January 11, 2011 at 1:10 am | Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments
Tags: hotel blog, hotel industry, hotel revenue management, hotel sales, social networks
“TripAdvisor has integrated with Facebook to personalize the site for each visitor. … automatically showcasing travel reviews from friends.” (Travel Weekly, 12/21/10) WOW! Time to make sure both bases are covered – are you responding to those Trip Advisor reviews AND how is your social presence on FaceBook? Is your Fan page an attraction to visitors to the page and FANs – are you building a Fan base and interacting with Fans and responding to posts?
Grudgingly, many managers have accepted Trip Advisor. They usually blame Trip Advisor for bad reviews — must have been a disgruntled employee, a scamming guest,(fill in the blanks)! The reality is that Trip Advisor does a pretty good job of vetting their reviews. Most of the disgruntled managers have a bunch of bad reviews that they don’t want to respond to because there may be a grain of truth there.
These managers should go look in the mirror, take a deep breathe and accept the fact that after price and location, reviews and recommendations from friends is the deciding factor in property selection! (Epsilon Survey)
Let’s talk about those friends — FaceBook friends. If the property is not monitoring it’s online presence on social networks, does not have an effective Fan page (with Fans) AND does not respond to Trip advisor reviews — it could be in serious trouble with this new partnership between Trip Advisor and Facebook.
If you think you might need help on that Fan page log onto Social Media RevMax on Facebook. http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Social-Media-RevMax/144897988896255 It might be a quick, easy, affordable solution for you!
September 15, 2010 at 9:04 pm | Posted in Events, Hotel Sales Training Issues, In the News, Information, Uncategorized, Webcasts | 2 Comments
Tags: Google Maps, hotel blog, hotel revenue management, hotel sales, hotel sales issues, hotel trends, recovery for hotels, social media, social networks
RMs have new tools for distribution that weren’t even on the radar prior to the recession and were barely on the radar in 2010. Now these tools are must haves!
As though revenue managers didnt’ have enough channels to manage there are several new ones.
Mobile apps have demonstrated that they have become a valuable new reservation channel and have the potential of generating incremental revenue from in house guests.
However, a few questions to ask your team be fore enabling a mobile app. Is your res engine on the web site up to the task? Is it mobile friendly and how will it appear on a mobile device screen? Are your promotional eblasts mobile ready in terms of short concise offers that users don’t have to scroll down too far to access? Have you linked your Twitter and FaceBook to your mobile offers?
The second thng is Google maps exhibiting hotel rates on destination searches. I am in Des Moines and I needed a hotel room on Friday night at the airport. I searched for ‘airport hotels des moines’. Most popped up with their rates but a few of the franschises weren’t playin’.
The real issue was that in many cases the rates were just wrong! Most consumers will make a selection based on the rate structure on the ‘Google map’. When I went into one hotel’s web site the rate was $10 higher than the one on the map and another was not only ten dollars lower than the rate on the map but also included breakfast and a ‘beverage’ — very welcome on a Friday night!
It is unclear where Google is pulling the rates from but this makes a clear case for rate integrety and parity across all channels. How many people would go back to the map and take the time to click through all of the other hotels whose rates were displayed just in case they could find a better one. Most of them will take the rates at face value.
Google maps is going to be a huge palyer in travel search and will drive business to those htoels that maintain parity and updates on offerings on all channels incuding the mobile app!
Join us on Sepptember 23 for a webinar Habits of Highly Successful Revenue Managers for 2011. These are just a few of the issues we will be discussing. Copy and past or click below for more info.
http://www.carolverret.net/viral/sept1110.php
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July 20, 2010 at 3:09 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments
Tags: hotel blog, hotel industry, hotel revenue management, hotel sales, social networks
We all tend to have good feelings about Google and its company culture. Google is about to become a major force in the online travel space with its acquisition of ITA.
“ITA currently provides airfare data to many of the industry players, including Orbitz, Kayak and Bing; … The businesses that are most likely to be hit soonest are those known as travel meta-search engines, like Kayak and Bing Travel. … Google itself said on its site that it “has no plans to sell airline tickets to consumers.” (Wall Street Journal, 7/5/10). However, 10% of all Google searches are travel related. With Google already testing featured hotel rates on ‘searches’ (will they decide to sell hotel rooms?), the addition of the functionality of researching air fares could make Google a major force in online travel and Kayak should be very afraid.
We are alll waiting to see how all this plays out and how Google will pull these elements together.
What will Google Travel look like when it’s all integrated? Good question but with budget season upon the hotel and travel industry, it might be wise to add a few extra dollars in a contingency online advertising line item.
June 23, 2010 at 11:59 pm | Posted in Hotel Sales Training Issues, In the News, Social Media, Uncategorized | 1 Comment
Tags: hotel revenue management, hotel sales, hotel training, social media, social networks
In an article in eMarketing.com (June 15, 2010) a recent study indicated that social networks generated weak lead generation in visits to the company’s website. The visitors to the web site generated by social media were visiting one page, had a short attention span and seldom got to the ‘contact us’ page.
One of the most interesting things to come out of this research are the pages that social media referral visitors looked at.
Notice how high the percentages for visitation to the blog page. The same was shown with Twitter and it is unfortunate that the research did not more extensively include LinkedIn, which is the B2B site of preference.
Several months ago the same online publication published a study indicated that companies were obtaining customers in the B2B space but they came primarily from LinkedIn. The pages most likely to generate these leads that were converted to customers was the blog.
Why? At it’s best, the blog is informational and not just product promotion as most of the web site is (See Seth Godin’s book ‘All Marketers are Liars.) Most web sites are filled with adjectives that customers don’t really believe any more but a well done blog gives visitors information about issues and/or the company without hyperbole.
What can we deduce from this. First of all, a vistor may return to a site many times before they become a lead through the contact us page — there are no stats because the customer only appears as a social media lead the first time they visit — after that they are ‘repeat’ visitors. Secondly and probably more importantly, the blog is one of the most useful tools in the marketers aresenal and it is often missued or neglected — it’s value not perceived to be as strong as other lead generation sources.
Let’s hope that these two graphs give the company blog it’s due and prominence in communicating with ptotential customers.
PS If you were waiting to receive leads flowing out of social media, think again. For the most part leads still need to be developed and social media is an invaluable prospecting and relationship building tool.
May 25, 2010 at 10:08 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | 12 Comments
Tags: hotel blog, hotel industry, hotel revenue management, hotel sales, social networks
I don’t know if there is right or worng answer here as necessity has indicated the ‘dumping’ of unused inventory on the opaque channels.
This is a little story of trust and integrity.
I went online to book an airline ticket on the United Airlines site that states that the customer will not find lower fares on any other site. The fare was almost $600.
So I tried to save my cleint some money and went to Priceline where I haven’t ever booked an airline ticket before. The fare to the same destination with a better schedule was only $300. Granted, United posted in it’s lower fare column the same fare but the flight schedule was for flights leaving at ungodly hours and with hideous layovers.
Maybe I was naive to believe that United meant what it said but it taught me one thing — I will always check on Priceline prior to booking another ticket.
Does your hotel have a similar lowest rate guarantee on your web site? Will your customers find lower rates on Priceline and the other opaques?
Have we created Priceline’s incredible profits last quarter by driving our clients to the opaque channels?
As Seth Godin said in his book “All Marketers Are Liars” our cutomers don’t believe our marketing copy any more, they believe User Generated Content by ‘people like themselves’ as found in testimonials and review sites.
Have we given the power to the review sites that many hotel managers resent by failing to maintain integerity in posting rates?
Think about it — leave your comments and let’s start a discussion!
May 12, 2010 at 6:44 pm | Posted in Hotel Sales Training Issues, In the News, Information, Social Media, Uncategorized | Leave a comment
Tags: hotel, hotel blog, hotel industry, hotel sales, hotel sales issues, hotel training, hotel trends, recovery for hotels, social media, social networks
I have been traveling pretty solid for the past eight weeks. Many of those seminar programs have been for AHLA and included a program on social networks.
The participation has been amazing. Some hotels are using their Fan Pages and LinkedIn Profiles well to have conversations with their customers, some are in between but many are still unsure or having a degree of angst over building out their pages and profiles to include complete information that will give potential customers the information they need that results in lead generation.
The purpose of social media activity is to engage with current customers and generate new ones! A recent article and survey from eMarketing.com revealed B2B and B2C leads generated from social media.
45% of businesses surveyed generated B2B leads from LinkedIn and 68% generated B2C leads!
Why are these pages so important for lead generation? These pages are dynamic in that they can be updated more frequently than the web site, include a great deal more information, actively engage with customers and potential customers and thus generate leads.
Asking your teenage cousin or hiring someone right out of college to build out your presence on these two networks (not tomention Twitter) is not very helpful in that they they don’t undersatnd the intricate relationship that the hospitality industry has with these networks and industry best practices.
Example: One client that has and that has an ‘and’ in their name was virtually invisible on FaceBook. Why? The newly minted social media manager had used an ambersand (&) verus the word ‘and’. How many Fans would think to use an ambersand versus the word ‘and’? As well, there were available opportunities on the addtional pages that were not built out at all.
How many of your hotels, epecially independent and smaller hotels, are having angst over your social media presence? Let’s have a conversation post your comments and concerns below!
April 25, 2010 at 6:46 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments
Tags: hotel blog, hotel industry, hotel revenue management, hotel sales, social networks
In a recent Power Selling seminar for a hotel management company, I had a participant who had totally incorporated her FaceBook page into her sales process. She blew me away!
It goes something like this. First of all, she built a robust ‘Friends’ network of clients. Secondly, one day she and her GM were brainstorming on how to get business for the upcoming slow season. They thought of an idea to promote the winter season on FaceBook to scrapbookers.
After they began their campaign, a strange thing happened. Other client ‘friends’ responded saying that while they were not scrapbookers, they did have business during the winter and could they have the same deal?
Sabrina responded yes they could and when would be a good time to come and see them? Then a tour operator posted tour series dates on the wall and asked her to repsond if she could accomodate them.
Sabrina then began posting her sales call schedule and asking her ‘freinds’ if she could come and see them. She soon had her appointment schedule filled with new prospects and existing clients that wanted to see her when she was in their area.
This is a perfect example of how a social network can be integrated into the sales process. Considerations for success:
1. Don’t invite your competitors to be Freinds or Fans on your page.
2. Push out promotions but also things of interest about yourself, your hotel and your area — it shouldn’t always be about pushing business.
3. Use your page as a service to your clients — give them opportunities to be part of your business such as asking if you can come see them during sales calls in their area.
BTW, she never booked one scrapbooking group but the other clients that saw the post and booked other groups more than made up the difference.
Congrats Sabrina Bowman on a job extremely well done!
April 8, 2010 at 1:57 am | Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment
Tags: hotel blog, hotel industry, hotel revenue management, hotel sales, social networks
“Contrary to previous thinking, STR now believes demand growth will be stronger in 2010 than in 2011. The company said demand will grow 4.1 percent in 2010 and 2.9 percent in 2011. When STR crunches March 2010 data in the middle of April, it is expected that it will emerge as the fourth consecutive month to show demand growth.” (AHLA, 4/07/10)
This is the best news in 18 months but does it mean that Rvenue Managers will use this opportunity to begin moving the needle on rates? It’s time to put the floor under discounts and rates.
Don’t be bullied into locking in rates for 2011 and beyond — we may not be at 2007 rates but it has to start somewhere. Let rate increases, gradual increases, start here and now before the summer season!
March 6, 2010 at 6:36 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment
Tags: hotel blog, hotel industry, hotel revenue management, hotel sales, social networks
It’s spring — time to shake off the post recession gloom!
You and 100 other hotels are contacting the same meeting planner for the same piece of business! What can you do to put a mile on the face of the planner and set youself apart from the other 100 hotels?
Idea #1: Get a video cam, Flip or another one. Gather the team incuding the GM in the lobby of the hotel and talk to the planner — have the GM offer a personal guarantee that if they book their meeting at your hotel, it will perfect! (Be prepared to deliver!) Send the link to the video to the planner!
Idea #2: Start a scavenger hunt on your FaceBook or i-Meet page. They have to identify one element in each of your photos. For example, if you have photo of a banquet room they have to identify the name of the flower on the banquet table in photo #4 or from the team profiles, from what university did the DOS graduate? The winners get a special offer — post the winners on the page!
There’s more but stay tuned for other ideas!
Oh yeah, do something outrageous for your family. For example, next Sunday make green eggs and ham for breakfast. If your kids don’t already have the book, buy it for them and put it on the table.
Step out of your comfort zone — it will make you feel better and put a smile on the faces of the recipients! We all like to be around people that make us smile!
Be outrageous!
February 23, 2010 at 4:35 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment
Tags: hotel blog, hotel industry, hotel revenue management, hotel sales, social networks
Social networks are integral to the sales and revenue management process. Sometimes we do a good job of it and then, when we get crazy busy, that activity tapers off if not drops off the radar. Mea culpa!
There are great tools out there like HootSuite that allow you to post across all networks and monitor activity although limited and does not address that ‘personal’ engagement with your network of contacts.
Let’s talk about blogs — these require some thought and creativity and some days/weeks you just run dry. The ideas don’t flow and the time just isn’t there.
There is a great blog from Karen J that won’t help you with the blog but could relieve some of the anxiety about staying on top of social networks engagement.
Karen has a system for managing social engagement on one hour a day and takes into account the whole week so you can touch all of the important issues in the process.
Here is the link to her blog and the PDF but remember you still have to make time for that one hour a day!
http://imconnections.com/The%20Visibility%20Factor.pdf
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