lundi 21 mars 2011

Mobile: Transforming the delivery of today’s hospitality experience

Understanding the purchasing behaviour of our customers is one of the keys to success. Nowadays, business and leisure travellers can search, organise and bok their trip through many channels, and the latest one is mobile, smartphones. As the article points out, 77% of business travellers use their smartphones to plan their trip. Nowadays, many travel applications to download on smartphones exist. Phone applications are very useful and beneficial for hoteliers as it makes their access for customers easier. They are bookable anywhere and at ay time (in public transportation, in waiting lines, while waiting to board on a plane, ...). Another advantage is that it is as safe as computer. I believe that today, if companies do not have a strong presence on social medias and mobile, you are "killing" your business. Companies need to integrate a mobile strategy in their overall strategy to stay competitive and bring in business through new distribution channels.

Link to the article

mardi 15 mars 2011

Comment on Nodira's article - How to Create a Killer E-mail Newsletter

I found this article and Nodira's comment very interesting. It is true that our mail boxes are full with newsletters, that i don't even bother reading because there are too many of them, and they all look alike. It is important to differentiate themselves while companies create a newsletter. Nodira added that emails remain a strong tool to build a good customer relationship. I believe emails are not the only way, social medias help too.

dimanche 13 mars 2011

The return on investment of video on hotel websites

In last week's article, I expressed the importance of hotel visuals in the costumer's point of view. As I said hotel visuals are important for guests in their booking process as it permits them to better visualize the product they are purchassing.

Today, I would like to analyse the impact of videos in hotels' points of view, what is the real return on investment for hotels. It is true that creating a video of a hotel is very expensive; therefore it is understandable and legitimate that they ask themselves if it is worth investing.

In order to check whether a hotel has a good ROI, a hotel needs to measure how often the video on its website is being watched, if it is shared, and how often it is shared, and how people interact with the video. Hotel visuals and especially videos are emotional influencers for customers when they book a hotel.

Hotels can also rely on the fact that researches have shown that hotels that use a video on their websites to sell the hotel have increased their sales. As the article says, customers perceive a hotel with a video as more trustable.

I found this article interesting as it gives us tips and advice on how to measure the return on investments of videos for a business. Videos are long term investments for hotels, and are worth investing as it is a good marketing tool that increases sales.

Link to the article

dimanche 6 mars 2011

How travellers consume hotel visuals

I found this article very interesting as it deals with the influence of hotel visuals for travellers during their shopping process of searching a hotel and booking a room. As the article says, the number of hotel visuals increases every year. There are different types of visuals such as hotel pictures, 360 degree virtual tours and videos. Consumers also share more and more their own hotel visuals on social medias like Facebook or Twitter. Visuals can also be seen on a variety of sites like TripAdvisor, Travelocity.com,..., in addition to the hotel webiste.

Hotel visuals are very beneficial in promoting the hotel, and they play a very important attractive role for the customers, or on the contrary, they can dissuade them from booking this hotel. Indeed, as a travel shopper, I would rather pay a little more in a hotel with nice pictures rather than a one with old pictures. I would be more attracted to the pictures that seem more recent, although the hotel may be of poorer quality or service. This is why it is extremely important for hotels to update their visuals and also not neglect them by using cheap material, ... Many hotels tend to be careless about their visuals because of a lack of budget, but I believe they should cut down expenses on other projects. Hotels should update their pictures frequently, and they should create videos and 360 degree virtual tours. They are unique selling points for the hotel.
I believe that hotel visuals are part of a hotel's business card.

Link to the article

mardi 1 mars 2011

Comment on Miguel's article - Now you can launch your hotel booking-engine within your Facebook pages

Adding a hotel's booking engine on its facebook page was, i believe, the next step in the facebook mania! Hoteliers already use facebook as a marketing tool, so it is now becoming a reservation tool also. A facebook page will never replace a hotel's webiste, but it will definitely help increase reservations.

10 Facebook Marketing Tips for Small Businesses

Facebook is a very usefull marketing tool for all businesses, but even more for small businesses which do not have a big marketing budget. This article is interesting in the sense that it gives advice on how to implement Facebook as a successful tool in small businesses. As the article says "keep it simple"; no need to have a full time social media professional to put in place and update a Facebook page. The 10 Facebook marketing tips proposed by the article are:
  1. Manage expectations - do not expect to have thousand of fans in the first place, and be disappointed.
  2. Make time - create time to update your page 1 hour a day. Not much time needed.
  3. Learn as much as you can - take notes on what you do not understand to check them later.
  4. Start with a small budget - promote your your business through Facebook without spending much. Bigger advertising will come later.
  5. Create a page, not a profile
  6. Post cool status updates - post interesting and engaging content.
  7. Have one-on-one conversations - keep personal contacts with your fans. Respond to them when they contact you.
  8. Don't spam - communicate through your page, not via emails.
  9. Create coupons and promotions - attract fans through promotions and special offers.
  10. Encourage check-ins
I believe that these tips are very useful for small businesses such as small hotels. It enables them to stay somehow competitive compared to bigger renowned hotels. Once the Facebook page is set up, a hotel can then set up its booking engine on its Facebook page.

Link to the article