Apr
28
Discounting, like commission, is now a fact of life for hoteliers who want to sell rooms. There are a few occasions when neither cost applies to your bookings but those occasions are few and far between.
But discounting is different from commission in one critical way:
Your customers can see discounts. They can't see commission.
Everybody is doing discounts. It's almost the default behaviour for hotel managers who aren't very good at marketing. Discounting has become one of the primary levers you can pull in order to try to make bookings happen.
Your problem is, everybody is doing it and this is becoming very boring from a customers' point of view.
So how do you make discounting fun?
Continue reading "How to make d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-discounting fun"
Posted by HotelBlogger
Apr
21
Selling your hotel rooms on these websites can be awfully expensive.
There are some who want huge commissions for the privilege of selling your rooms. Fair play to them, most of them know what they're good at and they deserve to get something in return.
So why should you use these websites? Take a look at the front page of Laterooms. I quote,
"...opportunities we bet you never even knew existed..."
They understand exactly why their customers are visiting. They're visiting to look for ideas about things to do and places to go. In the majority of cases, people nowadays learn that your hotel exists because it pops up on a search on one of these websites.
If your hotel isn't listed - people still won't know you exist.
Continue reading "Why you should use Laterooms (and other sites like it) and how to do it"
Posted by HotelBlogger
Apr
16
The internet is a fickle place. Online customers will look in lots of places before they make their booking. If you’re not listed on the website they happen to be looking at when they finally make their decision to buy – tough luck.
That’s why you need to be listed on as many websites as possible. You need to be aggressive or you’re not going to get the occupancy your business needs.
Being listed “everywhere” is great for capturing room sales, but it does bring its’ own problems:
Continue reading "So many websites, so little time..."
Posted by HotelBlogger
Apr
16
This week I was lucky enough to take part in a seminar with some friends who specialise in visual content for websites.
They had a very clear understanding of what your
number 1 marketing responsibility is, as far as your website is concerned:
You have a responsibility to
inspire your customers.
Websites that meet this responsibility get more sales. They can prove it too.
But how do you inspire your website visitors so they turn into customers?
Continue reading "Your number 1 hotel marketing responsibility"
Posted by HotelBlogger
Apr
15
I came a cross the most bizarre thing last week.
It's a piece of software that compares your online rate with those published by a group of your competitors, then it adjusts your rate so you're positioned somewhere (and you can choose where) close to them. It'll do this all day, every day, whenever a price changes in your competitive group.
The hotelier who showed me this system beamed at me,
"Your don't have a system that does that, do you?", he said.
He's quite right of course. I don't. And for the life of me, I can't think of a reason why I'd want to.
Price is important, don't get me wrong. But just because you
can do something like this, it doesn't mean that you
should.
Let me explain why...
Continue reading "The mysterious case of the oscillating price..."
Posted by HotelBlogger
Apr
9
Walk down your high street and your local retailers will throw "special offers" at you.
Open your newspaper and you'll see lots of adverts containing "special offers".
Special offers are everywhere. They are a wonderful way of attracting people's attention. But you've got to use them properly or they can have a negative effect on your would-be customer.
So, come on then! When is a special offer not a special offer?
Continue reading "When is a special offer not a special offer?"
Posted by HotelBlogger
Apr
2
Some days business is up. Some days business is down.
It is the way of things.
Some days hotels charge full rate. Other days they seem to make up prices as they go along.
I was reading today about how hotel "bookers" can still get great deals by waiting until the last minute.
They're waiting until they can hear your sales managers' pips squeak.
...and boy do some sales managers pips squeak.
Wild drops in price do not lead to an equally wild increase in bookings. Fact.
Yet hotels all across the country are "selling" (in inverted commas because they aren't selling at all -
they've given up) at prices some 30% of (yes, I mean 30%
of, not 30% off...)published rack rate.
Come on guys, you can do better than this!
Continue reading "Rates Sacrificed on the Altar of Conversion"
Posted by HotelBlogger
