Case | Traveltech & Tourism

Heading for new shores: Tourism in transition

The task

It is almost impossible to keep pace with the changes in the travel industry: On the one hand, there is digitalization, which is taking booking processes, occupancy management and customer experience to completely new shores. Then there is the growing awareness of sustainability and climate protection, which is not only reflected in air travel, but also in the choice of accommodation and tourist experiences. And finally, major global situations such as the pandemic or political unrest are creating planning uncertainties.

TravelPerk, a booking and management platform for business travel, and Guestline, a provider of cloud-based hotel management software, are just two examples of companies seeking their voice and their place in the competitive landscape - and asking us for help. The restaurant booking app Bookatable, now The Fork, also approached Oseon in its time to make its voice heard in a competitive market.

Selected references

1

Travel management

In 2019, Travelperk asked us to put the topic of “digital travel management for companies” on the agenda and position the Barcelona-based start-up as a modern alternative to traditional travel agencies. Then came the pandemic...
2

Restaurant booking 

The restaurant booking platform Bookatable wanted regular visibility in B2B and consumer media. Because there wasn't (often) enough to report on an app alone, we created a theme-driven campaign about the joy of eating and dining out.
3

Hotel management

At the end of 2019, hotel management software provider Guestline decided to intensify its presence in the German market. Since then, our task has been to raise Guestline's profile as a provider of innovative and future-proof cloud-based software solutions while positioning the company as a thought leader on current topics.

Our approach

We take the perspective of the traveler or guest when selecting topics, content and messages and thus present all of our customers' products and services directly in the light of their business impact and potential to solve problems. The customer experience is clearly at the forefront for both B2C and B2C providers. Everything hoteliers, restaurateurs, travel and other service providers do is geared towards standing out from the crowd in this experience.

For our clients, we get to the heart of what drives their respective target groups and always supplement their product PR with suitable, topic-based service and thought leadership content. This increases the frequency with which we have something to say and boosts the relevance of our topics for the media.

Tactics

1

Facts, insights, service

What is the compliance situation in German companies when booking business trips? How is the labor market in the hotel industry developing in view of the shortage of skilled workers? What trends influence restaurant visitors when choosing a restaurant? In addition to good products, our customers generally also have access to valuable data: Insights, service tips derived from them and shared expertise make our clients' spokespeople popular sources of information for the media.
2

Surveys & polls

If there is a lack of internal data, we work with surveys on topics relevant to end customers. In a survey for Travelperk, for example, we found that only 34% of employees are aware of their company's travel policy. 55% find billing so complicated that they often feel cheated. Enough conflict material for coverage in SME magazine Impulse, for example. Customer surveys at Bookatable also regularly generated headlines, for example on topics such as regional cultivation and food waste. Due to the consumer perspective, these insights also regularly attracted the interest of the daily press. 
3

PR-stunts 

The topic of sustainability was particularly close to Bookatable's heart and was worth a PR stunt to us: to make the quality of supposedly disposable food tangible, we created a CSR dinner that could be booked exclusively via Bookatable: the restaurant “Mercier & Camier” cooked with food donations from Tafel Hamburg - guests paid what it was worth to them and the proceeds went to Tafel Hamburg. Our “Hamburg eats up!” dinner was flanked by media work around a survey on the topic of food waste and a landing page.
4

Agenda surfing

When the pandemic shook the global economy in early 2020 and business trips were canceled, we positioned Travelperk as a data provider and service expert to comment on the state of the industry and cancelation policies, for example with Handelsblatt and Wirtschaftswoche. Guestline, on the other hand, successfully surfed the wave of skilled workers-shortage after the pandemic and showed new perspectives for efficient hotel staff management.

Results

300
With around 300 clippings a year in the daily press, on blogs and in specialist gastronomy media, we secured Bookatable a strong presence. For a long time, this helped us to stand up to the top dog OpenTable with its massive marketing measures.
CSR
Around the CSR event for Bookatable, we achieved coverage in Hamburg city magazines and Hamburger Morgenpost. The press release on the topic of food waste made it into numerous daily and specialist media. The event raised a four-figure donation for Tafel Hamburg.
40+
With our program adapted to current focus topics, Guestline has more than doubled its media presence since the beginning of our work and established itself on the German market. Monthly coverage is reliably carried out in the relevant media.

The media presence that Oseon has created for Travelperk has had a direct impact on our business in Germany. We have received an increased number of new inquiries, particularly following reports in major daily newspapers.

Eugen Triebelhorn, Germany lead, TravelPerk 

Selected coverage