Anyone who was a part of the hospitality industry during Covid-19 will have plenty of stories to tell in the years to come. At Oaky, we weathered the ups and downs of this bizarre year along with the rest of the industry.Watch Erik's message below, where he summarises the impact that fluctuating demand, travel restrictions and changing guest profiles have had, along with insight into the most successful upselling strategies for the current travel climate.
We truly felt a seismic change approaching in March, when we were forced to cancel our attendance and first ever Oaky booth at ITB Berlin – something we had been building up to for years.
Alongside our hotel customers, we found ourselves faced with the mammoth puzzle of maximising revenue from much fewer guests. The purpose of our platform and services had taken on greater consequence: we weren't working together to earn a bit of extra cash anymore, we were working together to ensure each customer's survival.
Despite ensuing struggles, there were clear moments of optimism and progress that helped us see the advantages of a period with less demand. Like many in the industry, we found great comfort and support in collaborating with our peers, trading advice and forming a united front against ceaseless waves of setbacks. To top off a year of pivoting and hard work with uncertain outcomes, we were rewarded with the discovery that, across our 2000 strong international customer base, average spend per guest was actually on the rise.
On that positive note, and since we like to err on the side of optimism at Oaky, we wanted to share our year in review – something we put together to gain oversight of how our team and product have progressed over the course of 2020. We predict that this pivotal year will continue to act as a driving force for innovation in the years to come. We hope you join us for the ride.
Alongside internal achievements like moving into our new office, welcoming new team members and discovering just how well Oaky staff knock it out of the park while working remotely, we certainly kept ourselves busy this year – and we have some new features to show for it.
On top of the projects we proudly released into the world this year, there are a good few that we will continue to toil away at. We are currently piloting useful features such as:
- Inventory Management, a game-changer for parking reservations
- In-stay Upselling, for even more access to the guest journey
- Chain Dashboard, a long-awaited feature that will provide hotel brands with multiple properties an easy-to-use overview of their portfolio
- SMS and Whatsapp messaging to provide more access points to guests
- QR codes for our in-stay upselling function
- Dashboard redesign to further enhance hotelier UX
- Reporting enhancements
- Segmentation that is more accurate and yields better results
- Pricing per hour feature.
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