Traveler Insights 2013

How will the online surface impact over the traveler this year?

Which will be the upcoming trends?

Find it out in this presentation and for further recommendations or critics please send us an email to contact@ourhotelyourhome.com

The 5 stages of travel

What´s going to happen next?

Travelers are always shifting from one technology to another leaving all hoteliers breathless trying not to lose their tracks.

Google made a very interesting, fresh and insightful presentation about the upcoming habits of the new life cycle of a trip started in the traveler´s mind.

More information?

Have a look at this brief presentation and if you have any doubt please send us an email to contact@ourhotelyourhome.com!

CRM for Hotels

A common pattern among all general managers and hotel´s owners is to earn the guest´s loyalty, especially when big part of their share comes from the business travelers.

The ordinary ways to attract them is with discounts, special offers or, inclusive, an expensive bottle of champagne in the room.

But, did you ever asked yourself how loyalty could be conceptualized and categorized in a model helping to develop concrete strategies to enhance profit and the quantity of guests who would come back?

Next we´ll talk about CRM (Customer Relationship Management) which motto is:

“The real business of all companies is to make clients, keep them and maximize profit.”

In case you want to share your own story please send us an email to pguevara@ourhotelyourhome.com or contact@ourhotelyourhome.com

Results of the Middle East´s survey for hotels

Ever wondered what hotels from the Middle East would answer when asked about hotel marketing?
How important are for them TripAdvisor and Booking?
Or what kind of strategies do they use when they plan an online campaign?

Find out next on this deep-analyzed presentation why this market is not mature yet and how marketing agencies should capitalize that niche.

The real reach of Google AdWords in the hotelier business

For those who own a website bond to their businesses a big concern, no matter its nature, is to appear on the first pages of a search engine, especially Google.

Beyond organic traffic an additional increase means raising possibilities of an inquiry or booking. To accomplish this action the most promoted and widespread tool is Google AdWords.

Brief explanation for those who are not familiar with it: 

First thing I have to do is to select where I want my ads/promotions to appear (you can choose among all countries, regions, cosmopolitan cities, etc.), then I pick the language in which it will be displayed (if Canada is my target you will need French and English, while for South Korea I would decide Hangeul). I have also to limit the daily assigned budget and when the campaign should end. 

On a second place I have to choose keywords related to the lodging and travel environment (if you are in Argentina you would take into consideration “Hotels in Argentina”, “Luxury Travel Buenos Aires”, “Lodging Palermo Soho“, etc.).Once somebody types them on Google my hotel will probably appear as one of the first options/results. 

I have to write also a four-line ad with the hotel´s information, promotion and contact details which will be located on the upper right of Google´s website inside a rectangle containing numerous commercials finalizing with the text “Powered by Google”. I have the possibility to make ads with images and videos, but the final cost rises up to the sky. Once I finished customizing the campaign it´s ready to be launched at any time.

Charging method: depending on the country´s ranking, the quantity of times the keywords I chose appeared on searches among other algorithms a daily amount of money is discount of my assigned budget when someone clicked on my ad and lands on my hotel´s website. Countries such as USA, UK and Australia are more expensive than Japan, India, etc.

In overall terms it is an excellent tool to generate more traffic and a temptation for e-commerce sites that target directly to the people´s pocket (rational benefit), but how does it impacts in the hoteliers industry?

According to an article (from Spain) it´s worth to invest on Google AdWords for hotels because by implementing this mechanism you can increase up to 25% your bookings after a one-month campaign.

I differ completely, hence my own point of view about this issue:

• You can´t control who´s clicking on your ad. It´s rooted to a multiplicity of factors like people mistakenly click on commercials they are not interested or just visit a site because they were bored or curious. The cases are infinite making it almost predictable that internet users outside our scope access our website by typing one word we chose as a key. The reason behind these results is that the system is based on random shooting without discriminating variables that are a key in the hoteliers business.
• The hotels´ nature, an intangible service, difficults a person to be interested on a first instance. In fact, potential guests who consult or book it´s because previously they heard about a hotel for the first time on specialized travel sites (Fodor´s, Travel+Leisure, TripAdvisor, etc.). It´s demonstrated and checked that people who enter a hotel´s site through a Google ad (artificial) make the ATS (average time on site) goes down to a half compared to those who enter through the organic way.
• Costs are too high knowing that you need a minimum of bookings each amount of money spent on Google AdWords to make it convenient. Many hotels in Buenos Aires suspended their campaigns by not receiving even one query.
• The fierce competence next to the giant players like Expedia which spends weekly US $ 6 million on Google´s tool (source: Advertising Age).
• A preselected site with AdSense of the country I´m interested in neither generates significant traffic.

I guess you receive on a daily basis mails from online advertising agencies and marketing agencies offering to make Google AdWords campaigns and that the results are phenomenal. Hence I invite you to share with all of us your own experience.

For further information please send me an email to pguevara@ourhotelyourhome.com