Hotel websites are notorious for using big words where small ones will do. In trying to look or sound clever, luxurious or "high quality" they achieve precisely the opposite effect.

Because the website visitor isn't reading the words.

Up until now, it wasn't that your website visitor was stupid, it was just that their attention was the subject of challenges from all angles.

Now, however, it's getting serious. They really are becoming stupid.
Continue reading "Is the internet making your online customers stupid?"

How fast can you get your hotel offer found on Google?

If you are looking for hotel deals (in an especially nice hotel!) in the Inverness area - the Kingsmills Hotel has a limited availability offer for the nights of Sunday 29th and Monday 30th August.

Check it out! You won't believe the value for this deal at this smashing luxury hotel.

August bank holiday deals at the Kingsmills Hotel Inverness

Changes to the way Google manages adwords bidding will change the online landscape for hotels.

The relaxation of brand related keyword bidding means that - yet again - the online travel agents will take ownership of the high ground.

Some industry professionals are recommending you mount your own Google Adwords campain based on keywords related to your own brand. Stating that it will work out cheaper than the cost of commission on OTA sourced room sales. Of course, their approach is slightly coloured by the fact that many of them actually sell Adwords campaign management services.

Here's a few points for you to consider before you take the Adwords plunge. It may be that the OTA becomes your friend in all this turmoil...
Continue reading "Google Adwords for Hotels - Compete or Contribute?"

The previous blog caused a couple of derisory emails. So let me clarify a couple of things.

1. Online promotion and selling is a good thing to do. I am not anti-internet.
2. When it comes to marketing per se and online marketing in particular - carelessness can be seen in a high percentage of hotels.

If you're going to use online social networking to promote your hotel business online, there is one fundamental thing you need to understand...
Continue reading "The Luxury Hotel Sales Process"

You've all seen the statistics:

"50% of bookings will be made online..."

"millions of hotel customers look at Tripadvisor every day..."

...blah, blah, blah.

Of course, online is good, online is a wonderful market opportunity for you.

Be careful though, because there is a danger that you might confuse "online" with "fully automated" and make a complete balls of selling your hotel.
Continue reading "Is online automation losing the sale for your hotel?"

"what's the point in wearing your lucky rocketship underpants if no one asks to see 'em?" - Calvin & Hobbes

Calvins' lucky rocketship underpants were very close to his heart. Of course, they were actually closer to his backside, but we'll not let that get in the way of today's post, will we?

He was very proud of them: They brought him luck and they had rocketships on them.

What really got on Calvin's &%$@s was the fact that nobody else showed any interest in them.

You go to all that effort...
Continue reading "Are you wearing your lucky rocketship underpants?"

Inspiration for today comes from my pal Jane - who delivered a nice presentation this morning on, er... presentation.

She mentioned something you might be familiar with - the fact that we've all sent a message using technology - an email, a text or a blog post - that has been misinterpreted by the recipient.

It struck me that the internet is indeed a "desensitised" medium. So you need to be careful what you say.
Continue reading "Customers can misinterpret what you say on the internet"

Do you work in hotel sales?

Do you want to know how to start increasing sales at your hotel?

Here's a tried and tested approach. I first learned it from a fascinating hotel sales guru in 1994. Before the Internet.

It is still every bit as valid today. And it still works.

It works for room sales, banqueting sales, restuarant sales, leisure club sales.

So if your general manager or regional sales manager is hammering you to improve your sales figures. This is what you do. In the order specified.
Continue reading "The secret of how to increase sales at your hotel"

Here's the thing.

"Marketing" on social media can generate a lot of heat but no light.

Before all the social media zealots get in touch to rip me limb from limb, let me explain what I mean...
Continue reading "Social Media - never mistake activity for results"

Taken from a conversation held last week with a prospect - as we tried to identify why his marketing wasn't working for him...

"We tried advertising last year. It didn't work. So I don't want to try it again."

What a pity. Because advertising can work - if you give it a chance.
Continue reading "How to give your advertising a chance of success"

We work in an industry that seems to be obsessed with price.
There are automated tools that allow you, as a hotelier, to compare your prices across "competitive sets" that can be made up from local hotels, regional hotels or even hotels in other countries. You can compare yourself with whoever you like it seems.

As long as you only want to compare your price.
Continue reading "It's not all about price! So what's revenue management for?"

Let's start with a caveat, before I get messages from people blaming me for the accident they've just had...

No sane person will take a silly risk which could end up in disaster. Taking ill-considered risks is a job for the stupid, egotistical (I'm thinking bankers here) or anyone who doesn't have enough understanding of "self preservation".

There are two types of risk: Risks to be avoided (those with a serious impact) and those which you can learn from. Obviously, the former type of risk means that it's likely you won't last long enough to learn from it.

...stick with me, I'm coming to the marketing lesson shortly...
Continue reading "The peril of being risk averse"

How far in advance do your customers book with you?

A day in advance? A week? A month? A year?

Do you measure it? If not why not?

Control over the booking window may appear to be tricky for you to establish, but it doesn't need to be. It really depends on how much you understand about your customers, their reasons for booking and the value they expect.

Late booking is an internet phenomenon which is fed by the fact that many hotels don't take the time to understand customer buyer behaviour. As a result, these hotels have less advance bookings than hotels with good marketing systems. A feature of this is panic "late availability" pricing on the internet.

If people know they can get good prices if they wait until they can hear your pips squeak - why should they book far in advance? Late availability pricing encourages customers to delay their purchase decision, then rewards that delay with a discount.

Is that really the way you want to run your hotel??


Continue reading "Booking windows - you get the behaviour you reward"

The internet allows you to be everywhere with your marketing.

Be careful that "everywhere" doesn't translate as "all over the place".

There are savage forces at work which can threaten your prices, your profits and your brand.

Yet, if you're going to make the most recent trends work for your business, you will need to be "everywhere".

What are you going to be everywhere with?
Continue reading "Live hotel prices on Google maps #2 - how to be everywhere"

Now that I've had a chance to think about the idea, I've decided I really like what Google are planning.
It's a pity that it's going to be price led, but then the industry has made its bed in that regard and must now learn to lie in it.

And that's what I want to talk to you about today. This innovation from Google may well prove to be revolutionary. The hotel industry in general doesn't cope too well with revolutions and innovations - preferring, as it does, to stick to polishing teaspoons (if I'm preaching to the converted here I apologise, but you know who I'm talking about).

Hoteliers, if you thought the online world moved fast you'd better prepare yourself for this - because it's going to get a whole lot faster.
Continue reading "Live hotel prices on Google maps - no place for the passive"