I forget how we originally got connected. I think I met someone at a conference that said, I need to talk with you. and, and then we connected months ago and had a conversation and it was great. So you, and you specifically design brands and websites in the hospitality space. Is that right? That's still, still the gig.
Omar Boubess (00:58)
Still the gig. We're doing some real estate as well. I think that there's a good overlap between storytelling and hospitality and storytelling in real estate. You're not selling a room, but you're selling the emotion and the same thing with real estate. You're not really selling square footage. You're selling the lifestyle or safety or ROI.
Doug Logan (01:16)
Stories have been around since the beginning of time. right? So people connect with stories. You mentioned that like sometimes the storytelling kind of like maybe takes a smaller role. I'm curious, where do you see that happening? Because using the example of a hotel, the moment you go and you click book now, is where I would see like we kind of get down to business and that now it's like, all you've bought into the story, you've read it, now you want to be a part of that story. That's where I would say typically we would remove any friction. So less words, less clutter, get right into the transaction and go. And then you can hop back right into the storytelling mode, once that journey begins, like once they're on the way or after their stay or different things like that. But I'm curious, how do you handle that? What's your approach or methodology for how much story in which areas, if you will?
Omar Boubess (02:06)
No, you're 100 % right about that, especially on the booking engine. They're already convinced that they've taken that action. It's less about story in that, area of the journey, but you can still have that infused there. I just wouldn't put paragraphs of text and video and stuff on a booking engine and probably many of them don't allow for that either way. Adding stuff just for the sake of adding like some storytelling might not be the best way to convert. That's one great example of that. And other times it could be if you're giving some kind of a PDF or a proposal for like a meetings package, let's say, like you don't really need to go too much into detail about the story. Like it could be a small introduction or, kind of a walkthrough video. But besides that, It's kind of getting down to brass tacks. So it's less focused on convincing and more focused on finalizing, like, is this really the right thing for us or for me or for our group?
Doug Logan (02:53)
Did you mention something about like a metric like that you have for this or is there some sort of proprietary way that you look at storytelling?
Omar Boubess (03:00)
Not necessarily, no. We can obviously assess which part of the guest journey that's needed from kind of the way that we're discussing it now. And you're basically looking at what is the viewer or guest... What do they need in that moment? When someone lands on the website, generally they're looking for the overall experience and they're looking for like, why should I visit? What does this mean for me? What can I expect? So the website, main area of the website is all about that storytelling aspect and the same with the social media. But once they start taking steps further down the line, it's less about that and more about the small details, like we said. So it's not really a metric per se, but it's just an understanding of the funnel itself and what people are expecting at different stages.
Doug Logan (03:41)
I think you probably look at this the same way because we've sort of talked about this, we look at storytelling as a crucial part, but we also look at metrics as very crucial as well. And sometimes it's very hard to explain to a client like the impact storytelling, just like branding is. If you back out and look at branding as a whole, it's really hard in some cases, especially for smaller brands, to really measure the impact of a rebrand or a new story or new perspective, positioning, whatever. We have kind of like a balanced approach where it's like, in some cases, a client might be just all they care about is the numbers and they just want leads or they just want reservations, revenue, whatever that metric is. And then other cases, and maybe on that same team, somebody else is like, I really care about how we look, how we talk, how we feel. And that's really important. And so for us, we kind of walk that line in between the both. How do you approach it when a client comes to you from that perspective where maybe they aren't sold on storytelling and the importance of it as much as maybe another client is?
Omar Boubess (04:45)
Yeah, and it's pretty common. I'm sure you've had that conversation quite a few times as well. That line is hard to walk because in many ways other side of the emotion and the connection is what will drive indicator, let's say, of revenue and direct bookings and the profitability down the line. We were just on a call actually earlier this morning. Hotel in the Netherlands. They have a website it's like nine years old. It's a collection of 12 properties and we're kind of discussing about numbers because I want I always position things as... Where are you at now? What's your conversion rate? How much traffic are you getting? What's your distribution between direct and OTA? Because without that understanding you're kind of shooting in the dark you're wishing in a way because you need a baseline, right? We try to position both the emotion and the financial impact of that within the same conversation. But it can sometimes be hard to communicate that clearly when they're like, actually, no, we just need to spend more on ads because we need more people to see the website and reach the website. But what if you spend the same amount of ads and got five, 10 % more of those people converting? It's a much better result because then you can just tune up the ads and keep running them at even higher rates without having that fall through to the funnel. We never just like, hey, let's just storytell for fun because it's important. But there's always a direct implication on that and how it looks. we benchmark where you now, what are those numbers looking like? From there you get the differences in distribution, differences in occupancy, as well as conversion rates. We get to have a clear understanding of like what actually took place versus like a vague,
branding isn't important and it just feels good for the guest to feel it.But then it doesn't have any actual impact.
Doug Logan (06:28)
For so many hotels and resorts that we've talked with, like closing the gap between like the marketing, like the front end of the website, and then like what actually leads to somebody booking. Most of them, in my experience, don't have it figured out. I don't know about you, but what's your experience been like that?
Omar Boubess (06:43)
Hmm. Yeah, we know attribution is like incredibly, incredibly tricky, especially now with this cookie consent and with AI and all that stuff. It's a little bit difficult to understand where a booking came from specifically, unless you have really robust tracking. So we're in the middle where we look at what's the best way to use and take advantage of the traffic that's already coming in. So we for a fact have seen this from those examples, you'll know that like, okay, clearly their analytics are a bit off, they don't really know the numbers, like, so there's definitely some gaps there. If you're going to dig a building, you need to dig deep down if you're going to build a very big building. And one of the things of that is data. Like that's just, you have to know what's happening before you can fix anything.
Doug Logan (07:32)
Still looking at the big picture, like pulling back and just looking at, you know, are direct reservations up as a whole? And then there's the whole side of like, once you have a guest into your ecosystem, once they're in, right, they're yours now. You didn't get them from a third party, from an OTA, they're now yours.
Omar Boubess (07:46)
Mm-hmm.
Doug Logan (07:51)
How are you nurturing that relationship? How are you keeping them coming back again and again? Because that's really low hanging fruit. That's really where that storytelling component comes out in email and social and things like that where it's like, and loyalty programs, right? Like there's no reason, there's no reason that a smaller boutique hotel, property, resort, whatever, can't compete with the big guys. I would actually say, it's easier in a lot of ways for them to invest in that technology now and cheaper than it is for some of these big flags to go and like replatform.
Omar Boubess (08:27)
The perspective that we have is that the competitive advantage of a boutique hotel is the flexibility and adaptability and creativity. Cause a flagged hotel or blue chip, like a chain, there's only certain things you can do if anything with the website. A lot of bureaucracy, a lot of hoops to jump through, let's say. You don't really get to say things the way that they could be said and really have the guest experience the property the way that it could be, even with a chain, but it's just because there's so much like red tape around stuff because of the brand standards of the chain that the smaller properties, you can kind of like play around and test things out and be quite a bit more creative. So, here's, as you say, a competitive advantage to tech in terms of changing and trying things because it's much more accessible now, but also from a brand and positioning and experience standpoint where you can actually be creative and test a whole new landing page without needing the approval of 30 people in your company and I don't know, an email from the shareholders to approve what you're doing. There's great opportunity there. And that's why we love working with those properties because there's a capacity for creativity, but also a business desire for it. You know, that's why people go to boutique hotels because there's an expectation of something a little bit different, whether it's the service or the design or the experience or the charm or history of a property. So yeah, tech and story hand in hand really at the current time a great way for boutique hotels to distinguish themselves.
Doug Logan (09:56)
And leveraging that into the experience that happens in the property, I think is crucial. Imagine it's a much smaller staff, right? And so, you know, when you want to change something, there's a really good chance you're going to be able to change it. Especially if you have a good team behind you. So imagine being able to not just tell that story, but really own that story on property, on premise, and every touch point, through every staff and every interaction with that guest. That's so hard to do when you're a big, big brand, when you're a big Marriott, whatever, you know, it just gets lost. There's just no way. It doesn't matter how much culture training and handbooks you go through and all of that, like it's gonna get lost.
Omar Boubess (10:42)
100%. Yeah, they have efficiency of scale, is the unit economics of any kind of franchise or chain. It makes sense, that's how they're operating. But what we're seeing now is that they're trying to, for good reason, trying to take the approach of a boutique hotel and build their own brands that are more boutique-like, because that's what guests want. I think there's a place for the blue chips for sure. Like you don't have to think about it. you're going to Marriott, you're like, you know what you're getting. You don't need to think about if the water is going to be at the right water pressure or whatever it might be. Right. So, but I think in terms of leisure and experience, you'd go to a boutique hotel. One that's probably more intimate, smaller footprint. Maybe higher guest to staff, staff to guest ratio. That's where I see things going. And I think the data is kind of clear in those terms, but yeah, it's really what I find is about like change. And even though the hotels might know that they have to do these things, it's like, where do we start? know, technology demos, everything's like, everything's changing so quickly that it's hard to see or hard for them to conceptualize what to do first. That's kind of what I'm seeing from conversations.
Doug Logan (11:53)
Yeah, and it's not an all or nothing. You don't have to be an extremist about it and just throw everything out and start over. I think there's a logical way to look at it and roll out changes. And what's going to have the biggest impact, early on. It would, it would suck to go and launch a whole new brand, a whole new story, a whole new website, then for that to just all of a sudden level everything up about that brand, and then the actual experience, when they go and experience the brand in real life, fall short from what you've created. That's just another challenge. Another thing to look at is like, what's the full impact of this? It's not just gonna mean new uniforms and a new logo and a new sign. Like, what's this going to do to this person's job? How are they going to act differently? Because we're now telling this story differently. What's that impact? And I think that's also crucial, and I'm sure you do this, is like getting other people to that table to talk about that story because just because maybe they're not telling a story digitally doesn't mean they don't have a story. There's a story in there and it's your job, I'm sure, to go in there and find that story. And that story could be somebody who's just been with the company for 20 years and they have this particular way that they do something that really sort of shapes that narrative, that storytelling aspect. And it needs to be celebrated. It needs to be broadcast out and given some light and then make it something that everyone can own.
Omar Boubess (13:23)
Absolutely. I agree. It's yeah, there's there's kind of this. This is also another thing we wrote about a little while ago. It's exactly your point. Some properties, they're like, we don't have a story or in terms of like building a strategy concept, tone of voice, positioning, like building upwards into the experience and stay portions of the journey is actually going backwards from the actual stay. And you can kind of ask your staff or your guests, like, what are the things that you're feeling while you're here? Or even asking the staff is like, what do you think the hotel is all about? Like, what's, how does this feel to you being inside it? And you can actually work backwards and develop a strategy from the experience into a strategy document, let's say. Versus building a strategy document that then takes you through into the experience. So you're a hundred percent right. if there's any, and the other podcast I was on was positioning this as like, don't, if you don't have the money to, to, invest now with, with online and studio circle, like what's one thing you'd recommend? It's like, talk to your staff. Like they talk to your staff. They know the guests probably more than anyone. They know the feeling that they're trying to give to the guests. And obviously you talked to your management as well, but you can work backwards from there. It's a really kind of interesting experiment that can be done in the opposite direction, but is rooted in truth because that's actually what the experience is and will create that consistency from social to website to the actual state.
