Smartphone use continues to rise this year, especially in regards to using smartphones to participate in social media channels. 2012 has truly been the year of SoLoMo and hoteliers are acting accordingly by focusing on mobile initiatives such as website development.

According to a HeBS Digital Industry Pulse Poll performed last month, hoteliers are more interested in mobile website development than any other aspect of mobile marketing, including mobile app development, mobile banner advertising and other initiatives.

HeBS Digital Industry Pulse Poll Results, August 2012

Nearly two-thirds of those surveyed were most interested in mobile website development, while just less than one-third were most curious about mobile apps. A combined ten percent of respondents chose mobile banner advertising, analytics, SEO, SEM, and SMS marketing.

Hoteliers’ interest in mobile website development signals their endorsement of a mobile marketing initiative supported by HeBS Digital from the start of the mobile channel’s emergence. As HeBS Digital President & CEO Max Starkov wrote in his “Hotelier’s 2012 Mobile Marketing MUST Dos and Don’ts,” developing and maintaining a quality mobile website is much more important than building, maintaining and promoting a more labor-intensive mobile app.

The results of the Industry Pulse Poll largely mirror that of the 6^th Annual Benchmark Survey on Hotel Digital Marketing Budget Planning, where the highest percentage of hoteliers fit a mobile site and a mobile booking engine into their budget planning.

The Mobile Website: An Integral Piece of the Puzzle

Mobile sites generate substantial numbers of incremental bookings. As more and more people turn to smartphones as their primary channel for on-the-go purchases and convenient information-gathering, the numbers of bookings will continue to grow.

It’s crucial for hoteliers to cater to today’s hyperactive travel consumer by creating and maintaining an optimized mobile site that downloads quickly, provides easy-to-digest text, minimal (and yet eye-catching) visual content and a simple mobile booking system. With a fully functioning mobile website, hoteliers can deliver relevant information to and derive bookings from a fast-growing segment of on-the-go customers.

The Mobile App: An Unnecessary Expense

More than 90 percent of users prefer mobile browsing over using a mobile app (CEM4Mobile Analytics). Not only are apps very expensive to build, maintain and promote, but many are usable only on specific devices. Travel apps simply cannot compete with more popular apps such as social media, entertainment and game apps that users favor. It’s no surprise the industry is turning away from mobile apps in favor of the affordability, efficiency and ROI-driving potential afforded by hotel mobile websites.

Other Important Aspects

While hoteliers were less interested in other mobile marketing initiatives, these remain important linchpins in any successful mobile marketing strategy. Optimized local content, SMS marketing, mobile banner advertising, SEM and SEO are efficient customer-engagement avenues, and examining mobile analytics offers crucial insights to the success of these initiatives.

Take Action and Realize ROIs

By this point, the mobile channel has already become a prominent travel planning and hotel distribution channel, especially in drive-in and last-minute travel markets. The U.S. hospitality industry has seen staggering growth rates in leisure and unmanaged business travel bookings via mobile devices, with projected totals of $1,318 million in 2012 and more than $2,155 million in 2013 (63 percent year-over-year growth).

The numbers prove it – hoteliers must integrate mobile marketing with the rest of their hotel’s marketing initiatives or risk losing market share. Building an optimized mobile website with a mobile booking engine should no longer be considered an ‘extra’ in the budget; it should be a core marketing initiative. Once a mobile website is in place, consider utilizing mobile SEM, analytics, banner advertising and SMS marketing to capture incremental revenue through mobile and voice reservations that would have otherwise gone to the competition or the OTAs.

The first step toward realizing ROIs through the mobile channel is to reach out to a leading mobile marketing and full-service hotel digital marketing firm for advice.

Asher Fusco is Senior Copywriter, Copywriting & SEO Department at HeBS Digital 

Having just passed the mid-year mark, now is a good time to reflect on how events in 2012 have made a significant impact on hoteliers and how they should plan their digital marketing budgets for next year. The emergence of SoLoMo (the convergence of social, local and mobile); tablets as a distinct marketing and distribution category; new social media platforms such as Google+ and Pinterest; and ongoing Google algorithm updates that have made many hotel websites obsolete are just some of the topics that have made headlines so far this year.

This is also the perfect time to review your business goals and objectives. What did you achieve in 2012 that you would like to continue and even improve upon next year? What business goals did you not achieve? Were you often distracted by the ‘next big thing’ and, as a result, did you lose sight of hotel digital marketing fundamentals such as keeping your property’s SEO strategy up to date?

This article provides guidance on how to structure your budget in 2013. Next year’s digital marketing budget should focus on driving direct online bookings and achieving serious ROIs via structuring your initiatives in three main categories: “Core” Digital Marketing Initiatives; “Business-Need” Digital Marketing Initiatives; and Capital Investments, Strategy and Operations, including website re-designs and enhancements, day-to-day website operations, campaign management and professional development.

This Year’s Good News and Not So Good News

To start with the good news, travel demand is up. This year the hospitality industry has been enjoying a period of growth in all three key performance metrics.  In Q2, 2012, the U.S. hotel industry’s occupancy increased 3.1 percent to 65.1 percent, average daily rate rose 4.7 percent to US$106.41 and revenue per available room was up 7.9 percent to US$69.32 (STR). Industry experts anticipate a continuation of these trends in the second half of 2012, though probably at a somewhat slower pace.

So what’s the bad news?

At a time when online travel demand is growing and hoteliers should have more control than ever over their online channel distribution strategies, and be capable of extracting maximum online revenues from local, state and regional opportunities, we are seeing the opposite.

Independent hotels are overly OTA-dependent.

Independent hotels have traditionally been easy prey for the OTAs due to lack of focus in and understanding of the economics and cost-effectiveness of the direct online channel, as well as ignorance of basic online distribution rules such as rate parity, and weak negotiating power with the OTAs. Last year, for example, more than 76 percent of online bookings for non-branded hotels came from the OTAs and just 24 percent came from the hotels’ own websites (STR, HSMAI Foundation).

This isn’t to say hoteliers are not in a position to put up a fight. Rising travel demand means that OTAs’ merchant commissions are already shrinking due to push back from major hotel brands and the industry as a whole. Hoteliers have realized that flash sales sites and last-minute discounters are bad for business and lead to severe price and brand erosion and loss in business in other channels. Contracts with the OTAs are up for renewal this year and the major hotel brands should be pushing for commissions below 15 percent. Independent hoteliers should not pay merchant commissions above 20 percent. Will hoteliers finally put a stop to this extraordinary leak in revenues to the OTAs and third parties?

Independent hoteliers must budget for a major expansion in their direct online channel efforts through the rest of 2012 and in 2013 if they want to decrease their over-dependence on the OTAs and the bottom-line killing flash sales sites such as Groupon, Living Social, etc., and last-minute discounters such as HotelTonight.com.

Branded hotels are overly brand-dependent.

Major hotel brands are doing a good job of brand building and online marketing at global and national levels, but simply do not have the bandwidth to cover regional, state and local markets. Branded and franchised hotels that are over-reliant on their brands’ online marketing efforts are missing out on serious incremental online revenues from local, state and regional initiatives. For example, HeBS Digital has a number of very pro-active franchised hotel clients, which consistently enjoy higher revenues from their vanity websites than from Brand.com.

Hoteliers – branded or independent – must focus on the direct online channel. This means employing best practices in the online distribution channel and increasing direct online revenues via hotel website re-designs and enhancements; allocating funds to SEO, SEM, re-targeting, mobile marketing, etc.; and utilizing the OTAs only as part of a balanced distribution strategy.

Continuing reliance on tired and obsolete advertising formats.

Another important concern is that many hoteliers continue to rely on offline advertising media, especially print media.  Last year advertisers in the U.S. over-spent by more than $20 billion in print-media advertising while under-spending by more than $20 billion in Internet and mobile media.

Inertia from the past and lack of understanding that the travel consumers have migrated to the online, social and mobile channels are the main reasons for some hoteliers to continue to rely on offline advertising formats. Recently Starwood announced that the brand would be spending 75% of its marketing dollars in the digital space.

How Are Your Peers Allocating Their Budgets?

In the HeBS Digital’s Sixth Annual Benchmark Survey on Hotel Digital Marketing Budget Planning and Best Practices, nearly one-third of respondents planned to spend as much as 49 percent of their advertising and marketing budgets on digital marketing initiatives (including website design and optimization). For the third year in a row, ‘economic constraints’ continue to negatively affect digital marketing budgets more than any other reason (e.g. last year’s budget, what peers are doing, property renovations and non-marketing constraints).

The Benchmark Survey shows that hoteliers are going back to the basics and putting budget dollars into core initiatives that produce the best results and the highest ROIs. Here are the top five initiatives your peers consider of highest priority, based on how hoteliers answered to the question “Of your total Internet marketing budget, where did you spend your money?”

33.0%    Website re-design/design

27.2%    SEO

26.0%    SEM (paid search)

24.3%    Email Marketing

15.7%    Display Advertising (banners)

Naturally, “fixing” the hotel website remains of paramount importance to hoteliers. Anything you do online today – from social media to banner advertising to email marketing – leads back to the hotel website. The results in favor of SEO and SEM show that hoteliers are paying attention to the importance of search engines for revenue generation, and how changes in the search engine algorithms affect their SEO strategies, and therefore we see an increase in budgets dedicated to SEO and Local Search.

What about all of the “hot” initiatives like social media and mobile? Hoteliers are ranking those in the top 10 initiatives they have spent their marketing dollars on, immediately after the five “core” initiatives mentioned above:

15.6%    Mobile Marketing

14.0%    Local Search/Linking

13.4%    Social Media

12.3%    Retargeting/Remarketing Advertising

12.0%    Online Video

The Benchmark Survey results are supported by the overall growth in digital marketing spending by U.S. advertisers as a whole. According to a recent study published by eMarketer, US online spending will grow 23.3% in 2012 to reach $39.5 billion by the end of the year. The greatest increases in ad spending are for social media, email, and search marketing. Mobile is also seeing an increase in spend. Spending on traditional direct marketing such as direct mail, TV and radio will remain flat (eMarketer).

Building Your 2013 Digital Marketing Plan & Budget: Three Main Criteria

What line items should you include in your 2013 hotel digital marketing budget in order to drive as many revenues as possible through the direct online channel?

Your 2013 budget should take a three-silo approach and include:

1. The Core Digital Marketing Campaigns: This portion of the budget should include tried and true initiatives that have been proven to drive high ROIs. Whether they are monthly or year-round initiatives, such as SEM on Google and Bing/Yahoo, the “Show Prices” CPC program on TripAdvisor, or ad hoc initiatives such as a tablet website, these items must be included in your 2013 budget.
2. Business-Need Driven Marketing Campaigns: This part of the budget should be based on concrete business needs for the property, not advertising driven. Taking into account factors such as seasonality, area events that tend to bring business to your hotel, or customer segment need areas (such as meeting or group planning, family travel or weddings), you can never be 100% prepared in advance for what your business needs will be. In Q1 2013, will you need more weekend bookings? Once summer arrives, will family travelers be a target segment?  Once you are able to determine your business needs, only then should you launch a multi-channel marketing campaign to achieve your goals for that quarter.

Also important to note – with the rapid changes in our industry, one cannot always prepare for the new initiatives that may need to be placed into the budget at any moment.

3. Capital Investments, Consulting & Operations: The line items in this part of the budget include those that are necessary to keep your website “healthy,” such as website re-designs, enhancements and technology upgrades as well as initiatives that don’t produce direct revenue yet are essential to the success of your property, such as consulting, analytics and hosting. Scrimping on these initiatives can jeopardize the performance of all other budget line items.

The Core Digital Marketing Campaigns & Initiatives

Search Engine Marketing (SEM):

Recommended share of the 2013 hotel digital marketing budget: 25%-30%.

There are certain digital marketing initiatives which are proven winners, no matter what the state of the industry is or what the latest trends are. An example of one of these fundamentals is SEM. The search engines still rule distribution and are still the key driver of direct online hotel distribution. This includes mobile SEM, which must link to special mobile landing pages on your mobile website.

With the search engines maintaining such an important role in the direct online channel, search engine marketing (SEM) continues to be the most efficient means of delivering a targeted marketing message via the online channel, in terms of both traffic generation and revenue production.  By following industry best practices and optimizing your campaigns on a consistent basis, you can ensure that your SEM campaigns continue to drive high ROIs.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO): 8%-10%

The recent Google Panda updates (Panda 3.9 just launched) have raised the bar for hotel websites, demanding not only deep and relevant content on the hotel website but also unique and engaging copy.  The Google Venice update had a heavy impact on the localization of search. In summary, it means that Google will try its ‘best’ to serve you localized results based on your location, whether or not your search query is geo-targeted (i.e. you could type in ‘hotel’ and Google bases search results off of your location).

Hoteliers are also challenged to keep their hotel website consistently updated with fresh content as this significantly affects SEO. This means that budget dollars need to be allocated to keeping the website current or investing in a tool such as the HeBS Digital CMS Premium which allows hoteliers to add and edit both textual and visual content on a 24/7 basis, publish/un-publish new special offers, create packages and promotions, control the featured special promo tile on the home page, manage the photo selection on the website, and automatically push new specials and promotions to the hotel social media profiles and mobile website.

Case Study: Search Engine Revenues

In spite of all the new and trendy digital marketing initiatives and formats that overwhelm hoteliers nowadays, the good old search engines generated the most revenues for HeBS Digital’s client portfolio consisting of thousands of hotel properties.

Here is the search engine (Google, Bing and Yahoo) year-to-date contribution as percentage from the total website revenues, as of July 2012:

• SEO revenues: 32.7%
• SEM revenues: 22.9%

A robust content strategy, supported by adequate technology and marketing funds, can make all the difference and allow the hotel to maximize its revenues from the search engines.

“Show Prices” CPC Program on TripAdvisor: 5%-10%

Take advantage of the ability to dramatically increase your visibility on TripAdvisor, the largest travel website in the world. Adding a property listing in the “Show Prices” functionality on the hotel pages on TripAdvisor serves a dual role: on one hand it brings highly qualified online travel consumers directly to the property’s booking engine, and on the other hand this listing levels the playing field with the OTAs and provides a direct booking option to the site’s users.

SoLoMo: 3%-4%

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.

Local search generates 3-5 percent of total website revenues across HeBS Digital’s client portfolio. Consumers perform more than 3 billion local searches every month (Google). Google, Bing and Yahoo have placed much more emphasis on their local search business profiles, meaning that hoteliers have had to pay much more attention to the ongoing management and enhancement of these profiles or their websites would plummet in the search engine rankings.  Continuously optimizing these profiles as well as enhancing your property’s listing on the main data providers is vital to your hotel’s SEO strategy and must take precedent next year in your budget.

Local content is also the foundation of mobile content for the search engines, making it extremely important to any hotelier’s mobile website and SEO strategy.

Mobile Website and Mobile Marketing: 7%-8%

The mobile channel has already become a real travel planning and hotel distribution channel, especially for drive-in and last-minute travel markets. The U.S. hospitality industry is experiencing staggering growth rates in leisure and unmanaged business travel bookings via the mobile channel:

2010: $99 million

2011: $753 million

2012: $1,368 million

2013: $2,155 million (PhoCusWright)

HeBS Digital’s own data shows that having a hotel mobile website generates incremental revenue through mobile and voice reservations which, without a well-optimized property mobile site with rich content, would have easily gone to the competition or the OTAs.

The question of whether a hotel or a travel supplier needs a mobile website has already been categorically answered: Mobile sites generate serious incremental bookings. The mobile web adheres to different rules than the conventional desktop Internet. Mobile users have even shorter attention spans and less time to browse than traditional desktop users. The mobile web features a number of limiting factors such as slower speeds, yet-to-be-perfected mobile browsers, smaller displays, multi-step booking and more.

The biggest mistake hoteliers make is not having a mobile site at all. Accessing a “conventional” website via a mobile device, even the iPhone (320 x 480 pixels), often results in an undesirable user experience (the inability to find information needed) and a predictable outcome (abandoned website visits and reservations). Today’s hyperactive travel consumers rely on mobile sites that download quickly, provide short and concise textual content, minimalistic visual content and easy-to-use booking engines.

Content quality is the biggest “must-have” for a mobile site. The Google Panda algorithm updates favor mobile websites with rich visual and textual content that is fresh, engaging and optimized for the search engines.

Having a hotel mobile website – even if developed according to industry’s best practices – is only the beginning. Just like with the mobile website, the mobile Web abides by different rules that require mobile Web-specific marketing initiatives.

Here are the top mobile marketing initiatives hoteliers should focus on in 2013 and beyond: mobile SEO, mobile SEM (paid search), mobile link building to the mobile site from mobile directories and sites, and local content optimization. Mobile search engines favor and predominantly serve local content; therefore, hoteliers need to optimize their local content and listings on the search engines, main data providers, and local business directories.

Tablet Website Enhancement: 3%-5%

More and more consumers are using tablets to plan and purchase travel, and hoteliers must deliver a customized, user-friendly experience on these devices.  One in five Americans will use a tablet by the end of 2012 – and of this growing population, more than half reported shopping on their tablets once  a week and 12 percent shopped daily (eMarketer).

Search engines and many major media sites consider tablets as a separate, distinct device category, characterized with its own unique user behavior and best practices for user experience and content delivery. According to Google’s company data, 7 percent of all searches already come from tablets versus 14 percent from mobile devices and 79 percent via desktops (Q1, 2012).

Put it in your budget to either enhance your desktop website for the touch-screen tablet environment or build a tablet-only version of the property’s website, in addition to the desktop and mobile sites, all managed via a single digital content depository-enabled CMS.

Email Marketing: 2%-3%

The grand-daddy of all digital marketing formats, email marketing generates 3-5 percent of total website revenues across HeBS Digital’s client portfolio. Email marketing is still an essential component of the hotelier’s direct online channel strategy, and an easy and affordable way to send messages to your key customer segments.  Email marketing campaigns still generate significant ROIs for hoteliers, making this initiative a crucial line item in almost every hotelier’s budget.

Smarten up your email marketing strategy by introducing reservation recovery email initiative, and increase your opt-in list by implementing a modal acquisition capability on the website.

Remarketing & Retargeting: 5%-10%

Online media campaigns that are not business-needs driven (more on this below) should be launched using the latest targeting capabilities, including retargeting, also known as remarketing. The Google Display Network offers the ideal symbiosis between re-targeting text ads and banner ads to target online travel consumers already familiar with your property and brand.

With these campaigns, you may target users after they leave your website. Messages are customized based on which part of the site users visited, and whether or not they made a booking. Retargeting campaigns aid in increasing brand awareness and loyalty, and move users through the purchase conversion funnel.

A recent survey by Econsultancy and Responsys showed that 70 percent of companies believe that integrating search and display had the most positive impact on their display advertising.

Online Video: 3%-4%

Short videos of your hotel and its amenities (best practices require not a single 30-minute video, but shorter 30- to 60- second videos illustrating different aspects of the hotel product: weddings, spa, entertainment, etc.) certainly influence travel bookings.  It is now more affordable than ever to produce and showcase a video on your website. There are high-quality vendors available that will come to your property, provide a script, film videos, edit and provide to you in a usable format for your site.

Reputation Management: 2%-3%

In 2013, there must be room in the budget for managing the property’s online reputation and presence in leading social media and review sites. Over the last few years, online customer reviews and social media have reached an unprecedented level of awareness within the hotel industry. With Google+ Local now utilizing Zagat reviews, and Bing now incorporating Yelp reviews, you are taking quite a big risk if you are not monitoring and responding to reviews.

Consider a solution such as Revinate or ReviewPro to help you manage the overwhelming amount of reviews and social media mentions you may not want to manage manually. HeBS Digital also helps clients utilize these tools effectively by providing analysis, customer intelligence, competitive benchmarking and automated reporting.

Business-Needs Driven Digital Marketing Campaigns & Initiatives

Recommended share of the 2013 hotel digital marketing budget: 15%-25%

Business-need campaigns help the property tackle business and occupancy needs that arise because of seasonality or group cancelations, weekend vs. weekday occupancy issues, as well as needs related to any key customer segment: meeting planners, wedding planners, leisure travel, corporate travelers, etc.

Multi-channel marketing campaigns are the most effective way to address such a business need, increase reach, and boost bookings & revenue for a need period. In order to effectively build traction across multiple channels, hoteliers must first identify what the business need is and then determine an online marketing goal.

Different media channels will help you achieve different goals. The question is – what are your property’s goals?  Once you determine your goals it’s important to brainstorm a multi-channel campaign that utilizes the right online channels effectively and, most importantly, promotes one cohesive campaign message across these channels.

When strategizing a business-need campaign, take into consideration how the fundamentals can play a role in achieving success. For instance, should you launch an SEM campaign to promote this initiative? Would adding a section to the website build awareness and increase the SEO visibility of this campaign? Once you’ve determined the fundamentals, you can begin exploring what media channels are right for your goals and begin building your marketing plan.

A ‘Business-Needs’ campaign should be launched at least once per quarter. Here is an example of what a ‘Business-Needs Driven’ campaign might look like:

Business Issue:

Property X needs to drive leisure bookings for the upcoming month – they just realized they are only at 60 percent occupancy!

Campaign Solution:

• Search Engine Marketing (SEM): Create a campaign with a limited time offer, package or special and drive consumers directly to the property website. Include the rate and package details in the ad copy and consider geo-targeting to drive-in markets (it may be too late to capture a fly-in market).

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Add several search engine optimized landing pages to your site with the details of the promotion, as well as targeting the audiences most likely to convert: weekend travelers, senior citizens, family travelers, special occasions, museum goers, etc. This will increase the overall conversion rate of the campaign since all other line items in this campaign’s budget will drive to these particular content pages.

• Online Media: Launch online media campaigns with the limited-time offer. Online media is a key touch point to increase the reach of your marketing campaigns, target key customer segments, and increase the effectiveness of other online marketing initiatives. Advertising on the Google Display Network allows you to target and refine your audience to show ads to the most relevant users. With display advertising you can reach key demographics based on interest, keywords, and other metrics.

• Email Marketing: Send an email newsletter to your opt-in list which is short, to the point and includes only the details of your limited time promotion.

• Travel Consumer Deal Alerts: send an online press announcement promoting the limited time offer. Travel writers and bloggers are “feasting” on pro-active travel information like this one.
  • Mobile Marketing: For the right campaign, mobile marketing can effectively build traction when targeting local feeder markets, up-selling onsite accommodations such as a spa and restaurant, and increasing last-minute bookings. Launch an SMS text campaign to your mobile opt-in list with the last-minute offer. Keep in mind the immediate, hyper-local nature of mobile that allows us to reach our customers anywhere, anytime – making this an ideal way to quickly reach potential guests with your campaign.

• Social Media: Social media is an excellent channel to virally and quickly promote your campaign, increase awareness, and engage your target customer segments. It is also a powerful tool in generating buzz, capturing customer information, driving website traffic, and ultimately helping to increase any campaign’s revenue. A Facebook sweepstakes, for example, will not only help promote your campaign, it will also increase your fan base and build your email and mobile opt-in list for future promotions.

• Interactive Initiatives: Initiatives such as contests and sweepstakes will generate buzz for any campaign. This type of initiative will also increase traffic to the site, encourage repeat visits, increase time spent on the hotel website, and ultimately increase bookings overall.

It is important to remember that by leaving room in the budget for these ‘Business-Needs Driven Campaigns,’ you are allowing for flexibility in your budget to actually launch initiatives that will drive ROI when your property needs it the most. Most of these initiatives will serve a dual purpose: they will quickly stimulate bookings and at the same time increase overall awareness of your property – ultimately resulting in results beyond the life of the campaign.

Capital Investments, Consulting & Operations

The Hotel Website:

Recommended share of the 2013 hotel digital marketing budget: 15%-25%

The explosion of the mobile and social media channels and the emergence of the new tablet channel presented a major challenge to hotel marketers: Creating and managing digital content throughout three distinct distribution and marketing channels,  as well as publishing the hotel’s latest special offers and promotions on the hotel’s social media profiles.

Today’s hotel website needs fresh content, rich media and current promotions. The hotel’s special offers, promotions and packages need to be marketed across all channels, from the desktop website to the mobile site and social media. The hotel’s rich media assets (hi-res photos, PDFs, graphics, videos, etc.) need to be pushed to all marketing and distribution channels, including the hotel website, social media, OTAs, GDS, etc.

It is not just about having any hotel website. Most hoteliers who should have a website already have one. The question is, what kind of a website do you need today? Today the hotel website MUST:

• Accommodate new travel purchasing behavior by the increasingly hyper-interactive travel consumers
• Employ the latest website and digital marketing technology
• Handle stringent new demands imposed by the search engines (e.g. Google Panda Update)
• Generate maximum revenues from the direct online channel
• Act as the hub of the hotel’s multi-channel digital marketing efforts

Many hoteliers are mistakenly led to believe that not investing in the property’s website re-design or optimization is actually saving money. Wrong! Not investing in your website is losing money and severely damaging the hotel’s bottom line.

Your old and tired 1-2 year old property website cannot possibly meet the new requirements and most likely has dropped off the map, i.e. experienced deteriorating search rankings.

Case Study: Need for Website Content & Digital Marketing Asset Management System

There is a growing need for centralized website content and digital marketing asset management technology as hotel marketers are challenged to create and manage content; store and distribute the hotel digital marketing assets; and circulate special offers and packages, events and happenings, all through several distinct channels:

• own “desktop” website
• mobile website
• tablet website
• social media profiles on Facebook, Twitter, Google+
• hi-res photos to the OTAs and GDSs (optional)

Obviously, hoteliers need more than just a simple website content management system (CMS) capable of adding and editing textual and visual content. HeBS Digital’s proprietary CMS Premium offers all of the above capabilities and acts as a centralized web content and digital marketing asset management system and was specifically developed to accommodate the Google Panda and “Freshness” updates by allowing hotel marketers to maintain fresh content on the hotel website.

Consulting: 8%-10%

The HeBS Digital’s Sixth Annual Benchmark Survey showed that there was also an increase in budget dollars (19.9%) going toward the services of an outside Internet marketing agency, showing that hoteliers recognize the speed at which our industry progresses and the need to work with dedicated, experienced professionals in this area to stay on top of trends and achieve high ROIs.

Work with a full-service hotel digital marketing firm that will actively help you create and manage a budget that makes the most sense for your property. This firm should also teach you the latest trends and best practices so you can achieve high ROIs and incremental revenue growth.

Website Operations: 2%-3%

A small yet necessary budget for website hosting and maintenance needs to be included in the budget. Website maintenance may not always be planned. For instance, this year’s Americans with Disabilities Act update meant that every hotel website needed to be updated to include their ADA amenities and services, including a landing page describing ADA-friendly accommodations. You may also avoid the need to pay for website updates by investing in a CMS solution that not only allows for total control over the hotel website, but also functions as a centralized digital marketing asset depository and dashboard to store, manage and distribute all of the hotel’s digital marketing assets.

Analytics & Campaign Tracking: 2%-3%

There is no such thing as a free lunch. A leading analytics tool such as Adobe’s Digital Marketing Suite powered by Omniture allows hoteliers to effectively measure the results of their digital marketing efforts. This in turn allows for the necessary and quick shifts in marketing funds from less effective marketing campaigns to campaigns with higher ROIs.

In summary, here is a quick snapshot of how you should allocate your 2013 digital marketing budget:

Conclusion

In 2013, the hotel’s digital marketing budget should be separated into three silos. The core of the budget should focus on the fundamentals of hotel digital marketing that drive serious ROIs; there should be a budget allotted for specific business needs and unforeseen challenges; and a portion needs to be set aside for capital projects such as website re-design and enhancements, consulting and campaign management, and day-to-day website operations and professional development.

Keep in mind that while the industry is enjoying growth in all three key performance indicators, the economy still remains a factor when planning the 2013 budget. That means that the digital marketing budget must remain somewhat flexible (depending on business needs and campaign results) and that every dollar must be spent wisely, taking the dynamics of the marketplace and the industry’s latest best practices into account.

Partner with a digital marketing firm that tackles its clients’ challenges and celebrates successes as if they were their own. A firm that works extra hard to deliver ROI on every dollar, focuses on initiatives that drive ROI, and helps hoteliers transform their Internet presence into their hotel’s most effective distribution channel.

About the Authors and HeBS Digital

Max Starkov is President & CEO and Mariana Mechoso Safer is Vice President, Marketing of HeBS Digital, the hospitality industry’s leading full-service digital marketing and direct online channel strategy firm based in New York City (www.HeBSdigital.com). Margaret Mastrogiacomo, Senior Manager, Interactive Media & Creative Strategy at HeBS Digital, also contributed to this article.

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 over 200 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.

Earlier this month I presented at EyeForTravel’s Online Marketing Strategies for Travel 2012 Conference in Miami. The session, titled “Best Practices for Mobile Strategies in 2012 and Beyond,” focused on the expanding mobile distribution channel and explored tablets as a distinct digital marketing device. This article is a continuation of my thoughts shared at the conference, as well as an attempt to help hoteliers realign their mobile marketing strategies mid-year, by providing valuable action steps they can take now and beyond 2012.

The Mobile Marketing and Distribution Channel is Exploding

The mobile channel is not just a mere extension of the traditional “desktop” channel. Morgan Stanley projects that by 2014, mobile web users will surpass “traditional” desktop Internet users. This exploding distribution and marketing channel has its own rules and best practices, providing immense revenue opportunities and competitive advantages to smart hotel and travel marketers.

Hotel guests and travel consumers in general are already mobile-ready, and hoteliers and travel suppliers have to respond adequately to this growing demand for mobile travel services. Fifty percent of U.S. adults and 80% of business travelers already have smartphones. Twenty-four percent of leisure travelers and 36% of business travelers have already purchased travel via their mobile devices (PhoCusWright).

The mobile channel has become a real travel planning and hotel distribution channel, especially for drive-in and last-minute travel markets. The U.S. hospitality industry is experiencing staggering growth rates in leisure and unmanaged business travel bookings via the mobile channel:

2010: $99 million
2011: $753 million
2012: $1,368 million
2013: $2,155 million (PhoCusWright)

HeBS Digital’s own data shows that having a hotel mobile website generates incremental revenue through mobile and voice reservations which, without a well-optimized property mobile site with rich content, would have easily gone to the competition or the OTAs. In Q1 2012, more than 5% of website visits and 5% of online bookings came from mobile devices across HeBS Digital’s hotel client portfolio versus 4.5% of hotel website visits and 3% of online bookings in 2011. These numbers continued to grow in Q2 of this year.

Hoteliers must understand that in hospitality, the mobile channel provides three distinct opportunities to market to and service consumers:

1. Mobile marketing and distribution, including the mobile website, focused on generating room bookings, RFPs and other group/event leads
2. Location-based mobile services, typically focused on providing information like mapping and directions via geo-fencing and location-aware, or upselling services/amenities at the property to current guests, as well as check-ins
3. Mobile CRM and customer service: resolving customer service issues at the property in real-time

The do’s and don’ts in this article focus exclusively on the first opportunity, mobile marketing and distribution.

Do’s of Hotel Mobile Marketing & Distribution:

1. Budget for Mobile Marketing Initiatives

HeBS Digital’s 6th Annual Benchmark Survey on Hotel Digital Marketing Budget Planning results demonstrate that mobile marketing is a very important tool in the hotelier’s digital marketing arsenal. This year, over a quarter of hoteliers fit a mobile site (26%) and a mobile booking engine (27.4%) into their budget planning:

The results of the survey also identify a positive trend: fewer hoteliers (11% in 2012 vs. 38.4% in 2011) did not plan any mobile marketing initiatives this year.

In 2012, based on the property’s concrete feeder markets and key customer segments, hotels should be spending at least 10% of their overall digital marketing budgets on mobile marketing initiatives, including on optimization and upgrades to the mobile website, mobile SEO and SEM, mobile display advertising, SMT text marketing initiatives, etc. In 2013, hotels should allocate up to 15% of their overall digital marketing budgets for mobile marketing initiatives.

2. Focus on the Hotel’s Mobile Website

The question of whether a hotel or a travel supplier needs a mobile website has already been categorically answered: mobile sites generate serious incremental bookings. The mobile web adheres to different rules than the conventional desktop Internet. Mobile users have even shorter attention spans and less time to browse than traditional desktop users. The mobile web features a number of limiting factors, such as slower speeds, yet-to-be-perfected mobile browsers, smaller displays, multi-step booking and more.

The biggest mistake hoteliers make is not having a mobile site at all. Today’s hyperactive travel consumers rely on mobile sites that download quickly, provide short and concise textual content, minimalistic visual content and easy-to-use booking engines.

In June of 2012, more than 85% of desktop Internet users had a screen resolution of 1280×1024 pixels or higher. Trying to squeeze your wide-screen “desktop” hotel website onto the tiny screen of a mobile device is a futile exercise that inevitably destroys usability and conversion rates. Our analysis shows that more than 90% of mobile users access the hotel website via mobile devices with screen sizes of maximum 320 pixels wide by 480 pixels high. Accessing a “conventional” website via a mobile device, even the iPhone (320 x 480 pixels), often results in an undesirable user experience (the inability to find information needed), and a predictable outcome (abandoned websites and reservations).

To solve this issue, hoteliers should offer a mobile website specially designed to provide an excellent user experience in a mobile environment. At the very least, the mobile website should offer the following capabilities/functionality:

• Navigation: Easy-to-use navigation, optimized for an optimum mobile user experience
• Content: A minimum of 10-15 pages of unique and engaging content that is relevant to people on-the-go and addresses the hotel’s main customer segments and attributes of the hotel product
• Content Management System (CMS): The mobile site’s CMS should be part of and synchronized with the hotel desktop website CMS and the hotel tablet website CMS. The CMS should be able to simultaneously “push” all of the latest special offers, packages and promotions, as well as events and happenings at the property and the destination, to the hotel’s desktop, mobile and tablet websites
• Booking Capability: Mobile-enabled booking engine with real-time feed of specials, packages, promotions
• SEO: Website optimized specifically for mobile SEO
• Location Aware/GPS capabilities: Deliver relevant information based on the user’s GPS location
• Interactive Capabilities: Real-time event calendar, mapping and directions, interactive contests, sweepstakes, SMS Marketing, real-time customer service, to name a few
• Mobile Web Analytics: Track performance and conversions from the mobile website

Content quality is the biggest “must-have” for a mobile site. The Google Panda algorithm updates favor mobile websites with richer visual and textual content that is not only deep and relevant but also fresh, engaging and optimized for the search engines.

There is a growing need for a centralized digital content depository as hotel marketers are challenged to create and manage content through three distinct channels: desktop, mobile and tablet. HeBS Digital’s proprietary CMS Premium acts as a centralized digital library that services all three channels by pushing content to the property’s desktop, tablet and mobile websites simultaneously, as well to the property’s social media profiles on Facebook and Twitter.

3. Engage in Hotel Mobile Marketing

Having a hotel mobile website – even if developed according to industry’s best practices – is only the beginning. Just like with the mobile website, the mobile Web abides by different rules that require mobile Web-specific marketing initiatives.

Here are the top mobile marketing initiatives hoteliers should focus on in 2012 and beyond:

• Mobile SEO
• Mobile link building to the mobile site from mobile directories and sites
• Mobile SEM (paid search) campaigns
• Local Content Optimization: mobile search engines favor and predominantly serve local content, therefore hoteliers need to optimize their local content and listings on the search engines, main data providers, local business directories, yellow pages, etc.
• Mobile banner advertising in main mobile feeder markets
• Engage your customers via mobile contests and sweepstakes
• Mobile promotions via SMS for local property deals to:
• Generate buzz
• Grow mobile list
• Target customer segments
• Integrate with Social Media

Mobile marketing should be an integral part of the hotel’s multi-channel marketing strategy. Its role has been growing exponentially over the past years and will explode over the next few years.

Any seasonal promotion (summer getaways, holiday specials, etc.) or customer segment campaign (e.g. family travel, leisure, weekend, etc.) should contain a mobile marketing component to reach the on-the-go travel consumer and drive-in markets.

4. Take Advantage of SoLoMo

This year, hoteliers have been hearing a lot of the buzzword SoLoMo (SOcial, LOcal, MObile). Meant to convey the convergence of these three major media, the term SoLoMo describes a “marriage made in heaven” between the three content and marketing platforms.

Why should hoteliers bring social, local and mobile marketing initiatives to the forefront of their hotel digital marketing plans this year? Hotel guests are avid SoLoMo services users. Most social network engagements by travel consumers are done via mobile devices. Consumers perform more than 3 billion local searches every month, and one in three mobile searches have local intent vs. one in five desktop searches [Google].

Unlike the desktop Web world, SoLoMo allows hoteliers to combine real-time customer geo-location with their demographic and psychographic information and time- and location-relevant promotions. Hoteliers need to consider how to best utilize SoLoMo to engage their guests and generate incremental revenues.

By focusing efforts on social media, local marketing, and mobile marketing, hotel marketers have the ability to deliver more personalized, relevant content and engage existing guests and potential customers like never before.

It is important to understand that local content means mobile content. Google has amassed the most detailed library of local content via its Google+ Local (formerly Google Places) and Google Maps. How optimized are your property profiles in the main data providers – such as Localeze – which feed many local directories and geo-social sites? How optimized are your property local search listings on Google+ Local, Yahoo Local, and Bing Local? What about all the local online business directories and yellow pages? Do you have a local citation listing program in place?

One of the best examples of SoLoMo is the recent move by Google to “marry” its local content listings (Google Places) with its social network (Google+) and making this content the default in its mobile search results. By converting more than 80 million Google Places listings to Google+ Local pages, Google achieved an unprecedented level of dynamic, social content vs. static directory content. For example, Google+ Local includes integration of a circles filter to find reviews or recommendations from friends/family/colleagues.

Once you take care of your local content, it is time to enhance your mobile marketing presence. How deep, relevant and engaging is the local content on your mobile site? Do you have automated push of specials, promotions and local events from the property “desktop” website to the mobile site to keep your mobile presence “fresh?” Do you use micro-formats and Schema codes to relay the time- and location-relevant nature of these promotions and events to the search engines? Does your property take advantage of coupon promotions through Google?

Other recommendations include engaging your local customers via time- and location-relevant check-in promotions and rewards, launching social media promotions, contests, and post series via Facebook and Twitter, and blogging. Geo-social marketing initiatives allow hoteliers to integrate with consumers’ lifestyles and connect (and stay connected) with them in ways that were not previously possible. Social, local and mobile marketing are great for time- and location-sensitive promotions.

5. Align the Official and Unofficial Content About the Hotel

A very important consequence of the convergence of social, local and mobile is the fact that today’s SoLoMo-enabled travel consumers have immediate 24/7 access to all types of content about your hotel: the “official” content about the hotel e.g. hotel website, Facebook pages, Google+ Local descriptions, etc. and the “unofficial” user-generated content on the social networks and customer review sites.  This convergence of local content, social media and mobile allows potential customers to quickly check reviews on sites like TripAdvisor or Yelp, see the Google+ Local listing of the hotel with all of its user-generated content and reviews, and/or communicate with friends via Facebook or Twitter about their experiences at the hotel.

Now, more than ever, you need to align the official and unofficial content about your hotel. Example: You cannot claim your property offers luxury accommodations if reviewers on TripAdvisor or Google’s Zagat Reviews describe your rooms as suited for the budget traveler at best.

The bigger the discrepancy between the two types of content, the less credible the official content is since people trust user-generated content more. Avoiding major discrepancies between these two kinds of content leads to  higher website conversion rates and more mobile bookings.

6. Consider a Major Push in the Tablet Channel

Tablets are rapidly emerging as a separate device/channel category from desktop and mobile. According to eMarketer, global tablet sales are projected to exceed 232 million in 2016, growing from 64 million in 2011. Next year, there will be 75.6 million U.S. tablet users vs. just 13 million in 2010.

Search engines and many major media sites already consider tablets as a separate, distinct device category, characterized with its own unique user behavior and best practices for user experience and content delivery.

For all practical purposes, the desktop, mobile device and tablet address different needs at different times of the day and week. According to Google, users searching Google utilize:

• Desktop during the day (office)
• Mobile during lunch break + happy hour
• Tablet later in the evening when lounging i.e. the tablet is a “lounging” device

According to Google’s company data, 7% of all searches already come from tablets vs. 14% from mobile devices and 79% via desktops (Q1, 2012). Google also reports different search dynamics across the three device/channel categories and a dramatic increase in hotel queries in the mobile and tablet channels on Google in Q1 2012:

• Overall (desktop + mobile + tablet): +34%
• Mobile devices: +120%
• Tablet devices: +306%

Hotel and travel marketers should consider either enhancing their desktop website for the touch-screen tablet environment or build a tablet-only version of their website, in addition to their desktop and mobile sites, all managed via a single digital content depository-enabled CMS.

7. Improve the Mobile Booking Process

Many reservation technology vendors do not have mobile-friendly versions of their booking engines. The three main issues as far as usability in the mobile booking process are:

• Mobile-enabled booking engine: You cannot use your desktop booking engine on your mobile website or app. Employ a simplified booking engine with step-by-step processes, touch-screen interfaces, easy drop-down menus, shorter product descriptions, thumb-nail images, etc.
• Real-time feed of specials, packages and promotions: Your mobile booking engine should feature all of the hotel’s or travel supplier’s special offers, packages and promotions.
• Mobile-friendly payment system for the travel or hotel booking: The booking process on your mobile website or app has to allow for simplified reservations without the need to enter a credit card. This could be done by entering and storing the credit card information in advance via the “desktop” website. Since the mobile channel is a last-minute booking channel, another approach is accepting mobile reservations and holding for a set number of hours (e.g. 4, 6 or 8 hours), or taking “no guarantee” reservations.

8. Use Mobile Analytics

Access Type   

Sum of Impressions  

Sum of Visits  

Sum of Unique Users

Applications

34.61%

18.34%

9.85%

Mobile Browsing

65.39%

81.66%

90.15%

Ritesh Gupta/EyeforTravel: Social, local, and mobile are huge areas of innovation and are lending a new dimension to plans of those travel marketers who are constantly looking for new ways to enable meaningful experiences with their target consumers. What new trends do you foresee for such areas and do you foresee them working in isolation or as part of an integrated initiative?

Margaret Mastrogiacomo:

Here at HeBS Digital we consider 2012 to be The Year of SoLoMo. In travel marketing, there is a major convergence of channels, and social, local, and mobile will work as part of an integrated initiative. These three initiatives speak to key components of a travel consumer’s behavior.  Social speaks to what we do as human beings and how we share our travel experiences, mobile speaks to our “always on-the-go” nature, and local speaks to the need for information from our immediate environment.   The power of these initiatives combined, fills an inherent need for consumers and allows the hyper-interactive travel consumer to stay hyper-connected with brands.

The future of SoLoMo looks promising. Local data drives better engagement and conversions and 1 in 3 mobile searches has local intent. As for future trends, SoLoMo is changing the way consumers access information. Instead of researching attractions during a hotel stay, mobile applications will detect a traveler’s location, what they are looking for, provide directions, push specials based on geo-location, and even allow guests to share their experiences in real- time. SoLoMo will ultimately provide more customer service solutions to enhance the travel experience.

Check-ins will become increasingly more important. Mobile applications such as Foursquare, will be more deeply integrated into a mobile strategy and a key touch point in the mobile brand experience. SMS marketing and geo-location offers will become key in how hoteliers target travelers not after but during their travel experience. Hoteliers and travel brands need to begin thinking local and immediate.

Ritesh Gupta/EyeforTravel: The convergence of two technological shifts – with the rise of the smartphone use and the popularity of social media – has created a seismic shift in consumer behavior. Now, wielding their GPS-enabled phones, social media users are more comfortable than ever before in sharing information about their lives, and also expect instantaneous access to information and purchasing no matter where they are in the world. What new trends do you foresee as this convergence is now a part of consumers’ lifestyle?

Margaret Mastrogiacomo:

Over 50% of the US population will have a smartphone in 2012. With the rise of smartphones, now more than ever, travelers are accessing information and sharing their experiences in real- time. Mobile websites and applications will need to be more robust than ever. Capturing user preferences to make the mobile experience more customized will be key in providing instantaneous access to information and purchasing. Storing room and service preferences will allow seamless booking and allow the hotel to serve the most relevant content on the mobile website.  Integrating loyalty programs into the mobile website experience will be key in delivering this customized user experience.

Mobile websites will also offer more sharing capabilities. Review site integration such as TripAdvisor will prompt guests to share their experiences in real-time and social sharing capabilities will allow guests to easily tweet and share information on social platforms. Ultimately, this convergence means that mobile travel and hotel websites and apps need to be viewed less as a content provider and more as an experience provider.

HeBS Digital partnered with Loews Hotels to launch a mobile website www.loewshotels.com/m featuring ‘location-aware’ capabilities. The mobile website offers the ability to detect the location of the mobile device accessing the site. The addition of the ‘location-aware’ feature to the mobile site enables Loews Hotels to provide a potential guest immediate information and data that enables them to know where the closest property is to their current proximity. A mobile device holder in New York City will automatically receive a prompt to book the Loews Regency Hotel and indicate location-specific special offers and packages. The ‘location-aware’ capability helps streamline the guest experience by filling in addresses faster and providing directions personalized to the guest.

Ritesh Gupta/EyeforTravel: How can the travel industry leverage the combination of location, activity, demographic and time targeting?

Margaret Mastrogiacomo:

Before industry players even consider leveraging location based services, they need to make sure that all local content such as Google Places is accurate and optimized for the search engines–this is where mobile directories and mobile mapping services pull location information. Once all local information across the web is accurate, travel brands can begin leveraging the power of location, activity, demographic and time targeting.

Effectively targeting potential guests means understanding who, what, where, and why. The ability to target a mobile audience based on social interests and demographics within any geo-location is becoming an important factor in the effectiveness of mobile campaigns. Mobile ads that tap into social interests, demographic, and time targeting, answer an immediate need for consumers. Based on this need, we are going to see a rise in social-geo targeting technology that accesses demographic data based on publically-available social media activity information to better target consumers. Imagine serving a mobile ad or coupon promoting your onsite restaurant’s happy hour from 6-8 to a business traveler located within 5 miles of your hotel with a particular interest in dining and entertainment. Suddenly, an ad impression no longer simply garners a click, it answers a consumer need.

Ritesh Gupta/EyeforTravel: Travel companies have been rewarding customers for their affiliation towards social networks and location-based services. A lot was expected from location plus social, and geo-location check-in campaigns were initiated regularly. How do you think the travel industry leveraged such trend in 2011?

Margaret Mastrogiacomo:

In 2011, many hotel and travel brands opened their eyes to the power of a mobile check-in. Many hotels offered check-in specials on platforms such as Foursquare to encourage viral awareness. Multi-property hotel brands, such as the Ritz-Carlton, utilized Foursquare as an online-concierge tool by creating tips about local attractions and landmarks from concierges at its property locations. Any Foursquare user could follow these tips to guide their travel experience.

Another significant way the travel industry leveraged geo-location based services, was through loyalty program integration. Starwood partnered with Foursquare to offer members of the Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG) loyalty program additional points, badges and rewards for their check-ins at participating hotels. The allure of mobile check-ins will continue to flourish with travel recommendations and location-based special offers that drive local foot traffic, especially for local restaurants, spas, etc.

Ritesh Gupta/EyeforTravel: Sales and promotions are termed as the most popular types of information that mobile consumers are looking for when engaging with location-based services. Also, local deals are increasingly an integral part of the mobile shopping experience. What do you make of the mobile shopping behavior especially from the travel industry’s perspective as this juncture?

Margaret Mastrogiacomo:

Location-based mobile promotions via LBSN like Foursquare can be used successfully by local entities such as restaurants, bars, lounges, and day spas, as well as by major travel brands that are focusing on local customer engagement. Another approach to appeal to mobile shoppers is to enhance the travel or hotel mobile website with rich, local content and real-time local specific promotions.

It is no secret that sales and promotions are the most popular types of information searched by the mobile travel consumer. According to Amadeus research, 82% of hotel mobile bookings are for same day of arrival.  A special offer targeting mobile visitors is a great way to encourage same day bookings, and leverage an advantage over competitors.   Hoteliers need to focus on this mobile shopping behavior to drive last minute bookings and to up-sell onsite amenities, such as spa, dining, etc. One great way hoteliers can tap into this mobile shopping behavior is to offer mobile-only “on the go” value adds (free breakfast, free wifi, extra reward points, free spa service, etc) targeting last-minute bookings through the mobile website.

Also mobile can be a great channel for generating ancillary revenues from your current guests. Hoteliers can take advantage of mobile coupons to promote the onsite restaurant, spa, and services.

Ritesh Gupta/EyeforTravel: Even as geo-location apps are enhancing their offerings with new features, it is being mentioned that there growth rate hasn’t really taken off in a big way compared to last year. How should the travel industry go about such opportunities considering the current geo-social behavior or the adoption rate of such offerings? 

Margaret Mastrogiacomo:

We don’t believe that the future belongs to standalone geo-location applications or services. We believe there is a huge opportunity for integrating geo-location mobile services into the overall marketing strategy. A great example of successful integration is Starwood partnering with Foursquare to offer members of the Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG) loyalty program additional points, badges and rewards for their check-ins at participating hotels.

Ritesh Gupta/EyeforTravel: Each generation of smartphone provides even more opportunities for travel companies to enhance the user experience. How can the features of the smartphone – such as locations services, cameras, messaging – be tied into your social media campaigns?        

Margaret Mastrogiacomo:

Consumer-generated content is king. As mobile becomes an integral part of the travel experience, social media campaigns will have a deeper focus on guests sharing their experiences during their stay.   Social campaigns that prompt guests to share photos and video from their hotel experience and contests that prompt guests to check-in on social platforms for incentives will become more important than ever.

Ritesh Gupta/EyeforTravel: How do you think social location broadcasting and sharing is being leveraged to connect with consumers in the travel industry? What according to you are the latest trends in social location broadcasting and sharing in 2012?

Margaret Mastrogiacomo:

Social location broadcasting allows brands to reach the right audience with the right message on a local level. As travelers share photos, video, and updates in real-time, travel is inherently social. From encouraging check-ins to offering local mobile coupons and deals, brands will continue to incentivize social sharing and focus more on local engagement.

In 2012, the industry will focus on making local engagement and deals more targeted by accessing more than just a user’s location. Tapping into information such as a traveler’s social preferences and considering factors such as time of day will be key in reaching travelers with the right message. For instance, if a customer’s social data reveals a passion for wine and it is 5pm on a Wednesday, a hotel can push its Wine Wednesday happy hour to this particular customer.

Ritesh Gupta/EyeforTravel: How can hoteliers get started with SoLoMo in 2012?

Margaret Mastrogiacomo:

In this SoLoMo age, travel brands must ensure they have the basic foundation for any successful SoLoMo strategy. To get started, travel brands must have a mobile website optimized with fresh, local content and location-based offers; accurate and optimized listings on local mobile directories; and mobile engagement via SMS and social platforms.

About the Author and HeBS Digital

Margaret Mastrogiacomo is Manager, New Media & Creative Strategy at HeBS Digital (Hospitality eBusiness Strategies), the hospitality industry’s leading full-service digital marketing and direct online channel strategy firm, based in New York City (www.HeBSdigital.com).

Founded in 2001, 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.

Michelle Renn: The mobile channel as a legitimate distribution source for hospitality is currently exploding. How does it differ from social media as a distribution channel?

Max Starkov:

For over 5 years now I have been arguing that social media is not a distribution channel in hospitality. Social media is a customer engagement channel and a customer service channel. It is an important component of any hotel’s marketing mix and part of the comprehensive direct online channel strategy for any hotel company.

The mobile channel is a legitimate hotel distribution channel. In 2011 alone, 2.4 percent of all U.S. online travel bookings ($2.6 billion) were made via the mobile Web. This is at least 100 times more than all travel bookings ever made from social media worldwide.

In 2011 over 4.7 percent of hotel website visits and over 3 percent of online bookings came from mobile devices across HeBS Digital’s hotel client portfolio. Recently IHG reported that in 2011 the brand generated $148 million in mobile bookings, ten times more than in 2010.

Just look at the staggering projections in growth rates of U.S. Mobile Travel Bookings (leisure and unmanaged business travel):

• 2010: $160 million
• 2011: $2.6 billion (2.4% of total online travel bookings)
• 2013: $8.0 billion (6.5% of total online travel bookings)
(PhoCusWright)

The mobile channel is exploding, indeed. Morgan Stanley projects that by 2014 mobile web users will surpass “traditional” desktop Internet users. Google reports that hotel mobile searches have increased by 3,000 percent from 2010 to 2011 and that now over 20 percent of all searches are conducted via mobile devices.
Hotel guests and travel consumers in general are already mobile-ready, and hoteliers and travel suppliers have to respond adequately to this growing demand for mobile travel services.
The most important statistic hoteliers need to follow is the number of smartphone users and tablet users. Fifty percent of U.S. adults and eighty percent of business travelers already have smartphones. Heavy usage of tablets like iPad has created a completely new category, which needs to be treated and marketed to separately from desktop and mobile devices. Overall, smartphones and tablets are changing how we do business in hospitality, how we market, how we service customers.

Michelle Renn: We have seen that all major hotel brands and OTAs have come up with flashy mobile websites and mobile apps for iPhone and Android mobile devices. What should independent hoteliers and franchisees do in 2012 to take advantage of the mobile channel? What are the 2012 Must Dos?

Max Starkov:

Hoteliers are realizing the importance of the mobile web. According to HeBS Digital’s 5th Annual Benchmark Survey on Hotel Digital Marketing Budget Planning and Best Practices, more hoteliers are planning for a mobile site this year (37.5% vs. 25.9%) and a mobile booking engine (37% vs. 22.4%). Also of note, only 8.9 percent of hoteliers are budgeting for a mobile app vs. 24.1 percent last year.

Here are my 2012 Mobile Must-Dos, applicable to any independent or full-service franchised property, boutique and luxury hotels and resorts:

Property Mobile Website

In 2011, over 85.1 percent of desktop Internet users had a screen resolution of 1280 x 1024 pixels or higher. Trying to squeeze your wide-screen “desktop” hotel website onto the tiny screen of a mobile device is a futile exercise that inevitably destroys usability and conversion rates. Our analysis shows that more than 90 percent of mobile users access the hotel website via mobile devices with screen sizes of the iPhone is 320 pixels wide by 480 pixels high. Accessing a “conventional” website via a mobile device, even the latest iPhone (320 x 480 pixels), often results in an undesirable user experience: the inability to find information needed, and a predictable outcome of abandoned websites and reservations.

The question whether a property needs a mobile website has already been categorically answered: mobile sites generate serious incremental bookings. In 2012 hoteliers need to optimize their mobile websites with richer visual and textual content (minimum 10-15 mobile pages) that is “fresh and intriguing.” This content needs to be optimized for mobile SEO. Enhance the mobile site with a mobile booking engine, GPS capabilities, “What’s Nearby” walking tours and a local travel guide functionality.

The mobile site content, especially special offers and events, must be synchronized with the desktop website. HeBS Digital’s CMS Premium (Content Management System) provides this functionality in an automated fashion.

Track performance and conversions from the mobile website via web analytics (e.g. Adobe Omniture) and call analytics. Remember that approximately 6-7 of every 10 mobile bookings still happen via voice reservations from the mobile site.

Mobile SEM

Mobile search engine marketing works! Launch mobile paid search (SEM) campaigns via Google AdWords and Bing/Yahoo that link to special mobile landing pages on your mobile website with the latest promotions, offers and packages.

Your mobile SEM campaigns must feature mobile-specific ad copy and ad extensions. Manage separate ads for tablets and mobile devices, and track their performance and conversions separately.

Always maintain rate parity in your mobile campaigns!

Local Content = Mobile Content

Consumers perform more than 3 billion local searches every month, and one in three mobile searches have local intent versus one in five desktop searches (Google). Local content has become the foundation of mobile content for the search engines, making it extremely important to any hotelier’s mobile SEO strategy.

Local search and directory listings are extremely important for travelers in the same state or neighboring states during the research, planning and booking phases. Google, followed by Bing and Yahoo, have turned their local search business profiles from “list and forget” listings to business profiles that require ongoing management and enhancement. Google’s top priority over the past three years has been to compile the deepest and most relevant local content on Planet Earth, which automatically translates into the deepest and most relevant mobile content. Google Places has expanded its content tenfold since June 2010! Google Places Coupon provides an additional benefit: it helps the mobile search ranking for the property as well.

In 2012, optimizing and enhancing the property’s local search listings on the top 3 search engines (Google, Yahoo, Bing), as well as on the main data providers (e.g. Acxiom), online Yellow Pages and local business and leisure directories must become a top priority for hoteliers from independent or branded properties alike.

Align Mobile Website’s Official and Unofficial Content

The line between mobile and social is blurring: most social network engagements by travel consumers are done via mobile device. In 2012 hoteliers will be hearing a lot of the buzzword SoLoMo (SOcial, LOcal, MObile). Meant to convey the convergence of these three major media, the term SoLoMo describes a match made in heaven between the three content and marketing platforms.

What does it mean for hoteliers? Hotel guests are avid SoLoMo service users, which requires hoteliers to align the property’s mobile site content with the social media content and customer feedback from customer review sites. It is that simple: the bigger the discrepancy between the “official” content on the mobile site and the “unofficial” content about the hotel on social media sites, the less the credibility of the property mobile site. Less credibility results in less bookings and revenue.

This content alignment could be as simple as removing “luxury” from the description of your rooms, if users are openly questioning the luxury aspect of your accommodations, or removing “award-winning” from the description of your restaurant if it has generated a lot of negative reviews on Yelp.com.

Mobile Marketing & Customer Engagement

Mobile marketing has already become an integral part in the property’s multi-channel digital marketing efforts. Its role has been growing exponentially over the past years. Having a mobile site is only the beginning of mobile marketing. In 2012, from their overall digital marketing budget, hotels should spend 9 to 10 percent on mobile marketing initiatives.

Here are the top mobile marketing initiatives hoteliers should focus on in 2012:

• Continued mobile website enhancements
• Mobile SEO
• Mobile link building to the mobile site from mobile directories and sites
• Mobile SEM (paid search) campaigns
• Mobile banner advertising in the main mobile feeder markets
• Mobile contests and sweepstakes

In 2012 hoteliers must become fluent in SMS marketing as a customer engagement medium. SMS is not email marketing and hoteliers should not be blasting text messages left and right. In other words, no “push” marketing campaigns! SMS marketing is best used as an optional “pull” campaign, where customers text a keyword to a short code to interact with the hotel to participate in mobile interactive contests, sweepstakes, specials & promotions, or to request real-time customer service.

Consider seeking advice from a leading mobile marketing and full-service hotel digital marketing firm to actively help you take advantage of the mobile channel one step at a time. Learn which mobile marketing formats make the most sense for your hotel and how to implement latest trends and best practices in your mobile marketing efforts so you can realize respectable ROI and incremental revenue growth.

Michelle Renn: These are all very practical recommendations. What are the 2012 Don’ts?

Max Starkov:

Don’t Discount in the Mobile Channel!

In this hyper-connected social and mobile world, the booking window has shrunk tremendously over the past few years and travel consumers have embraced the mobile Web as a legitimate booking channel:

• Typically, mobile bookings are for the next 48 hours (Google).
• Many major hotel brands report that 80% or more of their mobile bookings are for the same or the following day.
• Sixty-one percent of online consumers are willing to book travel via a mobile device (Google, September 2011).

In other words, people are booking closer and closer to the day of the actual arrival, meaning that it is easier for them to wait until the last minute and see what the last-minute rates are on the hotel mobile site, on an OTA site or on a last minute discounter site such as HotelTonight.com, as opposed to booking in advance via the hotel desktop or mobile sites.

In the age of social and mobile word of mouth, it will not take long for all regular and frequent guests at your hotel to hear about the lower last-minute rates offered via an OTA or a service like HotelTonight.com. What will be the result? The hotel will soon witness that:

• Booked guests are canceling existing reservations made via hotel website, phone, GDS, OTAs and re-booking via HotelTonight.com using the lower rates.
• Potential guests are waiting until the last minute to see what the last-minute rates are for the property and other hotels in the city/location they are traveling to and booking in the last minute.
• OTAs are after the hotel for these last-minute “deviations” from the contracted rate parity clauses.

The mobile channel is a last-minute distribution channel by default. Most hotel mobile bookings are for the same (65%-80%) or the following night. If hoteliers do all of the Must-Dos in 2012 as described above, these bookings would happen anyway without discounting.

Hoteliers need to maintain rate parity at all times.

You Don’t Need a Mobile App

Here at HeBS Digital we are constantly being asked by our hotel clients whether it makes sense for a hotel to develop its own mobile app or if the hotel should focus on their mobile website. From the HeBS Digital’s 5th Annual Benchmark Survey results, we can see that fewer hoteliers were planning for an iPhone app last year: 8.9 percent versus 24.1 percent in 2010.

In my view, hotels do not need a mobile app if they are a single-property, an independent hotel or resort, a franchised property, or a smaller and mid-size hotel chain and multi-property company. These hotel companies are better off focusing on building and enhancing their mobile websites and promoting the mobile site via mobile marketing initiatives, and here is why:

• Vast majority of users (90.15%) prefer mobile browsing vs. mobile apps (CEM4Mobile Analytics)
• Apps are very expensive to build, maintain, and promote
• Apps are device specific
• Not indexable by the search engines!
The Mobile App Check has identified the most popular mobile apps and how they are used in the United States. Excluding Google Maps, Weather.com and web search apps, the rest of the Top 10 apps were in the social media, entertainment and gaming realms. Not even a single travel app made it into the Top 10 list. Where is Expedia’s app? Hilton’s app? American Airlines’ app? A hotel company, be it an independent or franchised hotel or resort, a small chain or multi-property company, has no chance of creating an app that can squeeze through the mobile app clutter and find its way to the mobile user’s smartphone.

About the Author and HeBS Digital

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

HeBS President and CEO Max Starkov has been invited to lead the “Successful eMarketing” blog on HOTELS magazine’s website. The following is an excerpt from Part 3 of 4 of Starkov’s article: “Hoteliers’ Action Plan to Capitalize on Rising Travel Demand.”

Action Plan: Engage your customers with social marketing

Social Media has changed how travel consumers research and plan travel, access travel information, and perceive credibility of information. eMarketer reports that more than 70% of Internet users under age 35 browse social networks. That percentage decreases for older users but is still significant, with 43.1% of those ages 35 to 54 and 18.9% of users ages 55 and older visiting social networks.

There is no doubt that Internet users are increasingly influenced by social media sites and peer reviews. By utilizing a comprehensive social media strategy, hoteliers can create social media “buzz” around the hotel, target receptive audiences, and ultimately stimulate hotel website visits, interactions and bookings.

HeBS’ 2010 Benchmark Survey on Hotel Internet Marketing Budget Planning and Best Practices showed that half of hoteliers surveyed (50% exactly) responded that in 2010 they are planning to create profiles for their hotels on the social networks.

Social marketing should become an important component of any hotel’s marketing mix and part of the comprehensive Direct Online Channel Strategy for any hotel company. Naturally, it is important to use the right ROI metrics to measure the success of social marketing efforts of the hotel.

As discussed above, social media and social marketing initiatives should be reviewed with “sober eyes” and within the context of the impact of the multi-channel marketing strategy of the hotel.

Instead of only focusing on bookings and revenue when measuring results from social media marketing, remember that currently the best uses of social media are:

• Serving as one important component of hotel’s multi-channel marketing
• Buzz-building
• Brand-building
• Interacting with and engaging customers
• Keeping up with the times, making the hotel look current, cool and up-to-date
• Driving engaged and relevant traffic to the property’s own website

What are the initiatives hoteliers can deploy in 2010 and expand in 2011?

• Facebook Fan Page with reservation widget, email capture functionality, custom design tabs, photo albums, hotel blog feeds, etc.
• Twitter Profile with customized look and feel design, contests and sweepstakes, SEO-friendly posts, etc.
• LinkedIn profile to reach out business travelers and meeting planners
• Flickr with photo albums addressing your main business segments
• YouTube hotel profile: virtual tours are out, videos are in. Develop hotel videos presenting hotel services and amenities to your different customer segments and post them on the hotel website and YouTube.

A word of caution: if your hotel cannot allocate bandwidth and resources or cannot afford to hire an external social marketing firm, do not start with social media initiatives such as Facebook Fan page or Twitter profile. The social media battleground is full of “corpses” of abandoned hotel fan pages and profiles that do more harm than good to their owners. Social marketing is a very engaging process that requires skills and consistent engagement with the travel consumer.

Action Plan: Utilize mobile marketing to communicate in real time with your customers

Mobile travel bookings are projected to grow 700% in two short years. U.S. M-Commerce will reach a staggering $1 billion in 2010 (ABI Research). Sixty-seven percent of business travelers already use their mobile devices to view hotel locations via maps (Sabre Travel Network Survey). Mobile marketing must become a vital component of the marketing mix for any hotelier.

HeBS own research and other industry sources show that between 1% – 1.5% of visitors to hotel websites already come from travel consumers accessing the hotel site via mobile devices.

Hotel guests—past, current and potential—are increasingly becoming mobile-ready, and hoteliers have to respond adequately to this growing demand for mobile services. This is the reason why all major hotel brands, travel suppliers and OTAs have mobile Internet initiatives in place, including mobile brand websites and mobile applications including iPhone apps, m-CRM and mobile marketing. In order to meet the enormous growth in consumer demand for mobile services, hoteliers must start with a clear understanding of current best practices in mobile marketing.

As shown by HeBS’ 4th annual Benchmark Survey on Hotel Internet Marketing Budget Planning and Best Practices, while a number of hoteliers surveyed were not yet planning on mobile marketing initiatives for 2010 (32.8%), many are taking some very crucial first steps.

What can hoteliers do in the remaining months of 2010 and 2011? Mobile marketing must become a vital component of the marketing mix for any hotelier.

An excellent first step is to create a mobile site, which by default is the “gravitational” center for all future marketing efforts: from text messaging and Google mobile ads, to mobile sweepstakes and applications. Budget limitations are no longer an excuse for not launching a mobile-ready hotel site.

Imagine the user experience of trying to squeeze your wide-screen hotel website, designed to fit screen resolutions at 1280 x 1024 pixels and above, onto the tiny screen of a mobile device. Our analysis shows that more than 90% of mobile users access the hotel website via mobile devices with screen sizes of 320 x 480 pixels. Accessing a “conventional” website via a mobile device, even the latest iPhone, often results in an undesirable user experience: the inability to find information needed and a predictable outcome of abandoned websites and reservations.

What should hoteliers plan for 2010 and beyond? In addition to a mobile-ready website, launching mobile contests, quizzes and sweepstakes as part of the hotel multi-channel marketing initiatives will allow you to “test the waters” of mobile marketing. Adding  Google Mobile ads as part of a comprehensive search marketing strategy is another natural step. Also, start soliciting sign-ups to the mobile opt-in list (m-list) on the website via hotel email marketing campaigns, social media initiatives, interactive sweepstakes and contests.

Location-based services, m-CRM and mobile apps are initiatives in need of careful planning, sophisticated technology, and a better economic environment. Even so, hoteliers should start thinking about how to incorporate these initiatives in the upcoming years.

Read the full article, including case studies on the Hotels Magazine’s “Successful eMarketing” Blog. I look forward to our continued dialogue. Next week, we’ll conclude our eight-step action plan with metrics and achievable objectives for the rest of 2010 and 2011.

The Travel Distribution Summit, now in its twelfth year, is North America’s largest forum for travel industry professionals. The conference will address trends, innovations, challenges, and opportunities within the industry. During his keynote, Starkov will outline a concrete mobile marketing action plan for hoteliers; offer case studies from the mobile marketing trenches; and discuss mobile booking engines, m-CRM, m-marketing lists, mobile advertising, location-based services and more. Hoteliers in attendance will gain a clear understanding of the importance of mobile strategies and learn how to launch and manage a robust mobile marketing plan for their hotels.

“Mobile travel bookings are projected to grow 700% in two short years, and US M-Commerce will reach a staggering $1 billion in 2010 (ABI Research),” said Starkov.  “Mobile marketing must become a vital component of the marketing mix for any successful travel marketer and hotelier. In order to meet the enormous growth in consumer demand for mobile services, travel marketers must start with a clear understanding of current best practices in mobile marketing, and then launch a targeted mobile strategy and campaign—starting with a mobile website. As the professional development of hoteliers and travel marketers is our passion at HeBS, I welcome the opportunity to provide attendees with a step-by-step mobile marketing action plan on how to drive incremental revenues using a sound, cutting-edge mobile marketing strategy.”

HeBS is a pioneer of mobile strategies in hospitality, creating and implementing mobile websites and mobile Internet marketing strategies for its clients. HeBS’ principals have written influential articles and research papers on the subject including “Wireless in Travel and Hospitality: Hype or Necessity?” (September, 2001) and “Mobile Marketing & Distribution Strategy in Hospitality: the Future is Already Here” (August, 2009). The firm recently won an Internet Advertising Competition (IAC) award for Best Hotel and Lodging mobile application for The Allison Inn & Spa mobile-ready website. Starkov also led presentations on mobile marketing at the last EHTEC conference, as well as at HSMAI’s Revenue Management & Internet Marketing Strategy Conference this past June.

HeBS, the hospitality industry’s leading Internet marketing and distribution consulting firm today announces the firm will present at the Hospitality Sales and Marketing Association International (HSMAI) “Revenue Management & Internet Marketing Strategy Conference” in Orlando, FL. HeBS’ Chief eBusiness Strategist, Max Starkov, will discuss “Mobile Marketing for Today and Tomorrow” on June 21, 2010 at 9:30 AM at the Orange County Convention Center. A range of topics will be discussed including the mobile distribution channel in hospitality, mobile-ready sites, an action plan for the hotel ‘m-marketer,’ and more.

The 2010 conference will focus on the latest trends in revenue management and Internet marketing, and explore revenue optimization, pricing, e-commerce and Internet marketing topics in the context of today’s challenging economic environment, through keynotes and twelve breakout sessions.

“Many hoteliers do not fully realize that the mobile Internet is not wireless access to the conventional Internet,” said Starkov.” The mobile Internet adheres to different rules than the conventional Web. For example more than 90% of mobile users access the hotel website via mobile devices with screen sizes of 320 x 480 pixels (vs. 1280×1024 pixels and above for regular websites), hence the need for mobile-ready hotel websites. Hotel guests—past, current and potential—are already mobile-ready and hoteliers have to respond adequately to this growing demand for mobile services. I look forward to sharing the latest trends and best practices in mobile marketing with the HSMAI conference attendees, and to providing concrete and actionable recommendations on what every hotelier needs to be doing in the mobile space in 2010.”

HeBS, a pioneer of mobile strategies in hospitality, creates and implements mobile-ready websites and mobile Internet marketing strategies for its clients. HeBS’ principals have written popular articles and research papers on the subject including “Wireless in Travel and Hospitality: Hype or Necessity?” (September, 2001) and “Mobile Marketing & Distribution Strategy in Hospitality: the Future is Already Here” (August, 2009). The firm recently won an Internet Advertising Competition (IAC) award for Best Hotel and Lodging mobile application for The Allison Inn & Spa mobile-ready website. Additionally, during the last EHTEC conference in February, Starkov led a presentation on mobile initiatives hoteliers should invest in for 2010 and how to apply the latest trends and best practices to their mobile Internet marketing strategies.

For more information on the “Revenue Management & Internet Marketing Strategy Conference,” or to view a full schedule, visit www.revmanagement.org or www.travelinternetmarketing.org.

Starkov presented the facts about mobile:

• The number of mobile devices has surpassed the number of personal computers.
• 41% of leisure guests and 54% of business guests with mobile phones with data plans used their phones for travel-related purposes.
• 10% of hotel guests with mobile phones with data plans have used them to reserve rooms.
• Mobile bookings are expected to exceed $1 billion in 2010.

Mobile marketing is the fastest growing sector in travel marketing. As technology continues to improve and mobile usage increases, Starkov maintains, hoteliers need to have an action plan in place to take advantage of the market.

The first step, as many have noticed when accessing their current sites from mobile devices, is a mobile-ready website, designed and developed for viewing on small screens. Once a mobile-ready website is in place, hoteliers should begin m-marketing including mobile search, m-CRM, and other initiatives to round out a comprehensive Mobile Web strategy.

Starkov’s presentation at EHTEC, “Mobile Marketing in Hospitality: the Future is Already Here,” explained to hoteliers why they can no longer ignore mobile marketing, its importance to the travel and hospitality industries, and where to begin.

To read HotelNewsNow.com’s coverage of this event, please click here. For more about mobile marketing, please click here.

Indian Wells Interactive Scavenger Hunt by HeBS

For ten days, entrants can register for the Indian Wells Interactive Scavenger Hunt and start collecting four branded clues that will be revealed via Facebook, Twitter, Email, and Text Message. First, contestants must become a fan of Indian Wells on Facebook and a follower of Indian Wells on Twitter to be officially registered for the contest and start collecting clues. Once contestants successfully collect all four clues, they are entered in a drawing to win a $1,000 free vacation that includes a two-night stay, spa treatment, dinner, and a choice of tennis or round of golf for two.  A second, third, fourth, and fifth place prize of a free hotel room will also be rewarded.

“Multi-channel marketing should become the foundation of the hotelier’s marketing efforts in 2010 and beyond,” said Max Starkov, HeBS’ Chief eBusiness Strategist.  “This new interactive initiative not only generates buzz surrounding the destination, it actively engages customers in their own environment on the social web.  In this interactive age, a destination’s website can no longer afford to serve as a mere online brochure. With the importance of social media and mobile marketing taking a forefront in the online industry, interactive initiatives that incorporate these elements become increasingly more imperative. This is not just one step in an online marketing plan to engage consumers, but an important step into the next frontier of online marketing.”

An innovative, “outside the box” multi-channel marketing solution that steps inside social media and mobile marketing, the Interactive Scavenger Hunt helps build Indian Wells’ number of fans and followers on Facebook and Twitter. It additionally helps the destination to expand its email and mobile list for future marketing initiatives.  Beyond information capture, the scavenger hunt is also an interactive branding tool that uses four clues that best describe Indian Wells as a destination.  As contestants discover each clue, they uncover four strategic words that are key to Indian Wells’ brand positioning.

The Indian Wells Interactive Scavenger Hunt ends on January 28^th when the grand prize winner of the $1,000 free vacation package and the winners of the free hotel rooms will be announced.