Introduction
In a struggling economy, businesses slow down.
This is especially true for hotels as their growth is directly related
to the health of the economy. Consequently, your marketing budget
shrinks and you need to be careful about how to spend your marketing
budget wisely. In other words, identify what marketing methods work,
and what don't. It is more important than ever that you pay attention
to your return on investment (ROI).
In 2008, 37%-38% of all hotel
bookings will be generated from the Internet (one-third in 2007, 29%
in 2006). At least another third of all hotel bookings will be
influenced by the Internet, but done offline (call center, walk-ins,
group bookings, etc). All major hotel brands are already generating an
excess of 40% of the (CRS) bookings via their brand websites. By the
end of 2010, over 45% of all hotel bookings will be completed online.
The internet has surfaced as the leader in travel and hotel sales.
It has established itself as the most important distribution and
marketing channel in the hospitality industry. Since this is the case,
it only makes sense for you to give some serious thought and planning
to Internet-related campaigns in your hotel's marketing mix. In other
words, when your marketing budgets shrink, you could benefit by
accentuating your online strategy versus offline strategy. The bonus is
that Internet marketing is almost totally measurable, which allows for
quick evaluation and continual adjustments to improve results.
Marketing
on the Internet
The primary objective of all your online
marketing efforts should be to attract the right visitors to your web
site and to encourage them to make a reservation. Of course, bringing
more and more visitors helps in brand building exercise too. There are
several ways to promote your website online. Below we list just a few
of them.
First and Foremost – Create and Enhance Your Hotel's
Website
Hotel Internet marketing starts and ends with the hotel
website. The hotel website has become the first, the only and in many
cases — the last point of contact with the travel consumer. It is only
natural that creating and enhancing the hotel website should be the top
priority. The objective is to create an attractive look and feel; and
at the same time make sure that the website is content/feature rich so
that it provides required information to its visitors.
Most of
the hoteliers are content with having a web site as the sum- total of
their Internet marketing efforts. Whereas the fact is that having a
website is just a starting point and not the end. Once you have a well
designed website in place, it is crucial that you promote it or market
it online. What's the point in spending all that time and effort to
create a website which brings in tiny amount of visitors? If promoted
properly, your website can generate substantial amount of leads and
reservations for your hotel.
You need to keep a close eye on
latest trends and usability enhancements and accordingly enhance the
website at regular intervals. However, more often than not, it doesn't
happen. A fine example could be the screen resolution with which
websites are designed. We noticed that a lot of websites still cater to
800x600 pixels screen resolution (perhaps, even less) whereas the
current trend is that more and more computers are using a screen size
of 1024x768 pixels or more. Therefore, a substantial amount of web page
real estate is going wasted.
Another example could be that of
images and graphics used on websites. Many hoteliers don't realize that
today, Internet users have a lot more bandwidth/internet speed at
their disposal than what they had a couple of years ago. Still, many
websites continue to use small sized, highly optimized graphics,
thereby compromising on quality and presentation. These are just a
couple of examples. There are several other factors contributing to
websites being archaic – verbose content copy, poorly done virtual
tours, confusing navigation, and other redundant elements.
Content
Copy - Study Your Competition
You need to thoroughly study and
understand your competition since having an edge over your competitor's
website should be one of the primary objectives for your website. In
order to do so, you have to understand exactly what your competitors
are doing online – the manner in which they display their services,
facilities and amenities, use of graphics, search engine penetration,
etc.
Travelers are getting more and more skeptical of hotels'
website content. Write concise and straight forward content copy for
your website with appropriate graphics. Graphics and animation go a
long way in sending the right message to your visitors. It is important
that your website demonstrates your hotel's facilities and amenities
in as attractive a manner as possible. But at the same time, make sure
it is searchable. For that to happen, you need to understand what
people search for on the Internet and then accordingly plug in the
right kind of content and other sales elements into the web pages. In
the online world, your website is your biggest asset. The content that
you write for it can either build brand equity or tarnish the brand
image of the hotel.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Optimize
web pages by reviewing website's HTML source code, META Tags,
implement popular keywords in the content, etc. In short, do whatever it
takes to improve your website's "Organic Search", which is the
free/unpaid search on search engines.
Make sure that the agency
or SEO specialists that you hire have enough experience and knowledge
of hotel selection and booking process. The problem with many SEO
specialists is that they tend to populate hotel sites with unrelated
non-travel visitors through the careless use of poorly selected key
words/phrases and other means. The number of visitors your SEO efforts
generate is important. But even more important is the number of
reservations generated from these visitors. Having a lot of visitors to
your website would be of little use if they do not help in generating
reservations. Therefore, conversion is the key.
Having a good
link strategy is a very important part of SEO. When ranking your web
site, several search engines consider the number and quality of
in-bound links to rank your website. Participating in local search –
Google and Yahoo – also helps. It also keeps your hotel near the top of
search engine results.
Paid Search Campaigns
Implement
"Paid Search" Campaigns such as Pay Per Click (PPC) or Google AdWords
or Yahoo Search Marketing or Microsoft adCenter. It is worth investing
in Paid Search Campaigns to start with since it brings immediate results
as opposed to Organic Search (SEO above), which usually has a
gestation period of three to six months. As your Website's visibility
improves in Organic Search, investment on Paid Search could be reduced.
The sad part is that many site promoters use PPC to replace and not
supplement efforts to improve a web site's ability to earn good organic
search results. Organic search should be your goal. User behavior
supports this too. Users are more inclined to click on organic search
results than paid search results.
Finally, as with SEO, remember
that the number of reservations or conversions, not simply the number
of site visits, determines a Paid Search Campaign's success.
Packages
and Promotions
Identify which aspects of your product resonate
best with your customers. Why are people staying at your hotel to begin
with: good location, business amenities, free breakfast, etc. Package
and promote your hotel's unique value proposition to potential
customers. For example, create unique hotel offers based on your unique
hotel product attributes or attributes in the local environment.
Several years ago, someone had the brilliant idea to include a
complimentary breakfast as a value-added feature to improve sales. It
worked so well that nearly every hotel now offers it; it is no longer a
special feature and could even be a deficit for those who do not offer
it.
The vast majority of travelers make a value judgment when
selecting a hotel. Create special promotions, which focus on
value-added features targeted to the market segment you are seeking.
Consumer Generated Media (CGM) - Guest Reviews and Feedback
Social
media sites have become very popular as these websites provide a means
for keeping in touch with friends, colleagues, and relatives. However,
in a tough economy where marketing budgets are limited, it makes more
sense to focus on travel-related social media sites like
TripAdvisor.com
and
HotelChatter.com instead of non-travel focused websites
such as
YouTube.com or
FaceBook.com. Yes, if you have the
resources to focus on both types of websites, do so by all means.
While travel-related social media websites play a significant role in
travel planning, non-travel focused, popular social media websites are
important from the perspective of brand building and awareness.
Make
sure your own website supports Consumer Generated Media (CGM) including
blogs, trip planners, guest reviews, experience sharing, etc. For
instance, it should allow visitors to read and post reviews, comments
and feedback. People do read reviews and experiences of the visitors
who have stayed at your hotel in the past. This trend is increasingly
catching up with people as part of their planning process for both
business and leisure travel.
From a guest's perspective, it is
more convenient for him to write a candid comment about the services
that he experienced at your hotel than to go to the front desk or a
consumer court and vent out his frustrations. That's what people like
to read before planning their travel – blunt and honest guest reviews –
whether good or bad. And it does make an impact on their travel
decisions.
Dubai’s major
hotels developed by Jumeirah (Jumeirah.com), an award-winning hotel
group, are among remarkable landmarks in Dubai. These landmarks include
the followings:
