A Brief Guide to Managing Your Hotel’s Digital Assets

One of the most crucial aspects of running a hotel or a lodging business is asset management. The same efforts and energy should be used when it comes to your hotel’s digital assets. In my experience working with hotels and asset management firms worldwide, I have seen most of the hotel managers and marketing departments show apathy towards owning and managing their digital assets. Their neglect is usually a result of trying to keep costs down (ie, hiring low-cost digital marketing vendors and leaving management to them), or just a general lack of knowledge about how and why they should pay attention to their digital assets.

Thanks to innovation in open source technology, it’s easier and cheaper than ever before to own your most profitable channel (aka, your website). Here is a brief guide to Hotel Digital Asset Management that any hotel can implement.

Domain Name

Your domain name is the most crucial item in your digital asset portfolio: it’s your identity. You must make sure you that you ALWAYS own your domain. No exceptions. You can check whether or not you own your domain on several registrar websites like this one or this one.

In the event that you are not currently the owner of your website domain, you need to issue a DEFCON 1 level emergency and make the transfer of your domain a high priority.

Worst Case Scenarios

These happen when a domain is registered: in an employee’s or vendor’s name; to an email address nobody is monitoring; or to a member of the previous ownership, when the new owners of a hotel fail to add domain transfer to their acquisition agreement. All of the following scenarios have happened to our clients:

  • One fine morning, the website of a major hotel in NYC went offline because nobody was monitoring the renewal alerts. Luckily, after days of frantic work, the domain was salvaged before going to the open market for auction.
  • A hotel in Chicago had its domain registered to an employee who one day decided to live off the grid. Again, a ton of effort was required to reclaim ownership.
  • In other cases, a web marketing agency registers the hotel’s domain. This is particularly true in cases where owners are clueless about internet and let the agency buy the domain for them. Beware: there are vendors out there who keep their ex-clients’ domains and use those sites for shady link-building purposes; or charge the ex-client a lot of money to re-acquire the domain and keep their website running.

Pro Tips:

  • Use an official/generic email address that you monitor and maintain.
  • Please renew for more than 1-2 years. It costs less than the cost of a meal at a fine dining establishment. Never let the cheapest asset you own cost you the most amount of agony.

Website & Content Management System (CMS)

If you have been reading my articles for a while, you know this is something I am very passionate about. The majority of the world’s hotels are not knowledgable (or choose to be in the dark) about owning their website, their single most important source of direct revenue. Ownership of your website simply cannot be ignored if you are serious about making direct revenue and building your online presence.

Worst Case Scenarios

Your investment in online marketing is about generating direct revenue from your website and building your brand. After years of paying a hotel marketing agency and investing your own time, you may be forced to start from scratch when you switch vendors. Will this will happen to you? Yes, you will lose everything if your website is built on a rented structure that you do not own and cannot take with you.

[What is a rented structure? A “proprietary CMS” that is exclusive to your design or marketing agency. And before you get caught up in the sales pitch, remember: it wasn’t created to be the best CMS; it was created to keep clients from leaving. To put it another way, anyone using a custom CMS is just like Sisyphus, cursed to start from scratch time and time again, no matter how much money and effort you have put in.]

Pro Tips:

  • Please read this article every time someone tries to scare you out of using an open source CMS like WordPress.
  • Remember, any design and any kind of website can be powered by WordPress, so you are free to pick any designer and any marketing agency you like.
  • Make sure you don’t rent the engine of your most powerful revenue machine!

Website Analytics

Your website analytics data is another crucial asset that you cannot leave in the hands of a hotel marketing agency. I have been an evangelist for using Google Analytics for as long as I have been in this business. Do not let agencies push you into using expensive analytics programs like Adobe Site Catalyst (Omniture). Please know that it’s for their benefit not yours, and you will never be able to afford to keep it once you switch vendors unless you are a super rich hotel. Even then, why drive a Ferrari to the grocery store?

Worst Case Scenario

With one click, you can lose years of data on how your website has performed. Loss of revenue, conversion and site performance history will result in starting from scratch and a brief period of flying blind. Historical and seasonal data loss is scary when you are setting up your KPI’s (key performance indicators) and benchmarking website performance. Cowboy marketers who do not care about any historical data might disagree with me. But in reality, you simply cannot abandon your historical data every time you switch vendors.

Pro Tips:

  • Google Analytics has replaced older “Administrator” and “User” roles with four cool new options: Manage, Edit, Collaborate, and Read/Analyze.
  • Always ensure that you own the Google Account that is associated with Analytics.
  • Never use an employee/vendor email to register your Google Accounts.

Social Media Platforms

Every hotel today is registered on a number of social media platforms. Depending on the hotel, a lot of time and effort may have been spent on maintaining these accounts. Not only are all of your connections, friends, and customers there, but also your analytics and conversation history.

All of your social media platforms are associated with an email account. Make sure that you maintain a list of the emails/usernames that were used to register these accounts. If you lose access to your account, portability of your history and followers to a new account is hard. Also, you cannot really make the social media network do anything to help you. Why? Elementary: you clicked Agree on their 131-page user agreement when you opened the account.

Worst Case Scenarios

It takes years to build a reputation and a second to ruin it. This is particularly true when disgruntled employees/vendors who are registered users on your hotel’s social media accounts decide to “teach you a lesson.” Negative and offensive content posted under your handle can cause you a lot of online and offline heartache. Don’t waste time apologizing when you could be doing something productive with your time instead.

Pro Tip:

  • Use an official/generic email address that you monitor and maintain. Instead of john@yourhotel.com use marketing@yourhotel.com.
  • Please use better passwords than “password” or “123456,” and change them periodically.

Conclusion

The age of renting digital assets has already cost the hotel and lodging sector a lot of revenue. Restarting from scratch is simply not an option when it comes to your digital presence. Your hotel’s digital assets deserve the same respect as the deed to the property. Those who don’t respect their digital assets will continue to pay the heavy price of losing revenue and momentum every time they bounce from one low-cost vendor to another.

Priceline’s Acquisition of Buuteeq: Why Hotels Must Own Their Digital Assets

The hotel marketing and distribution world was recently shaken when Priceline Group (aka, The #1 Lodging Online Travel Agency in the World) acquired Buuteeq for an undisclosed sum. This officially makes them the first OTA to directly enter the B2B hotel marketing services sector.

Can you hear me now?

For over nine years, in every one of my lectures, workshops, consultations – just about every interaction with hoteliers – I have tried to stress the importance of owning your digital assets (your domain, website, analytics, etc). I have evangelized WordPress to the hotel sector for quite some time now. I could not have more strongly urged hotels to own their own website, their single most profitable marketing and revenue channel.

If you haven’t been listening, this acquisition should be a huge wake-up call. Ownership of your digital assets is more important than ever before in the history of the lodging business. Who provides your technology and in what format really matters. In this case, if your hotel is using a website made by Buuteeq, your site is now essentially a subsidiary of one of the biggest OTAs in the world.

If you find your hotel in this situation, you’re not alone. The majority of hotels worldwide are renting their digital assets, and this is hurting their long term direct revenue potential. Every time a hotel goes through a change in vendors, ownership or management, they are practically starting from scratch with a brand new website, marketing campaign, etc. In fact, in my experience, many hotels make their digital asset purchasing decisions on the basis of the lowest possible cost, likeability of sales people and existing relationships, with little regard for long-term profitability.

Stop Renting Your Most Profitable Channel

Owning and managing a lodging business worth millions of dollars and then renting its website from a vendor is a bad idea that has become very popular with hoteliers. I have never passed up an opportunity to try to steer hotels away from proprietary content management systems (CMS). It’s fine to hire someone to do your online marketing, as long as they build upon a platform that you control. This ensures continuity in your online marketing efforts.

Each of the leading  hotel marketing agencies has its own “special” system that is billed as being “much safer and magically superior” to open source platforms like WordPress. These agencies boast of having hundreds or thousands of hotel clients; the size and ubiquitousness of these agencies is exactly what makes them feel like safe choices when they are being hired by hotel marketing departments. But it’s the agency who gets security from this setup: hotel websites built on their proprietary platforms make it difficult for those clients to leave.

The Art of Misdirection

Last year, I wrote a popular article about why hotels should ignore the hyperbole of software vendors and hotel marketing agencies, and should embrace WordPress when selecting a content management system for their websites. (You can read it here.) I was specifically addressing a ridiculous article that Buuteeq’s SEO manager had written about WordPress being a bad choice for hotels. His agenda was clear: spread misinformation about the open source systems hotels were starting to ask their sales teams about.

How bloody ironic it is that less than a year later, Priceline has acquired Buuteeq along with the content management system that now powers hundreds (thousands?) of hotel and B&B websites. You cannot buy this kind of irony with bags of cash, even Priceline’s cash. Buuteeq obviously had a goal: to steer hotels and other lodging clients into their proprietary system in the hopes of gaining enough volume to cash out. Mission accomplished.

Hotel owners and marketers who made the choice to forfeit the ownership of their most profitable channel are the ones who lose in this deal. Today their website is owned by a company with market capitalization of 63.17B. (Yes, that is billions).

The Truth About Your Agency’s Website CMS

There are a quite a few mega hotel marketing agencies in the US and Europe that boast of having thousands of hotel clients. They all have one thing in common: hundreds upon hundreds of hotel clients sitting on a clunky, proprietary CMS platform that is years behind WordPress (and they know it). Here are the three real reasons custom CMS platforms exist in the hotel marketing industry, despite what your sales rep might tell you:

  1. Sales: They help the agencies make a phony but appealing sales pitch. Fake awards are won, security touted, new versions released with much fanfare; even CMS systems with “secret SEO sauces” are peddled. Salespeople know that hotels will not be asking them digital asset ownership questions; they will keep making sales as long as customers are willing to be dazzled by superlatives and a low price. So the reviews and awards keep getting shinier, and the prices keep getting lower. The systems, however, aren’t getting any better. (Psst: WordPress gets better all the time. That’s the beauty of open source technology.)
  2. Efficiency: A proprietary website platform creates massive efficiencies in website hosting, production and management. This is the reason you can get a website for as low as $100. Overworked, underpaid project managers use the CMS to manage hundreds of websites. You too will have access to change your content and photos, but only the limited access that is built into the system. Please don’t think you will ever own your website. You are just renting, as they intended you to do. You don’t have ownership or control.
  3. Pain: The CMS delivers a potent kiss of death when a customer decides to leave. You think you have paid for a website, but without the content management system it’s worthless. When you leave, you take only the contents of your former website with you (usually in a Word document that is emailed to you). The platform – the framework that holds the whole thing together – doesn’t belong to you. Sometimes even the photos don’t belong to you; certainly not the SEO ( Search Engine Optimization) efforts you paid for over the years. Every time you switch, you leave it all behind. You start from the beginning and lose all momentum, so you can experience the pain of revenue loss as a penalty for leaving.

It’s an Epic Race Down to the Bottom

Forest Key, one of the founders of Buuteeq, said in an interview in 2011 (that you can read here), and I quote: “Our biggest competition today is the legacy relationships that the hotels may have with a web design agency. These agencies tend to be very small, often individual proprietors, and provide custom design and development services to the hotel, usually charging $60-150 USD per hour.” He clearly identified the one thing that hits home with a lot of decision-makers in the hotel and lodging business: They view online marketing as an expense. Something that needs to be controlled and kept in check.

Many hotels and consultants happily jumped on the Buuteeq bandwagon due to their price point, with zero thought given to digital asset ownership. Since this interview three years ago, Buuteeq created an aggressive sales team and offered rock bottom prices that no agency could match. The result: Hotels were steered away from open source platforms they would have owned in favor of an inexpensive closed system they rented.

Even brands like Choice Hotels  jumped on the Buuteeq bandwagon. Buuteeq custom-designed an integration to the Choice Hotels’s CRS (central reservation system) that they branded as  “Digital Direct Program” which is now available to 5,000 Choice brand hotels. What can I say? It’s a classic story of “brand meets new low-cost vendor,no real questions asked, brand falls in love. the end”

Choice Hotel’s intention here was probably to  help the hotel owners generate more direct revenue. Instead, their “Digital Direct Program” did not give any thought whatsoever to digital asset ownership. It’s classic sort term thinking that kicks in when hotel brands go technology shopping. Choice Hotels could have directly invested in open source for their franchisees, but it chose not to because the harder thing to do and the right thing to do are usually the same thing. Instead, now their franchisees can have a “website ready in less than a week” for $99/month, but the will never really own that website. Additionally, those hotels who opted into the program now have their most profitable channel (their websites +analytics +online marketing) owned by Priceline.com’s newly acquired subsidiary. Let’s not forget, Priceline already sells several of these very same hotel rooms on  their own website, of course for a commission to the same owners.

So, we come to the real question. If hotel owners are getting (renting) their most profitable channel (their website) from Buuteeq for $100/month, which is basically the cost of one Starbucks latte a day…do you think they really care about or understand the value of direct revenue? The answer is no, just in case you are wondering.

Furthermore, how many hours do you think the agency spends on improving their clients’ $100 – $500 websites every month? (And how many hotel clients ask this question?)

I am a huge fan of efficiency and new technology, but it’s this race down to the bottom that bothers me. The acceptable level of spending on a hotel’s most profitable channel is getting lower every day, which, I might remind you, is the very opposite of what the OTA’s are doing themselves!

Remember this: It will always matter who maintains and owns your digital assets, no matter what sales people tell you. If you have any doubt, look at what their own company is doing, not what they’re saying.

Conclusion

Online marketing vendors have always been bought and sold. Buuteeq is one of the many hotel marketing vendors that have recently been acquired. Priceline, unlike most of the hotel brands, has always invested in the right digital assets and their results speak for themselves. It’s only a matter of time that Priceline will spin Buuteeq into a highly profitable moneymaker for them rather than let them run as an independent platform for hotels.

Hotels should take a cue and  stop viewing their digital assets as rentable commodities. They must stop viewing their website and online marketing as expenses, and start recognizing that their digital assets and marketing are investments in their future. Nothing will change unless hotels and brands embrace open source technology, own their digital assets, and stop outsourcing their strategic thinking to the lowest bidder. Vendors come and go; your online presence needs to be consistent and lasting.

Euromonitor International Interview With Vikram Singh

 

I was recently interviewed as part of the Euromonitor International Interview Series conducted by Michelle Grant, Euromonitor’s Travel and Tourism Manager. Here’s the article that was published.

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Euromonitor International is pleased to present an interview examining online distribution for hotels. Euromonitor International Travel and Tourism Research Manager Michelle Grant spoke with Vikram Singh, Co-Founder of Evision Worldwide (2006) and Madbooker (2013). Both companies were established to improve ecommerce for hospitality businesses.

What is your background?

After graduating from hotel school, I started my career in hospitality with the Taj Group of Hotels, Resorts & Palaces, and then moved to Pan Pacific Hotels & Resorts in San Francisco. These experiences gave me the chance to cover every possible department in a hotel and truly understand how hotels operate.

My career in hospitality veered toward technology while I was in San Francisco. I decided to move into online revenue, distribution and optimization technology services. I took a deep dive and instantly loved it. Working with and developing clients from San Francisco to NYC, London to Tokyo, was simply exhilarating.

In 2006, I co- founded Evision Worldwide, which continues to provide high-level strategy to private equity and hotel companies. We have worked with some of the top real estate investment trusts and investors worldwide, on asset deals worth well over $1 billion. Our comprehensive strategies have helped clients achieve tremendous success with their new acquisitions, existing assets, and hotel rebranding efforts.

In 2013, my partners and I started our newest venture: Madbooker. It offers the most streamlined and productive reservation system in the travel and lodging industry. It is built to excel on all devices and harnesses open source power at a great price point for hotels, bed and breakfasts and vacation rentals. Madbooker customers can also take advantage of our team’s extensive online marketing experience via affordable monthly packages.

How should hotels approach the development of a rate and distribution strategy?

Guests are booking their accommodations quite differently than they were just 5 or 10 years ago. The hotel industry needs to change their approach as well. Many of the current rate and distribution strategies rely on historic data and focus on price trends. I think it’s time to focus on value, rather than obsessing over your rate and what your competition is doing. Creating a value proposition needs to be Step 1 before embarking on any kind of detailed rate and distribution strategy.

How is online marketing evolving, both search engine marketing and social media marketing?

I do not like the concept of “social media marketing.” I think hotels should be doing more “social media conversing,” where they use social media to communicate with their guests: listen and respond, not just push out offers. Paying an agency to handle social media communication is a big misstep that a lot of hotels make. The voice has to be authentic and original, and not the mass-produced noise that we are often seeing these days.

Search engine marketing is getting much more targeted as Google is now using its massive online powers to:

1. Make the process of searching for travel more efficient, and
2. Ensure that they continue to make money from click- and impression-based advertising.

Specifically, the concept of ranking for high-volume keywords using search engine optimization is no longer a feasible inbound marketing tactic. Creating quality content to provide answers and build your brand based on value (not hyperbole) needs to be the core focus for any lodging business.

The final step is to make sure you set aside enough budget to spend on Google to harvest all of your brand name searches. In other words, when I look for your hotel by name, I should see your enticing ad right on top of the page. Otherwise, Priceline, Booking.com and Expedia will have their pay per click ads ready to harvest that sale for you.

What should hotels be doing to have an effective online marketing strategy?

Every hotel needs to decide what their value proposition is going to be. They need to build a story around their location and value. The focus needs to move from marketing platforms like Facebook and Google Plus toward compelling location marketing and storytelling.

It’s amazing how little local information many hotel websites provide to a prospective visitor. Design-heavy, content-light websites are wreaking havoc on direct conversions. Google will be glad to answer questions about any location in the world; don’t be surprised when they also sell the room, tours and activities because you were too busy yelling “Book Now!” on your website rather than answering your guest’s questions.

How do you view the role of online travel agencies in online distribution and marketing?

I respect the OTA’s and admire what they have achieved in a relatively small amount of time. They dominated search engines in what I like to refer to as the  “golden age of search engine optimization” by launching hundreds of content-rich affiliate websites. Around the same time, the big hotel brands were serving notices to owners to shut down their local independent websites – a grave error.

OTA’s also have heavily spent where it really mattered – Google AdWords. By buying keywords in every stage of the travel search and booking funnel, they ensured that they would not only build trust, but also made it very easy to buy a room from them.

I think every hotel should aspire to run their online marketing program like an OTA, with the determination to get the click and the booking.

Does online marketing level the playing field for all accommodation players, or do the brands still have an advantage thanks to their resources?

Internet is the great equalizer. Over the past few years, it has helped some amazing new concepts in hospitality surpass everyone’s expectations (eg, Airbnb, Hotel Tonight).

The big hotel brands definitely have the resources, but I see them focusing on the wrong things. They are just building their brand, and not working to improve the travel search and buying cycle. They are buying online marketing and strategy like they buy toiletries. However, unlike soap distributors, one marketing agency cannot power the strategy for 1000+ hotels in different locations across the world. This is the biggest challenge, I think. There is no urgent danger to brands but… to quote PB Shelly, “nothing wilts faster than laurels that have been rested upon.”

How important is Google for hotels, and in which way? What do you think will be its role in the future?

Google has always been a travel powerhouse and is not going to let go of its #1 spot. Their recent updates have ensured that:

  • Hotels that are building their brand get rewarded, and
  • Anyone trying to game the system for a few extra clicks gets penalized.

There has never been a better time than now to produce location-based content on your hotel website. Even though the overall volume of referral traffic that hotels get is gradually declining, Google AdWords is still very relevant, and every hotel needs to participate in that program. Especially when it comes to brand name keywords. You must buy your brand name keywords or the OTA’s will be happy to do it for you, and get your clicks and your bookings.

As for the future, I think Google is looking for revenue streams beyond its one-trick pony (pay per click) in the world of travel. Products like Hotel Finder are an indication of things to come.

What are the prospects of the mobile channel for the hotel industry for bookings and as a customer service tool?

All commerce is mobile commerce. I have been talking about mobile marketing since 2010 at hotel conference and events. It’s amazing to see every projection about popularity, usage and growth hold true. Unfortunately, as with everything else, hotel marketing agencies have used “mobile marketing” and “mobile website” as buzzwords to sell products and services. They haven’t truly embraced mobile as a fundamental part of the overall marketing strategy.

There is a lot of improvement that needs to be done. One of the biggest reasons we launched Madbooker was to update the mobile commerce experience for guests and hoteliers. Our system breaks down all stats by device right on the dashboard, and works great on all devices whether you’re using the front or back end.

Nothing beats a mobile device when it comes to giving on-the-spot customer service.  Every hotel must get comfortable with the fact that guests are using phones and iPads to search, book, and communicate. To keep up with Google and the OTA’s, make sure you’re reaching today’s and tomorrow’s guests where it matters – on their phones.

Hotel Marketing Is Not a Substitute for Innovation

One of the trends I have been noticing is that hotels continually generate hype instead of value. Hyper-marketing on social media platforms has led to a race for hotels to participate in everything; that participation then somehow reflects the level of “modern-ness” or innovation at your hotel.

On the contrary, innovation requires time and effort, from ownership and management, and the on-property staff. Asking your internet marketing vendor to bring innovation to your hotel does not work. It just enables them to sell you a new product or service. True innovation, on the other hand, supercharges your marketing. You have a new story to tell and a chance to reconnect. You have to invest in innovation before marketing to future-proof your hotel revenue.

Marketing is not a substitute for innovation; it never will be. Stop worrying about the next big social/mobile/local online marketing fad. Focus on making changes to your lodging business that bring increased value to your guests. Here are some interesting ways you can jump-start your innovation process.

Consciously Uncouple From Platform-Obsessed Marketing

Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc. are platforms controlled by billion dollar companies that have a clear common goal: to sell you advertising. They are in no way interested in “innovating” your marketing. Mass-produced hyper marketing on these platforms is generating unprecedented FOMO (fear of missing out) and forcing owners and managers to continuously chase the next big thing. It’s also leading to a lot of “social media” spending – hiring outside agencies to generate social media content that is not relevant to your audience and not worth the budget you are spending.

Do yourself a favor, and stop worrying about what you have to do to keep up with the hotel across the street. Focus on one or two platforms, and then only if you can do it right. Handle social media communications in house. Listen and respond to your customers; have an authentic conversation and provide the information they are looking for. Answer questions, thank guests for positive comments, apologize when things go wrong. Talk. Don’t try to “market.”

Innovate IRL (in real life)

Innovation comes in many forms. Keeping your business model relevant and up-to-date can have a massive impact on your revenue. Here are some examples of innovations that provide added value to your guests:

  • Fast WiFi (free is even better)
  • Mobile, on-site customer communication (eg, restaurant offers via text message)
  • Better quality coffee and tea (eg, Nespresso in room)
  • New product and/or service in addition to a room (eg, carry-out room service)
  • Creating new room types (eg, family floors)
  • Better fulfillment process (1- to 3-click booking engines)
  • Support/customer service (mobile concierge)

Innovation Is Not Optional

The idea of “this is all we are going to offer” is not a sustainable strategy for profit. Innovation is the name of the game, as some new player is always going to raise the bar by providing a more convenient, efficient or cost-effective service or product. Why not your lodging establishment? Startups in the lodging business, like Airbnb and Hotel Tonight, are changing and innovating every day. You cannot afford to stick with the status quo.

Just look at the some of the major hotel brands worldwide that are struggling to connect with the reality of today’s travel market. A great example is the Second Life platform (2006-2010). It had a Twitter level of hype in its golden years. It had blanket coverage in newspapers and magazines. Starwood Hotels rushed into opening an aloft brand hotel in that virtual world in efforts “to attract hip, youthful, tech-savvy customers to the aloft brand.” Long story short, Second Life is on life support and nobody cares about it anymore. It’s a platform that lost its glory, just like every marketing platform eventually will. The time, money and effort wasted, however, are never coming back.

Conclusion

The travel industry as a whole has seen tremendous innovation over the past 10 years. Marketing, no matter how hard you push, is not going to make up for lack of innovation at the property level. Hotels that are expecting marketing to magically make them look good are failing. Are you innovating?

How to Supercharge Your Hotel Revenue After Rebranding

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A Tale of Two Brands
(based on a true story)

Once upon a time in December 2012, there was a hotel asset. It lived in a spectacular location, right on the shore of the Pacific Ocean. But alas, it was caught in the middle of an epic battle between The Brand (who managed the hotel) and The Bank (who owned the hotel). This 500+ room hotel was located in one of the fastest-growing cities in the US. The Brand had a strong presence in this location, and in other metropolitan cities. It was a regular haunt of A-list to D-list stars.

The Brand was strong, but The Bank was stronger. Someone had to intervene. There are very few private equity funds who could have made a bid for an asset in this much legal turmoil. But one did, and it had a very powerful reason to do so. That reason was pure profit. Even without The Brand, there was money to be made from this beautiful princess of a property.

knightThey called for reinforcements – enter my team in shining armor! Our goal was clear: supercharge hotel revenue after rebranding to minimize negative impact from the loss of the brand name.

How did we know we could do it? You see, when the hotel owners, the brand, and/or the management company disagree, something inevitable happens: the hotel loses focus and revenue stumbles. Even with all its advantages, we knew the hotel was not peak performing.

I define a lodging business to be peak performing when the % direct revenue booked is at its maximum possible number. Basically, that means you are selling more rooms directly to your guests than anyone else in your market.

No marketing/revenue management plan can ever be successful without setting goals. In this case, the goal was clear: not to have too much of a revenue drop when the old brand faded away at the stroke of midnight.

Into the Fray

The deal was finalized with a really, really big catch. The new owners would not be allowed to use the former brand name. And they meant it: not on the website, not in Pay Per Click ads, Display Ads, not even whispered over the breakfast buffet. Any utterance = massive lawsuit. Pow!

From an online revenue perspective, our first important task was to make sure all the property’s digital assets were acquired and accounted for. These included:

  1. Domain name
  2. Website files
  3. Analytics
  4. Social media accounts
  5. Historical revenue and online marketing reports

At the same time, we had to come up with a unique revenue recovery strategy. We had to match the revenue the hotel was producing as an established brand but without ever mentioning the old brand name.

Let the games begin.

What’s My Name Again?

There was no time for custom design jobs. But there was a working website which had been designed by a big box hotel marketing agency. We quickly ripped the site off the browsers and recode it using WordPress. Calls to action and device compatibility were addressed right away. (It’s amazing how many simple things are missing from expensive “custom” hotel websites). For the record, the former management was absolutely in love with their website and vendor. It never ceases to amaze me that when people really like how their website looks, they don’t even notice (or care) how poorly it is performing.

Well, no matter. No time for redesign! With the new asset managers backing us on the right usability issues, we deployed the new site in one week. With the keys to the asset in hand, we walked into the hotel with new asset managers for the takeover meetings. The official handover date and time was finalized, and that’s when we are slated to go live with out marketing campaign. At the stroke of midnight, our site and campaigns will launch with the hotel’s new name. There is one small issue…we do not have a name yet!

Amazing but true. We have taken over the online assets, have a website ready to be deployed, and a marketing campaign ready to be unleashed… as soon as the new owners can agree on a name.

the larry

This will be a sobering thought for a lot of brand name aficionados, but the name of the asset was not decided until 8pm on the day of the official takeover. Basically 4 hours before the legal deadline.

Ironically, the name they chose was a common first name. It was the equivalent of calling the hotel “The Larry.” The website and all the online campaigns went live with the finalized name. And at 12:15 am EST, the first reservation was booked from London at the hotel we now lovingly call “The Larry.”

The Results: 30 Days After Takeover

Here’s what we delivered in Month 1:

  • 48% increase in year-over-year total revenue
  • 23% increase in year-over-year web and mobile revenue

Instead of just minimizing the loss of revenue, we helped The Larry come out of nowhere and make 50% more money than it was making as a well-established brand in a major metropolitan beach market.

How did this miracle happen? Well, first of all, it is not a miracle. Brands no longer have the same power in major metropolitan areas. “The Larry” proves that a major brand simply is not required to pull in online bookings, you just have to know what you are doing.

How We Did It

There are five things that, when properly executed, can supercharge your new asset’s revenue when you are losing the brand name.*

  1. Manage Your Rates & Distribution. Value-based pricing is the best practice whether you are a brand name or not. Remember, no amount of online marketing or social media activity will make up for an inadequate rate and distribution strategy.
  2. Forget Groups. Probably the worst business you will ever get. Get FIT (flexible independent travelers) or go home. If your asset is in a major metropolitan area, capture direct demand and convert it.
  3. Leverage Online Travel Agents. You need and want the billboard effect. The only way to capture that is to get a solid relationship with one of the top OTAs (Booking.com or Expedia, your choice). In the end, if you have to go exclusive with an OTA for top placement, in the words of Nike marketing… Just do it!
  4. Budget for Effective Online Marketing. Budget to win, not to skim the surface of your location-based demand. Example: this 500-room hotel post-takeover was spending $40K/month on online marketing. Before takeover, the brand hotel was signed up with a $2000/month marketing package – which was producing nothing. Don’t bring a knife to a gunfight. It never works.
  5. Know the Difference Between Vendors and Partners. A vendor can be good at carrying out tasks. Do not confuse “doing things” with setting strategy. Rebranding calls for targeted strategy and fast implementation. Every case is unique; you cannot count on someone with 600 clients to give you a winning strategy.

* Also, a tremendous amount of caffeine was consumed in the making of this epic transition.

The End?

“The Larry” had one of its most amazing years in terms of total revenue growth. A lot of asset managers got hefty bonuses, you’re welcome. The private equity fund used “The Larry” case study at its global investor meeting, showcasing their strength in transforming underperforming assets in major metropolitan area. “The Larry” was closed for renovations after a super-successful 1½ years. It is now going to become a brand new concept hotel and residence brand.

Hotel Marketing Cannibalization: Is Your Hotel Website Traffic Eating Itself?

website cannibalization

Hotels, bed and breakfasts, and vacation rentals are all competing for their market share of today’s travelers, who are armed with multiple devices and tools to search for lodging . Even if you get their clicks, it’s getting harder to keep their attention. Add to the mix Airbnb, deep pocket OTA’s, and meta search engines, and you are now competing in the big leagues, no matter how big or small your lodging operation is.

Now there is one competitor you absolutely do not need – yourself! Cannibalization of your hotel website traffic happens when you help your visitors leave your site via external links. It takes a lot of effort to get visitors to your site.

Here are the top ways you are confusing your visitors, and even pushing them off your site.

Social Media Cannibals

Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Instagram, Pinterest, etc., are a special breed of cannibal. Special because when used the right way they actually boost engagement and drive a lot of qualified traffic to your website. The social media gold rush of the past 5-6 years has resulted in a consistent hotel website feature: every lodging website now has the bright, shiny, candy-like social media icons. They have spread like a virus. Everyone is giving their users the option to click out from their website directly to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. Basically, you have taken your visitor out of your website to a place where they are highly unlikely to book a room.

Why? The answer is distraction: new baby photos, breaking news, family drama, friends living a perfect life, etc.

Guide your audience from social networks to your site, not vice versa. Tone down the screaming social icons on your website. Do your best to keep your visitors on your site, which should be primed to put direct revenue into your bank account.

Video Cannibalized the Traffic Star

If you’re using YouTube to embed videos on your website, you can easily fall victim to this form of traffic cannibalization. This is especially true if you have a YouTube link on your embedded video player like this one:

Youtube

A visitor clicking on this link is likely never coming back. Why? Because cat videos, fail videos, and other viral videos are now fighting for their attention and winning.

Always remember this fact: YouTube is extremely good at keeping their visitors. Once people leave your site and link into YouTube, it’s pretty much game over.

What’s a better alternative? I suggest the following:

  1. Self-host your videos – for better website conversions (keep visitors from leaving).
  2. Use a video service like Vimeo or Viddler – a cleaner, decluttered space to share in.
  3. Directly post on YouTube – to get social shares.

YouTube is a huge community and a popular search engine. However, unless you are seriously cultivating your YouTube subscribers, you will be better off hosting your videos elsewhere.

Cannibalization Through Clutter

If you have multiple images and messages on a page of your site that are vying to be the most prominent thing on that page, you might be damaging your traffic. B&B/hotel/vacation rental sites generally have a common theme: the home page is a sensory overload of offers and specials. The whole “call to action” thing tends to get out of hand when you implement website design that has been approved by an eager committee.

Your mix of images, content, and calls to action needs to be razor sharp. Focus on one message per page. This is possible 99% of the time, so don’t let your own website content distract and visitors from taking the actions you want them to take.

Death by Zombie SEO

Search engine optimization can be used to immensely improve your traffic stats. But, over-optimization can hurt your online traffic. If you are going after multiple keyword rankings on every page of your website, you are cannibalizing your traffic. Good lodging websites should stick to a sitemap that optimizes for keywords and user experience. Over-optimizing (using more than 2-3 focus keywords per page) dilutes your efforts. It also eats away at your search engine referral traffic. It’s better to rank for on top for one keyword than to never rank for anything due to traffic dilution. Stay relevant. Stay on top for the keywords that matter.

Conclusion

Marketing takes a lot of time and money. It’s imperative not to compete with yourself on your own website. All your demand generation, social media, branding, and search marketing efforts should lead into your website; your website should encourage visitors to stay and book. Cannibalizing your traffic after they have arrived is like running a marathon and stopping 20 meters from the finish line.

Top 5 Resolutions Hotels Should Make to Boost Online Revenue

We have entered a new year of awesome possibilities. The hospitality and lodging business is poised for more disruption, innovation and growth.

I would love to see my readers address and implement a very simple list of hotel marketing strategies this year. Doing so will help boost your online revenue and make your marketing more meaningful and self-reliant.

1. Own Your Best Revenue Channel: Your Website

This is an excellent year to take ownership of your most important digital asset. Amazingly, the majority of hotels, B&B’s, and vacation rentals today are still “renting” their websites. You simply cannot be doing this in 2014. Repeat after me: “My website is my single most profitable channel of revenue, and I must own it.” Don’t leave your online presence in the clutches of an agency. The value of the direct revenue from your website is too important.

This is why it’s also time to embrace open source publishing. WordPress is an excellent option on which to build your digital empire. Oh, and before anyone freaks out about “security,” please read this article and be bold. You simply cannot be hands-off with your single biggest online asset. 2014 looks like a great year to be an owner!

Agency-powered, proprietary content management systems need to be dropped like a bad habit. If there is only one thing you implement this year from my list, please let it be this one. Fortune favors the brave, and those who take ownership of their digital life.

2. Do a Meta Search Advertising Reality Check

I am sure you have heard bigwigs say how big “Meta Search” is going to be. Some are even convinced that “Meta Search Is the Future.” Actually, there is a good chance that you or someone you know first heard this hyperbole from either:

1. A hotel marketing agency selling meta search ads/banners.
2. The meta search providers themselves, trying to sell advertising to you.
3. Folks trying hard to sound profoundly in tune with the world of online marketing for hotels.

I have had a front row seat to the Meta Search Show and have witnessed hundreds of thousands of marketing dollars spent. These investments were made by hotels in major metropolitan locations globally, on products from TripAdvisor to Google Hotel Finder. The results have not been spectacular.

Did all the meta campaigns fail? No: they managed to get a few clicks and few dollars in revenue. Was it worth it? Not really. Meta search is not building your brand or selling your value. It’s all about price. Price-focused shoppers will continue to browse hundreds of sites, as they are now wired to do it. They don’t care about your hotel or its brand. For long-term revenue growth, you will have to focus less on the deal-seeking crowd and more on people who are staying with you for your value and location. If they can meta search, they can definitely use Google to find you directly and book on your website. Save your money, and use it to solidify your most profitable channel, aka your website.

*Prophecy: Agencies will continue to advertise 45:1 ROI on everything Meta Search for the next few years.

3. Chill Out on SEO

Pandas, penguins and hummingbirds need to be in the wild and not on the list of top things to talk about this year. Losing your marbles about rankings every time Google makes an algorithm change is a humongous waste of time. Please do not waste time on things you cannot control. One of my predictions for 2014 is that a lot of hospitality and travel websites will continue to witness a decline in organic traffic from Google. So…let it go. Shift your online marketing efforts away from entirely focusing on search engine keywords. The time, money and effort you’ve been putting into chasing rankings are better spent on your lodging business. Innovate. Give more value to your customers. Streamline your operations.

Make 2014 the year of creating great content and maintaining site health. Focus on what you can control, and let your competitors chase the rankings.

4. Look Beyond Vendor Magic

Hiring an online marketing agency cannot be the only step in your ecommerce strategy. You have to decide what you want your online marketing and revenue to look like in the future. That means someone at the property or ownership level is going to have to get his/her hands dirty with digital marketing. Move away from hiring vendors, crossing items off a checklist, throwing cash at a search engine (meta or otherwise), signing up for every social media platform out there… and then tuning out. If you are only going to pop in to review monthly reports, there are some hard times ahead. The fact is that a lot of hotel marketing/ecommerce department employees are spending 90% of their time on vendor management. If you are one: This has got to stop. Instead, in 2014 your goal should be to bring at least a few of your online marketing activities in-house. This, of course, highly depends on the caliber of the people you hire. Hire well, and then let those people do the real work; you will not regret it. Don’t let the fear of making mistakes makes you hands-off.

Let me share a little secret: Everyone messes up in ecommerce; it’s not a perfect science. The only way to learn is to dive in and make some mistakes. Try-Observe-Modify-Repeat.

5.  Say No to FOMO

Fear of missing out (FOMO) syndrome is making it hard for you to focus on revenue. Social media is one of the biggest distractions in the industry right now. You feel like you have to stay tuned into news feeds or social networks, or else you will miss something in the ocean of updates and conversations. You feel “social media jealousy pangs” when you see your competition doing cool things on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest.

The cure is simple:

1. Accept that you are not going to be shining on every single outlet. You will not get a positive review on everything you post.

2. Limit the distractions. Pick one or two channels where you can consistently post your side of the story and build your community.

If you can live in the present rather than somewhere else all the time, you will see an increase in your productivity and revenue.

Conclusion

2014 is going to be a banner year for those of you who are taking ownership of your digital lives. Innovation in 2014 will come from the property level, and not from a sales/account manager at a hotel marketing agency with 100’s of clients. Connecting with guests is always better than connecting with algorithms and  AI robots (unless the AI robot is Scarlett Johansson). Don’t let FOMO (fear of missing out) dilute your marketing. You can’t do it all, but you can do a few important things very well. Focus and win.

How Airbnb Is Crushing Traditional Hotel Brands

In April, I wrote one of my first ever articles about Airbnb’s impact on the hotel industy. It started as a response to the Euromonitor report highlighting how little impact it was going to have. I fully disagreed. While I did not have the numbers to prove it, I have always known that Airbnb’s impact was going to be HUGE based on the steps they were taking, and the rapidly changing needs of the global traveller.

In the few short months since my first article, Airbnb has released some super cool stats that prove what I have always believed: they are changing the hospitality business.

• They created $632 million in economic activity just in New York in one year, and they supported 4,580 jobs throughout the five boroughs.
• They have 500,000 properties worldwide.
• They have found accommodation for 9 million guests worldwide (5 million in just the past nine months).
• Over 150,000 guests stay in one of its members’ properties every night.
• They expect to pass InterContinental Hotels Group and Hilton Worldwide to become the globe’s largest hotelier next year.

This is big news for the hospitality business and hotel brands specifically. The lodging industry needs to brace itself if it hasn’t already.

So, how are they doing so well so quickly? Here’s how they went from startup to market leader in just 5 years.

Good Reviews Trump Brand Loyalty

Over the past few years, I have noticed a very interesting trend: People do not care as much as they used to about hotel brand when they plan their travel. What they care about is a hotel’s location, value, and reviews. Review websites like TripAdvisor have changed the game. Independent hotels that provide exceptional service and value get great reviews on TripAdvisor, and start moving to the top-ranked spots in their cities. This leads to a tremendous increase in brand name searches conducted by travelers who start researching on TripAdvisor and then move to Google search. In the end, this review-driven ecosystem funnels more revenue to hotels that are treating guests well.

To make things worse for hotel brands, Airbnb is spurning an army of independent hoteliers. Brand new entrepreneurs with fresh ideas and energy are surging into the market. All of these new travel entrepreneurs have the three things travelers are looking for – location, service and value. AND, these entrepreneurs are rated within the Airbnb ecosystem by verified users. This is genius! Why? Because unlike traditional and brand hotels who rely on TripAdvisor, Airbnb closes the loop by allowing its users to trustfully book and review their stay. Transparency is a huge turn-on for today’s travel planner. Coupled with general apathy on the part of the big hotel brands, these moves make Airbnb a darling among smart travellers worldwide.

Brands Devalue Themselves

Wise folks have argued that one should not bite the hand that feeds you. There are still legions of hotel loyalty point fanatics (ie, big spenders) out there. Most of them use points accumulated during business travel to take personal/family holidays. Yet every major hotel brand (including Hilton, Starwood, Marriott and Hyatt) has devalued its loyalty point’s value in the past 12 months. Basically, it is taking you a lot more points to purchase “free” room nights. Hilton in particular was pretty harsh on its most loyal customers this year with a brazen reduction in the value of their points. Marriott has taken it to a whole new level by creating a brand new top tier called “Category 9”and updating the category level for over a third of their properties around the world! The extra effort business travellers were making to stay loyal to their hotel brand is quickly losing its value.

This is an extremely shortsighted approach to profitability. It might look great on a balance sheet today, but it is setting up the brands for huge losses in the very near future. This is opening a nice window for Airbnb, as point-obsessed business travellers learn to seek better value via alternative lodging options. I can only imagine what big plans Airbnb has in store for their loyal users.

Airbnb Builds Trust & Community

Another area where Airbnb excels is in building trust and establishing personal connections. The hotel industry has never been particularly transparent. A lot of fancy adjectives may find their way onto a hotel’s user-unfriendly website in the name of marketing. Until the year 2000, there was no place for people to go to find out the truth. This huge vacuum was filled by TripAdvisor’s launch. Since then it has been making well-deserved millions for lifting the veil on an entire industry. Airbnb, unlike the big hotel brand names, is very open about everything. Hosts and their guests communicate before the booking, during the research phase, during the availability search, upon stay confirmation, before arrival – often offering concierge style advice, at check-in (often in person!), and even post check-out.

The host is the brand, and you have access to him at every stage of your travel experience. This is a huge reason why Airbnb has seen tremendous success. Meanwhile, hotel brands are chasing rankings on Google, fighting online travel agents (OTA’s), and trying to use online strategies to boost their reviews, rankings and authenticity on TripAdvisor and other review websites. On Airbnb, there are no ‘fake’ reviews because online reviews were not an afterthought. Expectations, questions and answers are exchanged between host and guest long before the check-in ever happens. This is how they make meaningful connections. Do I remember the guy who checked me into my last hotel room? Nope. Do I remember my last Airbnb host? You bet I do.

Online Marketing Done Right

There is a lot being said about the right way to do online marketing. Hotel brands are struggling to keep up with Google and the OTA’s, who are both moving quickly and with a clear agenda of making money. Meanwhile, the big hotel brand marketing machine is blithely playing Goliath to Airbnb’s David. Every time a hotel brand does a press release stating that they would like to “target the millennial traveler,” it ironically makes the millennial traveller cringe. Hyperbole and buzzword marketing is so 1999. Talking like real people, showing your value, and showcasing your location is the new black.

A classic example of how Airbnb has captured the imagination of an entire generation is their amazing city neighborhood guides. This is the way to reach out to young travellers that are looking to explore the world. The Airbnb online marketing plan is entirely based on location, value and connection. Meanwhile, hotel brands are too caught up in their own hype, are busy funding bad experiments like Roomkey.com, or worse…counting on magical “Big Data” to save them.

Conclusion

For decades, hotel brands have been riding the inertia that was built by big demand, lack of options, and brand loyalty. The reality today is:

  1. Demand took huge hits in the past decade (9/11, global financial meltdown) and can’t be counted on as a strategy.
  2. There are a plethora of lodging options and entrepreneurs thanks to Airbnb.
  3. We have to acknowledge that Airbnb is rapidly becoming the biggest hospitality brand in the world.

And they are just starting. In today’s travel marketplace, brand transparency powered by innovative technology is what the people want. Give travellers the experience they are looking for: value, service, a great user interface, personal global connections, and social sharing. Mix these together, and you have a success story called Airbnb.