New Expedia features target tech-shy areas
EXPEDIA GROUP, one of the world’s largest travel platforms, has launched two new features, which are designed to help its less tech-savvy hotel partners easily manage their operations.
Pimpawee Nopakitgumjorn, director of market management at Expedia Group, said yesterday that Thailand is among the first countries to have announced these two new features, “co-browse” and “adaptive landing page”.
These new tools are intended to bridge the digital skill-set gap and ease hotel owners’ concerns over the complexity of using digital tools, she added.
The two new features are available at the Expedia Group Partner Central portal page, which can only be accessed by its hotel partners to use the tools and data insights to help them manage their business and attract travellers.
Co-browse is a trouble-shooting tool designed to solve pain points for all of Expedia’s hotel partners when they experience navigation problems on their “partner central” webpages via a connection with an Expedia Group consultant in real time.
Once a connection is established, the consultant can view, point to, and highlight areas of their partner central webpage screen to better assist hotel partners in navigating their pages.
The “adaptive landing page” is designed as a simplified and personalised version of the current Expedia partner central portal page.
This feature is to serve new hotel partners.
Pimpawee noted that business opportunities are being missed because the majority of accommodation in Thailand’s secondary cities is still offline.
“Hoteliers who are still operating offline will ultimately lose the opportunity to capitalise on Thailand’s growing inbound tourism,” she said.
As part of Expedia Group’s recent commitment following the recent signing of an memorandum of understanding with Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT), the company will also be conducting a series of educational workshops to accelerate digital skills transfer to the hospitality industry with the focus on secondary cities.
Such digital know-how could not only empower hoteliers and boost international arrivals to secondary cities, but also support the government’s Thailand 4.0 initiative, Pimpawee added.
“Together with TAT, Expedia Group is committed to playing a pivotal role in improving the digital literacy across Thailand’s hospitality sector and ultimately, help generate more income for local economies.”
