Negative SEO: Six Little Things with a Big Impact.
Negative SEO is a term usually used to describe an attack on your website by a competitor to lower your SEO, this can take the shape of spammy links being built to your site, hacking, or content duplication just to name a few common ones |
Is Organic Search Dead For Hotels?
As the movie character Ferris Bueller once famously said: 'Life moves pretty fast, if you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it'; Now I am pretty sure Ferris was not refering to the digital landscape and ... |
Two Titans of Chat - But Which Works Best for Hotels?
Apple Business Chat vs Facebook Messenger: what's best for hotels? Never one to lag behind, Apple are testing Facebook's mettle with the launch of their new iMessage integration, Business Chat |
How to Build and Analyse Successful Hotel Rate Plans.
How do you design a successful rate plan for your hotel? Why are some rate plans more successful than others? When you create rate plans, try and tap into your inner hotel shopper psyche |
Why rate Disparity Matters, and What To Do About it?
Rate disparity, if left unchecked, can seriously impact your hotel’s bottom line, hotels often find themselves with lower rates on OTAs and other third party channels than they do on their own website – that’s not good! So... |
The History of Direct (infographic).
Direct bookings have never been more on hoteliers' minds than now, we've spent hours chatting to hoteliers to figure out how the movement began |
Hoteliers Need to Stop Digital Fragmentation.
We operate in a multi-device, multi-channel and multi-touchpoint digital world, and the hotel planning and booking customer journey is becoming increasingly complex as a result; In fact, according to Google, the average consumer engages in ... |
Reimagining the Online Booking Channel.
For many years, hotels and OTAs have had an ongoing feud, acting more like rivals than the (business) partners that they should be |
DiBPAR - The Most Important Metric You’ve Never Heard Of.
Direct Booking Revenue per Available Room: DiBPAR, Not the best acronym, but a hugely important concept |
Closing the Loop on the Travel Journey
Action plan to achieve a 360-degree past and future guest engagement, retention, and acquisition strategy - Today’s hotel planning and booking customer journey is becoming increasingly complex in this multi-device, multi-channel... |
Are Corporate Travel Programs Getting the Hotel rates They Negotiate?
Globally, 86 percent of travel managers audit their negotiated hotel contract information, including rates, amenities and other negotiated features, once it is loaded into the system to verify its accuracy |
How Metasearch Empowers The Independent Hotelier.
Since 2010, the hotel industry has seen huge growth and changes to the metasearch landscape; a combination of consumer and product growth |
Hotel Agents Can Increase Reviews and Revenue.
While brand hotels receive more sales than independent properties, the gap is shrinking; according to a study at UCLA Anderson School of Management, revenue chains generate over independent hotels has shrunk from 32% in 2000 to 19% in 2015 |
It’s Time For A New Customer Relationship Strategy.
As innovation happens faster across all industries, businesses are often left chasing trends and lagging behind their customers’ needs |
In Uncertain Times, Focus On RevPAR Index As Well As RevPAR Growth.
The hotel industry seems to be obsessed with RevPAR and, in particular, RevPAR growth, typically, one of the first items discussed in a public hotel company’s quarterly earnings report is the percentage of RevPAR growth achieved |
The Importance of Selling Experiences, Not Just Beds.
Today, Millennials are a widely overlooked audience for hotels; whether it’s because there is a general perception that they are entitled and hard-to-please, or because they are assumed to have no money to spend on traveling but ignor... |
Care and Feeding of Machine Learning in Marketing.
If you work in marketing, chances are you’re hearing a lot about machine learning these days, the big four cloud providers—Google, IBM, Amazon, and Salesforce—now offer machine learning as a service and are very actively p... |
Top 5 Reasons Live Chat is a Must for Hotel Websites.
Through Live Chat service, hotels benefit from real-time customer engagement without the headache and expense of managing Live Chat internally |
Six Ways to Conquer Mobile Cart Abandonment.
Almost two out of five mobile shoppers have abandoned a travel booking on a mobile device due to poor user experience |
Should Hospitality Embrace or Ignore Google AMPs?
Background: Introduced in 2016 as Google’s response to other mobile publishing platforms like Apple News and Facebook Instant Articles, Google’s AMP (short for Accelerated Mobile Pages) began to spark interest amongst online ret... |
Are You Rich in Activity Metrics but Poor in Proving Value?
In an environment where the CMO is being asked to prove Marketing’s value every day, what can a CMO do to not merely survive, but to thrive? To survive and thrive, CMOs need to see themselves as champions of growth who can antic... |
Who Cares About ROI?
In a recent article, Marketing Activity Metrics Mean Little: Here’s How to Really Prove Marketing’s Value, we asserted that 'marketers need to be smarter about the performance metrics they select', we also found ourselves concur... |
How Did The Bartell Hotels’ Call Center Capture 7% More Revenue From 11% Fewer Calls?
Founded in 1975, Bartell Hotels is one of San Diego’s oldest and largest independent hotel companies with eight hotels, including six that are branded (from 4 different national brands) and two independents |
127 Facts You Probably Didn’t Know About The Video Marketing.
Video has been on the rise as a communication tactic in the recent past, and is poised to represent 75-80% of all online traffic by 2020! Thus it’s no wonder we’re seeing new features and innovative uses by various destina... |
Meet Your New Barista: Ralph Lauren.
One of the more puzzling things in the recent Ralph Lauren Corporation announcement of the closing of its flagship Polo store in Manhattan on Fifth Avenue and 55th Street was its plans to expand its Ralph’s Coffee franchise; Clearly, ... |
Comparing Attribution Models: Which is Right for Your Hotel?
In our last blog article about attribution models and the user journey, we discussed the different types of attribution models and their main characteristics, we also dipped our toes on the shore of the user journey sea, and discovered that... |
Five Tips to Help Your Hotel to Tap Into Pinterest.
Using Pinterest to market your hotel is a great way generate interest and traffic to your hotel’s website and increased traffic, of course, gives you the opportunity to boost your direct bookings |
Metasearch: The Winning Approach to Direct Bookings.
Technology has consistently changed our approach to the ways we manage and do business; As consumers are always connected to their digital channels, their habits are constantly evolving, these constant shifts have challenged the hospitality... |
The 4 Golden Rules of Influencer Marketing.
Influencer marketing is the new Shangri-La for marketers looking to promote products and services without using traditional channels or paid advertising—all of which are based in the good ol’ means of interrupting consumers |
Why Invest in a Coach for Your Marketing.
In the world of athletics, good coaches have the tactical knowledge to teach needed skills and the ability to motivate the players and the team, they help athletes develop to their full potential |
Q2 2017 Hotel Marketing, Technology, and Trends Whitepaper.
The HeBStrategy Q2 edition assesses the climate of the hospitality industry, explores creative approaches to brand loyalty and guest recognition programs, and highlights key findings hoteliers should be mindful of in auditing their hotel di... |
Reviews and Online Reputation Management.
Word of Mouth has always been one of the key success factors in the hospitality industry and online Word of Mouth (eWOM) is an even more powerful marketing tool |
How to Overcome High Cancellation Rates on OTA's?
Today’s hotel guests are empowered and informed, which in some ways is very positive, however, it has also led to a trend of guests making multiple bookings far in advance, before cancelling ones they decide against just a day or two ... |
5 Factors that Influence the Cost of Your Facebook Ads.
Facebook has become a must in brands’ overall digital marketing strategies — and more and more managers are trying to better understand and evaluate the true costs of a Facebook ad campaign, several factors come into play regard... |
How to Generate Last Minute Bookings.
Being fully booked all year around is the dream of every hotelier, however in reality most places have slow seasons which require increased marketing efforts |
The Vast & the Various: Your Guest is Driving, Buckle Up.
As an industry, we have debated tirelessly over the pros and cons of focusing on driving more direct bookings, one can argue just how profitable direct bookings are in relation to the alternative |
TrevPAR vs RevPAR – Both Matter But Which is Best?
When looking at any hotel, regardless of size or market we always seem to focus on three main benchmarks - occupancy, average daily rate and RevPAR, with RevPAR being dubbed as king, but why? We are always hearing questions such as is... |
Yield Management for Small Accommodation Providers.
Ideally a hotel would always sell all rooms at the highest rack rate, as this is rarely possible the challenge is to find the right price to utilise a hotels capacity in the most profitable way possible |
The Quick Guide to SEO for Independent Hotels.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is crucial to your hotel’s online visibility on search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing, SEO is complicated and constantly in flux, so it’s no wonder so many people don’t even know where... |
The Importance of a Hotel’s Presence on Google.
What would our lives be like without Google? Ever since the world wide web took over, online research has become a necessity, almost a reflex: we use it for school, for work, for our own entertainment and to be honest, we don’t ... |
Three Tips and Tricks to Build Your Independent Hotel's Brand.
Brand marketing is one of the most beneficial types of marketing your hotel can use: to the public, your hotel’s brand is your hotel’s identity, therefore a strong brand is vital for encouraging direct bookings, along with dozen... |
The Power of Package Bookings for Hotels.
Hotels are always looking for new ways to drive demand – and packages have been a solid vehicle to do just that; Packages, or combined hotel, airfare and/or car bookings, offer valuable benefits to hotels, as well as consumers, b... |
How Social Media Preferences Vary Per Generation.
Do Millennials (18-34 years old), Gen Xers (34-54 years old) and Boomers (55-70 years old) use social media in the same way? Do they all adopt similar behaviors? The SproutSocial Social Index – Q1 2017 provides great insight into each... |
The Benefits of Internet Marketing for Hotels.
As we are so entrenched in the digital age, it seems logical that your hotel advertising should be as well; For many years hotels have relied on print marketing in newspapers, magazines or paper mailers to get their message to potential cus... |
Latest Facebook Mobile Apps and What They Mean for Your Hotel
Social media marketing for hotels is ever changing and mobile usage is becoming the norm for searches and social interaction |
Top 10 Big Data Trends for 2017.
2016 was a landmark year for big data with more organizations storing, processing, and extracting value from data of all forms and sizes, in 2017, systems that support large volumes of both structured and unstructured data will continue to ... |
How To Optimize Your Hotel’s Presence On Google.
Terri Scriven is the Head of Hospitality for Google UK, which means working with hotels and accommodation providers in Europe and beyond to help them to optimise their digital distribution and online marketing strategies |
Breakage: Good or Bad for Loyalty Programs?
What is Breakage? Breakage is simply the technical term for points that expire and are never redeemed by members, breakage is one of the three primary sources of profit for a frequent flyer program (FFP), together with working capital,... |
Five Ways Revenue Management is Essential to Building Direct Bookings.
Revenue management is fundamental to a well-run hotel, it’s the way hoteliers manage rates, inventory, and distribution in an effort to show the right room to the right guest at the right time at the right price |
Landing pages: Turn Paid into Serious Hotel Revenue.
Landing pages are an important part of the booking funnel: they help you convert your paid traffic, carefully targeted and acquired by your marketing efforts, into profitable direct bookings |
Refine Your Hotel's TripAdvisor Strategy.
Three key elements to consider right now: Millions of potential hotel guests visit TripAdvisor every month to plan their journeys, at present, the company reports an average of 390 million monthly unique visitors and has listings for 7 mill... |
