3. Travel planning
When people plan traveling/booking a hotel room they go to:
•Search Engines: Google, Yahoo, Bing
•Meta Search Engines: Kayak, Trivago, Google Hotel Finder,
TripAdvisor
•OTAs: Expedia, Booking, Hotel.com
•Independent/boutique/luxury hotel websites
•Major hotel brand websites: Marriott.com, Hilton.com, etc
4. The distribution channel landscape
1 Call center or 902/900 number or “voice”
2 GDS (Global distribution System)
3 Hotel’s own website or brand.com
4 Online travel agency (OTA)
5 Property direct/other
6 Offline travel agency
!
!
!
DIRECT
-Hotel Web Site
!
INDIRECT/3RD PARTIES/REFERRALS
-OTAs
-Search engines
-Social Media
-GDS
A
distribution
channel
must
be:
cost-‐effective
Generate
the
most
bookings
Protect
rate
parity
and
price
integrity
Reach
the
targeted
customer
segments
7. Current outlook
The shift from GDS, call center, and the offline channel to Internet Distribution, which means
a shift toward complete price transparency and easy “shopping around” of hotel rates and offerings.
Rate Parity across all distribution channels has become the industry norm
Best Internet Rate Guarantee
Matching the rates of the hotel’s competitors
Compete against OTAs webs
Metasearch sites are on the up
3 screens (tablet, phone, desktop)
SoLoMo ( Social Location and Mobile)
8. Online Promotion tools
Website (Re) Design and Optimisation
Search Engine Management (SEO/SEM)
Display advertising (banners, adsense)
Website analytics and campaign tracking
Social Media (Facebook, YouTube, Twitter)
Mobile marketing
Strategic Linking
Email Marketing (e-mailing) and CRM
OTA management
Metasearch management (the OTA killers)
On-line reputation
9. Hotel Web Sites - Types
One-Way
!
Brochure 24x7
Text & Pictures
Contact data
Reservations by phone
INFORMATION
BI-Directional
Collaborate
!
!
Up-to date info
Communications improved
Reservations 24x7
Blogs, Podcast
Newsletter
Geolocation
Loyalty schemes
Pictures, reviews, comments
SEO/Positioning
SMM
TRANSACTION
INTERACTION
10. When building and designing a web ...
1. Avoid technical terms when the user interacts or navigates, such as html, flash, optimized for
1024x768"...
2. Present and display the information in the less number of clicks, from la información en el menor
número de clics posible: Desde la página principal a "producto", mejor en un sólo clic
3. Avoid pop-ups, confuses the user, furthermore some internet user have block enable option enable in
their browsers.
4. Reading the web site must be pleasant and comfortable to the eye.
5.Links identified as such, underlined and with different color.
6. Check that the internal and external links work correctly, check periodically.
!
7. Must be web browser compatible at least with the most used: Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, Safari,
Chrome
!
8. Allow the user to know “where I am” all the time. With a home key clearly exposed to navigation
!
9. Must have a sitemap
!
10.Visible contact details (email, phone, address ...)
!
get a good designer and a programmer
12. Web Site -Best Practices-Search engine friendly
Content is the key, but the search engines read don´t look at the web pages:
Search engines contribute
in average over 50% of the
hotel website traffic.
What humans see...
What search engines see...!
13. Website-Search engine friendly-SEO
What are the Search Engines looking at? (Search Engine
Optimization)
Here are the most important criteria used by the search
engines to rank a hotel website:
• The overall search-engine friendliness of the site (e.g. site
built entirely in FLASH, site built in frames, Intro/Splash pages
with no navigation and copy, lack of site maps, the copy in GIF
or JPEG and not in HTML text format, etc)
• Rich content on the site
• Body copy with high keyword density
• Invisible copy (page titles, description tags, Meta tags)
• Link Popularity of the site (number of incoming links from
highly authoritative websites like hotel directories, portals, etc.)
Natural (Organic)
Listings!
ORGANIC
SEARCH
14. Website -Search results
The Golden Triangle
• Drop off begins after the 3rd natural listing
• First position in sponsored links drew 28% of visualizations
• Beyond the rank of 8 in the natural listings, there was a 50% drop off
• People who search below the fold are “more deliberate” seekers (may suggest have
something already in mind to find)
The highest concentration of visualizations appeared on the top three to four listings in the
natural listings and top one to two in the sponsored listings.
15. Web Site -Search engine friendly-Web 2.0 friendly
• Blog on the hotel website to share the latest news, happenings and photos at the property and the
destination, and solicit customer comments and input.
!
• Customer reviews on the hotel website to enable hotel guests to leave comments and ratings of your
hotel thus providing valuable reviews for their peers right on the hotel website.
!
• Interactive Sweepstakes for getting people excited about your hotel and for building buzz, as well
as to build your opt-in email and mobile list.
!
• Interactive
Calendar of Events to keep your website visitors updated on all the latest events
happening at and around the hotel, as well as to keep your website content fresh with a constant
flow of new information. This will encourage repeat website visits and improve SEO.
!
• The hotel’s social media initiatives easily found on the website: from Facebook’s “I Like” button and
links to your social media profiles on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube.
16. SEM - Search Engine Marketing
PAID SEARCH
!
1.Paid Inclusion marketing
2.Keyword Search Marketing (Pay-perclick Marketing - PPC/CPC)
3.Local Search marketing
4.Vertical Search marketing
(booking.com, trivago.com ...)
SEM - contributes to 23% of total
web site revenues
Targeting
local
keywords
in
your
content,
standardizing
local
listings
&
directories,
and
optimizing
your
link
landscape
can
help
boost
your
site’s
performance
in
the
face
of
the
Venice
update.
17. Web Site -Best Practices-Mobile ready
•
•
Fast download speeds
•
•
•
•
Efficient and simple navigation
•
•
•
•
One-click map and directions to the hotel
Automatic detection of type of mobile device to serve the appropriate version of
the mobile site
Short and concise textual content
Scaled-down visual content
Easy-to-use mobile booking engine with easy access to your user profile, pre
populated with your contact information, credit card information and reward
program number
Toll-free phone for additional information and reservations
Mobile website SEO
Mobile website analytics
19. Social Media
Don’t Use Social Media as a Distribution Channel
Social media is not a distribution channel, and it was not designed as a sales platform to sell rooms.
Use social media instead for customer engagement, customer service, customer relationship
management (CRM), branding, awareness, etc.
Social media is best managed at the property level and needs to be monitored 24/7/365. Establish
onsite champions who will speak with a consistent brand voice, provide exemplary customer service
and serve as models of the hotel’s product.
Use a full-service digital marketing agency for training, auditing, recommendations and technical
design and build-out for custom tabs, backgrounds, widgets, sweepstakes, etc.
Post, tweet, respond and repeat!
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Buzz-building
Brand-building
Interacting and engaging with customers
Serving as an important component of the hotel’s multichannel marketing strategy
Keeping up with the times, making the hotel look current,
cool and up-to-date
Driving engaged and relevant traffic to the property’s own
website
More SEO, more ranking
20. Social Media - Tools
Blog on the hotel website
Photo sharing functionality
Sweepstakes and contests
Facebook,Twitter, Flickr, etc .. profiles
Create and post videos in Youtube
Participate in blogs …
Google +
most popular social media marketing
sites are Facebook (94%), Twitter
(74%), blogs (41%), LinkedIn (32%) and
YouTube (30%).
21. Facebook
In March 2011, Facebook usage (as a percent of total web
usage minutes) had increased year over year by almost 70%,
while usage of the remainder of the web dropped
by 10%.
Facebook is more of a brand relationship tool for fostering customer loyalty and building a robust community of fans. Prompting
fans to share photos and experiences is key in building a strong brand community and virally promoting the property in the
Newsfeed. Consider Facebook as an extension to your property website, a platform which adds an interactive capability to your
customer engagement strategy. Unlike the predominantly static hotel website, Facebook allows two-way conversations
(marketer-customer and customer-marketer) as well as peer-to-peer engagements. Example, having one or more “brand
ambassadors” among your Facebook fans goes a long way in promoting your hotel and engaging the rest of the fans and
building brand equity and loyalty.
23. Twitter
Twitter is an open platform where hoteliers can easily search buzz surrounding their brand
and reach out and engage new customers. Twitter is becoming more and more a customer
service tool where hoteliers must monitor and handle feedback and requests from guests in
real-time.
Consider Twitter as an instantaneous communication tool. You can use Twitter in place of a
short promotional email. Or in place of an SMS message. At the same time, Twitter is “an
early warning system” for service problems at the hotel. Therefore, you need to monitor
tweets 24/7.
24. Twitter Case
Fairmont Hotels & Resorts, Toronto
Fairmont focuses on adding value for its
Twitter followers through special offers and
incentives such as an American Express
Partnership that offered a free night for
cardholders. Twitter followers that interact
with Fairmont occasionally receive gifts and
giveaways as a reward for following.
Fairmont alerts followers to services and
amenities as well.
25. Strategic Linking/Directory listing
It helps to Local Search Engine Optimization!
Google Places
Google Maps Local Listing
Yahoo Local Listing
Windows Live Listing Listing in other popular local search engines
Directories listing ( Yellow Pages ...)
26. OTA Management
Focus on the “big players,” e.g. Expedia, Priceline, Booking.com, Travelocity and Orbitz.
Smaller OTAs do not provide additional reach; rather, they require more work.
From day one, include in all contracts that neither the OTAs nor their affiliates may bid on branded keywords in
SEM campaigns, i.e. the hotel’s official name-related keywords.
Use strict rate parity when using OTAs, and monitor their attempts to sell “lower” rates for your property by
reducing their commission/markup, or using math gimmicks when calculating the overall taxes and fees.
Use OTAs for need periods: weekends, group cancelations, low season, etc., and not as a replacement for or
alternative to the direct online channel. Additionally, any sale or promotion via an OTA should be used only as a
last resource and should equally be promoted via the hotel website and support marketing (SEM, email, mobile,
social).
Benchmark your property’s OTA contribution against industry results. And always remember that the more you
focus on your hotel’s website, the less you will depend on the 800-pound gorillas.
Billboard effect Flash sales Monitor and Track
27. Metasearch management (the OTA killers)
Google Hotel Finder - Google Places
Tripadvisor - Business Listing
Trivago
Kayak
28. Mobile marketing
Location-Based Mobile Services (LBS)!
Location plus personalized services are not only the essence
of the mobile Internet, but the very definition of what travel is
all about.
Location-based services (LBS) are based on the unique
ability of the mobile Internet device to determine its exact
location by using GPS, and then to use that knowledge to
perform functions, provide information, suggest activities,
check out if friends are in the neighborhood, etc.
Mobile Hotel Website!
Mobile Booking Functionality!
Customer service!
Mobile Applications ( Lonely planet, booking.com)!
Augmented reality !
!
!
30. Display advertising (Banners) and AdSense
Display advertising is graphical advertising on the internet
These ads, often referred to as banners, come in standardized ad
sizes, and can include text, logos, pictures, or more recently, rich
media.
!
we can target groups and behaviours
we track performance
Google AdSense is a program run by Google that
allows publishers in the Google Network of
content sites to serve automatic text, image,
video, or interactive media advertisements that
are targeted to site content and audience.
31. The on-line package
what hotel must have o consider when on-line:
!
• own desktop website
• a mobile website
• tablet website
• social media profiles (youtube, facebook,
twitter, google +)
• high resolution photos to the OTAs and GDSs
!
!
We must have an integrated and multichannel
marketing campaign
!
Get a GMAIL account
