I'm worried about the number of hotels I see neglecting to make their websites friendly to international guests.

As an American, I see far too many hotels in the US doing nothing to encourage international business – though this is something that seems to affect many other hotels around the world.

For an industry like travel, it would seem the importance of international presence and marketing would be clear.

Research from Amadeus and others indicate strong growth in inbound travel from Brazil, China, and other Asian countries. According to their Travel Gold Rush report created with Oxford Economics, there will be a "dramatic realignment of travel spend" with global travel doubling between 2010 and 2020.

Yet for too many small groups and independent properties, awareness remains very low about the importance of building visibility in international markets. How can you get started?

Begin with translation

The web is becoming increasingly multilingual, and translating website content is an important first step in attracting international visitors. In his article 3 Tips for Content Marketing in Foreign Languages, Christian Arno writes:

From 2000 to 2008, Web use among the Chinese grew by a whopping 755 percent, while Web use skyrocketed by 2,064 percent by Arabic-speaking individuals.

As a comparison, web use increased by 204 percent among English-speaking people. In the near future, Chinese will supplant English as the top language of the Web. As a result of this trend, businesses realize their success on the Web will depend on creating foreign-language Internet marketing strategies.

A quick look at Google Analytics can help you decide which languages are important to publish information in. Also, consider which parts of the world you need to develop a presence in. (The reports linked above may help you with this.)

Provide localized content

Translating your existing content is an important first step, but localization takes it a step further. Travelers from regions look for (and react to) different content. People visiting from different countries will find different types of information useful.

In our interview with Isabelle Lozano, she revealed this about the website for Apostrophe Hotel:

The French part has more articles and talks more about things that are less-known than in the English part. We've realized that the French customers were really reading alot of our posts. After arriving at the hotel, after their booking, they would say, "I'm going to go see this exhibition that I saw on the website." The English part follows the same idea, but talks more about the hotel itself, because that's what English clients want to learn about, we've realized.

At first we were just translating, but we asked customers what they thought, and we found out that our English and French customers wanted different things. English and Americans were saying, "That's too much information; we just want to learn more about the hotel."

The lesson: Ask your customers what type of information they expect from your website, look for recurring trends, and then provide this localized content.

Be aware of local social networking preferences

The use and choice of social networking platforms varies from country to country.

Vincos created this helpful chart showing the most popular social network in each country:

Facebook is quickly increasing in international popularity. Nick Burcher has an interesting year-over-year usage table for Facebook that shows explosive growth in Indonesia, Thailand, and the Phillipines (among others).

Yet Facebook is still by no means universally used around the world: the majority of people in important markets such as Brazil, China, Russia, and Japan prefer other platforms to communicate:

Optimize content for local search

Web content is only helpful to you if people find it.

This makes country-specific search optimization an important part of an international hotel marketing campaign.

There are detailed tutorials on how to do this, but I like this simple infographic from Elliance via Search Engine Land.¹

Aside from the technical part of search optimization, selecting the right keywords is very important. Use tools like Google Trends to identify which words and phrases are most likely to be used to find what you offer.

Manage your international online reputation

The fact that guests are talking about your hotel in other languages and leaving feedback on popular websites abroad is overlooked by too many hotel managers.

If you want to increase your business from international sources, focusing on building your online reputation worldwide is critical.

And while you may have a good reputation on a few domestic websites, do you know what prospective guests are saying (and seeing) on review websites in other countries and in other languages?

Make sure to use a reputation management tool that collects feedback from a wide range of international sources, and multiple languages.

Actively encourage people to leave reviews on their preferred review website of choice, rather than just one specific site. As you attract a more diverse clientele, you will build your global reputation as well.

What are you doing to increase your hotels' visibility internationally?

1 - http://searchengineland.com/search-illustrated-international-seo-tips-13834

www.hotelmarketingstrategies.com/international-hotel-marketing

About the author
This blog is written by Josiah Mackenzie, who enjoys exploring the relationship between emerging technology and the hospitality industry. 

www.hotelmarketingstrategies.com