EZ Yield President and Co-Founder, Ed St. Onge Jr is always with good tips and great views about the Worldwide hotel industry.

With thousand of hotels and revenue manager who use the EZ Yield channel manager to manage daily their distributors and wholesalers, it was interesting to ask Edward St. Onge Jr about the trends and behaviors he notice since some months in the hotel industry.

We are in systemic collapse economies who affect global markets and travel markets. In this challenging business climate, what kind of hotelier’s behaviors do you see since October-November 2008?

EZ Yield and our Partner Technology companies have noticed that hoteliers are getting more creative on their distribution and marketing strategies. Hoteliers have been more apt to bring on time saving or business increasing technologies to help streamline their procedures and increase their business.

As EZ Yield is an international platform with all kind of hotel customer (hotels chain, independents hotel, small or big hotels), did you see some specific change in world region?

It has been an interesting 15 months to say the least. We have watched currencies rise and fall throughout the globe as the economic shockwave works its way around. I have noticed that a lot of market correction has happened, which seems to be a repeat of that last major economic slump in the late 80’s early 90’s.

And for Europe and France markets?

Europe has been a strong growth market for us. We have seen a more aggressive approach from European properties compared to other parts of the world. This approach I think comes from the fact that so many countries started out with their own specific wholesalers, who then grew into more European markets, causing a need for European hotels to list on a much larger number of wholesalers than other areas.

EZ Yield carry almost 400 compatible travel sites, do you think hotels from Europe can work on America’s website, and vice versa? And for others region in the world?

We see a lot of US and European Based sites expanding into our other markets some with strong encouragement from us. A lot of the major wholesalers in Europe are becoming big players in the USA and visa versa. Asia Pacific sites have been working their way to other parts of the world as well.

Hoteliers are looking to more cost-effective ways to attract guests and want direct return on investisment (ROI) for their technology and emarketing.
Can you give us best tips and advice to help them?

Hotels should do due dilligence on any product they wish to buy. The companies that can give you the most details are usually the companies that have been in market for a while. Any technology should be weighed by its ability to roll out effectively, and bring a value of time savings and or increased market share. If it is unclear from a company where that is gained, you should be weary.

As a Quick Daily Checklist to Stay Recession-Proof.

Spend lots of time with the three most important parts of your business:

Accounting: Is your properties money being correctly utilized, and are all vendors paying in a timely manner? Cash Flow is King!

Sales: What are your sales people doing differently to cope with the changing market conditions? What are their plans? What have they learned from the previous month?

Maintenance: Are you keeping your hotel up to date with the market demands?

More information about EZ Yield in their web site here, and in my page here.

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