Hotels facing Threats from OTA in 2018

Nowadays, booking accommodation is easier through online booking, the platform for online booking can be classified into 2 categories which are "direct booking"  and "OTA booking".
Direct booking happens when the guest books a room directly to the hotel with a platform provided by the hotel. If the guest books a room at the hotel through the third party and using the platform of the third party then it is considered a booking from Online Travel Agent(OTA). The booking process seems similar for travellers but the presence of an agent in process of booking make an impact to the hospitality industries.

How OTA threatening the operations of Hotels.

In the past,  OTA and Hotels are able to maintain a good relationship, hotels give some rooms to OTA since they are unable to sell it while OTA earns from reselling the room at their online platform. Overall hotels able to get extra sales while OTA able to get commissions from Hotels. A win-win situation between hotels and OTA during that time. But as time gone, hotels started to see OTA as a competitor instead of a partner. Here's the Reason why.

1. Commission
Compare to the past, commision charged by OTA had increased, in order to cover for the commision, there are only 2 methods, either the hotel willing to reduce their profit and use it to cover for the commision or else increase their room price so that the profit of a room is enough to cover for the commision but since OTA are protected by the contract, hotels are unable to sell rooms with a higher price at OTA without increasing their direct booking price as well. As a result, higher room price for all the hotel who using OTA. It is possible that OTA commision will increase again if they gain more market share in future.

2. The increase of OTA Market Share 
Almost 50% of the hotels guest are from the generations Y and Z but 52% of them prefer to book through OTA instead of direct booking. With the increased usage of digital media for booking, it is expected for OTA to get a bigger portion of market share since they are able to provide a convenient platform for hotel guest to book room.

3. Branding
As a third party booking platform, OTA does increase the exposure rate of a hotel to the public but the presence of hotel brand is getting lower compared to the OTA. Since OTA promoting their own brand instead of the hotel they are selling, people no longer have loyalty toward the hotel but loyal toward the OTA. You might saw a phenomenal where guest complain to OTA instead of the Hotel when they have a bad experience at the hotel they stayed in. The sign simply shows that your guest trusted the OTA more than your hotel.

Unfortunately, with the dominating of market share, many hotels depend on OTA to bring them sales, hotels no longer able to terminate the relationship with OTA and if hotels do not develop a strategy to gain direct booking soon, most probably they will be forced to accept unequal term from OTA in future.

Visit our FB @Ipaotravel to find out how IPAO Travellers Club can help Malaysia hotel to gain more direct booking.

Mcd:Return of D24 Durian McFlurry

The hot selling D24 Durian Ice cream from last year is coming back.

Last year August, McDonald lunched their D24 Durian Mcflurry at Malaysia, the durian flavour Ice cream receive great support from all the durian lover in Malaysia.Just a week after the item launched, Mcd announce that their Durian Mcflurry had sold out and no longer available.

 Source of Image

Despite there are still many who request for it but Mcd are unable to supply any extra stock for their outlet.However Mcd promise to bring back the hot selling item in 2018.

"The product is made from real D24 Durian Fruits and won't be able to get any extra stocks,we promise to bring it back in 2018" said McDonald 

Now,after months of waiting Mcd had finally announced the return of the Durian Ice cream yesterday at their FB Page,although we are not sure the Ice cream will be back in what form but you can find it out soon,available on 14th June onward,don't miss it this time or else you will have to wait for another year to try it. Do share with me your thought after tasting it.

Beginner Guide for attending Raya Open House

(Image Source:Cahaya Kristal)

Malaysia are blessed with multiracial culture yet we celebrate festival of other races together.

1 more week before HARI RAYA, it is not something rare for our Muslim buddy to invite people from different races and culture to their open house and celebrate together with them.

Basically, being invited to an open house means you come to the location the give, eat the food they prepare and chitchat with them.

For someone who going to Hari Raya open house for the 1st time, here are some tips for you.

1.Dress Code:Decent attire

To attend an Open House, you don't have to wear like going for a presentation with a full formal,casual or semi-formal attire are okay. 

a casual attire like long pants,T-shirt and a sport shoes to visit a friend open house is acceptable, of cause you can always be a bit formal with a collar shirt and slack.  The best choice of Dress Code are definitely their traditional dress,especially if you are not a Malay, wearing Baju Melayu or Baju kurung to their open house will give a very good impression to them. By the way since it is Raya, so try avoiding colour like black and pick colourful and don't wear too provocative.

Image Source:(pinkbubblegumprincess)







2.Packet Raya for Duit Raya (Optional)

Whether you are Muslim or non Muslim,you can give duit raya to the kids.If you feel bad for getting free food, you can actually give duit raya to their kids. Of cuz this is optional, is not compulsory for you to give duit raya, skip this if you are having a tight budget.

3.Gift

Malaysian have a habit to bring gift when visiting other people house. You are not necessary to bring something to the host when attending open house, if you feel bad to come with empty hand, it is a better choice to give duit raya instead. However if you still insist to bring something for the host, here are some of the common item people give.

Raya Cookies, you can get from shopping mall. 

kuih kuih Melayu, not recommended because food already provided and it cant keep long.

Hamper & Fruit(Something expensive and unique can leave an impression to the host)

Just beware not to give anything non halal and haram, you will leave an impression in a bad way.

Listed above are the preparation before you go to open house, next are the things you should aware when you arrive at the open house.

1.Greet the Host.

1st thing to do when you arrive to the destination is to greet the host, it is a manner to greet and inform them that you had arrived.Do rmb to remove your shoes when you going in door. Most of the Malaysian do not enter the house with shoes on.

2.Expect to Eat (a lot)

 Now we proceed to the best part, eat all you can. Normally open house serve food during lunch, some might skip breakfast in order to eat more during lunch but skipping breakfast is not a good idea, so the idea way is to have some light dessert during breakfast and digested before lunch to let you eat with an empty stomach.if you wanna try using bare hand to eat like Muslim, remember to use your right hand instead of left hand to handle food.

3.Socialise with other

Nowadays, the common situation after having a nice lunch are most probably a bunch of people sitting in a group, playing with hand phone and socialise online.Make sure you don't do this during open house, people invited you to eat and at the same time, wanted to have a nice chitchat with you,so just keep your phone nicely for a few hours and socialise face to face with people.

4.Tapao(take away)

If you happen to stay till the last of the event,depend on the host, you might actually encounter situation where the host offer you to take back some food.Don't be shy and don't waste the food, you can Tapao the extra food and your action is helping the host from wasting. You might want to bring your own Tupperware if you expected yourself to stay till the last moment. 

Malaysian,What you should know regarding 0%GST

Did you ever visited Tax Free or Duty Free Shop? If yes, what are the reasons you do so? For me, i went to Duty Free Shop because of one reason:Tax Free.I believe no one enjoy paying tax when there is an opportunity to skip tax in a legal way.

Here's the Good News for Travellers who visiting Malaysia now. Malaysia had abolished GST system since 1st of June while the new tax system SST will only begin at the coming September,therefore most of the products and services in Malaysia currently in a tax free situation for 3 months. The best part is, Government actually preventing all the business who included GST in their products and services price to remain same price even after GST abolished. If you happen to found out some business didn't reduce their price after they stop collecting GST,you can report to the authority, provide something to prove that they didn't reduce their price so authority can take action immediately.

On the left show price drop from our hotel before and after GST removed.

Bear in mind that although in the coming 3 months we have no GST but other tax like tourism tax and heritage tax still applicable,to enjoy the most out of it here are what you can do.

If you are planning to travel around Malaysia after SST launch (probably on 1st of Sept), it will be a good idea to book hotel and pay within this period to enjoy booking rate without GST.

Book our hotel with IPAO to enjoy another 10% of discount beside of the 6% off from GST and if you happen to be booking within our promotion period, you might be able to get a discount up to 50% off.