Biggest Myths About WordPress Perpetrated by Hotel Marketing Agencies

The hotel industry has always been a target for misinformation about new, emerging, and especially open-source technology. It feels like the industry is stuck in a time warp, which I blame on negative propaganda unleashed by ubiquitous “marketing experts.” But remember what the best philosophers say? Always question the source. Agencies want to make money. They want to make it efficiently, without having to revamp their processes, and without being asked any questions. This simple truth forms the basis of every outdated piece of technology being used today by hotels.

I have long been wanting to share my list of the “reasons” hotel marketing agencies have given to prevent clients from choosing WordPress over their own proprietary platforms. It’s pretty sad for the industry that they have decided to spread these lies about a great new resource in order to make a few extra dollars. So there you are: the reason why we have hotel websites’ clunky, abysmal, and outdated “custom” content management systems littering the Internet.*

*Excessive use of quotation marks intentional.

 

1. “WordPress is just for blogs. It’s not a CMS for hotels.”

If I had a dollar for every time someone used this outdated piece of “information,” I would be on the Forbes annual Richest People list. Apparently nobody told these experts that WordPress is a superb CMS. It did start out as a blogging platform on May 27, 2003. Seems like since then, these agency experts stopped reading tech news.

Here is a chart from Google Trends illustrating the rising popularity and influence of WordPress as an open-source content management system. (Click on image to see it full-size.)

Google Trends - Web Search Interest_ joomla, wordpress, drupal - Worldwide, 2004 - present

The WordPress CMS  today serves over 371 million people with 4.1 billion pages each month. How do you like them apples? Here are some colossal websites powered by WordPress today:

  • The New York Times
  • eBay
  • CNN
  • VolksWagen
  • United Parcel Service
  • Reuters
  • Mashable
  • Boing Boing
  • Jay Z

Take a moment to soak this in. The websites listed above are massive content and ecommerce operations. If WordPress can deliver such massive amounts of content and billions in revenue, please don’t have any fear about your 10/20/30/50-page hotel website.

2. “WordPress does not handle e-commerce.”

Now let’s discuss the “e-commerce incapability” myth. Heard of a little company called eBay? eBay made$3.4 billion in revenue in 2012. I have another one for you: UPS (United Parcel Service). They made…wait for it…$54 billion in 2012. Total approximate online revenue in 2012 for ALL hotels in the US = $19.38 billion (source: Comscore).

Saying that WordPress is not good for hotel e-commerce is a fundamentally flawed statement anyway. All ecommerce transactions happen inside your hotel’s booking engine. Not on your website. And, e-commerce carts are a whole different thing (à la eBay) that cannot be lumped into the capabilities of a website’s CMS.

So what have we learned today? WordPress can very easily handle your hotel’s e-commerce and content management needs. In fact, it can power every single hotel website in the US without breaking a sweat. So relax, sit back, and take the refreshing plunge into the world of open-source technology.*†

*Still not convinced? Nobody knows more about making stacks on stacks on stacks than Jay Z. Even he selected WordPress to power his empire!

†Still not convinced?? Katy Perry powers her site with WordPress. I rest my case. 

3. “WordPress is not safe.”

Here is something I strongly believe in: Creating doubt is much easier than being creative. So, the first thing agency expert types do is start spreading rumors about the dangers of an open-source platform in comparison to their familiar yet obsolete “custom solution.”

Repeat after me. Nobody is 100% safe on the Internet. If someone wants to hack you badly enough, they will.  A hotel marketing agency CMS is no  safer than a site powered by WordPress.

Let’s take a look at a few of the companies that have been hacked in recent years.

  • Zappos.com (2012)
  • Sony PlayStation(2011)
  • Lockheed Martin (2011)  (US’s largest weapons manufacturer)
  • Google (2009, 2011, 2012)
  • CitiGroup (2011)

These companies have entire divisions of people whose one and only job is to monitor for hackers. Yet, it happened. Hotel marketing agencies who are touting their clunky outdated CMS system as being “safer” than WordPress should be vigilant – and avoid invoking the ire of the hacker community. It happens… call it unbreakable and it breaks into a thousand pieces in public fiasco (you don’t want to be The Unsinkable Ship).

A recent article by a hotel marketing agency took fear-mongering to a whole new level by pinning global DDoS (Denial of Service) attacks on all WordPress powered sites!

Still feeling anxious? Here are some facts. You download and install WordPress for free. From that moment on, it’s your job to host it in the right environment. If your hosting company has basic security features and you maintain your passwords, you will be fine. On the one in a million chance that you get “hacked”? It will take you at the most a few hours to come back online. Just look at the list of companies above that survived. You will too.

These arrogant and baseless claims of agency-designed CMS systems being safer than WordPress can be shattered by a determined teenage hacker in less than 1 minute, and a professional one in about 15 seconds. You can quote me on that. (And no, I’m not encouraging them to do so!)

By the way, technology should be used to make things better, not as a tool for fear-mongering among those of us who don’t read/write code. Posting a screen shot of some code from one WordPress powered website template that was hacked is LAME. A website powered by a CMS powering millions of websites got temporarily hacked. So did Sony, Google and Citibank… so are you now going to quit using Google because it is not “safe”? Please.

4. “Wordpress can’t distribute content socially.”

Seriously? A CMS that was just called good enough only for blogs cannot distribute your hotel website content online? Mashable is probably the top social news and trends website on the planet. A WordPress CMS powers it. I hereby rest my case on content distribution on the social web. (Vikram drops mike on the floor and walks offstage.)

5. “WordPress is expensive.”

WordPress is a lot of things to a lot of people. One thing it is not is expensive. It’s free, folks… like the air we breathe. One of the agency “experts” chalked out this weird list of expenses attached with owning a WordPress-powered website:

  • Dedicated Hosting – $200/month. You should not be hosting one website on a $200/month service, whether it’s powered by WordPress or not. There are wonderful, safe, fast and efficient hosting services on that work very well with WordPress. BlueHost, WestHost, WP Engine and the RackSpace Cloud all offer excellent security and high-speed services starting under $35/month. If your site is slow on a $35/month service, you had WordPress installed or customized improperly. You can fix it.
  • Domain Name – $12/year. You absolutely need to own your domain. It’s Internet 101. Not sure what this has to do with using WordPress. (I warned you it’s a ridiculous list.) 
  • Themes – $90. Oh, themes and frameworks! How you have made beautiful website design so affordable for the whole world! There are some stellar themes available starting at less than $35/month. Imagine a fully functional beautiful website that you own (not your agency), all for a flat fee of $35 bucks. Buy it once, make as many sites on it as you want! That’s a lot of nice-looking websites for the price of 7 fancy lattes, or 1 stiff drink in a posh Manhattan hotel. And make no mistake – it also costs a lot less than a dedicated agency design department.
  • Premium Plugins – $300. A lot of the best plugins in life are free. Is this misinformation is being spread based on some random obscure example? Maybe he ordered a gold-plated plugin? (If so, maybe we can locate it on Jay Z’s site.)
  • Time costs. Apparently it takes some folks a ton of time to manage their WordPress website. I recommend that they go to a WordPress camp and learn to use it better. (Or just hire a WordPress guy to help you. You can find them in every town and city worldwide.) The agency “expert” who claims that maintaining your WordPress site will take ALL your extra time after work, he needs serious WordPress 101 help. I will be glad to connect him to the right people for training and development. Nothing is easier to keep updated. One click updates, people. It’s easy like Sunday mornings.

6. “WordPress plugins are hard to use.”

This global statement is just not true. The top plugins are not only free, but also easy to install and maintain. A global team of passionate WordPress fanboys constantly improves them. The goal is to make them available and usable to a wide audience – of people who don’t know how to code!

7. “WordPress is not mobile optimized.”

Please, let’s not go there. WordPress was mobile-friendly when agency CMS systems were still living in a cave (think Flintstones).  New  WordPress mobile themes and ecosystems are just amazing, and push billion of pageviews on hundreds of devices worldwide. Modern WordPress themes and frameworks are doing a phenomenal job of pushing the usability envelope in an increasingly mobile world.

8. “WordPress is not SEO-friendly.”

This is just plain blasphemous. Not a single agency CMS on the planet can come even close to how easy WordPress has made it for you to optimize your website for search engines.

  • First, as a default, it does not let you do anything that annoys Google.
  • SEO plugins are free, fast, easy, and extremely sophisticated. They are powered by some of the smartest people in the world of search engine optimization.

Calling WordPress “SEO-unfriendly” and complicated is just plain ludicrous (I don’t mean the rapper…he is pretty cool). If you can click and type, you can optimize your website effectively.

9. “WordPress limits a hotel website’s flexibility and functionality.”

In response to a bogus chart I recently saw highlighting how a hotel marketing agency CMS is a better product than open source WordPress, here is my own factual chart showing how much awesome WordPress really is:

[table id=2 /]

In conclusion…

Hotels cannot continue to 100% rent their entire online marketing efforts. It’s time to own your single most profitable channel in the universe – your website. You don’t have to be a developer to embrace open-source technology. All you have to do when picking a website design vendor is make a simple request: “Please make my website using an open-source platform such as WordPress.”

Also, one day when that agency relationship comes to an end (all things good and bad shall end), you will retain your entire site +CMS+ SEO+ URL’s intact. Often, when you leave a custom CMS website vendor, there is a big surprise in store for you:

  • Your entire website is stripped of this so-called awesome  and proprietary CMS. 
  • Your leftover assets (content, photos etc.) are zipped into a file and emailed.
  • You will have a hard time decoding this file and launching your website again.
  • SEO optimization is almost always removed, images  mislabeled, URL’s  broken… the horror list goes on.

I have seen this in the agency world too many times. It’s the ultimate kiss (of death) goodbye. It’s so bad that I actually saw an email from an agency CEO to his project manager (inadvertently forwarded to a hotel manager) with the subject line “please remove SEO optimization.” Three years of work the hotel paid for – deleted.

Don’t let this happen to you. WordPress is a superb choice for your hotel  Take the plunge and take control. Don’t give it a second thought. Some of the biggest names and industries have already jumped in. And they will all tell you, the water’s fine!

Airbnb: More Than a Threat, It’s a Great Disruptor To The Hotel & Travel Sector

I recently read an article on Airbnb on Euromonitor that declared: “Airbnb.com Poses Only a Small Threat to Hotel Industry.”

The truth is, Airbnb is not only a threat, but is actually a great disruptor for the hotel and travel sector. The article I cited makes three critical errors in reaching its erroneous conclusion. Let’s break them down.

Mistake #1: Airbnb is a “vacation rental” business.

Characterizing Airbnb as a vacation rental market play is simply not right. The article uses Wyndham Worldwide as an example of a hotel group that  “owns one of the oldest vacation rental brands—the British Hoseasons est. 1940” (who knew!). Well, congratulations to Wyndham Worldwide for keeping this a secret from the online world for 70 years! Maybe it was classified as a secret project from the WWII era?

To put Airbnb’s reach in perspective, I polled 15 of my best-heeled traveler buddies. Many of them are currently working in the hotel industry. Everyone had used AirBnb or referred a family member to Airbnb at least once. (In case you were wondering, the number of them who contributed any revenue to “British Hoseasons” was ZERO.)

Folks, Airbnb goes way beyond vacay (I used vacay!) rental people. People book Airbnb for EVERYTHING – vacation, business, events, family get-togethers, elopements, comic conventions, etc.  What they are putting in the limelight is how quickly the online travel market is changing and growing.

Mistake #2: Its effects are limited to leisure travel.

Here is one of the headers from the article: “Hotels need to keep an eye on leisure travellers.” Well, hotels need to keep an eye on ALL travelers and the massive changes that are happening in the way people are booking travel. Hotels need to learn to provide better value. Airbnb is not just for a family on vacation that is looking for a kitchen to make breakfast in. Neither it is just hipsters looking for a hotel alternative because hotels are too mainstream. C’mon! It’s much broader. I used Airbnb three times in 2012 for some serious business travel. Meetings, conference speaking, etc. You know… the trips where you have to work a lot? Think a lot of business thoughts?

Even the geographical outreach of Airbnb is spectacular. I had rooms booked in San Francisco, Phoenix and Singapore. Every single experience was excellent. Pretty ironic when I was staying in a Phoenix penthouse that belonged to the General Manager of a local designer hotel! The town was pretty sold out for the days I was there. I made the choice not to pay $465 for an Embassy Suite, and so did many other business travelers that week.

Mistake #3: Counting on the government to shut it down.

Euromonitor article interestingly stated that “Local governments may be an ally.”  to the hotel industry in controlling  Airbnb. Wow. Counting on the government to shut down innovation and disruption-based business models is really sad. Hotels need to know that any government that is going to shut down innovators is going use the same logic to hurt you when you innovate. Unless you have sworn off innovation as a hotel brand, beware what you wish for. Anyway, let’s get real. Building code violations in NYC are not going to be stopping Airbnb. Wishing for that to happen is a fool’s dream.

In conclusion

Airbnb is way beyond a threat to hotels. It’s a new way of conducting the business of travel. It is adding new entrepreneurs to the hotel business, as anyone with an additional room to rent can now be a hotelier. Not only that, Airbnb is adding a supply of rentable rooms to cities across the globe. The words “the city is sold out tonight” have a brand new meaning thanks to Airbnb.

Another Day (Not) Another Blog

This is not my first blog/dance/party/luau. It’s the fourth blog that I’ve launched since 2006. The other three blogs were focused on topics ranging from Online Marketing to Surfing Products and Big Wave Surfing. (What can I say…I have range.)

Why is this blog different from all other blogs? Simple. It bears my name. These are just my thoughts: no guest posts, no agency talk, nothing but me talking about what I know best.

I am Vikram Singh, and these are my words.

Interesting fact: The one thing all of my blogs have in common is that they were all launched in Oahu, Hawaii. The Island Kingdom simply inspires me.

Ok, now what is this blog going to be about? It’s about making a change. Stopping the business as usual that has the hospitality industry so trapped. I want to point out a better way of doing things: a better way to use analytics, a better way to use technology, a better way to use your staff… etc, etc.

After dedicating over 15 years to the hotel and online marketing industries, I am ready to share my stories, perspectives, thoughts and ideas.  

Don’t worry. This is not a “dear diary.” I don’t do diaries. You won’t have to read about what I had for breakfast. This is more like a serialized book on hotel industry best and worst practices, all based on real-life experiences with employers, vendors, clients and colleagues. Some chapters will sting while others will soothe. But I hope all of them will inspire you to think about what you’re doing and to aim higher.

Please bring an open mind and a saltshaker filled with grains of salt. I’ll try to keep it interesting.