Writings on the Business of Hospitality

Online Ad Budgets: What You Need to Know

Hospitality eBusiness Strategies has released their second annual Benchmark Survey on Hotel Internet Marketing Budget Planning and Best Practices. This survey details the results from all areas of the hospitality industry including mid-scale and luxury franchised properties, resorts, boutique hotels, upscale hotels, budget, major brands and more. This is an in-depth analysis of the trends in the hospitality industry and where funds will be allocated for 2008.

See full article at: Link

What Does Travel 2.0 Mean for You?

Many of our clients have been asking me about current and future trends in the online travel industry. If you have been to any travel or marketing conferences or conventions lately or spent any time online reviewing online hospitality marketing websites, you have probably heard the terms web 2.0 and, more recently, travel 2.0. While these terms are thrown around quite a bit, most of the people I have spoken with don’t have a true understanding of what they mean. So to help clear things up and keep you up to speed, I would like to share an article from Highland Business Research’s blog with you. It explains both of the terms mentioned above and discusses the influence and impact these have on the travel industry.

To read the article click here: Highland Business Research’s Blog

Search Engines: A Means to an End?

Welcome to the first of many posts where I will share insider information about the resort and lodge market. I will share my expertise on how the latest web trends are changing the face of our industry and what to do about it.

Louise Story from the New York Times wrote an article in late 2007 giving thousands of resort and lodge properties a ray of hope. She offers insights on how and where to establish your marketing dollars online. Her exclusive interview with Brian McAndrews, the new leader in charge of Microsoft’s advertising strategy, confirms a thought I have believed for years. Mr. McAndrews contends:

“Google gets all the credit, and in fact, you might have just gone to Google to type in the U.R.L.”

Mr. McAndrews stresses that it’s important to realize that people often search for companies’ names after seeing their ads somewhere else. These insights, from one of the world’s top three search engine advertising strategists, are noteworthy. Therefore, to achieve effective online advertising results, it’s important to utilize niche portals instead of solely relying on search engine marketing.

Common Service Mistakes

Some service mistakes by front desk staff are universal. Some are unavoidable. Some are amusing, but all can affect guest satisfaction and your AAA or Mobil rating.

The most common and frequent service flaw is the failure to acknowledge a guest waiting in line. A verbal greeting is not necessary, but a simple smile works well to let the waiting guest know he or she is not being ignored.

Another common mistake is the failure to use the guest’s name during check in or check out. In this instance, the guest’s name is readily available via the reservation, a credit card, the registration card, the folio or from pre-arrival messages. Despite all these opportunities, the guest is often checked in and out by an efficient, courteous clerk who did everything perfectly, except use the guest’s name. A small point, perhaps, but one that can significantly help to personalize your guests experience. It is also one of the AAA inspectors’ “hot buttons”.

Is Anyone Home?

Part of my job as Manager of Client Services for ResortsandLodges.com is to periodically review phone calls to a client’s property. In reviewing these phone calls, I have found a few simple things that you can do to drastically improve the performance of your property and bring in more reservations.

I was recently listening to several properties’ phone calls out of California and I noticed a consistent issue. In this instance, two properties of similar size, received a similar number of phone calls. One property had over 35% of their phone calls dropped. The other property had only 7% of their calls dropped. When I listened to the calls it was easy to see why. The second property was answering their phone in one or two rings whereas the first property let most of their calls go to voicemail (after six rings).

You definitely don’t want to give a potential client the impression that your staff is too busy to handle their phone call. If the phone rings four or five times, it is likely that the caller will hang up after this time. If the call goes to voicemail, the caller often hangs up without leaving a message. In some cases this can be as many as 40% of the total number of calls. Talk about leaving a lot of revenue on the table!