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With 15,000 hotels signed in three months, the Philippine Hotel Alliance uses the membership model to attack the city

In July this year, the Philippine Hotel Alliance became known to the industry with its investment invitation letter on its official account. In addition to many OTAs and hotel giants, Fliggy has finally extended its tentacles to this independent hotel market, which has many hot spots. But at that time, the industry’s definition of the Philippine Hotel Alliance was still unclear.

On December 17, at the Fliggy press conference in Alibaba Park, Feizhu Hotel Alliance was officially recognized as a member-only hotel brand under Fliggy.

Although the tone is set as a "membership-based hotel brand", based on its approach to members, traffic, and operational support for merchants, Feizhu Hotel Alliance does not look like a hotel brand, and it is obviously not an OTA model. However, its speed of recruiting hotels seems to be no less than that of OYO.

Fan Chi (nick name: Cheng Yaojin), vice president of Alibaba, and Zhuang Hai (nick name: Piccolo), CEO of Future Hotels and project leader of the Philippine Hotel Alliance, announced the figures on site. The Philippine Hotel Alliance was officially launched at the end of September, 4 15,000 hotels have been signed in the past month.

At the press conference, Fan Chi and Zhuang Hai gave answers one by one on the reasons for Ali’s entry into independent hotels, his style of play, and the value of the Feizhu Hotel Alliance.

At the end of his speech at the press conference, Zhuang Hai defined the Feizhu Hotel Alliance this way: "We are neither a hotel brand in the traditional sense nor an OTA. What we want to do is to change the production relations of the hotel industry."

The core business model is “membership”

According to the information previously obtained by Global Travel News, the Feizhu Hotel Alliance is aimed at small and medium-sized independent hotels. After users pay 39 yuan per year to become a member of Feizhu Hotel, they can enjoy a 92% discount on staying in hotels within the alliance. Reservations can currently be made through the Feizhu Hotel Alliance mini program and the Feizhu Hotel Alliance flagship store in Fliggy.

On the merchant side, joining the Philippine Hotel Alliance does not require a franchise fee, nor does it need to change the brand. All it takes is a 15% discount on the alliance's "sales settlement price" (that is, the lowest real-time sales price of the same room type across all OTA online sales channels) ; And be able to complete the new member acquisition KPI.

In the entire model, the core is the commission-sharing rules established by the Philippine Hotel Alliance. When Hotel A in the alliance recruits a new member, and the member stays at Hotel A, the alliance does not charge a commission (Fliggy charges 3% transaction fee); when the member stays at Hotel B in the alliance, Hotel A can Part of the commission will be taken from Hotel B’s bookings.

During the interview, Fan Chi revealed: "Zhuang Hai who designed this gameplay is a genius." In this gameplay, Zhuang Hai summarized the three value points of the Feizhu Hotel Alliance: new orders, rebate income, and membership cards income.

It is true that whether it is in terms of franchise standards or commission income, Feizhu Hotel Alliance can neither be compared with traditional hotel chain brands or even light franchise brands, nor can it be compared with OTAs. It is more like a set built around members and traffic. Membership system. The key to making this system come alive is to have enough hotel outlets so that the value of membership can be reflected.

According to data provided by Fliggy, the Philippine Hotel Alliance has signed contracts with more than 15,000 hotels and more than 600,000 hotel rooms in three months since the merchant product was launched in September this year, covering more than 300 cities. Data from some hotels show that with the help of the Philippine Hotel Alliance, the occupancy rate can be increased by more than 10% on average.

Zhuang Hai’s goal for the Philippine Lodging Alliance is to sign 40,000 hotels a year and have more than 10 million paying members. In order to maximize benefits, it is not possible to absorb hotel members indefinitely. The upper limit of the number of hotel members of the alliance will be guaranteed to be within a certain range.

"The traffic in each city is fixed. If the number of hotels is too large, the traffic cannot be sustained. Therefore, the basic threshold control idea is: select hotels based on key business districts, hotel quality, and price range. We also need users to have certain degree of overlap.”

In addition, each hotel's new member has a life span of two years, after which he needs to be re-elected. Zhuang Hai mentioned on the spot that the Feizhu Hotel Alliance will have restrictions on hotels that have joined other brands. However, judging from the Feizhu Hotel Alliance flagship store on Fliggy, there are many mid-priced apartments, boutique B&Bs, and OYO, Hanting, Super 8 and other economical chain brands can also be found in the alliance.

Facing the independent hotel market, Alibaba’s approach is different

As for the reasons why Alibaba formed a hotel alliance, Zhuang Hai’s explanation can be summarized as follows: market background, hotel pain points and Fliggy’s advantages.

Judging from the current situation in the market, Zhuang Hai mentioned that the membership system has always been a pain point for a large number of domestic independent hotels. For these small and medium-sized hotels, traffic is often monopolized by online channels such as OTAs. “Most of the independent hotels’ customers are individual travelers, and the information of these individual travelers is retained by OTAs, making it difficult for hotels to have their own members.”

In Fan Chi’s view, members are the most valuable traffic. "The biggest significance of membership is to reduce the cost of GMV. Although it costs money to acquire members, membership brings lasting effects. The first thing that the Philippine Hotel Alliance has to do is to use a set of management tools that are more efficient and cost-effective. A member management system to help hotels lock in members and obtain more valuable and lower-cost traffic."

Facing the same market, in the on-site media group interviews, the comparison between Feizhu Hotel Alliance and light franchise hotel brands was also frequently mentioned: Fliggy’s style of play is similar to that of OYO, Huazhu Investment’s Nihao Hotel and other soft brands; What are the differences between the playing styles of OTAs such as Cheng Yilong, Meituan and even Ctrip?

Fan Chi said the difference lies in the angle of entry. These light franchise brands are approached from the perspective of hotel management and operation. Although the model is light, it still covers software and hardware renovation, store operation staffing, hotel order control, etc. Ali’s approach is different. He emphasized: “We are not building a hotel.”

The core of the Feizhu Hotel Alliance is the membership system. It first uses traffic thinking to solve the hotel's member pain points, and then extends it to the hotel's spatial cross-border to create more ways to connect online and offline. "We are not helping merchants sell hotels, but helping merchants sell memberships." Fan Chi said.

He has also emphasized many times that the members developed by the Philippine Hotel Alliance are members of the hotels themselves, not members of the platform. This is a change in the production relations of the hotel industry. For example, hotel merchants can see all member data on the middle platform. In addition, the Philippine Hotel Alliance can also provide members’ consumption status, financial information, and e-commerce information (after desensitization). The hotel is fully capable of operating these memberships on its own. "

This idea of self-operation by merchants has long been in the Fliggy system. At the recent New Travel Alliance 2.0 press conference, Fan Chi explained Fliggy’s new store operation system on the spot, which also involves the community operations and membership systems of different stores. It is also a focus on the imagination of private domain traffic. story on.

The positioning of Feizhu Hotel Alliance is very unique, just like Fliggy within the Alibaba system

In response to the traffic guidance of the Feizhu Hotel Alliance, Zhuang Hai demonstrated the revision of Fliggy APP on site. From the search page, list page, hotel details page to reservation page, hotel members in the Feizhu Alliance will have varying degrees of traffic tilt. . This is enough to illustrate the importance of the Philippine Hotel Alliance within Fliggy.

For example, the hotels in the alliance will have their own "Philippine Stay Alliance" label, just like the hotels that have previously opened the "Credit Stay", and in the future, alliance member prices will have advantages, and they will be ranked higher on the search page. These portals are currently undergoing grayscale testing on the Fliggy APP and are expected to go online in January next year.

Zhuang Hai also mentioned that under the Alibaba economy, in the future, we will find ways to guide member traffic from other channels, such as Ele.me, Word of Mouth, and Taopiaopiao. Currently, members who purchase the Philippine Hotel Alliance membership card can already enjoy some interoperability. member rights, and will use continuous rights to enrich the value of this membership card in the future.

In terms of the value of the Philippine Residential Alliance to Fliggy and even Alibaba, the multiple experiences and service interoperability brought about by business crossover with other platforms are also an important reason.

Fan Chi explained that in the final analysis, why does Alibaba want to be in the tourism industry? It is also to serve users well. “Today, the Alibaba economy has 960 million annual payment users. We may no longer need to serve other users, but we need to serve the travel needs of users within the Alibaba economy, and now we need to continuously optimize the travel experience so that users can get what they want under the Alibaba economy. If the service is good enough, to put it bluntly, it means increasing its consumption and duration in Alibaba.”

Specifically, Fan Chi said that users’ reasons for staying in hotels are becoming more and more complex, and hotels also need to become a product with diverse experiences. The membership system is the first step to empower independent hotels, and by contacting Alibaba’s economies, there will be more scenarios that can be combined with the hotel space in the future. "Whether it is the entertainment scene with word-of-mouth, or our parent-child businesses, catering businesses hope to make some attempts in the hotel space. There are many possibilities for implementation in the future."

Under such cross-border gameplay, Fliggy’s positioning in Alibaba also seems to be somewhat updated. The person in charge of the Alibaba brand at the interview said: Alibaba has three major sectors: core e-commerce, local life and entertainment. Fliggy is a unique presence within Alibaba, which will penetrate multiple economies and complete the link connection and opening up of consumers during travel.

During the interview, Zhuang Hai repeatedly emphasized the value-driven stance of Feizhu Hotel Alliance. This is also what he believes is the difference between Feizhu Hotel Alliance and some current light franchise hotel brands: Although (such brands) have low franchise thresholds, the fees charged are far higher. Exceeds the value provided.

"We only charge for the value we create. If I help you earn 1 yuan, I will get 10 cents from it. If I help you earn 2 yuan, I will get 20 cents from it. This is It’s a matter of course. If this matter has no value, I won’t charge for it.”

Source: (Editor: hsadmin)