Hotel Website Design and Usability: Top 10 Mistakes

Hotel website design, like any kind of design, is subjective. Nothing is more painful than a website design “discussion” where stakeholders talk for hours about colors, content and photos. For every extra person added to these meetings, more useless things get added and useful things get taken out. By the end of it, you have a website that is not usable for potential guests, which hurts your conversion rate and, more important, your revenue.

So in this post, let’s worry less about design and more about usability. To that end, here is a list of mistakes that can hurt your hotel website revenue, no matter how much you love your design.

1. Missing Address & Phone Number

You need to give website visitors your address and phone number right at the top of your home page. This is more important than your homepage slider, and even that oh so trendy moving video on loop that you recently added. Assuming that your phone number and location only matter on mobile is flawed thinking.

Sometimes people want to call you. When they are calling you, there’s a good chance they’re going to book with you. Before they book, they are very likely to search for information about your location. Travel research is still happening on larger screens. You have to make it easy for them to discover your exact location, and even easier to contact you.

Don’t bury this information in your footer. Would you wear your name tag on your shoe? Mike drop. Next.

2. Fluffy Homepage Taglines

Hotel websites are notorious for fluffy descriptive taglines. I am not sure where this trend started, but it really has to stop. Home page is prime real estate for you to talk about who you are, what you do, and where are you located. Marketing is not stuffing adjectives like “Extraordinaire, Award Winning, Blissful Abode, etc.” on your home page. Providing the right information up front will lead your visitors deeper into your website for discovery, and not on an expedition to try to find simple answers about who you are, where you are, and what you offer. You have a few seconds to keep a new visitor on your website. Let’s not use that time to bombard them with fluff.

3. Music (Can you not?)

This is a public service announcement: Please don’t put music on your website.

Anything (music, videos) that autoplays on a website is a conversion death trap. The majority of bookings happen Monday through Friday, 9am-5pm. People are at work…and nothing is more disastrous than suddenly having your office laptop broadcast the sounds of singing whales, crashing waves, or romantic piano music while you are trying to book your vacation. Especially while your boss is waiting on that TPS report.

4. Cannibalizing Your Own Traffic

I have written a massive article on this topic that you can read here. Obviously, not enough people have read it. Social media traffic is useful only when it’s pointing people inwards, into your website! I am always surprised to see social media exit signs all over hotel websites. Do you think anyone leaving your website to go to YouTube is ever coming back? I refer to it as the black hole of the Internet universe. All that effort you spent to get people to come to your website is wasted when you then lead them right out.

5. Poorly Embedded Videos

Videos can do wonders for your website engagement. I am always thrilled when a hotel website utilizes videos. YouTube is a great place to host videos that you can embed into your website. But beware one small setting that can wreak havoc: Suggested Videos. This totally defeats the purpose of having video embedded on your website, as people are now getting sucked directly from your site back into the Internet black hole of cat videos! What’s even worse than that? When your competitors’ hotel videos start showing up! Now that is really embarrassing.

So, when you are embedding YouTube videos on your website, make sure you follow these easy steps:

  1. Copy your video embed code.
  2. Select the “show more” option.
  3. Uncheck the “show suggested videos when the video finishes” box.
  4. Copy and paste the new code into your website.

6. Bad Photography

Photos make or break a hotel website. Still, a lot of hotels do not invest in photography at the level they should. I have seen some amazing website design themes ruined by bad photos. The importance of unique, high-quality photos is not limited to your website. They need to be used on every OTA that you work with. Instead of getting photos updated once in 5 or 10 years, organize a seasonal photo shoot to cover the full spectrum of your location and seasonality.

Sadly, there are countless hotel websites where I can instantly make out who made it thanks to the ubiquitousness of the marketing agency’s stock photos. From San Francisco to San Antonio, the same couple is having a great romantic dinner, day after day, year after year. Another couple is enjoying the generic beach in San Diego, and Miami, and South Carolina. You get the drift.

7. Press Releases

Some find it hard to believe, and even find this notion offensive, but I’ll say it anyway: a press release is not real content. Let me elaborate. A press release does not fall into any real content category people are using these days. Current news can be found on Twitter or an actual news website. Topical discussions and viewpoints are offered in blogs and podcasts. Having a press release page on your website does not help educate your audience. You need to convert that information into useful content potential visitors can use. A beautiful press kit available for download will run circles around any effort and money spent on press releases. News about renovations, re-branding, new food and beverage outlets, etc., needs to be broadcast live on your hotel blog.

8. The Dreaded Restaurant & Spa Menu PDF

Larger resort websites are top offenders when it comes to this. PDFs are awful when it comes to usability. First there is the download time and resolution issues that occur on mobile devices, combined with the need to “select” the right app to open them. PDFs are just a bad idea. I just want to see if I can get a salad! It shouldn’t require so much effort, and then become a permanent file on my phone.

HTML it instead! Let people view information without fixed borders. They are great for printing, but who is even printing anything these days? You can always offer a “printable” option for laptop users, but it cannot and should not be the only way to access information on your website.

9. One Call to Action

With the heavy emphasis on booking direct, it seems like every website has become a big “BOOK NOW AND SAVE” destination. You website needs to be a part of the larger travel booking conversation. If the only thing you are yelling is “BOOK NOW!” you are not distinguishing yourself from the hundreds of other websites that are doing the exact same thing. You have to do better.

Diversify your calls to action. Ask visitors to interact with you in other ways. Maybe your guest is still researching their options, trying to understand your location and value proposition. Make it easy for them to contact you by requiring very limited information in your contact form. “Give us your name and email, and we’ll get right back to you.” Help with the journey first, and the odds of them booking with you go up tremendously.

Pro Tip: The number of questions asked in a contact form is inversely proportional to the number of people who will fill out that form and convert.

10. Bad Booking Engines

Booking engines deserve their own very special usability article, which I will get to in the near future. For now, know this: For your guest, the booking engine is a part of your website. They do not know or care that you are renting this cart from a provider that has been making booking engines since 1989, or from a guy in his garage in Seattle. When you confuse your visitors with a bad booking experience, you are doing two things:

  1. Tanking all the marketing budget you spent to drive this person to your website
  2. Training them not to waste time with you, and instead use an Online Travel Agent that lets them book a room more efficiently

Your website is your storefront. There is NO point to having all the great photography, content, ambience, and offerings…and then a broken cash register at the end of the experience.

Conclusion

Yes, make a beautiful website! It should be modern, aesthetically pleasing, inviting, and show off your property. But also remember to avoid the pitfalls I have highlighted above. Start making your website perform better. It’s hard to remember that these small things can matter more than the expensive design things, but do not give in to marketing peer pressure. Usability beats trends. Make sure your most profitable revenue channel is more than just a pretty face. Stay Woke.

Dinosaur Metrics Are Taking a Bite Out of Your Hotel Marketing Performance

Marketing is evolving as I am typing this sentence. I’m here to make sure you are not wasting your time, energy and marketing budgets by focusing on outdated metrics. Many of the metrics you’re using have become irrelevant because of the seismic change in how people are researching and booking travel today. If you are still measuring what does not matter, you will end up getting blindsided. Don’t let a false sense of security, or an unwillingness to change, cost you market share and revenue.

Outdated Online Marketing Metrics

Traffic

Measuring straight up year-over-year traffic is a quick way to lead yourself into the land of confusion. Because of the way Google has personalized the heck out of their search engine, those massive droves of online visitors that used to reach your website are now:

  1. Finding the information they need in the Google universe (Google Hotel Finder, Google Flights, etc)
  2. Seeing their own version of Google based on their browsing history, their click-thru history, and the retargeting associated with their Gmail accounts. Basically, they are not seeing universal results, which used to result in massive traffic numbers.

Over the past several years, I have seen a decline in website traffic across the board in hotels and travel. The way people are moving across devices throughout the day, coupled with their growing concerns about privacy, means it’s getting harder to track them. Don’t worry: those wanting to sell you ads are working hard on a solution. But conversion and engagement metrics, not traffic, need to be center stage.

Childish Gambino sums it up: “Yeah, you got some silverware, but really are you eating though?”

Keyword Ranking

The personalization of search engines that I highlighted above directly affects another popular favorite from the days of old timey marketing: the beloved Keyword Ranking report. Back in the day, you know pre-2005, you could really hang your hat on this one. Rankings meant traffic, and traffic converted. Ah, the good old days! Today you are paying someone to dominate a list of keywords as part of SEO. You might as well burn cash to stay warm. Read these articles instead to learn how SEO has evolved, and why ‘pay to play’ is the new (old) king.

Meaningful content and website expansion have replaced keyword rankings. Looking at the Top 10 Keywords report in 2016 is like looking at a newspaper from 2005 to predict the weather today.

Email Open Rate

Bragging about the size of your email database is so last decade. The more relevant question is: how many segments or groups do you have within your database? Male vs. Female? USA vs. International? City vs. State? Sending massive email blasts without any segmentation is a sure shot way to get ignored/unsubscribed. Your content is key and needs to be segmented to succeed. Here’s an example of an email campaign that is WAY too broad, and therefore destined to fail.

137_Travel_Deals
You can beat your competition by embracing the power of segmentation. Like search engines, email systems also are not doing what they used to do back in the day: the good ol’ pixel-based tracking. One of the biggest email clients (Gmail) does not open image emails by default, which singlehandedly derails the “opened” metric. Anyway, sending emails like the one above does not help, even if they register as opened. I may have opened the email, but I will not sift through 100+ deals to find what I need, thanks. I have Google/Expedia for that!

Social Likes, Shares, Followers

Still counting Likes? Followers? Well, you can stop doing that. Neither of these things is anything more than a suggestion that someone might pay attention to you. For hotels and travel, this is where discussion is a better KPI (Key Performance Indicator) than the number of likes, retweets, and shares. A discussion can be an online interaction on social media, a phone call, or an email exchange. These interactions can take place during the trip planning phase, at the property during the stay/event, or post stay. All of those activities mean more than clicking on a Like button.

Social media is not the place to be broadcasting a message and expecting to get revenue. I fondly remember the days when agencies could make money by adding a “BOOK NOW” link on Facebook! But that didn’t last long. Today you need to look at the level of discussion you are having online. So, have you engaged your customers? What content have you produced that they should care about? These are the real questions to ask.

Pro Tip: Look at Insights section of your Facebook page. Go here to see your Twitter situation: http://analytics.twitter.com.

Conclusion

Travel is one of the most competitive segments online. You have to up your analytics game if you want to stay relevant. Pats on the back and high fives for outdated metrics are bad for your profitability (and your street cred). It’s always a great time to update your online marketing metrics to stay competitive. In my next post, I will cover the exciting metrics that actually drive your profitability. Stay tuned, stay woke!

Marriott’s Acquisition of Starwood: Winners and Losers

Marriott’s acquisition of Starwood is great news for investors, but unfortunately not for Starwood hotel guests and employees. The quote that sums up the reasoning behind this deal came from Starwood Chairman Bruce Duncan.

“We are committed to what is best for shareholders.”

Notice that employees and guests are not mentioned. This is because they are not the focus of the consolidation. Industry consolidation is aimed at increasing investors’ profits or killing a competitor in the industry. With this deal, Marriott is hitting both those key points. When a deal like this is made, the numbers have been run and re-run hundreds of times. Everything must look good on paper, first and foremost. Banks and investors are going to be the clear winners in this deal.

However, I’d like to talk about the important players in this deal that are not likely to fare too well: the guests and the employees.

Guests (The Case of the Diminishing Rewards)

The massive march toward total devaluation of loyalty points continues onward. Every major hotel chain has devalued its rewards program in the past five years. Hilton, Marriott, Starwood and Carlson issued major devaluations in their loyalty points in 2013 and again in 2015. Historically, mergers have almost always resulted in devaluation of loyalty programs and inferior service. Anyone who thinks bigger is better when it comes to personal attention has obviously never called his cable company.

In 2013, Marriott created a new (read higher) category of hotels: the super “category 9” hotels, where it takes 45,000 points to stay for one night! They also raised the points requirement per night on 40% of their portfolio, which in their case was an increase of around 5000+ points to book a room. In March 2015, Marriott moved approximately 25% of their hotels into a higher bracket; that means you now need more points per night to get a room in the same hotel.

Starwood has been known to have the best elite program in the game. Even so, earlier this year 20% of their hotels did the category shuffle. The difference is that, in their case, half of the hotels in this 20% segment moved up a category and the other half moved down. Much less drastic than Marriott.

With Marriott taking over and a loyalty program merger inevitable in the near future, the overall value proposition is going to go down. It might be good for low- to mid-level SPG status holders, but the super elites will take a hit. Even the credit card offers from Starwood have always been out of Marriott’s league. There is no other way this is going to play out: the existing Starwood elite SPG program will take a hit.

I was disturbed by the whiny and entitled responses to the merger by the “elites” in this NY Times article. But the fact is thing are going to get worse for them and they know it.

Employees

History and common sense both tell us that consolidation is hardly ever good news for employees. This merger is no different than most in that respect.

Starwood made some mistakes over the years by spreading itself too thin specially that their gable in Asia, Europe and the Middle East didn’t really pan out. If you remember, they took a lot of pride in “moving” their corporate offices to international hubs for 30 days (China, Dubai and India for 30 days). Because, what motivates a team more than jet lag…right? This was nothing more than a gimmick, like that time in 2006 when Starwood Hotels opened in Second Life, which was supposed to be the next big thing. You really cannot be going international when all your core marketing and strategy is centralized in Stamford, Connecticut. 

Anyway, with this expansion came international teams. So guess what is going to happen in Singapore and Hong Kong and New Delhi, where both hotel chains have regional presence? Will they need two Sales Directors, Revenue Managers, or Operations Directors sitting in two offices in the same city? What about in the US where Marriott already has a massive corporate team? Short answer: No.

Marriott has made a name for itself with its efficiency. Kudos for that. But this also means that they are not going to be supporting multiple teams of people to do the same job. This is particularly relevant to employees in senior and cluster management and operations positions.

The market right now is flooded with Starwood resumes. This is especially true in international markets. Since I am very fortunate to have friends working globally for large hotel chains, I know for a fact that there is some panic in the job market.

Most guests will be fine and will deal with the changes in the loyalty program and dwindling levels of personal service over time. But the human cost in terms of disrupted careers and lost opportunities is harder to absorb.

Conclusion

It’s not all doom and gloom. This merger presents a huge opportunity for independent and ultra-luxury hotels. It’s the perfect time to outshine the rapidly diminishing hotel loyalty programs that the behemoth hotel brands are trimming and slashing, by offering a unique experience that includes highly personalized service. Another group that should be celebrating this consolidation, aside from the bankers, is Airbnb and the other apartment/home rental players. This is just what they wanted for Christmas, even if they didn’t know it. More business travelers will be looking to go rogue when faced with diminishing loyalty points, and therefore diminishing loyalty.

Hotel Brands’ Struggle to Understand Airbnb: The IHG Edition

When I’m on Twitter, I’m usually catching up on some of my favorite comedians (mostly comediennes) and posting my own material. But every now and then, some non-comedic items capture my attention. This live tweet caught my eye on September 30.

Sean McCracken* with Hotel News Now posted this update from IHG’s annual conference.

*(Let’s get our “release the kraken” jokes out of the way. I bet he hears them a lot.)

IHG CEO QUOTE

Wow. The “Solomons” referred to in the above tweet is not some mid-level manager at IHG trying to shake up the crowds. He is the Big Kahuna/CEO of Intercontinental Hotels Group! At first I could not believe that the CEO of one of the biggest hotel brands in the world would go on stage at their annual conference and say something this ridiculous and detached from reality. Then I realized that he was engaging in the long-standing tradition of hotel brands building up a boogeyman to rally against. I will elaborate on this later.

Solomons’ comment also sums up the very reason why hotel brands today are struggling with the reality of the rapidly changing travel landscape. If this is the belief held by those on top, there is very little hope that the brands will manage to stay relevant in the near future.

The Struggle Is Real

IHG CEO QuoteInterestingly, IHG is one of the brands I often refer to when speaking about Airbnb and its impact on travel. The ex-CMO of IHG shocked me at a conference three years ago when he did not know what Airbnb was. They now have a new team in place, but the struggle continues.

The fact that the CEO of a company listed on the New York Stock Exchange (aka, Wall Street; aka, the folks who brought us “Greed is Good” is calling Airbnb (unlisted) the product of “Silicon valley greed” is painfully ironic.

The real kicker here is that Richard Solomons’ bio comes straight out of the world of investment banking. To quote his Wikipedia page:

“Solomons worked in investment banking with Hill Samuel Bank for seven years, including two years in New York. He worked for seven years in investment banking, based in London and New York. Solomons qualified as a chartered accountant with KPMG in 1985.”

Meanwhile, according to Wikipedia, the CEO of Airbnb, Brian Chesky, has a BFA in industrial design from the Rhode Island School of Design. And he was broke when he started Airbnb to make ends meet.

This is usually my “drop the mike and walk away” moment. But since this is not a stage, I will keep writing.

Hey Guys… How’s Kimpton Doing?

Brands have been notorious for creating a boogeyman when facing change. The past few years have been all about Online Travel Agents stealing their share. Now they have a new entity to blame for their issues: Airbnb.

IHG’s recent acquisition of Kimpton, which I wrote about here, is playing very much in line with my prediction. The brand that took years to build is succumbing to the giant shadow its new owner is casting. Case in point, the loss of key landmark Kimpton assets in San Francisco:

[table id=6 /]

Kimpton’s single largest market was San Francisco, and they have now lost more than 75% of their presence. This is a much bigger threat to Kimpton than Airbnb and OTA’s put together.

So many of these iconic assets are getting renamed, losing the brand recognition that Kimpton employees built over so many years. I really hope Keane played “How to Save a Life Brand” at the IHG show.

Conclusion

Hotel brand annual shows are squarely focused on hyping the brand, and that is understandable. What is not acceptable is to misinform your franchisees and owners about where the business of hospitality is heading. They are hungry for education and knowledge, not just their Pancake Selfies at the “Stack Station.” Google it.

Your Marketing Focus Must Shift To Hotel Value Over Price

It’s amazing how much time and energy gets poured into deciding the price of a hotel room. There are STR reports, RMS Reports, and booking engine reports to go along with the hundreds of tools that are solely focused on how much you are charging for your room. There are stacks of reports on top of other reports all showing pricing data – past, present and future. You want to know anything to do with pricing? There’s a report for that.

Now, where is the value report? You see, selecting your competition based on the size of your bed and the bathroom sink is an idea that has passed it’s prime.

Boutique hotels (a term that needs to be retired) took a lot of time defining their hotels and restaurants as being truly different and holding certain value that a braded cookie cutter hotel is never going to match up to.

Taking the time to educate your guests can make all the difference in value perception. Better perception = Better Price = Better Profits.

A lot of the traditional boutique hotels under pressure from stakeholders over the years have descended on the price level competition. When your biggest USP is your price, then it’s all that you will be judged on. A room rate becomes your only significant value.

Pricing is an extremely shortsighted play. Anyone looking for long term profitability needs to look at the value that they are providing to their guests.

Here is how you can start to turn your team’s focus on highlighting your value versus going into price wars that hurt long-term profitability:

Don’t Make Up Value- Be Who You Are

Just last week I saw an email from the “corporate” director of sales for a small no name hotel asset in the middle of nowhere wanting his website look like the Four Seasons and Jumeriah Hotels- both super high end luxury products. This happens often when clueless marketing “directors” start to consider the website as an extension of their ego’s. ( Note: It’s a guarantee that  their egos are much larger than their value as employees).  The value of your hotel is not a fantasy that you would like it to be. It’s who you really are. There are independent hotels and there are cookie cutter brand hotels. Every time each one tries to be something it’s not- It always ends badly. Lying about value is actually worse than not showing any value so please keep the marketing types and their ego’s in check. This is a clear reason why you should not call a Holiday Inn Express a “boutique hotel”. Hotel brands are already exhausting every day guests with mundane name/ brand variations of the same product.  Step up and embrace who you are. Value will be best competition differentiator you have that cannot be easily replicated.

Better Value Segmentation

Segment of go home. The key is in understanding that your hotel/lodging product is likely not a good fit for everyone and that’s OK. Before embarking on expensive capital expenditure or shelling marketing dollars on a “branding” agency as yourself if you clearly know who your target audience is?

I am not just talking about who is checking into your hotel today. What about guests checking into your hotel in the next 10-15 years? Who are you targeting? You can never relate to someone unless you narrow down your focus. Pretending to be all things to all the people is where things gets complicated and you start to use price as a flotation device.

Leverage Your Location & Story

Simple test. Get your friends to walk up to your hotel front desk and ask “ Why should I be staying at this hotel” . What you hear back might surprise you. Many times what you hear has never been mentioned on the website or on your value pitch.
What’s you frequency Kenneth? Do you have a story to tell? Does your hotel location ( city, area etc.) has a story? This is what you should be telling your guests online and in person.

What your guests tell Tripadvisor when they check out is a whole another story but in 90% of the cases a good story helps with value perception and reflects in your online reviews. Start training your guests to leave the reviews that you what them to. Do not wait after the fact; you have a first mover advantage that you need to hit. Own and leverage your location. Be the expert the your unfamiliar needs. I know everyone has a smartphone but most humans are still looking for a human touch, cue in Bruce Springsteen.You should also be telling your guests about the history of the company that helps build some confidence in your lodging product.  Why are you in the hospitality business is a good starting point.

Have Confidence In Your Product & Rate

If the only way you can highlight the value of your product is through wavering on price, then you will always be struggling to compete. Anytime a hotel resorts to selling rooms to someone that will advertise them for $7, the value lost is irreplaceable.

When you get your guests to the booking stage and are about to get money in your account, do it with conviction. Matching your price to value is a cycle that needs to start at every page of your website and lead all the way into the booking engine.

Highlighting your property’s features and what you bring to the table. One golden rule here is not speak poorly about the competition. The minute you give any time discussing the competition, you have already lost the sale.

Emphasize Your Human Touch

When talking about the hotel assets it’s possible to show your product to be superior product by mentioning the high thread count sheets, fancy toiletries, fast WiFi and other bells and whistles.

Your competition is always providing some level of a basic product which might be a few levels above and below you. This is hard for your guests to understand and truly differentiate. The example I like to give is of two Starbucks on the opposite end of the street. Everyone has a favorite location and even though the product is same, it’s always the people that make the difference.

People will do business with someone who cares about them. This is where your human workforce comes into play. It’s your greatest differentiating factor and you should use it at every given opportunity.

Conclusion

Running any form of a lodging operation means that you are a) competing globally with people who can outspend and out market you. B ) you business is going to be seasonal. Your guests are willing to pay more for a product if they think it gives them a truly special or significant value—and if you present it to them in just the right way, the revenue if yours to take. Pricing is the short term and will let you win a few battles every now and then. Value on the other hand is always going to be the deciding factor in winning the war.

The Free Website Trap: Lessons From Priceline’s Rebranding of Buuteeq

The Free Website Trap: Lessons From Priceline’s Rebranding of Buuteeq

Last year, Priceline.com made a splash when it acquired Buuteeq, a digital marketing and website “cloud-based system” for independent hotels, for what looks like $98 million.

My detailed analysis of that purchase made a lot of headlines, and also missed a lot of headlines when some of the top hotel news websites did not carry my article. (Buuteeq was a big advertiser for them.)

Last week, Priceline announced that it would no longer let Buuteeq operate as an independent brand, and that they now offer free websites in exchange for a 10% commission on every dollar generated on those sites. Here is my analysis of what this means for the lodging industry.

Goodbye, Buuteeq.

The first thing I observed is how quickly Priceline moved away from letting Buuteeq “continue to operate as an independent business within The Priceline Group.” I was highly skeptical about them being allowed to operate independently when I first wrote about the acquisition in August 2014 (read my conclusion section here). Thousands of independent hotels and B&Bs using the Buuteeq platform were given a “nothing is going to change” story by the founders.

Here is an excerpt from an email that one of the founders of Buuteeq (Brian Saab) sent to a bed and breakfast client:

“We remain an independent brand (one of the prime reasons we considered the merger with Priceline Group) and we continue to run business as usual. That said, I am thrilled to be able to rub shoulders with other brands in the group; we’re already getting great advice on how to improve conversion for hoteliers (who wouldn’t want to get best practices from the likes of Priceline, Kayak, and Booking)!”

How cute! But we all know by now that nobody acquires a small company to make things better for their existing clients. They buy assets to benefit the larger group, which in this case is Priceline Inc. The interests of thousands of small and independent hotels is not the primary objective of Priceline. Their own revenue is their prime objective (as you should expect). Have you seen their amazing stock price lately? And yes, I still use Yahoo Finance.

The hotels who built their entire online presence on the Buuteeq platform – instead of owning their own digital assets – now have even less control over what happens to their own website and marketing. Priceline Inc. will tweak, update and change the new entity as they deem fit.

You must keep in mind that Buuteeq was acquired because it was working. It was built by smart people: former Microsoft executives Forest Key, Adam Brownstein and Brian Saab. They raised the capital, built the platform, and implemented aggresive sales teams that closed thousands of hotels and inns. They even convinced established hotel brands like Choice Hotels to join them. They flourished by playing on one of the lodging industry’s major deficiencies: the fact that people in hospitality do not want to spend time or money on direct marketing/ building a website/ getting a decent shopping cart.

This hands-off, price-shopping hotel culture was the key to their success, even when it’s common knowledge among lodging operators that their website is their single most profitable channel. The same key will unlock BookingSuite’s success. They’re just taking it to the next level. What can I say? It’s as surreal as a Salvador Dali painting.

Hello, BookingSuite.

For quite some time now, I have been seeing the BookingSuite link taking the place of “Hotel Marketing by Buuteeq” on independent websites. How did I know that the Buuteeq brand would be “sunsetted” by Priceline? Because there is so much more money to be made by taking a % of bookings versus peddling “digital marketing platforms” for a flat monthly fee. Where is the fun revenue in that?

You see, if a hotel on the Buuteeq platform decided to spend money directly on Google via PPC (which is their greatest marketing tool!), the hotel itself would profit from PPC success. This of course, is not what Buuteeq/Booking Suite would like to see. They would prefer to cash in on any marketing success you experience.

So, back in August 2014, less than 24 hours after the Priceline takeover, the old Buuteeq pricing chart disappeared. Since nothing can be truly deleted from the internet, here is a retro screenshot showing what Buuteeq was charging:

buuteeq pricing

 

Now let’s estimate what Priceline will make by charging 10% commission on every room booked on your BookingSuite–powered free website:

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The chart above clearly shows that even a small inn booking $10,000 in revenue is worth more than the flat-fee “Ultra” client, which only made them $1000 in monthly revenue, and out of which payroll, project management, etc. had to be paid. With the new pricing model, even a hotel booking as little as $5000/month is probably more profitable than offering monthly plans and pricing tiers. Remember, Priceline is not about giving choices to hotels and lodging providers. It’s about giving choices to your guests, and making a ton of cash doing it.

On the other hand, you could make yourself a comparable website that you own for around $1000, or one month’s commission. Even if you splurge on a custom site for 5-10K, you’ll be coming out ahead way before the year is up.

Now with BookingSuite, Priceline is going to do something they are exceptionally good at: make more money for themselves from selling your hotel/inn/bed and breakfast. Not only do they want to make money by selling your rooms on their Booking.com and partner websites for a 20% commission; they also want to make 10% on every room you sell from your own website. Cool trick, eh? They are about to make it rain revenue.

Free Websites? It’s a Trap!

Who can forget that moment in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi when Admiral Gial Ackbar realized what was going on.

“It’s a trap.”

Yes, free websites are a trap indeed. The old adage “there is no such thing as a free lunch” needs to be revisited by anyone in the hospitality business who is considering getting a “free” website. Yes, BookingSuite is a “free” website, but it comes with a very big price. The price is 10% of every single dollar you book on that website.

I am not against paying an OTA (Online Travel Agent) a commission for revenue they deliver to my hotel, when they incurred the marketing cost of bringing that guest to me. I don’t even mind them converting a guest who is hooked on their brand. The thing to consider here is that, when using BookingSuite, you are going to share 10% of every dollar booked on the website, even the revenue that you made because of your own:

  • direct marketing
  • reputation & press
  • referrals
  • word of mouth

Here is a wonderful thought. Instead of paying a flat 10% commission to BookingSuite, spend it here instead:

  1. Spend directly with Google. Buy something as simple and effective as your brand name keyword searches.
  2. Pay a photographer. Photos make or break a website. Better photos = better revenue (update them on all your channels!).
  3. Put more/better content on your website. Convert visitors on your website by giving them better information about your location/destination.
  4. Do some testing. Try out social and meta advertising platforms with minimum budgets and see what works best for you.
  5. Get a print ad. LOL, j/k. Print is dead. Just added this here to make sure you are still reading.

The “We Do Not Have Website & Marketing Budget” Myth

Ok, this one is one of the most irrational arguments against building your own website and brand presence. Even in their Wall Street Journal announcement, Priceline highlighted that:

“BookingSuite is aimed at independent and boutique hotels without the deep pockets.”

This has to stop. Buying a website and investing in direct marketing is not like buying diamonds or an island or a luxury yacht. Not only are websites inexpensive, but as a lodging operator you simply cannot decide to skip direct marketing. As for booking engines, there has never been more choice than today. I think a new booking engine might even get launched by the time you finish reading this article.

Here is what a hotel website will cost you if you would like to get one today:

  1. Download WordPress: $0. Download is free, but you have to know a little tech. Don’t worry, you can do it with a very small amount of online research. (See…no free lunch!)
  2. Get hosting: $10–$15/month. Try: Bluehost, Host Gator.
  3. Pick a design theme: $0–$80. There are many pre-designed templates to choose from if you’re on a budget. Look at Elegant Themes, WooThemes.
  4. Stitch the site together: $600. Add logo, content, photos, etc. You’d be surprised at how much you can do yourself. But if you’d rather not, developers are available for $20–$60/hour. They can make your site in 8-10 hours, at a cost of approx $600.
  5. Start running ads on Google: $500/month. Open a Google Adwords account ($0). Get support to write an ad for your brand name searches, and set a budget that is right for your market ($200–$800/month).

So the question you have to ask yourself is: who is this hotel with deep pockets? In the age of WordPress, can you really not afford your own website? Can’t afford and being lazy are not the same thing.

The article in Wall Street Journal also mentioned that BookingSuite already has 2,800 lodging partners signed up and another 3,600 joining soon. Amazing, to read that so many people are willing to share revenue for the lifetime of their website rather than make a direct investment of their own time and a little bit of money.

Lodging operators who have no money to get a website should probably look for a new line of business. Only, no business today can really survive without the web. And no business can survive without direct revenue and innovation. Just ask music industry executives, or Blackberry (RIP).

Conclusion

Is there hope for hospitality? Yes! Actually it’s a simple 2-step program:

  1. Always own your digital assets.
  2. Be wary of free lunches. There is no free lunch in this life. You will pay for it one way or another.

If you’re ready to take the brave leap into being responsible for your own website and marketing, I’m right here for you. Email me. I’m always ready to talk with you or help you with a project. You just need to take the first step.

Google’s Mobile Update: Keep Calm and Get With the Program

google mobile update for hotels

Every time Google issues an update, hotel marketing agencies have a field day writing articles and trying to give you a reason to panic about your online presence. To provide you with a respite from the hyperbole, I would like to assure you that:

  1. Everything is going to be okay.
  2. This update is actually a great opportunity for you to take your online presence to the next level.

Here are my answers to some of your burning questions about the Google Mobile Update of 2015.

Why is Google doing this update?

Good question. The simple answer is: Google wants to make more money. (Just for reference, this is always the reason Google does anything.)

Google is at the forefront of mobile web. They have seen mobile search surge past desktop usage over the past several years. Their significant investment and success with the Android ecosystem further cements the fact that Google plays to win. In its continued dominance of global search traffic, Google has a clear agenda: to provide its users with the best possible search experience so that they stay loyal to Google. More Google searches means more chances for users to click on Google Ads, which means more AdWords revenue for Google.

With the majority of web traffic shifting to mobile over the past decade, Google needs to ensure that the websites providing the best mobile experience get top placement in their mobile searches. Think of it as Google’s Spring Cleaning for Mobile Search, where they want to “incentivize” you to have a better mobile presence. Instead of wringing your hands, consider that Google is doing you a favor by reminding you to bring your mobile presence up to par. Complying with Google’s guidelines is a win-win; it’s not only good for your business, but also great for their business. Google will not be relinquishing their mobile search dominance anytime soon, so…yes, it’s time to get with the program if you haven’t already.

What will happen during this update?

First things first. This is not an “apocalypse” or an “Armageddon” event, as many hotel and web marketing agencies might have you thinking. By using the word “significant” in their announcement of this update, Google made Christmas come early for hotel marketing agencies and their press release machines. But you don’t need to purchase any special marketing services to comply.

Here is what is happening:

On April 21, Google will be rolling out an update to its algorithm in which mobile-friendly websites will be given preference in rankings. This update is just a reflection of the fact that mobile web is a way of life for humans worldwide, and Google wants to show those humans better search results and more ads.

Likewise, if you have a website, and you want people to find it and use it, you should be providing them with a good mobile experience. Being mobile-friendly is a good common sense practice, like eating more vegetables. (Google is just like your mom, who still reminds you to do it every once in a while, for your own good.) Or, think of those ‘no shirt, no shoes, no service’ signs outside some beach restaurants. This update is Google’s indication that they have standards too, you know, just in case you have been living under a rock for the past decade.

Unlike previous updates that looked at your website/domain as a whole, the Google Mobile Update will look at your website on a page by page basis. A few pages that are not mobile-optimized will not “blacklist” your entire website. Of course, the pages that are mobile-optimized on your website will get preference in rankings.

Is your website mobile-friendly?

The good news is that you do not need a fortune teller, a “site audit,” any sort of advanced digital screening, nor any DNA splicing.

Just test your website here: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/ 

Think of this as Google’s very own Hogwarts style mobile-Sorting Hat. You will know where you stand in a few seconds. You’re welcome!

Disclaimer: Please know that this test is not perfect. There is no substitute for human testing, and I don’t mean your agency account manager. I mean you need to do it yourself. As I recommend in all my speaking gigs: go to a mobile phone store, and start pulling up your site on different phones and tablets. You might need some device-specific help from a developer for minor issues, but you’ll know if your site works on mobile or not. End disclaimer.

What’s the worst case scenario?

With every Google update, nobody but Google engineers knows exactly what is going to happen. But what’s the worst-case scenario if your website is not mobile-optimized? Google might remove the non-mobile-optimized pages from their mobile search results, or at least push them down a few notches.

If this happens, you will notice a change in your organic traffic. Then you’ll know that it’s time to update your mobile experience. Do that, resubmit it to Google Webmaster Tools, and you will be back in the index next time Google robots crawl your website. Easy like Sunday mornings.

A lot of you have read and reviewed and commented on my article on the SEO Bubble, and how it has already burst. I recommend re-reading that article and focusing on the big picture that lies ahead.

Nobody will be annihilated or lose any limbs/appendages because of a Google algorithmic update. And while you are reading this guess what will happen to your pay per click ads? Nothing! You see, when you pay Google, they are your best friend. Like I ahve said before- Pay Per Click is still a hotels best marketing tool. 

How do you become mobile-compliant?

  1. Do not panic.
  2. Get off your marketing agency’s proprietary CMS system and move your website to WordPress ASAP. (Need more information on that? Read this and this. If you ever needed an incentive to properly own your digital assets, this is it.
  3. Once you get yourself onto a nice responsive WordPress theme, go into Google Webmaster Tools, resubmit your website, and check for any other errors.
  4. Check your analytics data after resubmission observe your website performance changes. The web is always evolving: test, observe, repeat.

Conclusion

I feel really old when I think of the “Mobile Web Marketing” speeches I used to give circa 2006 at hotel marketing events all over the world. All web is mobile web today. Google is just trying to make some stubborn folks join 2015. For those folks, it’s a perfect time to catch up on some long-needed updates. For the rest of us, it’s business as usual.

Keep calm and stay mobile.

 

My Top 6 Articles of 2014

It’s time to say goodbye to 2014. It was an epic year for me, and I especially loved sharing my thoughts about the industry with a wonderful group of loyal readers.

This year my articles were read by visitors from 126 countries! I was most excited to see Bhutan on the list, also known as the happiest country in the world; they actually measure happiness and not GDP as their metric for being a successful country. Let’s try and get some inspiration from Bhutan and do things that make us happy. Producing meaningful content, and having you enjoy and share it, has been a great source of happiness for me.

As always, I had a very international year:

  • I famously said this year at a family party: “I’d rather fly than drive.” I completed 1 million miles in the air with American Airlines in 2014! Nine million more and, according to Clooney’s movie, they will have to name a plane after me.
  • I spent the summer working in Singapore, adding some heavy hitters to our revenue management and asset takeover team. These guys are not only the smartest, but some of the nicest guys in the industry. Also, I love Singapore!
  • I got to work in the Middle East on an amazing project, developing tourism potential for the hotel brand and the country. It’s very exciting, and a wonderful place to work.

In 2015, I plan to continue offering content that you can use to grow professionally without getting bored to death.

As for 2014, the tribe as spoken. Here are the top posts based on traffic, engagement and social sharing:

  1. Priceline’s Acquisition of Buuteeq: Why Hotels Must Own Their Digital Assets  
  2. How Airbnb Is Crushing Traditional Hotel Brands
  3. Reality Check: 7 Questions for Your Hotel Marketing Agency 
  4. It’s Time to Burst the Hotel SEO Bubble: What Hotels Really Need to Know
  5. Hotel Pay Per Click: Your Single Most Powerful Marketing Tool 
  6.  Why You Shouldn’t Sell Rooms for $7 on Hotel Tonight 

Happy New Year, everyone!

 

Front Desk: Ground Zero for Hotel Profitability

Want to increase your profitability, while improving your online reviews at the same time? Then start paying more attention to an area that’s too often overlooked when discussing revenue: your front desk. You need to make the front of the house a solid outpost for your operations, revenue and profitability.

There is often a staggering amount of focus placed on online hotel marketing and reputation management. But these efforts are only effective if your operations – and your guests’ experiences – back them up. As one of the departments that operates 24/7, your front desk deserves a lot more attention and training than many seasoned asset managers and GM’s realize. That saying about making a good first impression? It’s not just a myth. It’s very relevant no matter what hipster, business, or Millennial (shrug) traveler is checking into the hotel.

So, how can you start running a more effective front desk department? Here are some strategies that can help you achieve the trifecta of streamlining profitability, increasing direct revenue, and improving your online reputation.

Hire for Personality

It all starts with hiring the right front desk staff. There are two types of people: those who should be standing at your front desk, and those who should not be anywhere near it. A pleasant personality, positive attitude, and ability to face challenges calmly go a very long way in this role. Cynicism, nonchalance and a negative attitude, on the other hand, are traits that are can drive your overall revenue to the ground.

There is a place for hipness, sassiness and aloofness (The Deuce Hotel perhaps?), but it’s not your hotel front desk. Having unhappy or unpleasant team members at the front of your house is a silent killer, like diabetes. Just because you can’t feel it (or see it on a spreadsheet) doesn’t mean it is not continuously eroding your brand and revenue.

Leave No Agent Behind

Here is a typical scene: A guest is trying to check in at the front desk with a package or promotion – but the front desk employees have never heard of it. This is a source of frustration for guests and employees.

Very early in my career when I was managing the operations at a well-known San Francisco hotel. One afternoon the sales and marketing people were high-fiving each other about an amazing “SF Jazz Festival Package”; but they neglected to tell anyone on the front lines. It was only after several frustrating and disastrous check-ins that the staff realized that there must be a special package in circulation. This kind of experience not only makes the front desk agent look clueless (which is not fair), but also gives your guest the impression that the hotel is disorganized or poorly run. Why make your guest angry at the first point of contact with you hotel?  It’s a terrible feeling on both sides that can be easily avoided by keeping all team members updated.

The same advice applies to revenue management strategies you have in place. If you are not training the front desk, then you are leaving revenue on the table… or shall I say, the front desk.

Empower Your Team

You have to give your front desk team the power to make decisions and solve problems. This is especially relevant when things go wrong for a guest. There will always be unhappy guests. But how you handle them can make an enormous difference to your bottom line.

Unhappy guests can be classified into the following categories:

  • Generally Unhappy People: Nobody can really help them, but your front desk can definitely try to provide some empathy and relief. The goal here is basically not to aggravate them further. Complete satisfaction for this particular group is never going to happen (therapy perhaps?) and should not be a goal for your front desk. However, reducing their pain by offering some incentives is a good way to earn their gratitude, or at least calm them down a little.
  • Good People Having a Bad Experience: These guests need to be the key focus of your (if I may borrow from Amazon) “delivering happiness” efforts. When bad things happen to good people, that’s when your front desk agents can step up their game to try and help out. This group of guests is most likely to appreciate their efforts and then recommend your hotel to their F&F. Front desk agent feels good, guest feels good, you get more business. Win-win-win.

If you just want your front desk staff to be key card slingers, then you might as well get a McDonald’s franchise. (Would you like fries with that?) But if you want issues to get resolved before they hit your hotel’s TripAdvisor page: give the your hotel front desk the power to make decisions without the paperwork and approvals that a Vogon would require.

Upgrade Your Upselling Plan

Every hospitality business needs to have an upselling plan in place. Rewarding your front desk for upselling is a great way to boost your ADR. The catch is that it needs to be done the right way. Identifying the right prospects for upselling is a big part of the game, which means that you have to hire well. Smart, well-trained people will generally pick the right targets for no-pressure upselling.

Not only you should be rewarding for upsells (at least 5% to 8% of the upsell), but also you need to reward agents for walk-in conversions. Sales and marketing should not end once the meeting over coffee and muffins is completed. The sales process should continue 24/7 for 365 days a year at your front desk.

Conclusion

With every asset takeover, I always make it a point to personally meet and train the front desk team. I need them to be my partners in reaching the common goal of increasing revenue and profitability. Marketing and revenue plans set by management are important, but they can never reach their potential without proper support for and from your front desk team. Implement a fresh approach to improving your revenue and reputation: commit to the proper hiring, training, and empowerment of your front desk staff.

Do You View Hotel Marketing as a Cost or an Investment?

I am often asked, “What is the most important factor in a good hotel marketing strategy?” One of the top factors (that no one likes to talk about) is how a hotel’s owners and management view their marketing budget.

Those who treat hotel marketing as an investment will be able to maximize their online revenue potential. They will keep spending investing online, as that is where their audience lives, breathes, researches and books their trips.

Those who view it as a cost will treat it like any other cost; they strive to keep costs down. This group is the one that gives away revenue and market share to the OTAs and their competitors.

Here is a detailed review of the two approaches.

Approach #1: Treating Online Marketing as a Cost

If you are treating online marketing as an expense in your budget that needs to be kept under control, you are very likely on the losing side of the marketing battle. When you apply the cost reduction approach, it puts tremendous pressure on your already limited budget to perform quickly, while limiting your ability to test and optimize your marketing efforts.

No testing or expansion of marketing => Stagnation and decay in your online presence and decline in direct revenue

(Let’s be clear: Your OTA-contributed revenue continues to increase. That’s because they never hold back, while you agonize over every cent you spend.)

Cutting costs might work when it comes to laundry, lotions and soaps that you use in your hotel, but it can hurt you badly when applied to digital marketing.

Here are some specifics on why your revenue will suffer in the long term:

Online travel is huge and getting bigger.

Yes, online travel is like the Beatles in the 60s or yoga pants today. In numbers, it’s going to be hitting $830 billion in 2017. The pace of growth in the Asia Pacific region is enough to make you dizzy. When it comes time for you to sit down and plan your hotel marketing budget for the year ahead, you have to know that online is where all the action is happening. Deciding to sit this one out because you are keeping marketing “expenses” in check is a recipe for disaster that has cost the hotel industry billions in direct revenue.

ROI is a deathtrap.

I have written in detail about this and have personally seen this tragic scenario unfurl like a bad dream. It’s like my own personal Groundhog Day. “ROI” is notoriously hard to track in this multi-device, constantly connected world. For many hotels, especially the ones struggling to meet their overall objectives, any unquantifiable expense can seem like the perfect candidate for a budget cut. So, hotels keep doing online cost-cutting and “vendor hopping“ because they are “not seeing the ROI” (cringe). Agencies who try to win your business based on 5700% ROI promises are always a bad choice. You’ll pay them a small fee, helping you balance this year’s budget; but when the contract is over, you’ll just limp into the arms of the next vendor. The big picture: your direct revenue continually declines, your brand suffers, and you have to start all over again every year. Meanwhile, your online competitors (particularly the OTAs) keep building their long-term strategy and converting the traffic that should be yours.

Google is still King, and it wants more money.

Google is still the king of travel marketing, and looks like it will be sitting on the throne for some time. The beauty of Google is that it has all the phases of the booking cycle covered: Discovery, Research, Rate Shopping, Getting to and From a Destination… all the way to the drive back to your home after the vacation. Google has it all. The SEO Bubble burst in 2013, so now you have a clear choice: pay to play.

Google will be your best friend as long as you are willing to pay for it. Hotel pay per click is one of the cornerstones for generating direct revenue. You want to reduce your marketing costs? Sure, go ahead. Google will be happy to sell its ads to willing and highly motivated online travel agents who make millions billions bidding on your name, location and destination. It’s great for them when you are not there to compete, especially on your brand name searches.

Cliché Alert: It takes money to make money.

It might seem easy to cut back on marketing expenses to save money, but you have to consider what else you’re losing. Example: Reducing your Google PPC budget from $10,000 to $3000 a month saves you $7000 a month. But at the same time, your ads don’t run, your revenue starts to decline, and your leads have been cut way back. No new leads and no new conversions are a lethal hit on your profitability and direct revenue. It used to take months, but now you will feel the revenue hit in a matter of weeks. That sinking feeling? Yes, it’s your revenue tanking because you stopped spending. Welcome to the reality of doing business in 2014.

Approach #2: Treating Online Marketing as an Investment

This is the winner’s circle. Online marketing really is an investment in your present and in your future. It cannot be thought of as an optional expenditure. Think of it as a paying career and a retirement fund rolled into one. Effective marketing pays your bills in the short term and sets the foundation for the long-term profitability of your hotel. The hotels who are doing it right will exponentially increase their profitability over time.

Here is how it’s done right:

Target the entire travel funnel.

The smartest hotel ownership companies and individual asset owners understand the dynamics of the entire sales funnel. Their investment in hotel marketing is targeted toward prospects in every part of the funnel (research, planning, booking). Efforts include:

  • Investing at the top of the funnel to attract prospective new guests (ie, Boston Vacation, Boston Hotels, Boston Things To Do)
  • Investing at the bottom of the funnel to convert prospects into guests (ie, Your Hotel Name)

Push the limits.

The most dramatic successes that my partners and I have achieved for hotel clients had one thing in common: We were asked to investigate and give them the dollar amount needed for total market domination. Whether they were rebranding, opening a new hotel, revitalizing a faltering asset, or preparing to sell the asset… they knew that the striking results they wanted required proper investment. Instead of racing down to the bottom, the owners were looking to make a lot of money. There was no room for light or smooth jazz online marketing. Done right, with revenue as the supreme goal, we’re talking hard core Spinal Tap style marketing, cranked way up to 11!

(Effective revenue management is also required, but that topic deserves its own blog post.)

Conclusion

Hotels who treat online marketing as a scalable cost are seeing a decline in their direct revenue and losing market share to their competitors and online travel agencies. A cost-based approach hampers your growth today, and prevents you from being able to build your brand online. Vendor-hopping toward low profitability and automated marketing platforms is a sure shot way to lose revenue. Let’s face the facts: Print media is not making a comeback anytime soon. Nor are carrier pigeons going to bring you your future reservations. If not online, where else should you be investing? If revenue is important to you… wake up, and put your money where your revenue is!