So will they wipe of the competition? According to the Office of Fair Trade in the UK which gave its approval for this venture to go ahead in March 08, it shouldn’t…

And who forms the competition? Comparable reports are produced by MKG, TRI, Lynn Jones Research, Best practice Forum and TravelCLICK.

We will have to wait and see who benefits in the long run - in the short term, hotel companies with a wide geographical spread should get improved intelligence from this venture.

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Countries are easing travel barriers. Europe took the lead in this matter and between 1985 and 1990 established the Schengen agreement - borderfree travel among 15 countries in Western Europe. This was a huge boost to travel within those countries. It was also a huge bonus for a non-european traveller who wanted to visit. With the same Schengen visa they could travel to multiple countries. Recently this original list has been expanded to include the Baltic states, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia, Czech republic, Poland and Malta. Notably, Britain and Republic of Ireland are not part of this border agreement.

These agreements improve the ease of travel without visas or lengthy procedural difficulties associated with them. It also encourages last minute travel and is fantastic for the hospitality and tourism industry.

Visas on arrival is another concept which many countries have used to make travel easier. Indonesia offers it to over 5o different nationalities including Indians. At the time India does not offer this to any country except Nepal, but is said to be considering it. While the tourism department has been lobbying for it for a while, the interior ministry’s security worries and the current (but improving) airport infrastructure will ensure that this may be a while in coming.

A group of east Asian countries is said to be considering a schengen style concept at the time, but this may also take a while before being implemented.

Further improvements will be made by countries around the world to open up their entry barriers to accomodate the emerging Asia - both the Indian and Chinese middle classes already form a substantial market for European tourism and business. And this is only likely to increase.

This rapid growth in tourism and hotels have left a wide gap in skilled manpower that is needed to run the industry – this has resulted increased employee turnover thereby affecting standards of service directly. The future of the industry will remain with companies who are able to look at the welfare of the employees and who invest in training.

But with the explosive growth targeted by some companies, this seemsmore and more challenging. Shangri La is said to be targeting an additional 60 hotels in the coming two to three years. In India, a country one assumes due to its population, is rich in manpower is falling desperately short of skilled employees in the hospitality sector. For someone like me who had only the choice between the Taj group and the Oberoi’s to join after passing out of Hotel school in the early 90’s this seems like employment paradise. But at the same time it is posing some serious questions to employers.

So what is that magic formula which will help companies retain employees? Motivation has to be the key - a company with great leaders who can inspire and follow up on their promises to their teams. A company that takes its training and manpower development seriously. A company that rewards good performance handsomely and recognises it openly. A company that actually celebrates creativity and new ideas and not just pay lip service…

2008 will see further innovative growth in online marketing. Companies who are not able to leverage the power of the internet to carry their message to consumers will be left behind.

Here is a funny and informative video from Travelclick titled - So, you wanna be a Hotel eMarketer? http://www.longtail-yeah.com/

Travelclick has successfully created a viral effect through an interesting and innovative approach to this theme…ensuring that this message will be distributed far and wide.

While capsule hotels are a type of budget hotels that are already commmon in Japan, of late they have been of interest to european hoteliers. Check out this great video of a capsule hotel from the Roppongi district in Tokyo

A few companies have ventured further into this concept in Europe most notable among them being Yotel (from the founder of Yo Sushi). Compared to the Japanese model, the european versions incorporate a few more luxuries.

An initiative of the Convention Industry Council that is bringing together all stakeholders in the development and implementation of industry-wide accepted practices to create and enhance efficiencies throughout the meetings, conventions and exhibitions industry.

While this initiative has its fair share of critics, there will be no going back and the meetings industry is going in for more and more standardisation

Areas of standardisation include terminology, RFP’s, Contracts etc. With ROI in Events assuming an increasingly important place for Meeting Planners, it follows that this can be achieved only through more and more standardisation.

Which in turn means of course that you will only hear more and more about APEX and hotels should be better prepared for the standardisation which is expected!

For more information please visit http://www.conventionindustry.org/

The phenomenon of Web 2.0 has seen an increased level of interaction between the consumers and businesses. In the business world, this took the form of blogs (web logs) where business experts and users commented on various topics and these were primarily based on their experiences. Tripadvisor.com used this concept of capturing feedback to build one of the most powerful travel advisory websites in existence today. Web 2.0 also took the form of RSS (Really simple syndication) which made it possible for people to keep up with their favorite web sites in an automated manner. Travel networking sites like WAYN.com (Where are you now) have used the power of Web 2.0 social networking software to get millions of travel enthusiasts to link and network with each other.

Further developments in this area now bring forth the next generation of interactivity provided by technology giants such as Microsoft and Google. An example would be a customer searching for a hotel in a city – finds the reviews, photos and videos of people who have been to that hotel, is able to talk to them about their experiences, and take it to the next level by talking to guests who are the hotel at the time…..this level of interactivity is brought about by joining the power of social networking and the latest technologies.

Has Web 3.0 arrived?