gain an advantage on their larger competitors by being able to change quicker and adapt to new technologies faster.
- Cloud based technology offers independent hotels an opportunity to reduce costs and work more efficiently.
- Integrated systems that join the myriad of booking channels – such as phone, direct internet, OTA’s, GDS, Facebook and Mobile – into one database, so that changes are reflected in real-time on all channels without manual intervention, are the future.
- Most traffic to independent hotels websites comes indirectly from OTA’s such as booking.com. There are several steps that can be taken to maximise the likelihood that visitors will make a booking on the hotel’s own commission free website – rather than having them leave and go back to the originating OTA to make a heavily commissioned reservation.
About The Buell Group
The Buell Group is the single largest advisory and service resource for the hospitality and leisure sectors in the UK.
The range of expertise and resource that it is able to bring together under one umbrella makes it unique and provides clients with much more than conventional consulting.
The Buell Group is made up of three divisions; Buell Consulting for hospitality advisory support; Buell Talent for senior hospitality recruitment; and Buell B4B for relevant services.
The portfolio of services provides a comprehensive response to any requirement operating businesses or investors may have and specifically covers Operations, Support Services such as Sales & Marketing and HR, and Legal and Professional. Also offered is a range of bespoke products including:
- Business Start Up
- Business Acceleration Programme
- On-Board Advisory
- Fit for Purpose Technology
- Strategic Business Review
- Business Recovery
The Buell Group essentially provides a multi-layered, one stop resource for business whether they require expertise in one area or many.
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