Hotel Marketing and Revenue Management in the Time of Pandemic

Hotel Revenue Management the time of pandemic

As I write my first article during a global pandemic, my title inspiration comes from the Columbian literary superstar, Gabriel García Márquez. COVID-19 has rapidly decimated the industry I have worked in for over 20 years. There have been hardships before, but this one seems darker and more insidious than anything we have seen before. Nobody knows exactly what lies ahead, but the current reality is that thousands of our hospitality industry colleagues – many in my own personal network – have lost their livelihood or taken huge cutbacks in compensation and benefits.

March was a month filled with bad news that was staggered by geo-location, as my client base lies across varied geographies and asset types. The last of the hotel assets in my portfolio closed down on April 1. As most business comes to a grinding halt with everyone in quarantine, it has become a time for deep reflection and reconnection. I have had the chance to speak with many of my industry friends who are reeling from the effects.

With the world in quarantine, I have been surprised to see many hospitality vendors already posting their “recovery and marketing guides,” as if this is a just another minor hiccup and we are weeks/months away from business as usual. It is simply irresponsible to package a pandemic into a how-to guide. One of my close friends, industry legend Martin Soler, coined a term for this: vendsplaining.*

Vendsplaining (noun): When a hotel marketing/software vendor takes a complex problem – with specific implications for each individual client – and reduces it to a simplified “issue” that their one-size-fits-all proprietary guide or tool can solve. 

That term quickly inspired me to come up with my own term: vendcast.**

Vendcast (noun): A webcast sponsored by one or more hotel marketing vendors that addresses problems faced by hotels by offering regional or generalized strategies and tools.

* I have obtained Martin’s permission to use this word at every given opportunity.

**At the time of writing this, there are about seven vendcasts in progress, in which the vendors are vendsplaining how to beat the pandemic with a perfect plan/guide.

There is a ton of speculation on recovery timelines. I will not be doing that in this article, in case that is what you were looking for. But the one thing everyone can agree on is that a fundamental shift is inevitable in the way we operate hotels, restaurants, and airlines and plan our travel. This article is a summation of my thoughts on how things can and should change. Many of these thoughts arose from time I spent on calls with travel industry friends, ranging from Jedi masters, asset managers, investors, clients, and…vendors who don’t vendsplain (yes, they do exist!). I am focusing on the two areas of the travel business in which I have been professionally engaged for two decades: Revenue Optimization and Marketing.

There Will Be Blood

First things first. Nobody is coming out of this unscathed. From a remote four-room inn to the 650-room big box brand hotel across from the convention center in a major city, every property will be affected. I have seen articles from some so-called experts calling this “a swing of the pendulum.” That’s incorrect, as this is more a swing of the axe. No matter what the recovery timetable ends up being in the end…people and corporations across the globe are recognizing inefficiencies in how they conducted business before the global shutdown.

Here are some of the major travel industry players taking a direct hit:

In summary, there is no AI-powered pricing software, content strategy, or digital marketing ad campaign that can help hotels recover revenue quickly. Acceptance of loss has to be the first step in what looks to be a slow recovery. Anyone offering a swift hack to get everything back to business as usual should be avoided, like the coronavirus itself.

Hotel Revenue Management: What’s Next?

Some revenue optimization basics are always prudent, but all strategies need be tailored to your location, as well as regional and global financial trends. Pricing is crucial but your product still has to deliver corresponding value. Amenities like breakfast, upgrades, etc. will be more relevant than ever. So letʻs not forget the basics: your databases, room types, distribution mix, and most of all your offering all impact your profitability. What I have outlined below are some broader changes that may be coming into play over the next several months and years.

The Ides of March

2019, which now seems like so many years ago, was a good year for most hotels worldwide. To quote Dickens: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” Why? Because the RevPar growth was already slowing down following the recovery from our last financial meltdown in 2008.

The warning signs pointing toward the end of boom cycle for travel were already there. In addition to it being an election year in the US, recession was already on the lips of many finance world soothsayers, warning us of imminent decline at the end of a growth cycle.

Asset managers, owners and operators worldwide were chasing ADR growth for 2019, as it was the only way to increase profits. But that was easier said than done. Why?

  • New demand in the market was nicely met by all the new hotels going online. This made it harder for the established hotels to pull in big ADR numbers.
  • Rate of inflation was higher than the ADR growth, which in simple terms means “it got more expensive to run a hotel.” Rising costs can eat into your profits real quick, and that is where the majority of hotels were losing money. Payroll expenses kept going up.

The general forecast for 2020 from top industry sources like STR and Phocuswright was never super rosy to begin with. A major correction in rates was already under way before the pandemic in markets like Seattle, Houston, Boston, etc. Markets were dealing with their own issues. Case in point: San Francisco was reeling from negative press, interactive street poop maps, and loss of major conventions (Oracle Open World) due to high ADR’s and “poor street conditions.”

We have a tendency to look back at the “good old days.” I want to make sure we stay cognizant of the fact that signs of the slowdown were everywhere…we were at the end of the 10-year growth cycle. But nobody expected 2020 to fall off the cliff like it did.

When people eventually start traveling again, the comeback will be slow and painful for a lot of hotels. As a revenue optimization professional, I foresee some long hours ahead on the road to recovery. As I look into the future, talk with my colleagues and make notes on my trusted whiteboard, here are some things I can see changing for our industry.

Goodbye, Non-Refundable Rates

You read that right. I think it is time to say goodbye to this incredibly tempting rate type, which the industry embraced during the good times. As a guest, nothing is more annoying than realizing after a change of plans (for a variety of valid reasons) that you booked a great deal at a hotel you are not going to visit anymore. Airlines are the kings of non-refundable fares; like everything else in revenue management that trickles down from airlines to hotels, we embraced it and made it a part of our industry. Check out the horrible press that Airbnb received for their complicated and confusing refund policies.

It is time for both independent and brand hotels to step away from this rate type and let people book with confidence. Taking people hostage with terms and conditions seems out of place in the world we are about to inherit. Recovery starts with flexibility and, yes, you can quote me:

“Recovery starts with flexibility.”

– Vikram Singh

We simply cannot take people’s wallets hostage anymore. A crisis like this presents the perfect opportunity to embrace flexibility and use it to build “brand loyalty,” something we all love to talk about but very few know how to transform into revenue.

Ending Direct Revenue Mania

This point will soon be published as its own lengthy article. It was slated to be my next topic before the outbreak. However, here is a very basic TLDR summary:

Over the past few years, there has been a certain fanaticism about Direct Revenue. Software and marketing vendors have made it their tag line. It has been cast as the holiest and purest of all revenue channels. The term “most profitable channel” has been used ad nauseam. I strongly believe that we need to make a slight correction here. Maybe chill out with the direct hyperbole, maybe do some meditation and yoga to relax?

The recovery, when it happens, will be one of the worst times to get picky about distribution costs and wage wars on your distribution partners. We already know that a massive correction is about to happen to hotels and their distribution mixes. Direct channel is and always will be important, nobody is arguing that but it is not free money. There is cost associated with it and it has its limitations when it comes to generating the volume of revenue it takes to make a profit.

Vendors with “I Love Direct” and “Direct or Die” facial tattoos will need to get off their high horses and walk a few miles to cool off. Let’s go back to the 80’s when Frankie say relax. Remember,  direct revenue is not free money. The industry needs to come to terms with the costs that are associated with all channels. We cannot afford to tilt at windmills anymore. (It’s also a great time to read/reread El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha.) Obsession over an idea, no matter how noble, never ends well. You can quote me on this:

“Recovery will happen from all channels.”

– Vikram Singh

The Distribution Remix

Keeping in mind the unique recovery challenges associated with this pandemic, let’s take a brief look into the future. Groups and accounts associated with large meetings and conventions will likely take the longest time to come back. Corporate travel, which is traditionally the first one to bounce back, will also take more time based on the massive number of furloughs and layoffs. Hiring back always takes longer than taking an axe to the workforce.

Local drive markets will see the first signs of recovery. Eventually, the world will slowly but surely return to air travel, eager to meet family, friends and colleagues, and having forgotten about dirty airplanes, liquid bans, squalid airports, and the joys of TSA screenings. Maybe they will even cram themselves like sardines into basic economy fares to travel the globe. However, for the US market, incentivized in-state traffic will usher in the recovery, followed later by national and then international traffic.

For all your revenue management initiatives, remember that there has never been a more important time to be nice to your neighbors. I want you to read this with the Mister Rogers intro theme playing in your head.

The End of Resort Fees

I don’t think any two words have invoked a more venomous reaction from hotel guests over the last two decades than “Resort Fees” (aka: Urban Fees, Facility Fees, Destination Fees, Resort Charge, etc). A fee by any other name would be equally notorious. Critics of the fee have called it the “most deceptive and unfair pricing practice in the hotel industry.” It allows hotels to advertise a low rate and then ask for more money at check-in, even if the guest is not interested in using the amenities it supposedly covers. Even as a hotel revenue professional, it sounds pretty bad when I type it here. It’s basically drip pricing for hotels.

The resort fees trend started in the US (mid-1990’s) and has generated tremendous hate. How much hate are we talking here? I am glad you asked. So much that, as of this writing, 47 Attorneys General have opened an investigation into it. The most dramatic example was when Marriott Hotels was issued a subpoena by the Washington DC Attorney General for their non-cooperation.

In a most bizarre, almost surreal period in the travel business, the two top OTA’s are doing their part to “tackle resort fees” while major brands stay silent.

Expedia: They offer higher rankings to hotels not charging resort fees. Their official statement reads: “We know hotel-collected mandatory fees can be confusing to consumers, and we expect, among otherwise equivalent hotels, these changes will result in higher visibility on our sites for hotels not charging these fees.” In short, if you charge resort fees, Expedia will lower your rankings on their booking site and show guests a warning that you charge resort fees. Wow!.*

*In Owen Wilson’s voice. Please enjoy a 2-minute, 35-second compilation of him saying “wow”. You’re welcome.

Booking: It’s no surprise that in classic Booking.com fashion, they want a piece of the resort fees pie. They are including resort fees when calculating their commission. Official statement: “Hopefully, this will help continue to push the entire industry toward more transparency and fewer ‘surprises’ for customers.” 911, I would like to report a murderous sweet burn. If you can’t best them, make some money off of them in the name of transparency. Hey, nobody has ever accused Booking of not being great at making money. The fact that they used the word transparency is the ultimate atomic burn on our industry. Do kids still say atomic burn? Probably not, but you guys get the gist of it.

Post-pandemic recovery will be a great time for hotels (both brand and independent) to move away from drip pricing and give the guest confidence when they are booking their next trip. Big hotel brands like Marriott, Hyatt, Hilton and IHG have a tremendous opportunity right now take the lead on this. After all the complaints and articles about “evil OTA’s” stealing their customers, how can major brands let them lead the charge on transparent pricing? Are we awake, or is this a dream inside a dream inside another dream? Can someone please start playing Edith Piaf and give me an inception kick?

Brands need to show that they really care about their customers beyond sending everyone in their database a COVID-19 email, or posting videos of their CEO in tears, or yelling at them to “BOOK DIRECT” via expensive well-paid celebrities. An opportunity to take the lead has landed on the laps of the most powerful decision-makers in the hospitality industry. Please, let’s do the right thing.

Hotel Marketing: What’s Next?

As with revenue management, winds of change have been blowing in the marketing landscape for a while. All hotel websites look the same, everyone has a drone video, hotel ads look the same, all are inviting us to book direct and save, most mobile booking experience sucks, all have a best rate guarantee and, finally, all hotels are offering 20%- 40% off their best available rates in their email blasts.

A complete shutdown of non-essential travel is also the hard-reset button for hotel and travel marketing teams worldwide. This is the right time to start thinking about how you plan to be different when things get back online. Over the years, I have told hotels to:

Build Better Websites
Get Better Booking Engines
Stop Spending on “SEO”
Start Spending on Ads That Work
Stop Wasting Money on TripAdvisor
Send Better Emails
Have Better Hotel Events
Upgrade Their Success Metrics
Start Writing Better Content
Start Owning Digital Assets
Do Not Rent/Lease Websites

That’s enough content to publish a small book. Maybe I will one of these days. Until then, I encourage you to reread some the long-form content I have posted and get yourself mentally prepared for the changes ahead.

Here are a few other items I have been getting a lot of questions about.

You Can’t Growth Hack a Pandemic

The final stage of grief is acceptance. Let’s start there. A wide range of COVID-19 recovery strategy guides have already been published without any concrete “open for business” dates from the world’s governments. Based on the content produced so far, I can see that the mindset is still around how marketing is going to save the day. Example: Discount Gary Vee wannabes are busy posting “growth hacking” content that is completely detached from reality. This mindset might have partially worked after some of the other declines hotels have experienced in the past …but this is going to be different. As I write this, 16 million people in the US have lost their jobs. 

The unemployment rate in the US is predicted to hit 15%, which is the highest number since the Second World War. It is irresponsible to spin a marketing guide sitting here in the month of April. Recovery will be hard and extremely hands-on. There is no road to a quick bounce-back, but there will be an eventual bounce-back. It is more important than ever not to oversimplify recovery. Observe and report. Recovery will start locally and expand out from there.

Right now, it’s better to start with some things that are long overdue for an overhaul.

Move Beyond Vendor Management

For most hotels, this a moment of real change. People with the word ‘marketing’ in their job title will have to start doing actual marketing work. There is simply no money left to pay employees for emailing/harassing vendors and then spending useless hours in marketing meetings. There are some very talented people out of work; your recovery will be based on the caliber of people you choose.

There is hope for those whose entire career has been vendor management…they just have to learn how to do actual work. The shutdown is a great time to expand your skills beyond doing marketing calls and playing email jockey.

Hands-on agencies will survive as they are doing the work for owners who are busy running the property. On the flip side, agencies collecting monthly fees from hotels that were sitting at 20% to 30% occupancy even before the pandemic hit… will simply not make it. The luxury of paying agencies thousands of dollars every month to change a few words and photos on your website and run a few Google Ads are over. Specially when you have “marketing and e-commerce” in your job title these expenses cannot be justified anymore. You either do marketing or get out the way of ownership to work with someone who does.

Stop Spending on “SEO”

I outlined how the Hotel SEO Bubble burst back in 2013. If it is still going to appear in your agency invoices as a line item when you re-open…then Houston, we have a big problem. Google is great, but it is not your friend and owes you nothing. Google is here to sell ads and make money. If you keep your website healthy, lightning fast, and usable on mobile, and keep your Google my business listing current, then you will be fine.

Content, site speed and mobile usability reign supreme. Chasing rankings in 2020 and touting organic search results is the ultimate hipster move. Riding a unicycle in a bike race is cool but you will never win. It’s a great time to ask yourself what you are paying for and how you can migrate that cash over to something useful, like paid ads or content production.

Pause Paid Advertising for Now

When your hotel is closed, it is ok to pause your ads. Yes, this 100% includes brand name campaigns in Google and all metasearch campaigns. Agencies/vendors that are telling you that “cost per click” in the market is low should use use their time in quarantine to learn demand and supply 101. Please email them this list of classes to take.

Nobody is booking travel right now, and therefore the cost is low. This should not be packaged as a great opportunity to capture some future pie in the sky business. If there are no surfers in the ocean, then it is very likely that there are no good waves to be ridden or that a shark alert has been issued. When in doubt, don’t go out. (And just like that, I get to use a reference from my home in Hawaii.)

Don’t panic and fall for the whole engagement sales pitch. Take a deep breath. Is your website still running well? Google Business Listing updated? Good, now wait until we get an open for business date. Please don’t wave ads in people’s faces while they are locked down. It is annoying and in no way an inspiration for them to book travel.

Cash is tight, so please take care of your employees first. They will be crucial when the recovery starts. Google and others will take your money anytime…it’s like their favorite thing to do, every day. Also, if you are still clinging to TripAdvisor ads, it’s ok to let go now and reallocate your budgets.

Relax With Social Media

The road to social media is paved with disaster. It’s ok to tone it down and take a health break from it. There is nothing you need say on Twitter/Facebook/Instagram that is crucial to the recovery. I wrote in detail about influencers in my last post. This is the perfect opportunity to consciously uncouple from influencers and focus on taking care of your employees, neighbors, and communities. (I saw an article that highlighted “charitable acts as great hotel branding opportunities”. I rolled my eyes so far that they were stuck behind my head for a while.)

Please don’t succumb to the hubris that you need to entertain people on your hotel social media accounts while they are getting laid off and face an uncertain future. Leave that to Netflix/Amazon/Hulu, etc. ICYMI Here are some things that already have caused a terrible backlash on social:

In short: Avoid the urge to post at this time. When things open again, you can get back to posting “healing and inspirational photos” in no time. Just because you have a microphone does not mean you have to say something all the time.

Take It Easy With Email & CRM

I think everyone and their brother has already sent out a COVID-19 email. A company I brought a paper clip from in 1999 recently emailed me about their concern for my well-being. Every single hotel brand, including the one I stayed with once in 1995 (25 years ago), sent me an email. Idea: Instead of blasting your entire database you are better off putting your message on your home page and reserving email to communicate with people who have booked a stay with you.

Oh, remember the hotel group that sent me 60+ promo emails in a year? Guess what? They never stopped and were pushing a 45% Relax On Shores Of Cancun vacation to me in Hawaii late into the lockdown in the middle of March. You simply cannot make this stuff up!

 

Time to Retire Retargeting

I am going to keep this short and sweet. Retargeting was never cool and has always been annoying to your guests. It was nothing more than a violation of privacy that they let slide in the name of convenience. I had been planning to write something more detailed to make my point. But sometimes things just land in your lap and you close the case. A single image can deliver more power than a thousand words. In my case, make it 3000 words (my average article).

Banner ads for hotels and travel companies have been showing up in articles about mass graves and medical supply shortages! One in particular as hit me hard as I was reading about how doctors in Italy had stopped counting dead bodies. Lo and behold, there was an ad for a hotel brand with a BOOK NOW call to action. Again, you cannot make this stuff up:

Let’s take this opportunity to stop paying for retargeting. This is a marketing idea whose time has passed. Say your goodbyes.

Conclusion: Skilled Teams Will Lead the Recovery

If you are still reading this, I saved the best for last, just for you. Let’s start with an excerpt from one of the greatest stories ever told:

“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo.
“So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

– J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

The recovery will happen. Speculating on its timeline is a waste of time. I refuse to speculate when there is still so much work to be done in our industry.

We have a massive challenge ahead of us, no question. Recovery efforts will be further complicated by the limited resources we will be left with after the shutdown. One resource that is going to be more crucial than ever is good people. Your success will depend on who you choose work with when we get back to business. The silos of revenue, marketing, and operations need to come tumbling down. From their rubble will rise the superhero recovery teams (minus the capes and spandex of course). The gap between the A-team players and everyone else is going to get bigger. Smaller, smarter and nimbler teams will shine.

Right now, we hold steady, think about the future, and wait for the safe time to start again. And remember: quarantine is temporary, but Wu-Tang is forever!

Reality Check on Using Influencers for Your Hotel

Using Influencers for Hotels

As social media marketing continues to evolve and grow, one of the questions hotel owners/managers consistently ask me is whether or not it makes sense to work with influencers.

Personally, I strongly believe that social media is not good for your physical or mental health. I follow a strict “post it, log out” strategy. This is particularly relevant when I am trying to promote a speaking gig or share a new comedy tidbit. I don’t read comments, don’t follow, and don’t stay on social media beyond the time it takes me to post and quickly log out. Instead of citing dozens of studies that have been done on this subject, I like citing my own personal experience: My life is better since I deleted Facebook. That is just a fact.

 

The Miserybook

You cannot talk about social media without talking about Facebook (which I often refer to as Miserybook). You simply cannot escape it. They own Instagram and WhatsApp, and I use both apps respectively for research and communication. But you can break free from posting your deepest thoughts on an online platform and then waiting for other people to validate you.

Facebook has weaponized everyone’s personal data to sell ads, and it has been extremely profitable for them. What really stands out for me are the penalties imposed on Facebook for selling your data: it is a drop in their ocean of revenue. There is simply too much cash to be made by sharing your data with advertisers. For example:

For those not familiar with the FTC, it is an independent agency of the US government in charge of consumer protection and antitrust laws. Here is a brief summary from their website on what they do:

“protecting consumers and competition by preventing anticompetitive, deceptive, and unfair business practices through law enforcement, advocacy, and education without unduly burdening legitimate business activity”

Keep this handy, as we will be calling on our friends from the FTC again.

 

The Pursuit of Permanent Perfection

Why am I talking about Facebook? It is the senior citizen of social media channels. I often call it the AARP of social media channels. The thing is, they own Instagram: that’s where the “influencers” come from!

Instagram has caused much general unhappiness and suffering to young(er) folks, with its relentless emphasis on living the perfect life. Here are some distinctly negative features of Instagram:

  1. Fictionalized presentation of life, without reality checks or relatability
  2. Heavy Photoshop use, resulting in faultless imagery, leading to…
  3. Unrealistic appearances and negative body image, and…
  4. Heightened feelings of sadness and loneliness

If distancing yourself from friends, family and reality is your goal…oh boy, do we have a platform for you!

Those that regularly post their perfect life and body to share with their thousands or millions of followers will shill any product at the right price. They have made a beeline to the hotel industry and, as expected, a lot of hotels have taken the bait.

 

Hotels, Meet Influencers

“Everyone is a luchador, mi amigo.”

– Señor Ramon, Nacho Libre, 2006

Guess what? Today, everyone is an influencer. I can joke about myself being one, as I am oh so important in the travel industry. But in reality, I am stunned to see the hoards of people who have quit their day jobs to travel the world. For every established influencer, there are hundreds more emailing hotels every day asking for a free stay.

What do you get in exchange for this free stay? Here are the top two words thrown around:

  • Collaboration
  • Exposure

What you actually get? A vast endless ocean of sameness. These are the same 10 photos I see across all hotel social media influencer accounts:

  1. Yoga pose by the pool
  2. Breakfast tray in bed: same food, different hotels
  3. Poolside bikini shot in full makeup (because water + makeup are so good together)
  4. In-bed photo in robe/pj’s with perfect hair and makeup (because that’s how we all wake up)
  5. Jumping on the bed with perfect hair and makeup (sometimes with shoes on…eew!)
  6. Standing outside the entrance looking really intense
  7. Making a heart with their hands near the hotel logo
  8. Inspirational t-shirt side pose in the lobby
  9. Sitting fully dressed on the edge of the pool (like all normal people do)
  10. Hair splash making a circle in ocean, pool, river, lake, etc.

Independent hotels should really ask themselves: what’s the point of being independent if everything about you online is the same? There are hotels that thrive on sameness. They are called brand hotels, and we already have enough of them!

 

Mo’ Followers, Mo’ Revenue?

Short answer: No.

Long Answer: The lodging business sells an experience; it requires you to get off your couch and physically go there. It requires booking a flight or driving long distance, maybe taking a cab/ride share or renting a car. And it requires you to do one of the hardest things to do in the US: take actual time off, which requires a lot of planning.

When you are selling a lodging/stay experience, a high number of followers will not have the same impact for you as it would for, let’s say, magic weight loss supplements or face creams that make you look 20 again. Those products arrive in a nice box right at the door of your home or office. Zero effort is required other than entering your credit card details and shipping address. These are the businesses that can see revenue growth from follower growth. Everyone else is sipping on the high follower count Kool-Aid.

Since the influencer party started with hotels, I have yet to see a revenue increase for any hotel as a result of deploying influencers. But hey, apparently there is a healthy volume of exposure to be had, folks. It’s just a classic case of “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

Now where is that magic youth cream I ordered last week on Instagram?

 

Always Wear a Helmet

“You best protect your neck.”

– Wu Tang Clan,1992

Let’s say you just cannot help yourself and want to get involved in “influencer marketing.” The main thing to remember here is that the good ol’ FTC is like Roz from Monsters Inc…always watching. You must always clearly disclose when someone you are paying is talking about your brand online to their followers. One of the FTC’s favorite rules is the one about preventing deceptive business practices. Here are some top things to keep in mind.

  • Full Disclosure. Anything you are offering in exchange for social media “exposure” needs to be clearly outlined. This includes a hotel stay, free meals, free activities, etc. Also, your disclosure needs to be clear and up front, not buried in the fine print. Guess what? There is a hashtag for that! #ad. In 2019, the FTC sent a letter to the top influencers asking them to be clear on sponsored posts.
  • Consistent Language. An Ad is an Ad is an Ad. It’s not “spon” or a “collab.” Make sure your hotel is clearly called out as a sponsor for all the social posts. That information cannot be buried in the barrage of lifestyle adjectives being used in the content of the post. Also, if the post is multilingual, make sure you use matching language hashtags.
  • Tag = Endorsement. Even if the influencer has left your hotel and decides to tag you in a post out of the blue a few months later, they must disclose the relationship they have had with your hotel in the past.

 

The Shrinking World of Hotel PR Agencies

Traditional PR is alive, but its value and scope are gradually shrinking. I am not surprised that influencer marketing has become a prominent service for them to offer. So let’s briefly talk about PR agencies and their strategies. In many cases, instead of holistically building your brand by producing content, the agencies have shifted their focus to how many influencers have checked into your hotel. If you feel the need to pay for PR services at your hotel, then be prepared to question your deliverables and their costs (including the cost of free rooms).

Here are some good questions to consider before committing to a long-term PR investment:

  • Product: Do you have a hotel product worth talking about? If not, then PR is not a magic bullet. If you have a skimpy product, coupled with the fact that there are several other hotels in your market who look and talk exactly like you, then PR does not help. I have observed over the years that having a really good product gives you the magical ability to not pay for PR. Your guests do the work for you… for free.
  • Agreement: Everyone needs to be in on the plan. PR only works when all departments at the hotel have buy-in. This is a top to bottom effort; otherwise, the PR ends up writing checks that your operations cannot cash. Marketing can take your message and distribute it, but there needs to be a reality check between what you are saying and what is actually happening at the hotel.
  • Goals: There needs to be clarity on why you are investing in PR. Are you launching a new brand? Repositioning an old one? Doing damage control? The goals need to be set in the beginning. Strategic PR can bring long-term benefits, but there needs to be a clear metric in place to measure its success. Example: follower growth vs. engagement, follower growth vs direct traffic, etc.
  • Content: Great PR is content that people engage with and which helps them learn about/plan/visualize their future hotel + destination experience. If you do not produce content (and just talk about influencer/social stats), then you are quickly going nowhere. Every content piece is not going to the NY Times travel section. There are niche publications on local and international levels that can bring you visibility as long as you are producing the right content about your hotel and destination. Sell your destination when possible. Remember that your hotel already exists there.

Small hotels simply cannot afford big-ticket PR, and that is nothing to be worried about. You need to take control of what is in your hands: your content! I have seen hotels sitting at under 20% occupancy, while spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on PR efforts revolving around influencers and paid posts in luxury travel magazines. The real kicker is that this PR agency sent a report to the hotel claiming that their influencer “exposure” to the hotel should be valued at … please sit down when you read this: 6 million USD! I made sure that they were let go the same day.

 

Try This Instead

Trying hard to stay relevant? Brand slipping away? How about investing in and testing out these avenues for your lodging business instead of using influencers:

  1. Get a better website. Use my guide to make a website that works for you and your guests.
  2. Invest in video. The youth love YouTube, so why not give it a chance? I am writing a guide on this.
  3. Get better content. Yes! People still read. So, follow my content guide and make sure your content is powering your website conversions.
  4. Get a better booking engine. Make sure you are not snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
  5. Send better emails. Make the power of email marketing work for your hotel. 

 

Conclusion

The barrage of social media imagery carefully curated to reflect perfect lives is quickly catching up with all of us in the general population. This constant stimulation is having two major side effects: depression through comparison, and anxiety that you should be doing something other than what you are doing. There is the feeling that you are left behind working in an office while the rest of the world seems to be on vacation. The decision you have to make is: do you want to contribute to this mental health epidemic? Spending money on something that really doesn’t contribute to your bottom line, while making people miserable, is an ethical decision that I cannot make for you. But I do think the financial decision is pretty clear.

I joked earlier that I unlocked the secret to happiness when I deleted my Facebook account… but I might be on to something.

Hotel and Travel Conferences Need an Upgrade

hotel conferences need an upgrade

When it comes to hotel conferences and trade shows, I will go ahead and show my age by saying I have been to almost all of them. During the earlier part of my career, I was an attendee; later I became a speaker. After I received hotel revenue optimization enlightenment, I took it upon myself to go out and educate an industry that seemed perpetually stuck. Several hundred conferences later, a clear pattern has emerged. However, this pattern will need to change if events are to become truly relevant to the industry they serve.

Below are some of my observations, and they might sound very familiar to you. Here is a walk down my own hotel conference memory lane, paved with some dark memories and paired with my proposed solutions.

The Quirky Keynotes

Hotel conferences, like all the conferences out there, love their keynotes. Enter the “I have nothing to do with your business” keynote speaker. Here are some of the usual suspects you might recognize:

  • High-energy motivational speakers (yawn)
  • Speakers who climbed Everest
  • Speakers who climbed Everest while walking backwards
  • Speakers who sold their million-dollar shoe company
  • Speakers who are also amateur magicians

Try this instead: The keynote session has evolved into a way to show off how cool you are, instead of addressing what is really facing the industry. I am all for Everest climbers and magicians, but a nanotechnology expert is not going to help attendees understand why they are not keeping up with the competition.

The One-Hour Sessions

Not everything needs an hour. Conference organizers who give an hour to everything to neatly divide and balance out the conference make the day painful for the rest of us. An important thing to factor in here is a famous quote by Philip B Crosby: “Nobody can remember more than three points.”

People can typically focus their attention for 20 minutes, and then all bets are off. The lights are on, but no one’s home. On the speaker side, making things last an hour usually translates into stretching 30 minutes of excellent material into 60 minutes of meh. “Meh” is the enemy of good content and must be stopped. I’ve even seen speakers jamming on the stage to fill up time like they are Phish. (Sorry to my readers who are Phish fans!)

Try this instead: Give speakers a 30-minute window for content, 10 minutes for questions. This small change will bring about heavy editing, resulting in better content and happier conference attendees who will feel that they actually learned something.

Panel of Death by Boredom

Let’s face the fact that panels have been boring since the dawn of human civilization. I don’t think I have seen anything less productive than a panel discussion. I have almost died while listening to – and even while being a part of – a “panel of experts.” You think you are going in for a scoop, some inside stories, and a fascinating peek into personalities. Instead you get bored to death. Here is how a typical panel discussion unfolds at hotel events:

The Moderator. The event sponsor or other tangential player acts as emcee, lobbing pre-arranged softball questions at the supposed experts. These are their responsibilities:

  1. They hold a microphone. A stand can do that job.
  2. They email attendees two weeks before the conference asking what questions they would like to be asked. Do the panelists need a heads-up on topics within their own area of expertise?
  3. They ask the panelists to “introduce themselves,” even though you already know who they are from the event website/signage. These introductions take several minutes per panelist… precious time you had on Earth to do something meaningful.

The Panelist. This is usually a corporate-type person or another company sponsor (not important enough to be a moderator, of course!). They will pretend to answer questions emailed to them two weeks ago and look surprised. Also, they love the sound of their voice.

Here are my Top 3 panel highlights to date:

  1. I once did a Lord of the Rings analogy on a panel. The moderator and fellow panelists almost had a heart attack, but the audience finally woke up! I have not been invited back.
  2. I mentioned that the traditional hotel sales era revolving around having martinis @3pm is now over. Wyndham’s SVP of Marketing at the time brought me a $30 martini to my next panel discussion (I don’t drink alcohol), then argued that open source is a terrible idea for hotels. I have not been invited back.
  3. At a data conference in 2010, the head of Ecommerce for Hilton Garden Inn mentioned that mobile revenue is not a big deal. I told him that it was not a big deal for them because their mobile booking experience was a nightmare. I recommended that they look at this new company called Hotel Tonight to see how mobile bookings should be done. I have not been invited back.

Try this instead: Don’t do panels. When I’m invited to join a panel, my condition is that I will not be following a script, which usually scares away the panel hounds.

The Sponsor Con

This I have survived…many, many times. Nothing is scarier than the moment when the conference speaker starts talking about what their company offers, followed by 20 slides on their new product release.

Hotel conferences worldwide are turning into conferences by the sponsors, of the sponsors, and for the sponsors. I completely understand that it takes money to run and manage conferences. But somewhere along the line, companies have completely taken over. Everything is for sale…from the name-tag holder, to the table on which you will rest your coffee.

I have held this opinion from a very early stage of getting into the event speaking business: Sales people cannot educate. I know it’s an unpopular opinion, but this is not open for debate. I have attended and spoken at hundreds of events, and this holds true every time. I am not saying that salespeople have some evil agenda against education. But they do have sales targets and quarterly deadlines to meet.

The “sponsor to speak” epidemic in the hospitality business has taken a massive toll on the amount of useful information hotel owners and managers have been able to accumulate by attending industry events.

In my younger days as a speaker, there were many times I would do a gig for free to get “exposure.” As the only non-sales guy at an event, it was not a challenge to excel. Fast-forward to today: I only do paid gigs. It needs to be clear that I am getting on stage to share and teach from my experiences, and not to get attendees to buy anything.

Try this instead: Marketing dollars burning a hole in your pocket? Why don’t you sponsor a real speaker instead of the sales guy? You can still fly your banner on the stage, without confusing attendees with sales pitches thinly disguised as education.

The Buzzcon

Hospitality and travel event planners are perpetually on the lookout for buzzwords when selecting event topics and presentations. Here is a typical formula:

Buzz-wordy topics = Your event sounds relevant = Ticket sales

Here are some hotel industry buzzword examples for you: Big Data, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Automation. After years of trying to figure out why conferences rely so heavily on buzzwords, I finally realized that events are struggling to stay relevant. Using the latest buzzwords is their click-bait scheme to drive attendance.

Unfortunately, when you run a buzzcon, the content takes a hard nosedive. Most buzzword slides end up being what I like to called “Google-able content.” If your attendees can find the information you’re presenting on Google and you are not bringing anything from your own experience…then, in the words of the great Bill Pullman, “It’s game over, Man!” There is a speaker I know who literally reads off a list from Google Trends at events. That is torture, and I almost called Amnesty International on him.

Try this instead:

  1. Make sure you really need the buzzword for your conference. If you must use it, then have actionable items right after.
  2. Make sure presented content is not already available on Google/YouTube.
  3. Ask speakers for fresh content. How does the new trend change travel in the next few months and years? Make sure they bring specific examples. Ex: Anyone saying “artificial Intelligence is going to change travel” should be drop-kicked off the stage if they do not have actual examples!

The User Con

Having worked for hotel software vendors, I have direct personal experience in the surreal world of the hotel software “user conference.” I’m not sure where to start, so I will start with the basics. Most user conferences in our industry are not about hotels, innovation, or taking the industry forward. They are about the vendor telling the world how well they are doing. I am talking about big, multimillion-dollar conferences presented by companies who have not upgraded their product in years! Big is the operative word here. I have seen more money being spent on events than on people and product development. That pretty much summarizes the issue here. The user conference becomes an extension of the CEO/President’s ego.

A personal anecdote here summarizes everything. Shortly before a multimillion-dollar production event for a software company, it was announced that the company was being sold to a direct competitor. The employees, some of whom had worked with said competitor in the past, were in shambles…fearing mass layoffs, career stagnation, and relocation issues.

As with any conference, there was a band playing on the final evening. Not a soul got on the dance floor. Most of the employees were reeling under the pressure of smiling and keeping face while their professional lives were being upturned. So, the band started playing and the first ones to start dancing together were the President and CEO, dancing with the joy of two people who had just become millions of dollars richer. I looked around at the horror and pain in the eyes of the employees…that image stays with me. To add insult to injury, the employees were then required to sing to the President and CEO. This is the most surreal moment I have experienced at an event.

Try this instead: Don’t be evil! The user conference is about the users and not about you. Focus on education and content instead of making your employees cry.

The Ted-Type Con

Another type of conference making the rounds is the wannabe Ted Talk type of event, minus the Ted Talk level of content. Here are some signs that you might be at this event:

  1. Registration Fees: $5000 to $8000 (early bird discount $4999). Come on, now! You know what kind of budgets most hotels are working with. Nothing says innovation like pricing out 99% of actual hotel owners and operators. It feels like a dystopian future where only the 1% can afford to attend and talk about how to succeed in the marketplace.
  2. Attendees/Speakers: Only CEOs, CMOs, and COOs (see above) are attending. Oh, yes, and the wide-eyed salesperson for a software company who wants to sell to the C Suite – or hand out their resume to them.  Do you think anyone would spend $4000 to $8000 of their own personal money to be at this event because of the content? Man, it’s so easy to spend other people’s money!
  3. Content: I’m sure you have heard the “30,000 feet” overview cliche thrown around by all kinds of MBA grads. Now add another 380,000 feet. Yes, you are now officially in space, looking down at Earthlings. The content is super vanilla and not usable in real life. The CEO of Marriott is never going to say anything at an event that could jeopardize their stock price. Get real.

Try this instead: I know it is not hard for me to convince anyone to not spend thousands on this type of event. Go to YouTube and watch some Ted talks. Total cost: $0.

Pet Peeves

And now for something a little different… a quick list of my personal conference pet peeves.

  1. The video keynote. Please stop. I’ll make an exception if you are working on the International Space Station.
  2. Standard PowerPoint template. Nothing screams “innovation and new ideas” like having speakers use a uniform conference-themed PowerPoint template to share such ideas.
  3. Speaker during lunch. There is nothing like the sound of clinking water glasses and silver to get the audience and speaker in the mood for soaking up ideas. People are already exhausted from the morning sessions, and need to nourish themselves before receiving the afternoon content. Please let people eat and make the customary small talk during meals.
  4. Landfill schwag. Personal horror story…buttered popcorn flavor chapstick.
  5. Business card collectors. If I want to give you my business card, it will happen naturally via a real conversation.
  6. The conference app. It hits the apps trifecta: expensive to make, bad usability, useless after one show. Get a website with pages on where, what, when, how to get there.
  7. Bad food. Come on! We are in the hospitality business!
  8. Slow WiFi: Sorry, your conference has failed. Everyone should immediately evacuate the building.
  9. The conference promo video. Oh look… people are having so much fun AND learning AND eating gourmet food! Yes, make a video about the conference…but stop using this generic formula for all your hotel conference videos:
    • Catchy EDM tune
    • Location city shot
    • People entering the building, always smiling
    • Customary registration desk
    • Presenters on stage with no audio (techno music intensifies)
    • Engaged attendees listening
    • People playing golf, shaking hands (having a jolly ol’ time)
    • Exhibitors engaging in deep conversations at the trade show (implied deal-making)
    • Short clips post event from attendees raving about the importance of the event (their name and title clearly on display)

Try this instead: Stop paying for sizzle reels. Move that budget over to actually posting some excerpts of speakers sharing actual content. Remember you are the producer…not the talent. As for the rest of the pet peeve items…I think I’ve made my point.

Da Tradeshow

Hotel vendors spend countless hours thinking about their branding and story for trade shows, then print the same message on everything and show up with the sales team to answer questions. I am all for a chance to do a face-to-face meeting with your peers and customers, but after a while everything starts to look the same. They’re there just to be there. Exhibitors are at the event not to win, but to not lose.

Try this instead: Have more respect for yourself, your company, and the audience. Even if you don’t have a new product announcement, offer up some new tutorials, new research, or a fun way to engage with attendees. Hey, have you heard of this thing kids love called YouTube?

The Buyers’ Club Speed Dating Event

Now this is something that the SEC, FBI, DOJ and Interpol (international events) need to prosecute. The concept is that vendors pay $10 to $15K to attend a 2-day event where “ qualified” buyers from hotel companies are hosted by the organizer. The organizer goes so far as to “guarantee” that vendors will meet a particular sales goal. (But this guarantee evaporates once the event is done and paid for.)

Events focus on a range of topics, from hotel hardware to hotel software, from towels to booking engines. I had the misfortune of attending one of these events as a vendor, and what I saw there completely transformed my approach to hotel events. I still cannot believe these events are legal. This event is the proverbial rock bottom of hotel conferences. More on this when I write my book.

Try this instead: Don’t go there. To quote Admiral Akbar, “ It’s a trap!”

Conclusion

Conferences should be about connecting with people, and learning something new from personal interactions that you can’t get from Google. Hospitality is an exciting business. Folks, we are literally in the business of events. Our industry events need to be at another level. Technology companies are doing circles around us. Events represent a great opportunity to upgrade ourselves and rise up together as an industry, not only by sharing relevant information, but also by showing what great hospitality looks like.

How Google Reviews Is Crushing TripAdvisor

 

An interesting trend has been brewing in the travel business. Quietly but surely, Google Reviews has been expanding their online review market share for brick and mortar businesses. Since hotels, inns and B&Bs are a 100% location-driven business, this change directly impacts both their revenue and branding.

Online reviews left by strangers have become almost as trusted as personal recommendations. However, placing this much trust in reviews requires the user to be able to filter real reviews from fake ones. This sorting process can be extremely frustrating, especially on websites like TripAdvisor where everything is controlled by an almighty “secret algorithm.” Still, hotels and inns have been under the TripAdvisor spell for a while now. TripAdvisor dominates the conversation to such a large extent that I felt the need to write a 3500-word article about how to curb your hotel’s obsession with TripAdvisor.

Meanwhile, Google with its “of course, we can do it better” mantra has beefed up its own review platform, which is fully integrated into its existing search and maps empire. They always play to win.

Let’s Talk About Yelp, Baby

Before trying to understand the impact of the new and improved Google Reviews on TripAdvisor, let’s talk about the other hyper-local-focused review platform…you know, the one that inspired a South Park Episode. I am, of course, talking about Yelp. Looking at where Yelp stands today is a window into how things might play out for TripAdvisor in the not-so-distant future. Here’s the story of Yelp.

The Beginning. Yelp was started in 2004 by ex-PayPal employees Jeremy Stoppelman and Russel Simmons (not Def Jam). PayPal has produced more billionaire founders than any other company. But I digress. Hereʻs the main thing. As was the case with many review websites, the best intentions did not lead to the best outcomes.

The IPO. User-generated (free) content fueled the massive growth of the website and led them into a 2010 IPO.

Greed. Two words…Advertising Dollars. This is where things got out of hand. Yelp pushed their ads real hard on local businesses, just like TripAdvisor does today with hotels. This practice brought about several accusations of extortion by business owners against Yelp. Most complaints focused on either positive reviews being removed from a business’s page if they did not buy ads, or on Yelp letting competitors pay for ads to remove/hide negative reviews. The similarities to some of the review/ranking/advertising issues TripAdvisor is experiencing right now is surreal.

Pushback. Enter lawsuits with the Federal Trade Commission. Although the FTC dismissed these cases, the cases highlighted the plight of small business owners being held ransom by Yelp ads and Yelp Elites. It always reminds me of the stressed-out B&B owner in tears about his TripAdvisor reviews. Most ethical business owners moved their advertising dollars to platforms that were not squeezing the small business owner. Of course, movies like Billion Dollar Bully did not help Yelp at all.

Winds of Change. Nothing good or bad lasts forever. Since 2014, the general population has been moving toward Google Reviews, Google Maps, and Instagram…and advertising dollars have followed. The accessibility of these platforms is much better than anything Yelp had to offer. While user reviews remain very relevant, the way people like to look at information has changed. People find it easier to communicate with businesses on Google/Instagram/Twitter than on Yelp. Result? Advertising declines → stock price declines.

Perception. As a travel industry lifer with friends in the restaurant business, I know one thing for certain. People writing Yelp reviews are not considered to be the smartest people around. South Park doing a full episode on Yelp Elites was instrumental in showcasing this issue. I also think about what the late, great Anthony Bourdain said about Elite Yelpers in an interview with Business Insider:

“There’s really no worse or lower human being than an Elite Yelper. They’re universally loathed by chefs everywhere. They are the very picture of entitled, negative energy. They’re bad for chefs, they’re bad for restaurants.”

I could not agree more. Likewise, my chef/restaurant friends have severely limited the time they spend on Yelp. Instead, they check food photos online to see how their product is being received and shared on sites like Google Reviews and Instagram. Instantly qualifying the person posting a review and having social proof is a great thing! Also, these mediums offer a greater chance for a business owner to interact directly with both negative and positive reviewers.

Declining But Not Dying (Yet). Yelp is not shutting down anytime soon. Hey, not that long ago (2009), Google wanted to buy Yelp for $500 million! Yahoo threw their hat in the ring with a $1 billion number soon after. Yelp is still going pretty strong, and still garnering new reviews and content. At the same time, even more reviews and ad dollars are pouring into Google and Instagram. Plus, we know that Google is definitely from the “if you can’t buy it, beat it to pulp” school of thought. So they will make sure that Yelp does not make a big comeback.

The TripCollective Elite Contributors Game

Levels*
Points

Guess what? The points earned by reviewers do not have a monetary value. It is apparently a game. A game in which you rank your entitlement on a website that then turns around and sells ads (for money) on the free content you uploaded on their website.

It’s like an episode of Black Mirror… where you are the game! If you are bored and into gaming, Fortnite and Red Dawn 2 are very good. Why not try those instead?

Also, see Anthony Bourdainʻs quote above. It also applies here. Same people, different platform.

*Psst…did you know there is a rumored Level 7 TripAdvisor Elite? (If this piques your interest, you might be reading the wrong blog.)

Rise of the Google Reviews

Google gets tons of cash from TripAdvisor spending on Google Ads. TripAdvisor sells advertising on their own website in part to support their Google Ads habit.

As more travel industry ad dollars shift toward Google and Facebook, TripAdvisor has gone hard into pushing their own advertising platform while offering very little analytics and support in return. One of their offerings: paying for a link. Can you believe in 2019 you can pay just to get a link from another website? You know, like an online directory listing circa 2001. It’s like if you did not have a link to your hotel from TripAdvisor, your guest would never be able to find you after reading your reviews. They must be familiar with this little thing called Google, where you can type in a hotel’s name and magically find it!

We know that Google is king when it comes to advertising. How else is Google Reviews tightening its grip on the hotel review market? Two initiatives stand out for me.

Local Search

Google has been a verb for a while now. So yeah, when you “Google a hotel” in search, you get the hotel’s location, hours, phone number, reviews, website, and rates in a nicely packaged search box. This offering is even more relevant on mobile.

Google My Business is the most visible of all the review sites, and therefore now gets more people to use it. Look at the simplicity in action:

Android Push

I am an Android user. (Apple still gets my laptop and power adapter dollars.) One of the main drivers of Google Reviews has been the frequency of Google asking you to leave a review based on where you are. I had to turn that off on my phone. But the fact remains that Google has made it super easy to get you to leave a review based on your GPS location while logged into your Google Account. This feature definitely adds to the review’s authenticity, as the user’s Google account and location provide some proof of them actually having been at your location.

Meanwhile, TripAdvisor is penalizing hotels for any reviews posted by guests using the hotel’s computer/Wi-Fi network, etc. Feels like TripAdvisor is the upside down when it comes to people leaving reviews from a location they are actually in. They would rather have user ‘crazyboog1999’ trash your hotel from their mother’s basement.

Pro tip. If you are tired of Google asking you to leave reviews: Select “Settings,” then “Notifications.” Finally, tap on “Your contributions,” and then switch off “Questions about places.”

Based on a True Story

This year I took a trip to Tokyo and exclusively used Google Reviews to make my purchasing decisions. Here is my story. (Insert the Law and Order bell.)

Trip Origin. I have visited Tokyo many times before. All those trips were work-related, which means that I absolutely focused on location first, price second. This time it was a personal trip, and location was not the only factor. Tokyo is one of my favorite cities in the world. No matter where you are, you can get around quickly. All you need is cash, a Suica Card, and Google Maps.

Time Frame. I was visiting Tokyo from December 27 to January 3, and then heading to Kyoto. This is a time of year when many local businesses are closed, and there are fewer tourists than usual. However, there is a ton of domestic travel, with families taking vacations, staying with extended family, and visiting shrines in honor of the New Year. The busiest time of year in Tokyo is March/April (cherry blossoms) followed by fall; winter is mellower, but the New Year’s shrine and family visits still make it competitive. Yes, I work in the revenue optimization business.

Research. The first step for me with personal travel is to check with my industry friends. Sadly, I am not a big deal in Japan… yet. I narrowed my search to hotels in Ginza (Tokyo’s Fifth Avenue), which had less compression as a business district during year-end holidays.

The Winner. Good news! I discovered a hotel with incredible rates and a great location. Downside…it was not open yet. A minor detail like that doesnʻt bother me, as I am in the business of opening new hotels. I booked my dates and locked in an amazing deal. I was curious about the product, but the pre-launch website was just a smorgasbord of stock photos.

Realization. I waited for the hotel to get reviews. Two weeks before anything was ever posted on TripAdvisor, I started to see comments and photos on Google Reviews. Thatʻs when I had a moment of realization: the only place to find any reviews for the hotel from Day 1 of opening was Google Reviews. They were followed closely by Expedia/Booking/Agoda reviews that were very nicely integrated into the Google Reviews ecosystem.

Oh, in case you were wondering, TripAdvisor scored its first review when I was already boarding my flight to Tokyo at the end of December! (Cue in Carole King’s Itʻs Too Late.)

A Brief Guide to Optimizing Your Business for Google Reviews

The epicenter of your reputation management as a brick and mortar business should be Google My Business (GMB). The amount of time spent reviewing TripAdvisor reviews in operations meetings needs to change. A lot more time and energy needs to go toward Google Reviews. These are managed under your GMB. Here’s a quick list you can use to optimize this channel:

1. The Basics. Make sure that your Google My Business (GMB) listing is claimed. I am sorry if this is 101 information for you, but just this week I saw an established hotel with a neighborhood restaurant listed as the primary on their GMB page! (Yes, website link, phone, everything pointed to the restaurant.)

2. Update Everything. Your GMB has a direct impact on all the Google activities a potential guest will do in order to find and book your hotel (search, Google Maps, etc). Make sure your address, phone number, business hours, and types of payments accepted are updated, and all links point to the right places. This is a basic and endless chore, so get used to checking this information on a regular basis.

3. Enhance It. Google has added some great features to GMB that hotels should use. An enhanced GMB listing helps to grab your guest’s attention when they are researching your hotel. There is a possible impact on local search rankings, but I try to refrain from rankings talk ever since I posted this article on SEO a few years back.

3. Check Yourself. Anyone can suggest edits to your GMB listing and have them take effect. It’s a very good idea to log in and keep an eye on things. Have you completed your profile? If not, then someone else will…yes, that includes your competition. Also, you cannot count on GMB email alerts to work 100% of the time. I repeat…just this month, I encountered a 200-room hotel’s local listing pointing to a neighborhood restaurant! It’s like the Wild West out there.

4. Answer Questions. This is one of the most relevant sections of GMB when it comes to the travel industry. People have questions about places they are going to visit someday. Even after arriving/staying at your location, most people look for information on their phone before ever talking to a human. Try and get the Q&A section filled out with the frequently asked questions and answers you have buried on your website somewhere. Talk to your front desk and make a list of questions they get asked all the time. The TripAdvisor/Yelp complex has trained everyone to live in fear of bad reviews and keep your laser focus on their platform. Instead, you can help guests who are looking for information about you. Help them first, then work on converting them into paying customers in the near future. Alternatively, if you ignore the Q&A section, someone else will answer the questions for you. You might not like the answers they give.

5. Ask & Receive. It’s standard operating procedure for hotels to ask their guests to leave a review on the world’s most trusted biggest travel website (TripAdvisor). This needs to change right away. Instead, you should ask your guests to leave you a Google Review. Google reviews are clearly associated with their Gmail/G-suite accounts and in most cases are verifiable and not hidden behind an obnoxious username like “JoeMama90210.” Replying to Google Reviews directly and in a concise manner is a key advantage. You can be direct without being trapped in the despair-ridden TripAdvisor platform.

I am not going to tout GMB optimization as a ranking tactic. But I can say that it will help you make more revenue.

Conclusion

Online reviews are crucial for any business, not just travel. Over the past few years, the obsession hotels and inns have developed with TripAdvisor has caused them to lose sight of the real powerhouse: Google. All of Google’s recent upgrades have served to make them a better information center for the end user. TripAdvisor with its hyper-narrow focus might be the biggest review website in the world today, but it is getting pushed to the sidelines by a bigger and smarter competitor. You don’t have to speculate much. Just look at Yelp and how their story played out. I’d say we have a near perfect example of history repeating itself.

Hotel CRM Reality Check

On January 20, 2017, I booked a hotel in Seville, Spain. That is also the day that Meliá Hotels & Resorts got my email address. The rest, as they say, is history.

For those of you who are not familiar with EU-based hotel companies: Meliá Hotels International is a Spanish hotel chain also known by its former name of Sol Meliá. They have 374 hotels in 40 countries on four continents. They are not a big  household name in the US, but they got some attention back in 2010 when they sold their “Tryp” brand to Wyndham Hotels. I made several groovy jokes back then about Wyndham “Trypping,” which thankfully nobody remembers. Moving on.

So why am I taking you all the way back to 2017? Since my initial interaction with Meliá Hotels, I have received 2-3 emails from them every month. After deleting some of the earlier ones, I was almost ready to “Unsubscribe.” Then I had an epiphany: how about I stay on the list and see how this multi-billion dollar hotel company handles its Customer Relationship Management (CRM), and in particular its email marketing campaigns.

What started almost two years ago is now ready to be shared.

 

Buzzwords, They Keep on Buzzing

There have been over a dozen articles (plus a couple of white papers) telling us how software is transforming the hotel CRM landscape. There is more talk about how “personalization” is changing everything. However, my two-year collection of emails from a well-established hotel brand sheds a very different light on how things are in the real world.

There are over a dozen CRM vendors who will sell you their software….I don’t think this is a software issue. The biggest CRM challenge for hotels is hiring the right people. Lack of talent is a much bigger threat to the hotel industry than our world-renowned outdated technology.

 

Let’s Take a Trip Down Memory Lane

A couple of things to keep in mind as we take this journey together:

  1. Meliá Hotels is just an example I am using for this post. I am not singling them out as an outlier. Before you high five your marketing team, please know that there are 5-8 other hotel brands (big box and independently owned) who have sent me a similar pattern of emails.
  2. I have not included every email ever sent to me. Some were deleted while I logged a quarter million miles of flying last year.
  3. This year I published the Ultimate Guide To Hotel Email Marketing. If you think you may need help, read my guide to start sending better emails.

I stayed at the Gran Meliá Colon Hotel in Seville in April 2017. After the usual follow-up emails about my stay and 2-3 emails about leaving them a review with TripAdvisor (which I never do), a barrage of discount emails started hitting my inbox. In June 2017, I started to document some of them.

Let’s roll.

 

June 2017

The first email I saved offered 45% off their hotel in London, Wow, quite a deal, right? Pay attention to the “45% off,” as it will make a comeback…again and again…like Jason Voorhees.

 

July 2017

In July, the discount dropped…but not for long.

 

August 2017

August opened strong with deals to Milan…40% off!

 

Dropped by 5% mid August. Dang, should have dropped everything and gone to Milan from Hawaii 4 days ago! It’s not that far, is it?

 

Three days later, the offer is limited to only one hotel! I still have not been south of Seville. Maybe I should quit what I’m doing and head to the Southern shores? But what about the North/Atlantic part of Spain? I want to go there too. Will I get 35% off ever again? What about the 45% deal? Is it ever happening for me again?

 

September 2017

Dear diary, the 40% deal is back!! Wait a minute…it’s for booking next summer!? What if I don’t get time off? Unless I am working in Europe, there is no guarantee of a summer break. In the US, there is no guarantee of ANY break. 40% off is too good to pass up, but I don’t know where I will be in the summer of 2018.

 

Are you kidding me? 22%!? Guys, I do not get out of bed for less than 40%. You have done 40% for me before. Why are you giving me only 22% off now? Are you guys mad at me for not booking last time?

 

October 2017

Sweet relief! The 40% deal is back! But wait…I need to go urban this autumn? I can’t go urban this autumn! I only go “urban” in the winters!

 

November 2017

OMG! I cannot believe this! 50% off! How is this happening? How are they going to make any money? But wait…the email mentioned “This is only the beginning.” What does that even mean? More 50% off emails, or will I be getting even bigger discounts!? This is getting out of hand, but I really cannot travel right now so…I shall pass on this miracle. Alas, it might never happen again in my lifetime.

 

It’s another miracle! But this miracle actually ends on Sunday! Black Friday is not just about brawls at the local Walmart anymore. It is now about deep discounts. Sounds like I will never pay retail again for my hotel room…thank you! I feel like I am living in the golden age of hotel discounting. How neat is that!

 

OMG! Three miracles in one month!  This is all that’s playing in my mind right now: “We are not worthy!” I guess Cyber Monday is no longer about buying bulk paper towels. You can now get 50% off for booking a room you otherwise would have gotten at full rate. There is a lesson in here somewhere.

 

December 2017

22% off is for the birds! 40-50% off and then we can talk. “Season of love and laughter.” Please. If you really cared, you would offer a better deal. From 50% to all the way down to 22%…now I am sad.

Are you kidding me? 20% off. Let me put on some sad music to go with this deal.

Oh, look who’s back! 45% is nice…but what’s with the lady trying to drown the kid? Love the “say goodbye to winter” tagline. If only it was so simple. Besides, I like winter in Hawaii!

30%? No thanks. “Am I well travelled?” Does logging over a million miles in the air count?

 

January 2018

LOL! “Head to London in February” = Someone who has never been to London in February. Hard pass.

Oh look, the underwater lady and kid are back! 45% off to book for summer. Again, no idea where I will be, but thanks for asking.

 

February 2018

“Jet off to somewhere soon.” Guys, 40% off is great. But remember, we don’t do time off in US. Hope the lady has sunscreen on.

45% off is good. But…”Goodbye Monday Blues”? I love Mondays! What’s wrong with Monday?

The underwater lady is back! I really hope that kid is all right.

 

So glad I did not book 4 days ago @45% off! 50% discounts are back! “Book now or regret it later.” Wait, are you threatening me?

 

“There is no better place.” Apparently that place is also secret enough to not be above the fold in the email design. Life is full of surprises, I guess.

 

March 2018

Nothing inspires confidence in a new hotel like a 30% off deal on Day One.

 

In the era of “fake news,” your tagline % better match the actual offer.

 

Four days in…where? I would love to hop there in 2.5 hours. When I checked into the hotel, they copied my ID, passport, credit card. Sir, I am not 2.5 hours from anything!

 

April 2018

Oh look! It’s the return of 45% off Summer.

 

Three days later: 20%? No, thank you. Hey, what’s the mysterious black stuff on the beach outlining Best Offers? (Cue in X-Files theme.)

 

Beach lady makes a comeback! This time on 100% green grass. Did she like her beach vacation? We will never know.

 

“Short Haul” in body copy of email sent to the other end of the world. LOL.

 

“Reservar Ahora.” English email, Spanish call to action. Can’t lose?

 

“Mid Season Sale”…but that lady is floating in the water. Will she catch a cold? Also, 30-35%…I’m more of a 45% and above kind of guy.

 

May 2018

Back to 45%, now we’re talking.

 

Four days later, down to 40%.

Beach won this round.

 

Back to 45% 6 days later.

 

20%…how about not.

 

It’s GDPR season! Also, is she opening or closing the curtain on my privacy?

 

40%…hey, it’s better than the 20% off from last week.

 

GDPR curtain lady returns! Also, check out my points balance!

20%… nope.

 

June 2018

Cool kid with shades giving 45% off.

 

Oh no, I lost 5% discount in 2 days! This one says it will hold for 10 days only! What if I am stuck in 20% discount land after that?

 

Last chance? Are you sure? I will never get a discount again? Oh no!

 

Oh c’mon! I thought 40% was valid for 10 days ONLY! Here you are seven days later giving me 45% off! I thought we were friends.

 

Going urban? Sure, like Urban Outfitters? Oh hello, 45% off. Nice to see you again.

 

“Unforgettable memories…with 40% off” is a hilarious snippet. But wait…there’s more. “Tell Me More With 40% Off” is a hilarious call to action! How do they do it?

 

Nothing will warm the heart of a hotel ownership group like having their management brand kick off a new opening with 35% off.

 

Cool kid with shades giving 45% off is back!

 

July must be about comebacks. Urban lady feels like a friend now.

 

July offers…but for October. Let me stop everything and figure out this email. Also, only 25% off?

 

10% deal? Do you even know who I am? I have not gone below 20% with you! Also, 50% off in the copy of the email. What game are we playing here?

 

I am still mad about the 10% email. But ok, glad to see we are back to 45%.

 

45% off…keep em’ coming, baby!

 

Searching for paradise? Dude, I live in Hawaii. Have you even checked my profile/analytics? Oh, never mind.

 

Wishing on a star that the next email will be 45% off.

 

Yes! My wish came true. 45% off email is back.

 

I get sun here in Hawaii. In Spain, I soak up some of the world’s best food. Didn’t I do so many food-focused things in Seville? Do you remember anything about me?

 

Escape from what? I am not trapped anywhere. Do you think I am? Why?

 

35%. Meh.

 

35%. Meh.

 

Did someone mix up their Instagram motivational quote with their call to action? Also, they spelled unforgettable wrong. Also, 35%. Meh.

 

45%, yeah! Wait, who is she looking at?

 

“Exclusive Offers Just For You.” LOL!

 

Last one. Check out my amazing point balance.

 

CRM Is Not An Acronym for Email Marketing

Somewhere along the way, hotel CRM has evolved into just sending emails to guests. The typical five-step email cycle breaks down as follows:

1. Booking confirmation email
2. Reminder email
3. Check-out email
4. Request to review the property on TripAdvisor (2-3 emails)
5. Discount emails for the remainder of your life

Break the cycle. You have too much information about your guest for you not to care about segmenting. Break down your lists by geography, interests, age, and then stay in touch for more than just discounts. Hotels all over the world have scanned or photocopied my passport and driver’s license. That level of personal information is only available to the TSA (Department of Homeland Security) and border control agencies worldwide. And yes, a small hotel in Kyoto. Think about it.

Three Step Plan for Improving Your Hotel’s CRM

Step 1: Designate CRM ownership. Select a person to lead your CRM efforts and strategy. Your customer database is something you need to own and maintain over time. Your database should not be passed around like a basketball, available to any department that wants to take a “shot” at making the basket.

It is not about software, it is about who is keeping an eye on things. Any customer contacts should get a final stamp of approval from a central person who is keeping an eye on CRM database quality and ongoing business analytics.

Step 2: Check yourself before you wreck yourself. Two parties have traditionally misused the hotel email database.

  • Sales and marketing. Avoid sending a promo about something that not everyone would be interested in (eg, local restaurant/bar promos that get blasted out to everyone in your database, including guests who never used it and live over 3000 miles away).
  • Revenue management. You guys are great, but please stop using your email database like an ATM machine. Every time the revenue numbers slack off a bit, you can’t just pull the lever on an “exciting 45% off” email and wait for the reservations to trickle in. Oh, this also answers another question I get a lot. “Why are our campaigns not performing like they did last year?”

Step 3: Segment or go home. Your hotel customer database is not going to stay fit and fine forever. It is not Hisako Manda. In addition to performing ongoing maintenance, you also need segmentation. One big list should make way for smaller segmented lists. Examples include:

  • Geographic location
  • Clicks (0, 1, or more?)
  • Frequency of use (checked in more than once?)
  • Replies

Conclusion

Somewhere along the way, hotel CRM became synonymous with email marketing. This is really unfortunate because, unlike other industries, hotels sit on a mountain of personal data. Generic outreach chips away at any hope of building a relationship with your guests. There is a ton of speculation in the marketplace about who truly “owns” your guest. The truth is that nobody owns your guest, but you sure can make an effort to reach out and be their friend. Remember, nobody makes friends and builds relationships just by offering discounts. You have to share value to see your revenue numbers grow.

 

 

 

The Ultimate Guide to TripAdvisor for Hotels

When TripAdvisor was founded in February 2000 in a small office above Kostas Pizza on 315 Chestnut Street in Needham, Massachusetts, I don’t think anyone could have predicted the amount of time and energy it would consume, and the strong emotions it would conjure.

Since I started my blog in 2013, I have consistently fielded questions about TripAdvisor. Looking back at the sheer volume of time I spent answering these complex emails, I think it’s time to for me aggregate my knowledge, experience and advice in one place. Here are some of the most frequently asked questions, along with my responses.

 

Is my competition  trying to take my hotel down on TripAdvisor?

Short Answer: Yes, it’s possible.

Long Answer: I get asked about this a lot by hoteliers around the world. “You are not being paranoid” is how I start most replies. There are some hotel owners/operators who turn to the dark side when it comes to TripAdvisor. Instead of improving their own product and service, they trash their competition. These are the folks that the youth today refer to as the haters.

The hospitality industry has always had its fair share of bad apples. Anytime you claim something is powered by algorithms, there will be a group of players ready to game the system. In a time when so much power is bestowed upon TripAdvisor, a lot of time people feel desperate to win. Desperation should lead to hard work…but often leads instead to a “win by any means” mentality. How many hotels walk on the dark side by writing/sponsoring their own glowing reviews and/or posting negative ones for their competitors will never truly be known.

Offenders are not just mom and pop operations. Let’s not forget Peter Hook*, a senior executive at Accor Hotels who took it upon himself to write awesome reviews for his own hotels while posting negative ones for competing brands. He got caught when the TripAdvisor Facebook app linked his anonymous username “Travare” to his Facebook account — after he had posted 106 reviews in 43 cities!

This incident happened all the way back in 2013… so how have things changed? Elementary, Watson. The bad guys have gotten much smarter.

*Self-fulfilling prophecy: He described himself in his Twitter bio as the “Director of Propaganda” for Accor hotels in Asia-Pacific.

 

Can you game the TripAdvisor “algorithm”?

Short answer: Yes.

Long answer: It has been done, and has led to some epic fails for TripAdvisor.

  1. Bellgrove Hotel, Glasgow. In 2013, this “hotel heaven,” a hostel for the homeless, made it onto the list of TripAdvisor’s 100 best places to stay, thanks to the efforts of pranksters who posted numerous five-star reviews.
  2. La Scaletta, Italy. Italians know their food, fashion and automobiles. Apparently they also know how to expose the flawed “algorithms” of the largest review site in the world. Read how a non-existent restaurant made it to the #1 spot. I gotta give it to the Italians on this one…the phone number for the restaurant was that of the city’s police station! Prendere in giro! The final burn: In December 2014, the Italian Antitrust Authority fined TripAdvisor €500,000, complaining that the site had failed to adopt controls to stop false reviews while promoting its content as “authentic and genuine.”
  3. The Shed at Dulwich, South London. All the British food jokes aside, London now has a ton of exciting chefs and restaurants competing for dominance in a growing food and beverage scene. Enter freelance writer Oobah Butler. His fake restaurant in South London became “London’s Top Rated Restaurant” on TripAdvisor. And this was all happening in 2017, not that long ago.
  4. The Riu Imperial Marhaba, Tunisia. This story is really tragic. Thirty-eight people were shot at this hotel, and it had closed its operations. Yet TripAdvisor included it on its coveted “2016 Traveler’s Choice Award” list. Makes you wonder, when do you become too big to do basic research when making your award lists?

 

PSA: Don’t put your life in the hands of a review site.

Let’s take a brief moment to address something terrifying about TripAdvisor: Profits will always be more important than people.

For me, the darkest side of TripAdvisor’s unchecked power and accountability was exposed in 2017 by The Milwaukee Journal, which uncovered how reports of rape and assault at some all-inclusive resorts in Mexico were deleted from their site. These two publicly posted excerpts really highlight the problem:

Exhibit A:

Milwaukee Journal: Why were these warnings deleted?

TripAdvisor: They were “determined to be inappropriate by the TripAdvisor community,” or removed by staff because they were “off-topic” or contained language or subject matter that was not “family friendly.”
 
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel asked to see the posts that were removed. The company refused.

Exhibit B:

When there were murmurs that the US Federal Trade Commission would be getting involved, TripAdvisor put out an official response via The Verge and Engadget. Here is an excerpt:

“We are not aware of an inquiry by the Federal Trade Commission nor have they contacted us. TripAdvisor is a global user-generated content platform that enables travelers to post positive and negative reviews and forum content about their experiences. We receive 290 pieces of content a minute and need to ensure that information posted on our site adheres to our content guidelines to ensure the integrity of these posts. We stand by our publishing guidelines and how they are applied.”

What I heard:

  1. The FTC is not coming after us, we are funded and have tons of cash for lawyers, so all is good with us.
  2. We get 290 pieces of content/minute for free. You really think we should be expected to hire enough people to go through it?
  3. We stand by our “publishing guidelines”… too bad about your death, robbery and sexual assault.
  4. Now if you’ll excuse us, we will go back to selling ads to hotels and restaurants.

The fact of the matter is, when you book a room at a hotel and make the decision solely based on the “world’s largest review site,” you are sometimes taking your life into your own hands. Remember, just as with Facebook: it’s a free site and they owe you absolutely nothing.

 

Do you use TripAdvisor to research personal travel?

People on my blog ask me a ton of personal questions. Should I feel like a celebrity? Short answer: No.

Whether or not I personally use TripAdvisor is a common question. Yes, I do. But, like anyone who does research on TripAdvisor, I’ve had to learn how to analyze what I’m seeing. I almost feel like Sherlock Holmes when I am reading a hotel or restaurant’s TripAdvisor page, looking for clues and using astute observation to determine what’s really going on.

I do not have a degree in psychology or behavioral sciences, but I have to say that I am a Quantico-level fake hotel review spotter. The sheer number of hours I have spent on TripAdvisor has given me almost perfect clarity. I feel like Neo in The Matrix…making the bullets slow all the way down. (Here is a link for some of you young readers.) The fact is that anyone (with a little practice) can spot the low-quality reviews posted by competitors, tricksters and desperate owners.

Here is my typical process, in case you want to sharpen your own methods:

  1. Look Beyond the Algorithm. I check to see how heavily the hotel is investing in TripAdvisor advertising. The amount money a hotel is spending on TripAdvisor advertising equates to how much time, energy and money is NOT getting spent on things that matter. Example: I can see when a hotel general manager’s bonus has been tied into their TripAdvisor rankings. That means the GM is spending a ton of time online, instead of in the hotel lobby talking to guests. As a user, you need to realize that TripAdvisor stars and rankings are guidelines, not commandments. To find real value, you have to dig deeper than the surface and play with the price and location filters. As with any set of data, you have to segment to win.
  2. Are They Trying Too Hard? I look out for hotels that press too hard for you to leave reviews online, offer special prices in exchange for reviews, etc. When a hotel steps into desperation mode, you know a lot of time and energy is going into collecting the volume of reviews and not the quality of the product itself. I have seen it all…from hotels offering to “complete” the review for me, to them sending me 10 emails requesting a review, to placing TripAdvisor review cards in the W/C. Remember folks: Desperation is never attractive.
  3. ‘Everything Is Awesome.’ Oh, great… I now have that song from the Lego movie stuck in my head! For those who don’t know, here is a gift that is sure to take over your day (and night!). These hotels are easy to spot because everything there is awesome. It is impossible to run a hotel that is all things to all people. When I see a barrage of awesome reviews non-stop over a short period of time, it pretty much signals that there is something going on that deserves more scrutiny.
  4. Go Direct. What do I do when I have a question/doubt? Email the hotel. It’s easy. Click on the contact page and reach out to a real human who might be able to answer questions, make recommendations, etc. Believe it or not, it works 99% of the time! If you do not have a positive experience doing this, you will know what’s behind the curtain of the TripAdvisor reviews and rankings.
  5. Diversify. TripAdvisor is not the only review site out there. Don’t forget the little search engine that is out to take everyone’s lunch. Google’s hotel reviews are a good source for quick concise content. Before I dive into TripAdvisor and start psychoanalyzing their “trusted” reviews, while getting hit with terrible banner ads and being yelled at to “book the best deal I will ever see in my whole damn life”… I locate the hotel on Google and see if there are some usable reviews. Let’s not forget there are a ton of professional travelers that post some truly amazing long-form hotel reviews. Here is a link to one of my favorite hotel review sites. They are not the “biggest review site,” but they are definitely covering a decent spread of small and large hotels in long story form with clear photos.
  6. Log Off. Last but not the least. Friends don’t let friends browse TripAdvisor while logged into their account! Right now is a pretty bad time for privacy. Let’s not divulge more information about ourselves to a multibillion dollar corporation! You don’t need them to serve you more “targeted” banner ads that you ignore, while they are heavily pushing hotels to buy these useless ads. TripAdvisor’s “Just For You” recommendations is not a feature designed to make your life better…it’s an avenue to sell more ads.

 

PSA #2: TripAdvisor’s homepage tagline evolution tells a story.

There is no hiding the fact that American companies love their taglines. TripAdvisor went after the whole trust thing hard for the longest time, until trade law finally caught up with them.

2006: “Get the Truth. Then Go.”
2010: “World’s most trusted travel advice”
2011: (April) “Over 45 million trusted traveler reviews & opinions”
2011: (September) TripAdvisor is banned from claiming that their reviews are “trustworthy” and must remove the following phrases from their website, courtesy of British Advertising Standards Authority:

  • “Read real reviews from real travelers”
  • “Reviews you can trust”
  • “More than 50 million honest travel reviews and opinions from travelers around the world”

2013: “The World’s Largest Travel Site” (The word “trust” is completely gone.)

2018: “The world’s largest travel site. Know better. Book better. Go better.”

Are TripAdvisor’s sponsored placements and ads a good idea?

Note: This is probably the most common question I get.

Short answer: No

Long Answer: Don’t pay to drive traffic to OTAs. They definitely don’t need your help making more money. If you need “brand exposure,” invest in your service and product instead. Investing in impressions and click-based ads on a platform that is not connected exclusively to your website and booking engine defies logic. Unless you are P&G/Unilever/General Electric with money to burn…spending money on banner impressions is a huge waste of your marketing dollars.*

“Logic is the beginning of wisdom … not the end.”

— Commander Spock, USS Enterprise

How about you invest in these 5 things instead:

  1. Make a better hotel website.
  2. Invest in better hotel content and photos.
  3. Get a better hotel booking engine.
  4. Improve your product value.
  5. Invest on Google, and drive direct traffic.

Bonus tip # 6: Subscribe to my blog. It’s free!

*I refuse to debate folks who love to talk about how much traffic VOLUME they get from TripAdvisor, or how well their campaigns are currently performing. I get it, you read things on the internet. I will someday run ads for the hotels I am working with ONLY when I can link the ads directly to the hotel’s website from TripAdvisor. You know, like the cool option I have with Google? If I am spending on ads, I want to exclusively close them on my most profitable channel. Thank you.

What do you think of the good ol’ TripAdvisor business listing?

Short Answer: This prehistoric marketing tactic by which you spend money for a link, which is declining in volume every year, deserves to be in a marketing museum.

Long Answer: I am old enough to remember when TripAdvisor launched their infamous Business Listing for hotels. I am also old enough to remember when you could get some pretty interesting results on Google from listing in online business directories. Wow, this took me all the way back to the late 90’s, early 00’s!

Fast forward to 2018. TripAdvisor still successfully charges a lot of money for placing a link to your hotel website. I must hand it to their marketing machine for showcasing the yuge value of this link. The word “convenience” gets thrown around a lot. How helpless are hotel guests that they cannot open another tab in their browser and just Google the hotel that has piqued their interest on TripAdvisor?

Here is the kicker. Over the past several years, the volume of traffic from a TripAdvisor business listing has dropped across the board for all hotels that I have worked with. The success of the new TripConnect CPC and InstantBook products has something to do with this. Why sell you a click for just a flat fee? Why not make a % commission on top of it by converting those clicks. The whole convenience argument starts to fall apart when you realize that anyone booking travel in this day and age has at least 5-10 tabs open on their browser.

So I cannot understand why hotels continue to pay for a simple link to their website from a page on a third party site. Possible answers:

  • Convenience. You really think someone smart enough to read online reviews cannot open a new tab in their browser and Google you? Spending thousands of dollars every year to save your guest a click?
  • Fear. There is heavy speculation that your TripAdvisor rankings ‘allegedly’ might decline when you stop advertising with them. Lawyers, pay attention that I am using the word “allegedly.”
  • Habit. There is the “we have always done this and it’s now a part of our annual budget” reasoning. An average hotel in NYC is probably paying 10K to 15K for a link. Now imagine they took that cash and spent it on better coffee for guests in their lobby. Or how about renting puppies to hang out with the guests on weekends? Imagine the possibilities!

 

How do I deal with business listing hyperinflation?

Short Answer: Just say no.

Long Answer: Only in the hotel business can you have the audacity to ask for more money (2018 vs 2017) for a link to YOUR own website from a page where YOUR guests have contributed all the content. But wait, there’s more! You are getting fewer clicks than before. It feels like an episode on Black Mirror.

But this is actually happening. TripAdvisor has raised the price of their business listing for every hotel I have worked with in 2018 (that’s over 70 hotels). This is happening even when the total number of referral clicks from TripAdvisor has gone down for ALL properties when comparing 2018 with 2017 YTD. But, guess what? You can keep your old rates if you start buying TripAdvisor sponsored listings! Alrighty then.

Can you imagine a hotel asking for a higher rate, while sharply reducing the value of their hotel product compared with the previous year? People would lose their minds and go right to….oh snaps!….TripAdvisor to post a barrage of negative reviews.

Sometimes it really feels  like that hotels are stuck in the sunken place. Get out!

 

Do I have to promote my new hotel with TripAdvisor Sponsored Ads?

Short answer: No.

Long Answer: Here is a simple two-question test you can use to find the answer for yourself.

Question 1. Is the ego of the owner/operator tied to TripAdvisor rankings?

Then yes, you will have to run banner ads on TripAdvisor, get little or no reporting in return, and listen to someone talk about Billboard Effect in your marketing meetings. Everyone will be pleased and there will be high fives all around.

Question 2. Is the owner/operator a professional who wants to generate net operating income while offering a good product?

Then no, there are better options for promoting a new hotel. You need to perfect your product first and then grow organically. Organic growth is much more permanent than plastering the internet with banner ads that nobody cares for. In addition, you need to target guests at several different points in the buying cycle. There are many other channels where you can list your hotel and get exposure, just to get a baseline on your newly opened product. There is even this little billion-dollar hotel booking site out of Amsterdam and another one in Bellevue than can help you get exposure without annoying people with sponsored listings. (Alert: these sites also offer banner ads, so watch out for that!)

Are your revenue and TripAdvisor rankings related?

Short answer: Yes.

Long answer: There is no denying that your revenue is going to take a hit if you lose your rankings. But please understand that it is not the end of the world. To make a profit, you must diversify. Google, Expedia and Booking all have reviews too; don’t put all your review eggs in one basket. Recovery from a TripAdvisor meltdown is possible, but your pricing, marketing and product quality need to be in full alignment. Please do not tie your distribution to a review website.  That way, when the TripAdvisor “algorithm” is not your favor, the odds might still be in your favor.

Pro tip: Do not tie your personal sanity to TripAdvisor. Stay focused on the real world and engage with your guests in real time. The saddest thing I’ve seen in relation to TripAdvisor was at a trade show.  A hotel owner was in tears pleading with TripAdvisor staff, saying that his negative reviews were affecting his marriage. Don’t be that guy; don’t give so much emotional power to a review website!

 

Conclusion

TripAdvisor is a social media network that uses free content to make money. Your hotel is a physical brick and mortar business in the real world that people can experience by booking a stay. Before you know it, someone will acquire TripAdvisor; then the new owners will figure out more ways to increase their bottom line. You cannot obsess over it, or automatically spend your hard-earned revenue on buying advertising without thinking it through. You are not in high school anymore. In the long term, it really does not matter what people say about you. Run a good hotel, work hard, be kind to your guests, and it’s inevitable that you will make money.

Is Your Hotel Booking Engine Destroying Your Profitability?

Almost every other day, I see a headline about the latest trend that is going to have a massive impact on hotels and travel. Some might even be worth exploring. However, the fact remains that if your hotel booking engine is hard to use, none of the trends will have any impact on your net operating income and profits.

Having worked in hotels most of my adult life, and having traveled extensively, I have vast experience booking rooms every way possible: using phones, travel agents (yes, I am that old), OTAs, and directly from apps. The one consistent problem I find on hotel websites is a disregard for the basic usability principles that form the foundation of an online shopping experience.

Let’s review the Top Ten hits when it comes to bad booking experiences.

1. The One-Hit (One-Screen) Wonder

Let me take you all the way back to 2004. Booking engines were still in their infancy. That was the year the one-screen wonder was born. It was introduced to independent hotels as the greatest thing since the Beatles arrived in America. The catch? It was a usability disaster.

In this type of booking engine, guests were expected to review room photos and descriptions, and select dates, room types, and rates, ALL on one screen!

Hotel Booking Engine

I tirelessly campaigned against this technology back then, but the public relations machine worked harder and had a much broader reach. Their message – “Did you know our one-screen technology allows consumers to make a hotel reservation in one click?” – proved irresistible to many hoteliers. They installed this software on hundreds of independent hotel websites worldwide; each install was followed by a press release full of praise.

In 2010, I came face to face with this monster. While stuck at Chicago’s ORD airport, I tried booking a last-minute room. But the one-screen booking process took so long, I did not have time to complete my reservation before boarding the flight. The hotel got my booking from my Expedia account. They paid a commission because they had invested in the wrong technology. You can imagine how many other bookings were abandoned on their website and booked through online travel agent (OTA) websites.

Of course, the one-screen booking engine was eventually discontinued. But not soon enough. The real economic impact can never be accurately measured. Don’t forget: while bad tech was being sold to hotels using gimmicks and press releases, Booking.com and Expedia were making it easier and easier for guests to book a room at your hotel via their own websites.

2. Way Too Many Questions

When a guest finally decides to book a room at your hotel, why delay the purchase by asking so many questions? I am on your booking engine, with my credit card/online wallet ready…so why not take the booking as quickly and easily as possible? Remember…there’s a good chance I’m at an airport, in the back seat of a taxi, on my limited lunch hour, etc.

This is one of the core issues I have with almost all of the mainstream independent hotel booking engines. The number of required fields makes the experience a little too much like an interrogation by a government agency.

As recently as 2014, I encountered one of the biggest hotel booking engine horrors of my life. I analyzed an asset and discovered that their booking engine had 43 questions before checkout! Later the same year, I saw this booking engine provider at a hotel tech conference and found out that 1500+ hotels and inns were using that system! I had to leave the exhibition hall and sit outside for a while to recover from the shock.

Hotel Booking Engine

Generally speaking, you need to severely limit the required fields on your booking checkout page. Require only what you absolutely MUST HAVE from your guest before giving them a reservation confirmation.

“Way too many questions, you must think I trust you.”

– Future (Jumpman)

Next: why use a teeny tiny asterisk for a required field, which then turns into a big red warning when it’s not filled out? Clearly indicate required items at checkout; don’t make guests go back and repeat steps.

Finally: in 2018, do we need a mandatory title field? Do you really need to know if I am a Mr, Mrs, Miss, Dr, HRH, Lord, Earl, Duke, Baron, or Knight? It’s awkward and even offensive. People of every gender, class, and profession pay with the same kind of money.

Wait, one last thing..

I present you with an asterisk to nowhere that cracks me up every time.

3. Land of Confusion

The optimal layout for the checkout process has been mastered by all the major OTAs, like Booking, Expedia and Airbnb. All the hotel technology providers need to do is follow the blueprint. The multi-million dollar investment in UX (user experience design) and usability testing has already been done for us! But instead of following these best practices, many booking engines continue to confuse the guests… resulting in a direct hit to your revenue and profits. Some of these checkout screens remind me of the 1986 Land of Confusion video by Genesis: way too much happening for anyone to understand what it means on their first try.

Check out this disastrous layout with my notes:

Hotel Booking Engine

What is happening here:

  1. Useless hotel rate code jargon is likely to confuse your guests.
  2. Default setting shows more than one room, even when one room is selected in the date/rate calendar.
  3. Odd placement of the “Continue” button in the middle of the layout makes your guest think too hard.
  4. Listing amenities during the checkout process is distracting and gets in the way. This info belongs on the rooms page.
  5. Four-step checkout? No, thank you.

4. Failure to Launch

According to research from Baymard Institute, around 70% of all shopping carts get abandoned. Slow and non-responsive carts are abandoned right away. The general consensus is that if you cannot efficiently collect my payment, you do not respect my time. That’s why slow-loading booking engines can seriously wreck your direct revenue.

The screen shot below is from a boutique hotel brand’s booking engine. This is what a typical user on high-speed internet was seeing when trying to book a room in NYC. Loading, if it happened at all, was taking over a minute (tested from multiple locations and internet providers).

Hotel Booking Engine

Guess what? This group filed for bankruptcy in 2009 due to massive losses in revenue. I am not a detective, but it’s elementary that a non-functioning booking engine might have hastened their demise.

Here is another example from a luxury hotel brand based in Asia, which has some of the highest ADR rooms in Hong Kong. Every non-responsive session is probably costing them a ton. Luckily for them, they are publicly listed and backed by heavy institutional investors. It’s easy to be lazy with other people’s money.

Hotel Booking Engine

What happens when your booking engine does not load quickly enough? Here are some possible outcomes:

a) The same booking comes in via OTA minus a 15-20% commission.

b) The guest books another hotel.

c) The guest decides to give up on their trip and stay at home (voted least likely outcome by revenue and digital experts worldwide).

A and B negatively impact your revenue, and option C is highly unlikely. One other possible outcome is that the guest calls your hotel reservations line…but kids these days don’t talk much on phones. So that outcome becomes less likely all the time.

5. Just Plain Broken

Every now and then I see a hotel asset that is completely failing online. In a time when the majority of bookings are happening online, you have to have a booking engine that works! Here is one that actually showed a System Error right on the checkout screen:

hotel booking engine

This booking engine worked great in some Western US states, but not so much on the East coast or London. It worked in Barcelona, but not Dubai. You get my drift? A shopping cart working part-time is just plain broken. It’s crucial to test, test, test, and repeat when it comes to your booking engine. An error message that literally spells out “system error” in red will decimate your brand, guest loyalty, direct revenue, and online marketing efforts.

6. Back in Black

Black is my favorite color. It’s good for a lot of things, but not as a background for a hotel booking engine. The top retailers of room nights around the globe (Expedia, Booking, and Airbnb) all use a white background for their ecommerce transactions. When it comes to website conversions, usability is the only thing that matters. In a desire to match the “look and feel” of their website, some hotels are using a dark background for their booking engine, making it really hard for everyone to use.

In the example below, selecting dates on a black calendar is really difficult…difficult enough for your guests to give up without completing the transaction. When you highlight dates, nothing happens to show you have done it. There is also a LOT of wasted space, where the booking engine could have displayed useful information. Is this blank space, or is something not showing up against the background? Either way, I’m inclined to run over to Expedia.com and take care of this booking quickly, in a more familiar layout.

Hotel Booking Engine

Solution: Please read this before designing your website and save yourself from design and usability disasters.

7. The Discount Horror

Showing your guests a popup that offers savings of “25% or more” when they are already INSIDE your booking engine and have already SELECTED the room they want is a really bad idea. Stop getting in your own way! This reminds me of a scene in When a Stranger Calls, a1979 American horror classic. When I saw this I exclaimed, “The discount popups are coming from inside the booking engine!!” It’s quiet ironic that this engine markets itself itself as a champion of conversions and direct bookings!

Hotel Booking Engine

8. Blast From the Past

In 2018, there are hotels that still have not integrated a booking engine into their website. If a date search on your website’s home page calendar triggers a pop -up window… please stop doing everything else and get it fixed.

Hotel Booking Engine

9. Too Much Information

Nobody likes folks who overshare. Why would you share your entire year’s business with me when I am just trying to book a room? Are you saving me more searches? Do you want me to change my vacation plan based on your availability? You don’t think I can find another place to stay in your town? Are you starting to see my point? Thank you and stop this.

Hotel Booking Engine

10. Do You Even Mobile?

Everything I have listed above gets compounded 100X when things move to a small screen. I could load up one hundred screenshots here, but the example below truly captures the struggle hotels have when it comes to mobile revenue and conversions. This hotel has done the unimaginable…served me THREE popups (including one survey and one special offer) when ALL I ever wanted to do was give them my money! This, folks, is the bad mobile booking experience to rule them all.

mobile booking engine

In mobile, you have to do testing. You cannot entirely outsource the responsibility to make sure your booking engine works properly on all the major screens your guests are using. You have to dive into your analytics and then follow up in the real world. One way is to go to your local phone store; time yourself and a bunch of your closest friends to see how long it takes to book a room at your hotel for some random dates. Brace yourself for the outcome!

The hotel brand in the example above has over 300 hotels in 40 countries worldwide. You’d think they would have friends to alert them…but guests never do. If you cannot sell them rooms on a mobile device, there are some spectacular mobile booking options available on the Expedia/Booking network that they will end up using.

Bonus Tip:

The single most amazing mobile experience offered in the travel business is the functionality of the HotelTonight app. If you have not tested it yet, please download the app to see mobile ecommerce done right. Anyone who can take the app experience to the mobile web will be the world’s top hotel mobile booking engine.

Oh, and my 2014 article still stands…do not sell $7 rooms on HotelTonight.

Conclusion

Offer protection, kill doubt. In a world of online scams and identity theft, you must make sure that you present guests with a secure and reassuring booking engine. A shady looking booking engine is certain to fail.

Make it easy. Most guests will abandon a booking engine that is hard to use while asking for too much personal information. Please note that booking engines and surveys are two very different things. Nobody should ever feel interrogated on your hotel booking engine.

There are many places where things can go wrong on your website. But none is more important than your booking engine. It is the core of your direct revenue strategy and deserves your undivided attention.

Use Hotel Website Content to Increase Your Revenue

Use website content to generate revenue

Contrary to what you might have heard, people still read. We read quiet a lot actually, but much of our reading has moved over to a screen instead of paper. When we are planning travel, we want to read about where we are going. However, the volume of content on hotel websites is shrinking.

Plenty of attention, and plenty of space, is given to photos and design. Hotel websites have started to look like clones, favoring heavy imagery and very light content; but that is a mistake. Your website is not an Instagram feed with a booking button. If you replace substantive content with photo captions and a parade of adjectives like Luxurious!, you are sending up red flags. Instead of giving a detailed description of your offering, you are just using generic marketing terms, which online consumers are too savvy to believe. And, by providing very little information that guests can use during the travel planning stage, you are sending your potential guests to other hotel websites or OTAs to get the information they need.

It’s your hotel content’s job to build trust, answer questions, and capture your guests’ attention. Good content will not only attract new visitors but also keep them on your website. The longer you can hold a visitor’s attention and answer their questions, the more likely they are to book with you.

You need more than photos to tell your story, and the time you invest in good content is worth it. Here are some of my top content guidelines for your hotel website.

The Need for Speed

Great content will never get consumed if it does not load quickly. Before you go about improving content, you must take a look at your website architecture and hosting. Your website visitors today are just like Tom Cruise in Top Gun: “they have a need…a need for speed.” Google recommends that your web pages load in two seconds. To make this happen, your content delivery process must be highly optimized. This is hard to achieve when you are sharing your hosting environment with hundreds of other websites; and even harder if they also share a clunky agency-backed content management system.

Using the right technology for content distribution will make sure all your hard work is served quickly to the desired audiences worldwide. Here are the two fastest ways for you to speed things up:

  1. Use a content delivery network (CDN). What’s that? Well, it’s system of servers (a network) that delivers web content to people visiting your website based on their geographic location. The main goal of a CDN is to solve latency issues. What’s latency? It’s the delay that occurs between the moment you request a web page until the moment its content appears on your screen. A CDN stores a cached version of your hotel website in multiple geographical locations to reduce latency.
  2. Optimize your photos. How can you make your images (and your whole website) load faster? Here are some steps you can follow.
    • Use CSS Effects (gradients, shadows, etc.). CSS animations produce good resolution-independent assets that look sharp at every resolution and zoom level.
    • Use Web Fonts. Web fonts allow you to use beautiful typefaces while preserving the ability to select, search, and resize text. Never encode content as part of an image. This decision doesn’t just give you speed, but also represents a significant improvement in usability.
    • Compress images. Don’t use higher resolution images than you need; web images can and should be much smaller than images used in print magazines. You should also remove hidden data in your photos (eg, color profiles, geolocation metadata, etc.) Less is more and every byte counts. Also, use vector images vs raster images wherever possible. Vector images are zoom- and resolution-independent, which translates into better speed and usability.

Fast load times will make your website visitors happy and drastically increase your chances of converting them into hotel guests.

The 5 Fundamental Questions

I always bring up these questions during my speaking engagements on digital and revenue optimization best practices.

These are the five questions your hotel website must answer:

  1. Who are you?
  2. Where are you located?
  3. What do you offer?
  4. How are you different?
  5. How can I buy, or contact you?

Looks like a pretty simple list, right? These are some of the easiest questions to answer for any property. However, somewhere along the way, in the quest for “cutting edge” branding and design, these simple questions are not getting answered. Unanswered questions → confused website visitors → loss of confidence → lack of revenue. Hotel websites are all starting to look the same. One massive image, accompanied by a few bold adjectives that mean nothing to your guests. Of course, these adjectives were highly praised during the “branding meeting.” I suspect even a few high fives were involved.

Get to the point! Tell guests who you are, where you are located, what are you offering, and how they can buy that or contact you right away. Superlatives and adjectives do not get people to take action. The best home pages drive people further into the website to read more. Relevant content invites people to click deeper. Answering questions = making connections.

The Tagline Fallacy

From famous shoe companies (Just Do It!) to folks peddling diamonds (A Diamond is Forever)… everyone loves a good tagline. So why not your hotel? Sounds like a pretty good idea… right? Welcome to the dark and mysterious world of hotel website homepage taglines. Cue in Genesis’s Land of Confusion.

It’s not practical to take a hotel experience and condense it into a few words. Different travelers have different needs. Counting on a few words to be memorable and reflect your brand and build trust and put your website visitors at ease? To quote the late Bill Pullman, “Game over man, game over.” Your guests cannot act on something they cannot understand. Remember the core questions I highlighted above? No tagline can do the job of answering them. It’s downright impossible.

Now try telling that to a marketing agency’s “branding guru” and watch the fireworks.

Content Cleanup Strategy

Content is one of the easiest things to access and repair on a hotel website. (This is especially true if your website is powered by one of my fav content management systems.) Time spent on improving content will generate results for you, if you do the following.

Ask yourself one simple question: Would I describe my hotel to a close friend using the words that are currently on my website?

Yes: Success, your content is good.

No: Write down how you would describe your hotel to someone you know and care about. Then add all the extra information you would be giving them if this was their first time visiting your city from somewhere far away. That is the content your website visitors need.

The hardest part for many hotel owners/marketers is realizing that your hotel content should not be about you…it’s about your guests and the location they are visiting. Almost all the website content I see on hotel websites is focused on describing the product or experience, instead of highlighting the hotel’s location and how guests can best enjoy it. Very few hotels are iconic enough to be a destination. Like Biggie said, never get high on your own supply (ie, don’t drink your own Kool-Aid).

Formatting for Success

Readability is your friend when it comes to converting visitors into bookings. When a traveler has over ten website tabs open during the travel research phase, one of the best ways to stand out is to present readable, well-formatted content. Your website visitors are not reading a mid-19th century novel. Remember kids: everybody skims. People only click when something catches their attention or answers a question they are researching. If they don’t find what they are looking for quickly, they just bounce off the website.

Here’s how to keep things readable/scannable:

  1. Fonts. Google wants you to stick with a base font size of 16 pixels. I personally prefer larger. (That’s partly because I refuse to wear corrective glasses for my failing vision). The cute tiny little font size you are using might be directly contributing to your website bounce rate.
  2. Headers and Paragraphs. Don’t let your content headers and subheaders become a parking spot for adjectives. These are tools to help make your content scannable and create a typographical hierarchy. Shorter paragraphs with descriptive headers are going to make your content easier to digest.
  3. Lists and Bullets. If Buzzfeed has taught us anything…lists work. “If you are looking for clicks, then you must make lists” is something I would say to a classroom of content writers today. (I also know they would all hate me for it!) Bullets, numbering, and bold highlighted content can help you break down large blocks of content into readable bits of information. Think of it like bite-size incentives to read the whole website.

The assumption that website visitors will never have time to read anything on your website is a crime. They will make time for your content if you make it easy to read, and convince them bit by bit that your content is worth their time.

Using Design to Boost Revenue

How you lead guests through your website comes down to your design and navigation. Great content that cannot be discovered will just perish in the shadows. Many hotel websites with good content lose their guests by using cutesy navigations, drop-downs, and irrelevant calls to action. Competing calls to action (Book Now, Check Rates, Sign Up for Emails) need to be addressed on a page-by-page basis.

For those who want to read more about this, check out my guide to hotel website design. Don’t design first and then stuff content in there. Design around content and watch your most relevant hotel website metrics point to the sky.

Popup Intervention

Three words: Don’t Use Popups.

Check out this banner I was shown within five seconds of visiting a hotel website:

The fact that you offer better rates than the OTA’s should never be a full-screen popup for someone who is visiting your website for the first time. Instead, let them read your new and improved, content-filled homepage and see what you’re about before accosting them with an urgent message.

Who Has the Best Content?

A question that I get asked all the time is, “So who is doing travel content right?” I really wish I could say the name of one of the big hotel brands. They have been in the travel game for decades and their online content should probably be the best. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. A not so little startup founded in 2008 in San Francisco has the best travel content in the game. I am talking about, of course, Airbnb.

Hotels thrive when people travel. Shouldn’t hotel content be inspiring and encouraging people to travel? Shouldn’t your hotel take the lead in answering questions about your location and neighborhoods?

One of the best examples of travel content is the Airbnb neighborhood guide that was launched in 2012.

Not only do they have excellent content on these pages, but also give the pages extra credibility by adding advice from locals. They feature best-in-class writing with clear-cut titles. And they take the whole thing to a higher level by breaking down the attributes of each neighborhood, and even the moods you are likely to encounter in each location. Check out the killer segmentation matching travelers to their preferences:

You would think the big hotel brands would be all over this because they do have the bandwidth and franchise fee revenue to produce this stuff. Instead, we get office desks taken out of hotel rooms and are told to travel “brilliantly.”

Here’s another tip: people love maps! Adding curated maps with comments about different points of interest makes travel planning a breeze. It’s amazing what you can create with the Google Maps API. It’s in their header, folks: “Build the next generation of location experiences.”

And let’s not forget the quality of the photography being used on Airbnb pages. He is my version of the Friday night lights quote:

“Good content. Great photos. Can’t lose!”
– Vikram Singh

Too many hotels are waiting at the bottom of the funnel for revenue to trickle down. Great content is the perfect opportunity to feed the funnel and create demand. Instead of squeezing the life out of a “book direct and save” campaign, how about participating in the guest’s travel experience at a much earlier stage?

Conclusion

Good content is your competitive edge at a time when buying advertising is getting more and more expensive. With so many hotel and OTA websites competing on the web to attract travelers, content can be your salvation. If you have a content-poor, design-rich website, it is hurting your long-term revenue as well as your immediate conversions. On the other hand, the playing field is wide open for your hotel to start filling the travel-planning void. Inspiring and useful content will not only get you new business, but will also help you stand out in a crowd of mass-produced content-free websites. If you are not using content to capture the attention of people interested in your location, neighborhoods, and attractions…someone else will.

Last Click Attribution Is Killing Your Hotel Marketing Campaigns

Last Click Attribution Is Killing Your Hotel Marketing Campaigns

Marketing success today can be measured using many diverse metrics. Analytics programs let you measure everything from who and where your website visitors come from to what content they are interested in. These engagement and conversion metrics can help you understand what is really working when it comes to your website and marketing efforts.

Some hotels have an in-house digital marketing team, but most outsource their online campaigns to an agency. Either way, these teams are usually tasked with producing an ROI (return on investment) report for every dollar spent on channels like Google AdWords, Facebook, etc. There is an industry-wide obsession with knowing where the last revenue-generating click came from. This metric invariably takes center stage in marketing meetings, ensuring that the conversation never moves beyond the last click and how much revenue was booked. Ignoring overall marketing channel performance might have worked for hotels in the good old days, but not today. A lot of hotels are struggling to understand why they are not seeing massive returns on their advertising dollars anymore. Even brand name traffic and clicks are in decline. So what has eroded your marketing campaign power?

The villain in this story – the one preventing you from moving forward – is this thing called last click attribution. It has derailed countless hotel marketing campaigns for both large and small operators. I’d like to take some time to help you understand attribution models in the hospitality and travel business, and how they affect your marketing efforts.

What Is an Attribution Model?

The good news is that most hotels and inns are spending some amount of money on digital ads. The bad news is that decision-makers have a limited understanding of how online marketing works today, and which strategies they should be crediting for the successes and failures of their campaigns.

Let’s dive right into attribution. An attribution model is a set of rules that that help you determine which touchpoints along the conversion path should be getting the credit for the final sale or conversion. Sounds simple… but it’s not. What makes it tremendously complicated in our sector is the number of touchpoints involved when someone is planning a trip, and subsequently a hotel stay.

A touchpoint is any point of contact that occurs between you and your customer; in our case, we are discussing online touchpoints. Here is a list of some of the touchpoints that might occur between your hotel and a potential guest who is planning a trip to Sydney over a period of weeks or months before visiting:

  • Top-level destination research: airfare searches, Sydney travel blogs, etc.
  • Neighborhood research: staying in Bondi Beach vs Central Business District vs iconic Sydney Harbor
  • Hotel research: Narrowing lodging search by researching independent vs brands; top-ranking hotels for value and price on TripAdvisor; hotel websites, social media profiles, and blogs
  • Things to do: online searches for top things to do in Sydney; lists and blogs about Sydney; seasonal events
  • Dining: restaurants, dietary requirements and cuisine preferences, must-haves, food blogs, review websites

While the above process is happening, your guest might also encounter some of these hotel-specific marketing touchpoints:

  • Hotel display ads: placed on top travel blogs and websites
  • Hotel location and value Google ads: “Luxury Hotels in Sydney,” “Hotels near Sydney Harbor”
  • Hotel brand name Google ads: when they search for your hotel by name
  • Hotel TripAdvisor Page: while they are still researching your price and value
  • Meta/OTA rate shop: your listings, reviews, and rate profile
  • Hotel blog post about seasonal events: useful content on your website
  • Hotel email newsletter: perhaps they sign up to stay in touch before booking or arriving the hotel
  • Hotel local dining guide; return visit for more useful content on your website
  • Hotel Facebook ads: and other social media ads, while scoping out your social profiles

Every single touchpoint is a crucial part of the shopper’s journey. This Expedia study showed that a typical hotel guest will visit over 38 websites before booking the room.

A typical website reservation that you are seeing today is the result of 30+ touchpoints that occurred at different stages of travel planning before the final act of booking a room. All the online channels you use today are more connected than ever; they must work together to support your goal of getting a booking. If you are only looking at where the final click came from when attributing revenue, you are missing the big picture. The very last step in a long decision-making process has not single-handedly earned the booking. It doesn’t make sense to allocate your entire marketing budget based on the last click that occurred before the booking.

So, let’s talk now about proper marketing channel attribution.

Deciphering the Attribution Models in Google

Google has been working on making attribution modeling more mainstream. In 2014, they released the Attribution Modeling Tool in Google AdWords. They actually want you to see how users interact with your ads, so you can run better campaigns. As of May 2016, you can integrate the attribution model of your choice with your conversion data and ad bids. Excellent tool for everyone involved! It’s especially helpful for the very few with “Marketing” in their job title that actually log in and work on their marketing campaigns. Of course, if you are just waiting for agency reports to drop into your inbox, you cannot witness this beauty firsthand…but at least you can make changes to the way you measure success.

Once you have decided to actively assign attribution for your paid and earned marketing efforts, you have to determine which model works best for your business. The following example illustrates how each attribution model would work for a hotel reservation with four touchpoints.

Touchpoints

  • Touchpoint 1: Google PPC Ad. Guest X finds your hotel website for the first time by clicking on one of your Google AdWords campaign ads for “luxury hotels in Sydney.” They browse the website and consume your content and photos. You capture their email address (with their permission, of course).
  • Touchpoint 2: Facebook Ad. Two weeks later, Guest X returns to your website, this time from a Facebook Ad about “Things to do in Sydney.”
  • Touchpoint 3: Email Marketing. Five days later, you send them an email about upcoming events in Sydney and why your hotel is in the best location to enjoy them. You get a click-through.
  • Touch Point 4: Direct Traffic. The next day Guest X books a room directly on your website by typing www.yourhotelname.com into the browser. Mission accomplished!

Your Attribution Options

  • Last Click Attribution. The last click before booking, in this case your website’s direct traffic source, gets 100% credit for the reservation.
  • First Click Attribution. The first touchpoint, your Google AdWords campaign ad for “luxury hotels in Sydney,” gets 100% credit for the reservation.
  • Linear Attribution. Every touchpoint – Google AdWords, Facebook, Email and Direct – gets equal credit for the reservation (25% each).
  • Time Delay Attribution. The touchpoints closest to the reservation dates get the majority of the credit. In this case, Email and Direct get most of the credit; Google AdWords and Facebook get less.
  • Position-Based Attribution. The first and last touch points (Google AdWords and Direct) get 40% credit each, and the remaining 20% credit for the reservation is divided evenly between the middle touchpoints. Facebook and Email get 10% each.
  • Data-Driven Attribution. This model gives credit for conversions based on the steps people have taken to find you and ultimately book a room with you. It uses data from your own account to determine which ads, keywords, and campaigns have the greatest impact on conversions. This is only available to accounts that have accumulated enough data over time. I love this model!

Where can you see all this? Oh, it’s right there in your Google Analytics dashboard! Look under Conversion > Attribution.

I have always loved GA. Here is why I think it’s better than anything fancy out there.

Why Should You Abandon Last Click Attribution?

Everyone would like to see the return on a marketing investment. It helps you justify why you did what you did, right? The cliché line “what gets measured gets done” (used by folks who love management guru books) is very hard to implement in digital marketing. I want to be clear that measurement is not the enemy here. It’s how you draw insights from the data that makes or breaks your marketing campaigns and future revenue.

Marketing budgets are already in very short supply in the hotel business. Imagine what happens when the allocation of these tiny budgets is determined solely by the last click that generated a booking. The result is apparent in hundreds of marketing reports today. It’s just not working anymore. It’s time to let go and move on.

The Booking Journey

The path to booking a hotel room today spans multiple websites and devices: online travel agents, metasearch, review sites, social media, etc. When you are dealing with 38 touchpoints, it’s not enough to look at the bottom of the funnel. Instead, ask yourself what you are doing to help your guest move through their booking journey.

Do you think your typical pay per click brand name ad “Official Website: Book Direct And Save!” helps when someone is still researching your location? No, it doesn’t!

Are you speaking with your guests on social media? Or is your Facebook strategy just serving up a“25% off for Spring Break” display ad?

What about email? Is it all about 35% off your best rates? Is that the only conversation you are having with your guests?

Focusing on the last touchpoint prevents you from helping your guests during the planning process, before they are ready to book. You are so busy moving marketing dollars to campaigns that target the last touchpoint that you never feed and fund top-of-the-funnel activities and channels. Ultimately, the volume is going to decline and you are going to end up playing the price game instead of selling value.

Underutilizing Your Marketing Arsenal and Agency

By giving 100% credit to the last click channel, you shift the focus of your marketing campaign to that one channel. All eyes are on the tool that is converting and showing a healthy return on investment. Hotel marketing agencies get stuck producing “ROI reports” to justify their existence every single month. Fixation on one channel kicks off a vicious cycle in which your revenue numbers start to decline, you fire the agency, hire a new one, repeat. This is particularly harmful if your digital assets are not in your control and you start from the bottom every time just like Sisyphus. Your website, campaigns and data need to consistently grow over time, and not get disrupted or lost when you change vendors.

Content production, photography, social media conversations, and email conversations are all part of your full marketing arsenal. Don’t go to battle with one weapon when you have a wide range of tools that allow you to target every single phase and touchpoint of the booking cycle.

Others Prosper While You Analyze

I have previously written about dinosaur metrics to avoid and super metrics to embrace. With most marketers 100% focused on the last click at the bottom of the funnel, the top-of-the-funnel playing field is wide open in the travel business. Online travel agents have done a great job of focusing on the entire travel journey. Of course, they bring tons of cash to the game and dominate paid channels…but there is a ton of work on the top of the funnel that is funded by conversions. They run, manage and curate thousands of websites that have content relating to the early stages of the travel-booking journey. As  a result, they build trust and solid brand names in the travel business without owning a single bed.

When you leave opportunity on the table, someone will always be there to seize it.

Conclusion

Booking a room at a hotel, bed and breakfast, or Airbnb is a process. First comes the destination, then the location within the destination, then a price and value comparison, and finally the right user experience to complete the booking. Judging your hotel and travel marketing campaigns at the finish line incorrectly assigns all the praise and investment to one single component. In time, your super-performing touchpoint will face a decline and stop producing revenue for you on its own.

New lemons are needed to make more lemonade. Stop squeezing the life out of your campaigns by focusing on the last click.

The Shrinking Value of Hotel Loyalty Programs

Shrinking value of hotel loyalty programs

My work revolves around travel. Every night away from home is spent at a hotel or Airbnb property. I was recently asked about my hotel brand preferences and which loyalty program I use. The answer is that I belong to all of them but never achieve a high status due to the fact that my hotel nights are spread across many independent and brand hotels. If I were to pool all of my annual room nights into one brand, I could easily qualify for top tier status.

Why have I not done that? The reason is simple: I am a location-based business and leisure traveler. That means that I choose to stay at the most convenient location irrespective of brand. I know I am not alone in this thinking, as many people prioritize location over brand. Let me elaborate.

Location, Location, Location

Cliché title aside, location is everything for some folks (like me). I am laser focused on location on business trips, as I like to optimize my time and control my FOBL (fear of being late).

When I am speaking at an event, I do not want to be far away from the conference location. A simple traffic snarl can ruin your reputation. (Digital marketing and revenue management speakers are not accorded the same indulgence as rock stars when they show up fashionably late.) Most of my business meetings are also at hotels, as they are often my clients. I try my best to stay at the meeting hotel for two reasons: a) To experience the asset; and b) To ensure that I am not relying on any transportation other than an elevator to get to my meeting. It’s a peace of mind thing that allows me to remain focused.

Likewise, when it comes to leisure travel, I don’t want to spend extra time commuting to the places I want to see. If Hotel X is located near the activities or attractions I want to see, or is in a neighborhood that I particularly like (eg, Saint-Germain-des-Prés in Paris, Gothic Quarter in Barcelona)… then I am staying at that hotel.

I also have an affinity for independent hotels. I especially like staying at independents when I am traveling internationally. I think it gives me better insight into the local mindset and how people run their hospitality businesses in other parts of the world.

The Incentive Games: May the odds be ever in your favor.

I have been monitoring the loyalty programs of the major hotel brands and have noticed a clear trend over the last several years: the rewards for loyalty are shrinking. Basically, the bar is getting set at a higher level while the benefits are being slashed. These devaluations are due to consolidation in the marketplace, and attempts by brands to increase their profitability.

In my opinion, loyalists have three major reasons to stick with a hotel brand:

  1. Points. Earn free nights that can be spent either at a fancy aspirational hotel or a basic property. In other words: spend on business, vacation for free.
  2. Upgrades. Get a better category of room at check-in because of status.
  3. Amenities. Enjoy a welcome gift, free breakfast, better WiFi, lounge access, dedicated reservation support, late checkout, etc.

While people have been chasing points and status, every major loyalty program has devalued their program by doing one or more of the following:

  • Increasing the number of nights you need to attain status
  • Increasing the number of points you need to book a free room by upgrading the hotel categories
  • Creating a new category of rooms and/or elite status level (which devalues the whole program)

You know who else has done this recently? If you guessed airlines, you are right. It’s “working” for the airlines, right? Passengers may not be happy, but they need to keep flying on the major airlines to get around. It’s not that easy to open up an “independent” alternative airline to meet their needs. But can hotel brands continue to reduce program benefits for their most loyal and point-obsessed guests, and still hope to keep them?

Following is a brief overview of the recent changes I’ve seen in five of the biggest hotel loyalty programs.

Marriott Rewards

In 2015, Ideaworks (a consulting firm) published a study naming Marriott Rewards the most generous hotel loyalty program in terms of earning future room stays, with a return of 9.4%. Translation: For every $100 that you spend at a Marriott, you can expect to earn $9.40 worth of points you can apply towards a future stay at a Marriott branded hotel.

They also calculated the return on three other major brand programs:
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These results were based on 1,440 queries conducted globally. The number of points required for a “free” hotel stay was compared to the room rate in dollars. The value of points was translated into dollars based on how much spending was required to accrue them.

That same year (2015), Fortune Magazine also named Marriott as having the best rewards program in the hotel business. So, how has the world’s best loyalty program changed since then?

The latest change happened on March 7, 2017, when 23% of their hotels and resorts were moved to a higher or lower category. Of those that are changing, 60% will move up; US-based hotels are disproportionately affected. This is not a new trend – it’s been happening every year for the last five years. 2013 was the big jumping off point. It was also the year Marriott added the new, super expensive Category 9.

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After the Starwood Hotel merger last September, Marriott became the largest hotel chain in the world. Since the merger, Starwood and Marriott accounts can now be linked, points can be moved around, and statuses can be transferred. This is a massive increase in the sheer number of people who belong to the joint program (rumored to be over 100 million!). The fact that status can be transferred = so many elites! It’s a classic supply-and-demand scenario. If you’ve been a Marriott loyalist, now you have lots of elites from Starwood Hotels getting the same benefits as you. When has that ever been a good thing for an elite program?

Favorite Stay:
My best Marriott experience was at the JW Marriott in Bogota, Colombia. Amazing hotel and staff, and the cutest guard dogs at the front doors.

Starwood Preferred Guest

Starwood’s SPG program has always had some serious fan boys and girls. There is a very good reason for that. For a long time, Starwood Preferred Guest has been one of the plushest preferred hotel programs out there. A mere 25 nights a year gives you a guaranteed 4pm checkout at most of their hotels! In comparison, Marriott (aka, the new owner) makes no such guarantee. In Marriott’s case, please insert everyone’s favorite customer service phrase, “subject to availability.”

Likewise, I have heard nothing but amazing things about the Ambassador program from my Starwood-addicted friends. Anyone staying 100 nights a year is assigned a private ambassador who makes reservations, hounds hotels for upgrades, etc. etc. Like I said, pretty plushy!

Industry friends always mention that it’s easy to maintain this level of customer loyalty focus when you have 1300 hotels. (Marriott now has over 4200.) Besides, to quote one of my favorite airline blog writers Gary Leff:

“It’s not hard to just fall out of an airplane into a Marriott. You have to make a choice to be loyal to Starwood.”

I agree with him 100%. You can find a Marriott almost anywhere and at almost every price point.

Marriott Rewards has well over 54 million members, more than double the 21 million members of the Starwood Preferred Guest program (estimated numbers at the time of the merger). Today, as an SPG member, you are competing with a pool of close to 100 million people for everything: late checkout, upgrades, free rooms, lounge access, ambassadors, etc. No wonder so many fan boys and girls were livid about the merger. Some of the comments were a case study in entitlement, and really made me laugh. A classic case of first world problems. But still relevant to our discussion.

The simple fact is that there are many more Marriott members than Starwood members. Marriott folks now have access to some really fancy hotel assets where they can splurge with their points to get free stays. This fact sums up the lack of enthusiasm from SPG loyalists. But, you know what? Time heals everything.

Credit card experts have crowned the Starwood Branded Amex as the best credit card for frequent fliers and hotel guests (if they often stay at Starwood properties). It offers up to five points per $1 spent at participating Starwood Hotels, and two points per $1 spent at Marriott properties. For cardmembers redeeming points for hotel stays, this card gives the most points per dollar. Points can also be transferred to more than 24 airline programs.

Starwood’s last category adjustment was in 2013, when 200 hotels went up in price and fewer than 50 hotels went down in price.

Favorite Stay:
My best Starwood experience was at the St. Regis Princeville, Kauai. Stunning ocean views right from the lobby, and also from everywhere else on the property.

IHG Rewards Club

IHG has long maintained the bragging rights for having the most loyalty members in the world. (Marriott is close on their heels with their Marriott + Ritz + Starwood numbers). IHG’s approach to redemption has been different from the other brands I talk about here. They don’t have a category-based points chart. Every individual hotel has its own points requirements for a free night. The lower end brands (Holiday Inn/ Express) go for 5K to 10K points, and the high-end hotels (like Intercontinental) go for 60K+.

In 2016, IHG made some big changes their redemption policy:

  • 650 hotels changed their redemption point requirements.
  • For 75% of the 650 hotels, the points requirement went up.

As with the other brands, their changes mainly applied to assets located in the United States. Here is the current guide to points required to redeem “free” nights at IHG hotels.

In 2015, IHG had its Marriott/Starwood–style moment (though definitely not at the same scale) when they acquired the iconic Kimpton Hotels brand. It inspired me back then to write about the transformation of the boutique hotel business. The fan favorite rewards program Kimpton Karma continues to operate separately and has not been rolled into the IHG Rewards Club (as of today.)

Favorite Stay:
My best IHG experience was at The Intercontinental Hong Kong. Fantastic food and beverage, with iconic views of the Hong Kong harbor.

Hilton Honors (The Program Previously Known as Hhonors)

This year Hilton dropped the extra “h” In their Hhonors program and renamed it Honors. Now that we have that out of the way, Hilton has been in the running as one of the top hotel loyalty programs for a while. Their massive hotel footprint of 4,000+ hotels in 91 countries ensures that you do not have to struggle to find one of their branded hotels on any trip. All the way up to 2014, Hilton Honors was offering zero blackout dates to their reward program members. They also allow you to earn hotel and airline points during the same stay.

Hilton’s biggest devaluation (that I remember) was in 2013. They really shook things up by:

  • Adding Categories. They went from 7 up to 10 categories! Even with 4K+ hotels in 90+ countries, this was a blow to redemption enthusiasts.
  • Introducing Seasonal Reward Pricing. Redemption points required for free rooms began to fluctuate with seasonality and demand.

They have not implemented any major updates since 2013. Instead, they do a quarterly shakeup of their hotel categories.

Favorite Stay:
My best Hilton experience was at the Hilton Caribe in Puerto Rico. Massive infinity pool, old school hospitality, and a cool talking parrot in the lobby.

World of Hyatt (Previously Gold Passport)

Hyatt just went through a massive overhaul of their entire loyalty program. Hyatt Gold Passport is now called “World of Hyatt.” For a hotel brand with a relatively small footprint, they have some serious followers. Why? Their Diamond members get:

  • Upgrades to the best room available upon arrival (excluding suites)
  • Access to lounges featuring complimentary breakfast and evening hors d’oeuvres
  • Complimentary full breakfast in hotels without a club lounge (including Park Hyatts!)
  • Four suite upgrades every year
  • A special welcome F&B amenity during each stay
  • A dedicated reservations line

Wow! I think answered that question. So it’s no surprise that most of their top elites are not thrilled with the most recent changes. Here are two major updates:

  • New Status Tier. Hyatt Passport used to have two elite tiers, Diamond and Platinum. Now there are three: Discoverist, Explorist, and Globalist (none are typos). The loyalists getting demoted used the  hashtag on Twitter to make their feelings known. The “Stay Thirsty Elites” meme really made me laugh. I’d like to explain adding a whole new elite tier by using the airline example. First Class and Economy Class have now become First Class, Business Class, Premium Economy Class, and Economy Class (and even Basic Economy) – all in the exact same airplane! Mostly, they just moved the rows of seats around, and made minor changes in amenities. A new tier is never a positive upgrade for existing elites to any program.
  • Pay to Play. The old program allowed you to qualify for status based on # of nights or # of stays (stay = one check-in and check-out). You can no longer qualify for elite status based on number of stays. It’s gone. Instead you have to stay X number of nights or spend a minimum $ amount per stay. Wow, a revenue-based model…hmmm, I wonder where I have seen this lately? Oh yes! Here: Delta Airlines. Then here: United Airlines. And now here: American Airlines. I see what you did there, Hyatt.

Hyatt’s top-tier guests who used to get Diamond status just by staying 25 times (one-night stays) at any Hyatt now have to spend 60 nights at Hyatts to reach the same status. This completely changes the elite status earning game. Earning 60 nights with a relatively tiny footprint is not going to happen for a lot of their existing Diamond level members.

Since we are looking back to 2013 for most of the other brands here, in 2013 Hyatt did introduce a new super category for redemption. It’s not as drastic as what the others have done, but then Hyatt has a very limited number of properties (as of now).

Favorite Stay (Someday):
I am a huge fan of Bill Murray. While in Tokyo, I just had to visit the legendary Park Hyatt Tokyo. It’s an iconic property that I aspire to actually stay in one day.

Conclusion

Moving forward, earning elite status with a single hotel brand is going to be more difficult for a lot of people. I know many are still reeling from the Marriott-Starwood merger. However, please note that the M&A activity has not yet peaked in the hotel industry. Hold on tight, because I agree with the experts that there is much more to come. After reviewing five of the major brand loyalty programs above, I realize more than ever that I cannot be the only one with a razor sharp focus on location over brand. If the industry continues to see more devaluations and major changes, maybe the points and loyalty game will finally lose its appeal.