One key characteristic of the pandemic is how travel technology companies which doubled down on product development during the lean years have come out looking rather different from their BD (Before Covid) selves.
Global Hospitality Solutions, a hospitality tech company focused on South-east Asian markets, is no exception. According to founder and CEO Bernard Quek, it didn’t lay off any staff and “we took the opportunity to prepare the platform for post-Covid recovery”This involved building up a new solution based on chat for the whole customer journey by connecting its chat hub, Alex, with multiple platforms such as Viber, WhatsApp, Messenger, Telegram, Kakao Talk and LINE to serve the different markets of Asia.
Bernard Quek: “This will be the trend going forward, using chat for the full customer journey from acquisition to booking, payments, service and post-booking including loyalty.”
WhatsApp is by far the dominant channel that Quek is betting on. “The whole journey is on WhatsApp, from pre-arrival to post-departure, and it’s connected to 15 payment gateways because we see payments happening within the messaging platforms.
“This will be the trend going forward, using chat for the full customer journey from acquisition to booking, payments, service and post-booking including loyalty.”
The mainstay of GHS’ business has always been loyalty and CRM solutions for independent hotels as well as regional hotel groups and Quek sees chat as an opportunity to enhance loyalty.
“Loyalty is a ‘package’. It is not about just about better rates but also the ability to reach out to hotels to ask questions throughout the journey. Including chat as a pre/post service mix will help. Lots of cancellations and refund issues happened during the pandemic and speaking with hotels has become even more important.”
He cited the example of Trip.com which he personally uses “because they have a good call centre and make good use of chat for customer service”.
Chat solutions are also a good way to tackle the staff shortage facing hotels across the region. “Hotels in the Philippines for example are having difficulty finding staff – some had to close call centres by 8pm. Guests can order towels and water through chat, rather than having to speak to someone,” he said.
He sees opportunities for hoteliers to use chat for customer acquisition and bookings. “Obviously, you cannot fight the OTAs but it’s also one way to break rate parity, and get more business and sell more vouchers and create better customer experience.
“What we observe is there is a group of guests who prefer to speak or chat to hotels prior to confirming a booking due to trust and confidence reasons especially in developing markets such as Philippines and Vietnam. Chat could be an efficient tool for hotels to grow their direct bookings.
“Alternate payment methods like e-wallets are also gaining traction in developing countries so this could be an angle where chat platforms can help.”
He added, “The distribution landscape is definitely more fragmented after the pandemic but that means more opportunities for entrepreneurs and hotels who know how to take advantage of the changes.”
During the pandemic, Quek and his team developed two new lines of businesses – a WhyQueue estore to help hotels sell f&b vouchers locally and omni-channel marketing solutions “to serve the customers on the platform they want to be on”.
“Actually during the pandemic, we signed up more companies – some tech companies went bust and we took over some of their business – but revenues dropped,” he said. “We waived fees, offered discounts and did what we could to support our customers.”
GHS has seen a quick bounce back in business in markets such as the Philippines, Thailand and Singapore. “We exceeded pre-pandemic revenues this quarter so we are very encouraged by the recovery. We see hoteliers asking for more localised solutions and swifter adoption.
“If you look at how travel companies are using chat channels, it’s quite amazing – Singapore Airlines for example has moved its PA announcements to WhatsApp, from public screen to private screen. It calls you when you are late, I had a buggy sent to pick me up because I was late for a flight.”
