312 sats \ 4 replies \ @fedelang 28 May 2023 \ on: Bitcoin: A practical application in the hospitality industry bitcoin
Thanks for sharing. Here is my 10 cents. I don't relate with the approach you are taking. I managed/owned a Hotel in Patagonia and dealt with online travel agencies paying fees from 15% all the way up to 30%. I acknowledge the fact that some OTAs are worse than others but I was satisfied in most cases paying those fees, why? for the following reasons:
1/ Got more exposure and could leverage marketing tools available to help boost occupancy rates.
2/ Agency will deal with payment upfront avoiding me the pain of going through AP explaining exchange rates, taxes or even have an employee engaged in checkout payments, handling cash.
3/ Visibility to smaller and wholesale agencies that could verify rates both on website and OTAs where the same. No one wants to partner with someone that does not understand the sale through channels model.
If you are running the business for destinations that are sub 50% yearly average occupancy, you need to do you it through channels, like any tiered sales model hospitality needs agencies, specially when dealing with international markets. I can well relate with managers not accepting your proposal.
On the other hand I would rather take a different approach, instead of fighting the fees from agencies I would propose to expand the addressable market to include bitcoiners. Not aiming to change your current revenue streams but to build on top expanding to ppl that may pay with sats driving them to your business.
My question here is, are there resources available for letting the bitcoin community know about your hospitality business? I don't know but I think it is worth exploring if there exists a btcbnb or something out there.
Just a thought. I wish you well!
Thanks for the input! I would like to address some points made to clarify some statements made in my post:
- your mention about leveraging the third party's marketing tools to help boost occupancy: I 100% agree. For this particular client, most of their revenues come from bookings made through the third party, so I didn't recommend they stop using them at all, I was trying to put more focus on recurring customers and trying to systematically increase the number of international customers that book directly, rather than cease using the third party, which wouldn’t be an option for them. For example, they have a large group of people from Germany that come every year, but they always book through the third party. If they could incentivize them to book directly and pay with Bitcoin, they would increase their margins for the group (and they have many recurring, international customers like this that have their contact details, but can’t make a direct payment)
- the agency and upfront payment: that’s true, it is a convenience, but in my opinion the added effort of handling Bitcoin would be minimal to their business as they have competent staff in their invoicing and accounting department and by doing so the fees saved would outweigh the cost of additional hours needed to handle it (when considering if a recommendation should be made, I always try and determine the cost/benefit of the recommendation before bringing it to the client’s attention and in this case the benefit seemed to outweigh the cost)
- I’m afraid I don’t understand number three you mentioned
Great suggestion about trying to focus resources to try and attract Bitcoiners! Haven’t even thought of that. The issue is just that the owners are very sceptical about Bitcoin and if I could summarize their issues with it, I would say it boils down to understanding and trust. I don’t think they fully understand what it is, despite my explanations and practical examples and I think they view it as a purely speculative token/coin (or maybe even a scam) that can go to zero at any time. Anything is possible, but for me, the chance of it going to zero is less likely than the chance of their native currency getting completely devalued due to government meddling/policy (since January 2023, their currency has lost 15% in value to the USD and international sentiment doesn’t seem to indicate it slowing down). So, I will definitely keep it in mind for my other clients when they are interested in integrating Bitcoin in a meaningful and valuable way into their business, thanks!
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Hey I am very sorry then I didn't get it 100%. Thanks for the clarification.
I-ll try to whisper so we do not awake a very toxic maxi here, but IMO its very difficult to onboard a fiat centrix business to BTC without the owners being on BTC or unless there is a state mandate.
Fiat centrix by choice or because there is a full working circular economy around the legal tender, payrol, providers, utilities, taxes, everything is fiat.. Accepting BTC as a business means you are customer averaging into bitcoin. Normies won't do that, their normie customers neither. Adoption begins at the individual level, not a state, not a business,.. at least this is what I believe, individual comes first.
Getting normie customers onboarded and then a normie business owner onboarded in a fiat centrix scenario.. good luck with that. Check/in check/out price can change two digits both on the downside or upside against the dollar, illiquid markets will punish ramping on and off BTC. And then there is custody,... If the owner doesnt want to keep BTC they will need to use stableshitcoins,.. well this are dollars but in reality they are not, just tokens comming from an algorithm behind a shady businnes,.. whatever.. I wouldt recommend this.
I would suggest start small, target bitcoiners as customers, digital nomads and offer the owners you can get paid later in BTC.
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I like what you're saying that adoption comes at the individual level first. But I think that although an entrepreneur might not be convinced or clear what Bitcoin is, if they're made aware that they can get extra customers, Bitcoin customers that want to pay with Bitcoin, they'll be interested. Especially when they're made aware what's possible with Lightning and know that they have the possibility to create new business models that aren't possible with their current setup.
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I hear you… And thanks for the suggestion about trying to attract Bitcoiners rather than trying to get non-coiners to pay in Bitcoin. This should be more effective if you can find the Bitcoiners
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