original post:
As one of the world’s largest hotel chain group, IHG has made advances on the mobile devices on the hotel chain industries. While some of its main competitors, such as Hilton, Marriott, Accor have not even introduce their useful mobile apps “for some reasons”, the management team of IHG thinks that it’s a crucial thing to communicate and bulild the relation with them by introducing the apps of IHG that enables custemers to interact with IHG. This is more than simply booking the room via mobile apps: with their sophisticated reward program, Priority Club, IHG has built strong relations to its frequent guests; and the mobile app, as its said in the original blog, is one of the means to communicate with customers that does not show immediate effects. Some doubts if the hotel guests need a good functioned app, and many companies doubt this, such as Hilton or Accor, both of whom don’t even have a app on development.
Are app really effective? In my view, the answer is definately yes. In the long run, the consumers are dynamic to the hotel groups as the consumers tend to be within a certain age range and they’re getting older, young people will be a important potential market as hotel guests as they grow up. This generation tend to have thier own strong opinions and want to make decisions based on what they believe. Mobile apps is a effective method to apprach and commnicate with them, and introduce the value of the company to them.
Even in the short period, the app can futhur consolidate the relation with loyal customers as they can have esalier access to the information about the hotel on thier mobiles than on laptops. However, the problem is that overall in the short run the mobile app may be not effective enough to generate immediate profit, and some hotel chains are short-sighted and failed to even introduce apps. However, in the future, IHG will get first-mover advantage on this growing trend.