[MUSIC] It's important to note that customers coming through various different channels. OTAs and booking engines make up only a portion of the acquisition cost. As customers pass through the distribution landscape, as mentioned in the MOOC on hotel distribution. The hospitality distribution landscape has become increasingly complex over the last 15 years. There are now many different pieces, both consumer and hotel-facing, all plugged in together. It starts with a point of entry for the customer, who enters through search engine, social media, etc. Then, the consumer moves to the OTA hotel sites, and other specialty consumer sites. The booking then processes through a CRS, or central reservation system. The hospitality distribution landscape can be broken apart into 12 systems and vendor types that most properties might use on a day to day basis. Data collection companies are generally the online advertising companies, and they include companies such as Google, Facebook, Yahoo and Kayak. The hotel website is a platform a perspective customer can search for content and book directly through the hotel's booking engine. Examples of hotel websites would be Hilton.com or Accorhotels.com. Online Travel agencies, or OTAs, typically act as a middleman and marketer for a large number of hotels. OTA examples are Expedia, Priceline, and Booking.com. Consumer websites are those that are distribution partners with a hotel or hotel company reselling or redirecting customers from their business to the hotel. Examples are TripAdvisor for business, united.com, or uptake. Retail incorporate channels are corporate or travel agents. Example of these channels would be American Express business and American Express tap travel agent. Next, you have your channel management, which acts as an interface between the hotel and its various channels. Example of channel managers include EZYield, RateTiger, or SiteMinder. Global distribution systems are systems that enable automated transactions between third parties and booking agents in order to provide travel related services to end consumers. Examples of GDSs include Galileo, Amadeus, and Sabre. Pproperty management systems, or PMSs, are the systems you see the front desk agents using when you check in at the hotel. It stores intersectional data of the customers at a hotel and is used operationally to manage the hotel. A central reservation system is a single or centralized distribution system designed to connect to both the GDS and Internet distribution from a single platform. Example of PMSs and CRSs include micros, cenexes, trust and PAR by Springer-Miller. Third party platforms such as meeting management companies help connect group in meeting space guest to a hotel. Example of these platforms include seven, come friends direct and star side. All of these different connectivities vary depending on the type of property you are and the type of consumers in which you primarily focus. You could see that each of these different brown circles represents the different consumer types and how they make way into your different properties distribution landscape. To minimize cost being paid to intermediaries, it is up to revenue management to target the right customers for the right price on the right channel. What does this complexity in the distribution landscape mean for segmentation? One, complications and two, power. Complications, of course, arise as a natural effect as it means that it's harder to manage all the channels and costs associated with acquiring customers for different distribution channels. More of it has been a shift in consumer behavior over the past 20 years. Don't lose faith. There is empowerment that comes with more accurately understanding your target customers. In the words of Deepak Chopra, the highest levels of performance come to people who are creative, intuitive and reflective. People would see a problem as an opportunity. While the fragmentation within the intermediary space, or middleman between consumer and hotel has impacted property performance, hotels have more access today whenever to customers globally. As a matter of fact, between 2007 and 2012, there was a 97% increase in global Internet usage from 1 billion to over 2 billion people. And that rate is only going to increase as it becomes even easier to connect worldwide. Since over two billion people have access to the Internet, there are now more ways to connect the global community to your hotels than ever before. It is vital to ensure hotel operation teams understand the type of customers interested in their type of hotel, and to promote efficiently, and then price to make the most profit. Online users have shifted significantly over the past 20 years. Other than noticeable brick nations, Brazil, Russia, India, and China, smaller countries in Asia, Europe, and the Middle East have all taken market share from what was once US dominated in the early 90s. From a consumer behavior and segmentation perspective, acknowledging the global marketplace is going to be key factor for future segmentation from a revenue management and sales and marketing segmentation perspective. We are leaving the traditional date of macro level segmentation from just a channel and booking window driven perspective and now need to think more dynamic. Nationality, type of device, mobile versus computer, versus tablet used to make the booking. Generation if data is possible to get. In our consumer profile information, hotels can now take into consideration when figuring out segmentation. Before jumping too far ahead into the dynamics of segmentation, let's discuss the main types of segmentation. Which I discuss in the next video.