Posts filed under ‘Price’
Does this indicate that people prefer to book at the source? Hotels provide some clues.
I always find it valuable to watch other industries for clues to trends and innovations.
The hotel industry may hold some clues regarding the changing role of intermediaries. Yes, it is a different industry, as is airlines. But that does not mean that there may be enough similarities to provide valuable insight. After all entertainment, hotels and airlines all sell or licence the right for a person to occupy a specific location for a specified time period. Agreed, there may be some differences in where the booking takes you physically and metaphorically. But there is one overriding similarity – it is a perishable inventory. Once the curtain goes up or the planes takes off, that seat is gone forever and has no value.
“room nights booked through hotel websites last year grew consistently in each quarter, growing 6.8 percent in the fourth quarter compared to the same time in 2010.“
Consumers are increasingly buying direct from the hotel, rather than travel agents or online travel agencies.
“Overall in the transient segment, the OTAs (Online Travel Agencies like Expedia and Hotels.com) accounted for 11.4 percent of all hotel rooms booked for the fourth quarter; GDS (Global Disctribution Systems used by Travel agencies) accounted for 19.3 percent; hotel websites (e.g. hilton.com) accounted for 26.5 percent; direct bookings accounted for 25.0 percent; and voice, or 1-800 numbers, accounted for 16.7 percent.“
“Hotel companies have been focusing on educating customers about the value and benefits of booking direct on their websites. These companies have been investing in improving their websites and web value proposition to ensure hotels and customers understand and believe in the value of booking direct with them online.“
That sounds like a good strategy for entertainment as well, the event owner selling directly to consumers without the need for intermediaries. At the very least, the benefits of control over the service ‘promise’ made, the service delivered and the reduction of additional service fees and commissions all makes sense. As suggested, it is important to educate and inform customers and for the not for profit entertainment sector a major, related issue is transparency.
“… consumers are spending an increasing amount of time shopping and comparing hotel options online, often visiting between 8-15 different websites to make an informed decision.” Consumers are getting cleverer at comparing options and they are more and more skilled at accessing AND sharing information on options.
“While a hotel’s website continues to drive more and more bookings for hotels, it is important to recognise that different channels cater to different types of customers, and having an appropriately diversified and optimal mix will drive improved revenue and profit outcomes,”
Different strokes for different folks at different times and different situations.
Selling directly to customers is not the only option, but it looks like it increasingly must be one option and an important one at that.
22 March, 2012 at 1:19 pm Tim Roberts ARTS Australia Leave a comment
Movie Rental is doing it hard, but coming out fighting?
6 March, 2012 at 10:03 am Tim Roberts ARTS Australia Leave a comment
“A Good Decision is Based on Knowledge, Not on Numbers” – Plato 400BC-ish
Ticketmaster has hired “data guru” John Carnahan to head up it’s new Data Science group as the executive vice president of data science and engineering.
Ticketmaster looks inward to mine for gold, hires data science expert (exclusive)
I am sorry, but is it just me? A ticket is a means to an end. There is no demand for a ticket per se, there is a demand to attend an event that a ticket is a licence for and a seat – a location from which to experience the event.
Carnahan says “we don’t know what the value of a seat means to a user,”
“His goal for the Data Science group is to dig through Ticketmaster transaction data to understand the value of a ticket,“
Good luck with that …
20 January, 2012 at 12:56 pm Tim Roberts ARTS Australia Leave a comment
What do you reckon about the likely impact of these Marketing Trends on CRM in 2012?
Here are some more predictions of marketing trends that will impact CRM in 2012 according to Judith Aquino of CRM.COM in 5 Hot Marketing Trends (not surprisingly, mobile is at the top):
- Mobile Marketing
- QR Codes
- Voice Of Customer (VOC) Monitoring
- Social Media Marketing
- Video
Finally, she suggests an additional trend with the ‘news’ that Groupon and Daily Deals sites have fallen to earth and are no longer seen as the ‘answer’. Surely, you would have to suggest that they were only ever good for pissing of existing and loyal customers with unfocussed discounts in the guise of prospecting for new customers – BUT without gaining any personal details with which to build an ongoing relationship with those new prospects?
2 January, 2012 at 5:47 pm Tim Roberts ARTS Australia Leave a comment
More transparency added to unfair ADD ON FEES
Fee Transparency = “a compromise to freedom of speech“
Oh pullease … my ass
Add on fees for “convenience” et al are just that .. convenient ways to squeeze more out of the consumer.
Here is a good comparison of airlines and concert tickets. They are both interested in yield management and revenue maximisation, but responsible behaviour comes down to one thing: … TRANSPARENCY
The High Price of Add-on Online Fees
28 December, 2011 at 12:32 am Tim Roberts ARTS Australia Leave a comment
If we’re going to f$#@ subscribers, we should tell them we love them first …
Thomas Cott brought this to my attention an Interview with Michael Ritchie Artistic Director of the Centre Theatre Group in LA by Theresa Rebeck on HowlRound.
He shares his perspective as a producer to a variety of marketing issues such as subscriptions, memberships, pricing and discounting. The programming focus makes for interesting (if not colourful) reading:
“… fuck subscribers. I’m so tired of subscribers. They drive me nuts; they’re strangling me; I hate them. I don’t care how good they are; I don’t care how much money they bring in. Fuck subscribers! And someone there at the table said well if we’re going to fuck them we should tell them we love them first, and we should figure out a way that we can fuck them but they stay anyway. How could we have it all?“
7 July, 2011 at 5:04 pm Tim Roberts ARTS Australia Leave a comment
Emerging practice shared with you from Chicago
I recently attended the annual CultureLab meeting in Chicago and as part of the meeting of cultural consultants, funders and practitioners. The second day consisted of a variety of international best practice case studies ranging from Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago to Malmö Opera in Sweden.
The presentations are available online at the CultureLab Emerging Practice Seminar
CultureLab’s Emerging Practice Seminar is a concerted effort to bring forward promising new practices in the cultural sector and transmit them to the field.
Each year, two practice areas are selected that represent important developments for the arts field. The 2011 seminar focused on:
- Uses of technology in audience engagement
- Revenue management and dynamic pricing
The discussion of each topic featured several case studies drawn from arts organizations from USA to Sweden, and Australia and New Zealand in between.
13 May, 2011 at 11:54 am Tim Roberts ARTS Australia Leave a comment
Convenience Fees – convenient for whom and for what?
I am mystified by Cirque du Soleil charging fees on top of ticket prices.
On the website it states “Convenience fees and Delivery fees apply“. One does have to 
ask why?!
Cirque du Soleil own the show, they own the venue (the tent) and they have their own ticketing system. So why are the prices not all in?
Is it that it purely convention (courtesy of Fred Rosen and Ticketmaster in the 70′s & 80′s) to fleece the consumer with added outside charges?
I would have thought a company reknowned for innovation like Cirque du Soleil (even OutBox is described as a “ground-breaking platform“) would have taken the opportunity to innovate in pricing, let alone break some new ground with customer service.
As mentioned previously in A not so well kept secret has been let ‘out the box’, Fred Rosen the CEO of Outbox used to be CEO of Ticketmaster.
Fred Rosen has stated “Simply put, there is no longer a need for a middle man in this business“, but why is there still a ‘need’ for archaic opportunistic price gouging with additional fees that are of “convenience” to the middle man the ticket seller?
By way of example, looking at the Cirque du Soleil show OVO in Frisco (Dallas Area), TX
If you buy 2 seats near the front that is US$125.00 each. That totals, US$250.00 BUT on top of that is $32 fees!
This comprises 2 x “Convenience Fees” @ US$13.50 = US$27.00
Then “Delivery Fees” on top of that e-Ticket add US$5.00 and for Will Call add US$7.00
That is 12.8% added on top.
You will be pleased to know that taxes are included!
Read more about Cirque du Soleil, AEG and Outbox – AEG, Cirque du Soleil and Jean-Francoys Brousseau-owned Outbox Technology and Fredric D. Rosen to Form Joint Venture to Provide Electronic Ticketing Solutions
8 February, 2011 at 1:12 pm Tim Roberts ARTS Australia 4 comments
Are the “new” ticketing models really new, let alone better?
The article GigsWiz Launches at Midem Providing Artists With New Revenue Stream reports that “the landscape of gig promotion is changing rapidly“. So why are the same old models being rolled out and trumpeted as new and innovative?
“By providing the artist a share of the ticket sales revenue, GigsWiz becomes a key factor in increasing ticket sales.” So let me know if I have this correct, the event owner is paying no booking fees and the ticket agent is sharing revenue with the artist. So it sounds like the artist is being paid a split of the additional outside fees charged to consumers to buy tickets.
GigsWiz does appear to assisting artists to go direct to consumers, but it is not cutting out the other middlemen. So you have to ask how efficient this new model is.
“Fans are increasingly linked to bands online and the traditional marketing methods used by promoters are increasingly inefficient at reaching fans.“
Surely the most efficient (and dare I say effective) model is for the artist or event owner to deal directly with the fan or consumer without the need for the interventions (and added margins) of others?
From that sort of foundation, real Customer Relationship Management is possible.
27 January, 2011 at 9:49 am Tim Roberts ARTS Australia 1 comment
Turning bytes into nuggets
According to Davies and Botkin, data when arranged meaningfully for a purpose becomes information which when put in context becomes knowledge.
The trouble is that the manner in which data is set up and collected in many ticketing systems has not been arranged to portray meaning easily. Inconsistent and non-standardised entry of data at event set up is a common problem.
In Turning Bytes into Nuggets Jenny Scudamore of Baker Richards explains how essential it is to code data meaningfully to provide valuable information to inform decisions.
29 November, 2010 at 11:11 am Tim Roberts ARTS Australia Leave a comment
