So what would go into a Trust cocktail then, I asked. “Trust (of course), innovation, conversion, productivity, quality, usability, best team …” and he reels off his list.
You can tell that Wiegmann is one of those driven CEOs in love with the brand he stands for and totally convinced that his services and solutions are what his hotel customers need in a fast-changing marketplace.
In Singapore from Dubai, where he was presiding over the Trust annual Customer Conference, Wiegmann is excited about expansion plans for the Asia Pacific region. He’s just taken on Christine Tan as vice president for the area from Pegasus (yes) Solutions and believes the new team is poised to make bigger inroads into the market.
Globally, transaction volume at Trust in 2010 has climbed back to 2008 levels with the US corporate market recovering although Europe remains mixed. Asia Pacific had its problems – floods in Queensland, earthquake in Christchurch and tsunami in Japan – but the global nature of its business helped balance out the picture.
Asia Pacific as a region has grown from seven to 22% share of transactions in the last six years and Wiegmann has set a 35-40% target in next couple of years.
“You asked the question at the last WIT – when will a GDS have its headquarters in China? When that happens, the market will boom,” he said.
One of its breakthroughs has been in Japan where it has developed a direct interface with TL-Lincoln to give its customer Solare Hotels & Resorts direct connectivity to domestic OTAs, hence giving the hotel group the ability to manage rates and inventory with both local and international OTAs. (See article)
It’s also waived fee increases for Japanese customers this year in recognition of the hard times they are facing and it’s donated one million yen to a fund called Living Dreams, which helps orphans created by the recent tsunami.
“There are lots of little things we can do to support Japan. They are a strong nation and if you want to do business with the Japanese, you have to travel there,” he said. “In a year’s time, it will be back to normal.”
In Dubai, the conference’s key message was that “the next generation of hotel distribution services is all about customization and flexibility in every area of the booking process”.
And in markets such as Middle East, Japan and China, there is high demand for localization, said Wiegmann, citing how it adapted Trust’s IBE application to Solare’s needs for the Japanese market by “delivering a localized Japanese booking engine with complete Japanese capabilities including the use of Japanese symbols and icons, localized rate/content plus Japanese mobile phone integration”.
Wiegmann noted the tide had turned where in the past innovation happened because a client from the West required it. Today, first moves are being made in the Asian markets.
Ultimately, it’s about being at every point of sale the customer is at and these days, that could range from Google Places to Facebook to Groupon. “The rules have completely changed since the major boys such as Google and Facebook discovered travel as a field of interest,” he said.
So Trust has developed Facebook booking engines, some of which are embedded within the social network’s environment and some externally. While it’s still early days, Wiegmann said it’s seeing better conversion on external sites probably because of the better content available.
It’s also developed a feature that allows live availability and rates to be shown through Google Maps and that’s linked directly to the hotel booking engine. That, he said, has generated true business and good conversion.
Not forgetting the OTAs, Trust will be adding approximately 20 more direct connects in 2011, such as Travelsky, TL Lincoln and Rakuten in the Asia Pacific, Tourico and Tablet in the Americas, and Hotel.info and GTA in Europe.
On mobile, he said that globally, it accounted for three percent of all web bookings but in Japan, the figure is 21% while in Korea, it’s 16%.
“The issue is connectivity to all these channels and with tablets and mobile, the customer is everywhere and this is what I tell our customers, let me be there for you.”
In Dubai, the company also announced upcoming launches of Trust|Corporate, the new IBE for corporate bookings and Trust|Data, a new data exchange initiative that covers CRM integrations, reservation data feeds, customized confirmation, mobile booker integrations and more.
