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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Do you work in hotel sales?

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

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

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

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

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

Here's the thing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How far in advance do your customers book with you?

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

Do you measure it? If not why not?

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

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

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

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


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

The internet allows you to be everywhere with your marketing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Many years ago, when I was a boy hotelier, hotel prices were published as high season and low season.

There were variations on the theme for groups, conferences and whatever other market segments you wanted to sell to, but essentially you had one set of prices for times of peak demand (often "summer") and another, lower set of prices for times of weak demand (for example, "winter").

Rate seasons were valid for 3, sometimes 6 months.

Do we use these rate seasons today?

Some websites certainly do. But the days of the long life rate season are numbered.

Why?
Continue reading "The death of the rate season?"

...if I could only reach you,
that would really be a

BREAKTHROUGH!

Ahhh, Freddie Mercury. What poetry.

How much work do you put in to reaching out to your audience?

On the face of today's advertising, I'd suggest the answer might be, "not a lot".
Continue reading "If I could only reach you - if I could make you smile..."

I noted with some disappointment yesterday that Google are testing a price comparison feature using a combination of their maps and adwords products you can read about their plans here.

My disappointment isn't with what Google are planning - they've got the technology and the market opportunity appears to be a strong one - my worry is that the hotel industry will do what it always does when threatened with downward pressure on price...
Continue reading "How to deal with price comparison websites"

It seems Google maps is going to become a price comparison site for hotels. I'll blog about this in another article when I've had a chance to think about it. But it's disappointing to think that, yet again, what could be a really useful route to market will probably get poisoned by "low price" promotions.

As all good hoteliers know (and so do your customers) - it is not all about price. Price becomes a default decision criteria when your marketing isn't up to the job.

So. Do you qualify for higher prices?
Continue reading "Do you qualify for higher prices?"

Interesting article fell into my mailbox this morning.

Interview with man from Google

The question about "predicting user perference" caught my attention. Not least because the following words formed part of the answer:

"The biggest unsolved problem therefore becomes this: how can we reduce the time to perfect fulfillment of the users’ online travel needs?"

I'm interpreting this (and forgive me if I've misinterpreted what's being said) as: "The biggest problem is working out what people need".

And I need to ask what is for me an obvious question. Who is running your marketing?
Continue reading "Google says "travellers want compelling offers at time of search""