The 2012 Do’s & Don’ts of Hotel Distribution

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The 2012 Do’s & Don’ts of Hotel Distribution

Monday, March 5th, 2012

By Max Starkov & Lauren DeGeorge

In 2012, hoteliers face more challenges than ever. From resolving to concentrate on “SoLoMo” (social, local, mobile marketing), to navigating “new” distribution channels, to implementing a Google+ strategy, to improving local search rankings via citations, it is near-impossible for a hotelier to distinguish viable strategies from trendy or temporary opportunities without a dedicated digital marketing partner.

With so many new “don’ts,” it is easy to confuse or let slide the “do’s” of hotel distribution. In 2011, 26% of total bookings for the top hotel brands came from the Internet, with 18% from Brand.com and 8% from OTAs (PhoCusWright, STR, HSMAI Foundation). For non-branded hotels, the situation is more troubling, with 42 percent of bookings from the Internet – 32 percent from OTAs and just 10 percent from hotel websites. In light of these recent findings, hoteliers must focus on their own websites; increase direct online revenues via SEO, SEM, email marketing, packaging, etc.; and utilize the OTAs in the most strategic ways.

Below are HeBS Digital’s 2012 Do’s and Don’ts of Hotel Distribution. We welcome feedback from our colleagues in the industry. What are your property’s do’s and don’ts?”

2012 Do’s of Hotel Distribution:

1. Focus on the Direct Online Channel: Your Hotel’s Website

First and foremost, your website must be “in good health” in order to follow and comply with best practices in hotel distribution. Make sure your current website adheres to industry’s best practices for design, site architecture and SEO. Most importantly, make sure it is compatible with the recent Google Panda and Freshness algorithm updates.

Be sure that all site content is engaging, unique and branded. Create dedicated pages as well as specials and packages that appeal to key customer segments such as business travelers, extended stay guests, weekend travelers (“girlfriend getaways,” couples celebrating anniversaries), etc.

Once your website is in tip-top shape, use search engine optimization (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM), email marketing and other digital marketing efforts to drive traffic to the hotel’s website and encourage direct reservations.

Bring SoLoMo (social, local and mobile) initiatives to the forefront of your hotel’s targeted digital marketing strategy. The convergence of these three content and marketing platforms allows the hotel to deliver more personalized, relevant content to existing guests and customers in real-time like never before.

Though most hoteliers understand the importance of being ever-present across local listings and maps as well as social media such as Facebook and Twitter, the power of mobile marketing must not be underestimated. Five percent of all hotel bookings are made via mobile devices, and 51% of business travelers use mobile devices to get travel information (Google), more than double the rate of two years ago. Mobile is a must, and it starts with a mobile website, mobile and tablet SEM campaigns and SMS/MMS information capture strategy.

In the end, perhaps the most convincing reason to focus on the direct online channel is Google’s “Zero Moment of Truth (ZMOT)” phenomenon: After visiting countless websites and sources, consumers tend to migrate back to their computers to book reservations. By focusing on content and design quality, and powerful brand and marketing messages, you will ensure consumers migrate back to your hotel’s website. Once in place, the next and ongoing steps are “test, test, test” to determine effectiveness and return on investment (ROI), and benchmark and analyze to make smarter use of analytics technology to increase returns.

2. Maintain Rate Parity

A principle once considered elementary now merits a reminder: All hotels must maintain their best available rates and last-room availability on their own websites!

According to RateGain, from December 2011-February 2012:

60-87% of 3-star hotels were cheaper on OTA sites
75-93% of 4-star hotels were cheaper on OTA sites
69-86% of 5-star hotels were cheaper on OTA sites

A thorough rate parity strategy, including a Best Rate Guarantee and complementary claim form, will encourage consumers to book direct for logical reasons:

All changes to reservations must be made through the hotel
All special requests (such as ADA rooms) go through the hotel
The hotel provides superior customer service, not the OTA or other outside booking channel
The hotel guarantees the reservation

Hoteliers, remind your friends (not your competitors): All publically available rates, including 24-hour sales with OTAs and flash sales, must be available on the hotel website and within its online booking engine. The mobile channel is not exempt either, and must be treated as an official rate parity gatekeeper.

3. Market to International Visitors

Analyze foreign tourist arrivals in your hotel’s destination, the property’s guest data and its website data to determine the top international feeder and demand markets for the hotel. Then, implement five- to ten-page optimized foreign language translations for the markets with the most potential and existing demand for the hotel’s destination and product. (Be sure to translate your booking engine, too!)

These translated pages will serve as the home base for all marketing to international customers. First, implement foreign language SEM campaigns on Google and Yahoo/Bing that land on your translated site. Then, implement listings on worldwide travel directories and increase your hotel’s visibility across other hubs for international travelers.

Finally, consider complementing the hotel’s direct efforts using OTAs with high market shares in foreign countries (e.g. Booking.com, Expedia).

4. Use the OTA Channel Correctly

Though no stone should be left unturned when it comes to supporting the hotel’s direct online channel, HeBS Digital recommends the opposite approach in relation to your OTA strategy: Focus on the “big players,” e.g. Expedia, Priceline, Booking.com, Travelocity and Orbitz. Smaller OTAs do not provide additional reach; rather, they require more work.

From day one, include in all contracts that neither the OTAs nor their affiliates may bid on branded keywords in SEM campaigns, i.e. the hotel’s official name-related keywords.

Use strict rate parity when using OTAs, and monitor their attempts to sell “lower” rates for your property by reducing their commission/markup, or using math gimmicks when calculating the overall taxes and fees.

Use OTAs for need periods: weekends, group cancelations, low season, etc., and not as a replacement for or alternative to the direct online channel. Additionally, any sale or promotion via an OTA should be used only as a last resource and should equally be promoted via the hotel website and support marketing (SEM, email, mobile, social).

Benchmark your property’s OTA contribution against industry results. For example, most hotel chains mandate that OTA contribution to franchisees be lower than seven to eight percent. And always remember that the more you focus on your hotel’s website, the less you will depend on the 800-pound gorillas.

5. Tailor Strategies to Competitors’ Strengths & Weaknesses

In any business, everyone who does what you do is a rival. Hotels are no different, and therefore must consider multiple and varied groups of competitors. Your hotel should not only have a product-related competitive set (other boutique, business or full-service hotels in the area) to which you compare your own property, but also geographic (downtown, Union Square, Quincy Market), digital (who’s doing what you do – or more – online) and aspirational competitive sets. As Michelle Davis of HVMG recently said in HotelNewsNow, “My number one competitor might be Hotel X for a certain weekday and during the weekend my number one competitor might be Hotel C. It’s the same thing and the same thought process. Who I compete with online might not be the same person I compete with at the front desk.”

2012 Don’ts of Hotel Distribution

1. Don’t Participate in Flash Sales/Social Buying Sites

While flash sales may address the hotel’s immediate needs – occupancy – they do considerably more damage than good in the long run.

With heavily discounted rates out in the open, flash sales have inherently flawed business models, causing your hotel to rebuke the principles of rate parity (one of the do’s of hotel distribution!), to breach existing agreements with corporate accounts and OTAs, to diminish its brand integrity and to create the perception that rooms are always on sale!

The most powerful reason to forget flash sales and social buying sites is “The Law of Unintended Channel Share Loss”: Any booking via the most discounted channel (i.e. flash sale sites like Groupon or Living Social or BloomSpot or OTAs) is one fewer booking for the same hotel via its own website, call center or GDS. These sites also lead to the cannibalization of the hotel’s existing loyal consumer base as 65% of daily deal buyers are already frequent (38%) or infrequent (27%) customers of that business (ForeSee, 6/11).

During urgent need periods, consider the following options:

Launch a limited-time offer and promote it via:
- The hotel website with a promotional slide on the Home page or a highly visible tile
- Dedicated SEM campaigns on Google and Yahoo/Bing
- An email newsletter to the hotel’s opt-in list
- The hotel’s Facebook, Twitter, Google+ pages
- Online or email sponsorships to main feeder markets
- Blog posts on the hotel’s blog
- Launch a 24-hour sale on an OTA while simultaneously promoting it on the hotel’s website as described above
- Do an opaque OTA promotion on Priceline or HotWire.

2. Don’t Do Last-Minute Discounts via OTAs or Mobile Discounters

Both hotels and airlines manage perishable inventory, so rather than launching a last-minute Groupon or sale with HotelTonight, why not take a cue from the airline industry? The closer to the date of departure or check-in at the hotel, the higher the rate – not the other way around.

Mobile is by nature a last-minute distribution channel. Most hotel mobile bookings are for the same or following night; therefore, these bookings will occur in any case without discounting. Use mobile SEM and SMS marketing for last-minute reservations, but market your true best available rates and avoid the temptation to discount.

For additional same-day bookings and last-minute sales, opaque sites such as Priceline and HotWire are preferable to flash sale sites as they maintain brand integrity until the booking is completed.

3. Don’t Use Social Media as a Distribution Channel

Social media is not a distribution channel, and it was not designed as a sales platform to sell rooms. Use social media instead for customer engagement, customer service, customer relationship management (CRM), branding, awareness, etc.

Social media is best managed at the property level and needs to be monitored 24/7/365. Establish onsite champions who will speak with a consistent brand voice, provide exemplary customer service and serve as models of the hotel’s product.

Use a full-service digital marketing agency for training, auditing, recommendations and technical design and build-out for custom tabs, backgrounds, widgets, sweepstakes, etc.

Post, tweet, respond and repeat!

4. Don’t Manage Promotions via the OTAs in Isolation

When 24- or 48-hour sales on OTAs are “necessary” to increase occupancy immediately, do not neglect the hotel’s own website. Though Expedia will not allow you to promote the same offer on Priceline, its “rate police” will not stop you from opening the same rate or package on your own site.

Sales on OTAs should be cross-promoted on your website and within the following direct marketing campaigns:

Dedicated SEM campaigns on Google and Yahoo/Bing
An email newsletter to the hotel’s opt-in list
The hotel’s Facebook, Twitter, Google+ pages
Online or email sponsorships to main feeder markets
Blog posts on the hotel’s blog

When looking to immediately increase profits, forgetting the most profitable channel is the hotelier’s biggest downfall. To be informed is to be empowered!

5. Don’t Pin High Hopes on the New “Anti-OTA” Players

Don’t put all your hotel’s eggs into fancy new baskets. New hotel meta-search sites such as RoomKey.com, MyBestHotelRate.com and GlobalHotelExchange.com will have a very difficult time gaining traction with travel consumers in this highly competitive online travel marketplace; therefore, they won’t become the “big players” that deserve your revenue manager’s time. Though perceived as industry-friendly, these new sites provide no unique value proposition to the travel consumer. Additionally, it is prohibitively expensive to establish a new travel consumer brand. The last two major travel brands to be established were Orbitz (2003) and Kayak.com (2004).

Conclusion

While the do’s of hotel distribution are largely self-explanatory, the don’ts have more critical implications. Not all that glitters is gold, and “new” doesn’t always mean improved, particularly in the case of the latest anti-OTA players.

In this dynamic industry, it is important to stay on top of quickly moving trends, prioritize initiatives that generate direct online bookings and be flexible enough to continuously adjust digital marketing campaigns for optimal, time-sensitive results. As always, count on the basics and stick to proven methods to drive exponential ROIs.

Partner with digital marketing experts who will prioritize driving direct online revenues for your hotel, and who will keep you up-to-date on best practices and proactively bring forth ideas to generate the highest website revenues and ROIs.

Work with a team of savvy digital marketers who will show you new ways to recoup lost opportunities, teach you how to stay on top of changes in the industry, and provide your hotel and team with real value, not just a service.

About the Authors and HeBS Digital

Max Starkov is President & CEO, and Lauren DeGeorge is Manager, Digital Marketing. HeBS Digital (Hospitality eBusiness Strategies), the hospitality industry’s leading full-service digital marketing and direct online channel strategy firm, is based in New York City (www.HeBSdigital.com).

HeBS Digital has pioneered many of the best practices in hotel Internet marketing, social and mobile marketing, and direct online channel distribution. The firm has won more than 180 prestigious industry awards for its digital marketing and website design services, including numerous Adrian Awards, Davey Awards, W3 Awards, WebAwards, Magellan Awards, Summit International Awards, Interactive Media Awards, IAC Awards, etc.

A diverse client portfolio of top-tier major hotel brands, luxury and boutique hotel brands, resorts and casinos, hotel management companies, franchisees and independents, and CVBs are benefiting from HeBS Digital’s direct online channel strategy and digital marketing expertise. Contact HeBS Digital’s consultants at (212) 752-8186 or success@hebsdigital.com.

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Tags: 2012 hotel digital marketing, hotel digital marketing
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HeBS Digital Discovers Additional Revenue Through Reservation Recovery

Tuesday, February 28th, 2012

A thought leader in the hospitality industry, HeBS Digital recently kicked off the Adobe Digital Marketing Suite customer blog series with a post entitled, “Recovering Reservations from Visitors Who Abandon the Hotel Reservation Process.”

HeBS Digital uses the Adobe® Digital Marketing Suite to measure not only the results of digital marketing campaigns but also user behavior on hotel websites. This information helps us to improve the conversion process, generating more revenue for our clients. A high volume of visitors to hotel websites initiate bookings but do not complete one. This supports the notion that visitors check rates and availability and leave the site to compare rates with other booking means, as well as check reviews, chat with friends, etc. By analyzing the funnel and pathing reports on SiteCatalyst®, HeBS Digital has developed the HeBS Digital Reservation Recovery Strategy, allowing hotels to stay in touch with their customers after a booking is abandoned.

The Reservation Recovery Strategy works as follows. Because email addresses and names are required on hotel websites to initiate bookings, a branded emailer is sent after a booking is abandoned with a message thanking the guest for visiting the website. Included also in the emailer is a phone number and chat functionality (if applicable) that connects to the hotel’s reservations, as well as an important deep link that will return the shopper back to the point of purchase, allowing the shopper to pick up where left off. In a case study by HeBS Digital, the emailer was sent to deliver within two hours of abandonment and did not offer an incentive or sales message to book—just a simple thank you.

The Reservation Recovery Case Study results were as follows. Out of abandoned bookings, 17% were of reachable quality, having provided an email address prior to exiting. Out of 6,793 reachable bookers, 838 returned, and 192 of those converted, recovering $160,871 in revenue. This conversion rate of 2.8% is consistent with the overall conversion rates for the industry (around 2%), but it cannot be disputed that an additional 2.8% conversion rate amounts to sizeable revenues. If these numbers were to continue, the brand should expect to generate approximately $780,000 by the end of the year from this initiative, with a return on investment of 7800%.

Contact HeBS Digital to learn more about the Reservation Recovery Strategy.

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Can TripAdvisor Transform Itself From an Industry Foe to an Industry Friend?

Tuesday, February 21st, 2012

The following article is Max Starkov’s latest contribution to the “Successful eMarketing” blog on HOTELS magazine’s website.

Since its inception back in February 2000, TripAdvisor has become the world’s largest travel site with over 50 million users, including 16 million mobile users. There is no doubt TripAdvisor was one of the pioneers of user-generated content. The website re-invented customer reviews in the hospitality space and inserted itself in the “last mile” of traveler’s hotel stay planning and booking process. Obviously, a force to be reckoned with.

TripAdvisor began trading as an independent public company on The NASDAQ Global Select Market on December 21, 2011 following its spin-off of Expedia, Inc.

Is TripAdvisor coming out of its divorce from Expedia as a winner or loser? Now that TripAdvisor is an independent public company, has it become more unbiased and industry-friendly? What does the future hold for the company in the midst of important changes in the industry and in travel consumer travel purchasing patterns?

I would like to review some of the concerns I have about the business model, industry and traveler perceptions of the company, as well as its future.

Weakened Market Position

TripAdvisor came out of its split from Expedia with a weakened market position due to a number of reasons, one of which is the proliferation of customer reviews over the past few years:

Google Reviews were introduced in early 2011 and replaced TripAdvisor reviews in Google Places. This has already made a significant dent in number of referrals from Google to TripAdvisor.
All OTA sites have their own reviews, including Expedia’s own “verified” reviews, which already makes TripAdvisor obsolete for many OTA loyalists.
Major hotel chains and brands started introducing their own “verified” reviews, including Marriott and Starwood. All major hotel brands will follow suit in 2012-2013. Will brand-loyal customers still need to go to TripAdvisor?
Popular dining review sites such as Yelp, OpenTable.com, etc. already rule the food & beverage scene.
The social networks (Facebook, Twitter) – already rule the friends & family reviews.

Tainted Perception Among the Traveling Public

Years of tainted, non-verified reviews and “gaming the system” cases have put a dent in the credibility of TripAdvisor. Recently, as a result of the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority’s (ASA) adjudication regarding complaints against “claims on tripadvisor.co.uk,” TripAdvisor was told “not to claim or imply that all the reviews that appeared on the website were from real travelers, or were honest, real or trusted.”

Negative Perception in the Industry

Hotels perceive TripAdvisor as being anti-industry, pro-OTA and one-sided pro-consumer. Remember the annual and much publicized “The Dirtiest Hotels List,” abandoned by TripAdvisor only in January of 2012? For many years former-owner Expedia and other OTAs have dominated the site and still do through the “Show Lowest Price” booking options and the various advertising opportunities that are simply out of reach for small to mid-sized properties. Non-verified and obviously malicious customer reviews have ruined the sleep of many a property manager. Lack of a balanced approach and even an elementary “fair share of voice” algorithm when presenting the customer reviews continue to tarnish hotel reputations: you may have 100 excellent reviews and if you have 1 bad review, it gets prominently displayed on the first page of the hotel profile. The list goes on and on.

Business Model Concerns

TripAdvisor makes money not from its core audience, travel consumers, but primarily from click-based advertising (72%), display-based advertising (17%) and subscription revenue (11%).

Back in the pre-Expedia days, TripAdvisor’s business model was far friendlier toward small and mid-sized advertisers i.e. hotels. A property could buy an enhanced listing with a link to the property website for $99/per year. It could have a banner campaign for $1,000/month.

What is the situation today? TripAdvisor’s current business model is not suited for the highly-fragmented hospitality industry and could be perceived as anti-industry. The site relies heavily and almost exclusively on big OTAs and a handful of big hotel chains and advertisers.

What are the advertising options for the 52,000 plus hotels in the U.S. or the 300,000 hotels worldwide?

The property business listings are the only property-level advertising option today. Unfortunately, this very pricey option provides almost no benefits apart from a few tiny links to the property’s own website, hidden under the property name. The tiny text links of the property business listing are being completely overshadowed by all other advertising initiatives on the hotel profile page:

“Show Lowest Price” reservation widget, dominated by the OTAs.
“Travelers Also Viewed…“ list of competing hotels.
Display (banner) advertising.
CPC (Cost per Click) listings dominated by the OTAs and big advertisers.

The is no doubt that the minimum-spend mandate per advertising campaign, whether click-based or display-based , is way beyond what any single property could possibly afford. At least I do not know of a hotel in the U.S. which can afford to spend $100,000 per year on TripAdvisor alone.

So how could that be? TripAdvisor is focused predominately on hospitality, and yet the business model does not account for two simple facts:

The hospitality industry is highly fragmented.
The bulk of the hotel advertising budget is controlled at the property level (not by the major hotel chains or brands, hotel ownership groups or hotel management companies).

Remember what made Google the advertising powerhouse of today? Google’s micro-campaign advertising business model & superb online self-serve campaign management technology unleashed a multi-billion dollar online advertising phenomenon by enabling thousands of small and mid-sized businesses to become online marketers and promote their services! Via Google AdWords, any advertiser – small or large – could launch a paid search campaign within a few minutes and with a budget as low as $100 or as big as $1 million a month!

With thousands of hotels, which are all small and mid-sized businesses, where is TripAdvisor’s micro-campaign business model and online self-serve campaign management technology to enable the highly-fragmented hospitality industry?

Website Usability Concerns

Ever since the emergence of the “commercial” Internet back in 1995, there have been practices established to distinguish paid content from non-paid content on any website. This is the reason why when you go to CNN or FoxNews you see “Advertisement” under any banner advertising or “Sponsored Listings” above any click-based advertising (CPC).

The emergence of user-generated content added additional requirements to the mix; now sites had to present all three types of content in a differentiated manner:

Official content: articles, descriptions, etc.
User-generated content: customer reviews, comments, feedback, postings, etc.
Advertising content: banners, sponsorships, CPC listings, etc.

When reviewing any of the content pages on TripAdvisor, the user is confronted by a total content mish-mash. There are no “demarcation lines” between the advertising, official and user-generated content, which is against all existing user expectations and best practices in 2012.

The main focus and the main revenue driver for TripAdvisor is the “Show Lowest Price” reservation widget smacked in the most visible part of the site. Needless to say this functionality is available only to OTAs and big hotel chains and advertisers who can afford the minimum spend mandates. You would expect that in 2012 this functionally – crucial to the well-being of the company – would offer a user-friendly interface and seamless integration with the central reservation systems of advertisers.

So what happens when you click on the “Show Lowest Price” button? Six to eight pop-up reservation screens overwhelm the user and provide a true 1990s user experience. Compare this to the elegant user interface of the Kayak.com’s search and availability functionality!

Advertiser Concerns

As described by an overwhelming number of advertisers and industry insiders, TripAdvisor is an advertiser’s nightmare, compared with all other advertising options in the industry today, such as Google AdWords, Bing, Yahoo Travel display advertising, etc. This is because:

Manual contracting process and campaign set-up make the set-up process obstinate.
Advertisers deal with different departments to set up display-based and click-based advertising.
As mentioned, there is no online campaign automation for sign-up and management for click-based advertising similar to Google AdWords.
Decreasing ROAS due to advertising over-saturation (CPC, Show Lowest Price, Banners, Business Listings, AIM Links, etc.).
Increased focus on Show Lowest Price leads which favors OTAs and big hotel chains
No real-time control over daily budget spend.
No real-time reporting.

As already discussed, there are no micro-campaign opportunities for small and mid-sized campaigns (read: hotels), the “Show Lowest Price” functionality is available only to OTAs and big hotel chains and advertisers, and the minimum spend mandates (click- or display-based) are prohibitive.

So what is the situation today, more than 45 days after TripAdvisor’s spin-off?

I truly expected that after its “liberation” from Expedia, TripAdvisor would try everything possible to repair its strained relations with the industry. It would embrace the industry and send a strong, unequivocal message to hoteliers: “I am no longer an OTA subsidiary and I am an industry friend. I am now part of the direct online distribution channel and I am on your side. I will work with you to understand your need periods and help whenever possible. I am unbiased and will work with you to improve the quality and credibility of customer reviews and help you address customer concerns. I will help you reach travelers interested in your destination and in your hotel.”

None of the above happened. TripAdvisor did nothing to pacify or smooth out things with the hospitality industry. No press releases with an “I am a hotel-friendly media company” message. It did not sponsor industry events. It did not announce scholarships for hospitality schools. Many hoteliers do not even know that TripAdvisor is no longer associated with the industry’s “Villain Numero Uno,” Expedia. In other words, business as usual.

So what does the future hold for TripAdvisor?

I have followed TripAdvisor from its inception. I have admired their pioneering role in user-generated media. I have really hoped that TripAdvisor would transform itself into a hospitality industry friend after its spin-off from Expedia.

Unfortunately, today TripAdvisor is still a foe of the industry. TripAdvisor has to make a clear choice today: continue their anti-industry, pro-OTA and one-sided pro-travel consumer policy and business model; or dramatically change its corporate attitude toward the industry and business model.

TripAdvisor needs to transform itself into an industry friend and it needs to do this fast. It needs to overhaul its business model and make the site industry-friendly and advertiser-friendly. It must dramatically improve its perception in the industry and site usability, and invest in online self-serve campaign management technology to enable micro-campaign management for the highly-fragmented hospitality industry. The “Show Lowest Price” functionality must have a better interface with the CRS-s of its advertisers and open it to smaller and mid-sized hotel companies, independent hotels and resorts.

If it fails to do that, in my humble opinion, TripAdvisor will end 2012 more like a 600-pound gorilla and by 2014 will be reduced to mere 400-pound-gorilla status.

Click here to read the entire blog article on HOTELSMag.com, as well as a full selection of Max Starkov’s blog articles on hot industry topics and latest trends in the online channel in hospitality (FREE registration required).

About the Author:

Max Starkov is President & CEO of HeBS Digital (Hospitality eBusiness Strategies), the hospitality industry’s leading direct online channel strategy, full-service digital marketing and website design firm (www.HeBSdigital.com)

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Tags: hotel digital marketing tripadvisor, tripadvisor
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How Google+ Affects the Hotelier’s SEO Strategy

Wednesday, February 1st, 2012

By Sue Wiker

What’s the Issue?

Google recently rolled out “Search Plus Your World,” a layout that includes social recommendations made by users in your Google+ circles. When logged into your Google account, not only do you see results with recommendations…:

…if there is enough interest, there is a separate sidebar dedicated to relevant Google+ pages:

You can also toggle between showing and hiding “personal” results in the upper right-hand corner. Showing these results displays relevant articles/posts/shares on friends in your circles:

This hyper-personalized results page lets you see what your friends are saying about a topic. Since users are much more likely to rely on friends’ recommendations, this is a powerful search tool.

The other effect “Google Search Plus Your World” has on search is how you collect data. When logged in, users’ search terms are encrypted, meaning they show up in analytics tools as “unknown.” With more benefits available to logged-in users, the number of encrypted searches is bound to rise.

Ostensibly the goal behind this new offering is to provide users with a more personalized search; however, the social benefits tend to heavily favor Google.

What Does it Mean for Hoteliers?

With such a large market share, Google is somewhat able to dictate what businesses must do to be successful. With a greater emphasis on social relevancy and personalization comes the expectation that businesses will catch up – sooner rather than later.

As Google seems to be favoring its own social networks, it is imperative that hotels develop a Google+ page. While some hotels have already created pages, the adoption rate is not as quick as Facebook and there is still room to be an “early adopter” in this channel. In no uncertain terms, the more you interact with other Google+ users in your circles, the greater the likelihood that your content & activity will show up in personalized search results.

What is the Solution?

First, create a Google+ business page. Add a quality photo and fill out the ‘About’ section to get started. Good examples to follow here are Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group, Coca-Cola, Ford Motor Company, and the HeBS Digital client, Sorrel River Ranch (screenshot below). This will make it easier for people to find your page and add it to one of their circles.

Second, maintain your Google+ page. Think of it as an extension of your Facebook page or a blog – it needs to be updated regularly to avoid becoming stale. Nothing is worse than having a social media presence where the last activity was months ago. Share interesting articles, comment on activity within your page, and actively reach out to users you find interesting or engaging. The more circles you are in, the higher your chances of showing up in their personalized results. Posts will show up on a main “feed” where users can interact with your posts: comment, share, or +1.

Once you get in a rhythm of sharing, commenting, and expanding your circles, you will be eligible to show up on the right-hand side of search results. The more quality content you create, the more prominent your Google+ page will become.

What Do the HeBS Digital Marketing Experts Recommend?

At HeBS Digital, we stand behind all of the best practices above; simply, create and maintain a Google+ page! Your digital marketing agency should be able to offer you setup and optimization services, as well as ongoing management.

HeBS Digital offers a Google+ Business Page product that includes page setup with a branded main image, optimized hotel description & tagline, and a verified connection to your hotel website to leverage search benefits and increase traffic to your Google+ page. For more information about setting up your Google+ Business Page with HeBS Digital, view our product description, or contact us at sales@hebsdigital.com.

Sue Wiker is Lead Copywriter, Copywriter & SEO Dept. at HeBS Digital

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Are the New “Anti-OTA” Sites Ready to Take the Spotlight?

Monday, January 30th, 2012

The following article is Max Starkov’s latest contribution to the “Successful eMarketing” blog on HOTELS magazine’s website.

Background

On January 11, 2012 six of the top hotel brands in the world launched RoomKey.com, a “hotel search engine website that facilitates booking on better terms than most online travel agencies.” RoomKey.com offers “meta search” for 23,000 properties spread among the six brands. The founding hotel chains include: Choice Hotels, Hilton, Hyatt, IHG, Marriott and Wyndham, which are equal shareholders in the new venture. Later in the week Best Western announced that their 4,000 properties will be joining RoomKey.com. More hotel chains are expected to join in the future.

The “direct connect” technology platform, similar to Jack Rabbit Systems, was acquired from Hotelicopter.com in an asset deal that closed last year.

“The intent all along was to drive down the cost of distribution and provide consumers with a better experience,” said John Davis III, RoomKey.com CEO. “Allowing them to book directly and become a direct guest of the hotel is a game-changer.”

RoomKey.com is Not the Only New Kid on the Block

In late 2011, several other organizations and entities announced the launch of hotel meta-search and direct booking sites meant to circumvent the OTAs:

www.mybesthotelrate.com – Launched by the Asian American Hotel Owners Association (AAHOA), an organization which has over 10,000 members owning 20,000 hotels. The CRS is powered by Citibreak, a reservation technology vendor focused on destinations. The site’s proclaimed objective is to help lessen its member hotels’ dependency on the OTAs. The site will charge participating hotels an undisclosed commission for every booking.

www.globalhotelexchange.com – Launched by Magnuson Hotels, “the world’s largest independent hotel group” with 2000 member hotels. The site will charge a small pass-through fee to the consumer, in the range of $3, to “underwrite the marketing and technology necessary to market and sell rooms without charging hotels a fee. There’s no commission fee charged to the hotel.”

What Would It Take For the New “Anti-OTA” Sites to Become Viable Industry Players

Last year over 30% of Internet bookings for the top hotel brands came from OTAs. Overall, 40% of all hotel bookings in North America came from the OTAs. STR estimated that the industry has lost over $2.5 billion in OTA commissions last year alone.

I have been the most outspoken direct online channel advocate for 16 plus years now. I can only applaud these and any new “direct connect” initiatives by the major hotel brands and other hotel organizations to circumvent the OTA channel and lessen their franchisees’ and members’ dependence on the OTAs. I am rooting wholeheartedly for their success. And yet, I have serious questions and concerns about the viability of these new “anti-OTA” players.

What would it take for the new “anti-OTA” players like RoomKey.com to become viable industry players? In my view there are three main challenges new travel consumer sites like RoomKey.com have to overcome in order to secure sustainability and become real players in the industry:

1. Establishing a Unique Value Proposition in the Marketplace

Let’s talk about the unique value proposition provided by these new anti-OTA players like RoomKey.com. I can clearly see what the value is from hotelier’s perspective: direct connect to the member hotels’ own booking engines at a comparatively “palatable” success fee (commission).

For these anti-OTA players to survive, they have to offer a powerful value proposition from a travel consumer perspective. Obviously, due to contractual obligations with the OTAs for rate parity and the best rate guarantees on the major brand websites, the value proposition cannot come in the form of lower or unique rates.

So what it is the value proposition that RoomKey.com or MyBestHotelRate.com can offer to the traveling public that is above and beyond a typical OTA site?

Last Room Availability: HotelChatter reported earlier this week that while RoomKey.com and Expedia offered the same rates (rate parity), RoomKey.com showed availability for some hotels which were not available on Expedia. With rising travel demand, this could turn into a serious advantage as long as it is not in breach of existing contracts with the OTAs.

Earning Reward Points: Currently merchant reservations via the OTAs do not qualify travel bookers to earn points from the major hotel brands. Since booking through RoomKey.com is booking via the major hotel chain’s CRS, travel consumers will be earning reward points, which is another serious advantage.

Usability: RoomKey.com counts on its easy-to-use search functionality and a clean & elegant look. In addition, the site plans to have independent customer reviews, and the ability to compare, plan and share with friends and family. Would that be sufficient? Travel planning is a very complex process. Hotel bookers need more than hotel location, availability and rate, and peer reviews. Hotels are an integral part of the destination experience hence any hotel booking site needs to offer rich destination information, local activities, events, mapping, etc. In other words it is questionable whether the “clean and elegant” look of these new players will win travelers over the information-rich OTA sites.

Social Media and WOM: Any new travel consumer site needs to appeal to today’s hyper-interactive travel consumers. Is RoomKey.com or MyBestHotelRate.com ready for these new breed of travel consumers? Only time will tell.

Lots of Luck: Any new industry player in the current economic environment needs a ton of “economic luck” in the form of good timing, a business model that is in tune with the times, quick adoption by consumers, ability to take advantage of social media and word-of-mouth (WOM), etc.

2. Securing Serious Ongoing Revenues Needed to Establish a New Travel Consumer Brand

It is prohibitively expensive to establish a new travel consumer brand. The last two major travel brands to be successfully established were Orbitz (2003) and Kayak.com (2004). In addition to the initial investments for technology, website design and architecture, hosting and analytics, there is a serious need for ongoing operational and promotional expenses.

I doubt any RoomKey.com founding member is going to promote RoomKey.com on their own since this site features 5 of their biggest competitors. No AAHOA member hotel will promote MyBestHotelRate.com wholeheartedly, since this site features concrete competitors to the member’s own properties.

RoomKey.com and the other “anti-OTA” players need to promote themselves – in other words, they need to generate revenue in the form of commissions or “success fees” in order to pay for the sites’ operational expenses, advertising, etc.

How much of a commission would suffice? RoomKey.com earns a commission from the booking, which as described by the company “is at a more supplier-friendly rate than what third party OTAs are offering, as it redirects users to the hotel company’s website for a direct booking.” Magnuson’s Global Hotel Exchange will be offered “at no cost to hotels struggling with economic instability” and will charge travel consumers a small “pass-through fee in the range of $3.”

In my view, any commission below 10%-15% would generate too small of a revenue stream for a site that is making baby steps and is trying to divert bookings from well-entrenched OTAs.

3. Overcoming the Reaction and Legal Challenges by the OTAs

If history is any indicator (remember Orbitz?) as to how the OTAs would react to the launch of RoomKey.com and similar industry sites, I believe the OTAs will ask the Justice Dept to look into these new services because they “smell of collusion” by and among major industry players.

A Word About MyBestHotelRate.com Initiative by AAHOA

I am fully aware of what AAHOA stands for as an organization and respect AAHOA’s objective to help lessen its member hotels’ dependency on the OTAs. In my humble opinion, creating a new AAHOA consumer brand website does not solve the main underlying issue: lack of understanding among AAHOA member hoteliers about how to take full advantage of the direct online channel, what are the best practices, and ROI-centric initiatives. How to make sense of this very convoluted online travel marketplace? Is Google Hotel Finder good or bad for me? Are flash sales sites like Groupon and Living Social good or bad for my hotel? Why is it detrimental for my hotel to use open-discount last-minute sales sites like HotelTonight.com? What is the correct use of social media – is it a distribution channel or a customer engagement channel? How to take advantage of Google Places?

This is where AAHOA can play a crucial role by educating its members on direct online channel strategies, vanity website best practices, SEO, SEM, social and mobile marketing, online media and re-targeting, email marketing, etc.

Diverting online travel consumers from the OTAs to a new consumer website MyBestHotelRate.com is not only prohibitively expensive, but it does not help AAHOA members help themselves fight their addiction to the OTA distribution channel. Instead, AAHOA should spend its organizational funds to develop robust educational and professional development programs for its member hotels, focused on the direct online channel, hotel digital marketing, and industry best practices and notable trends.

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