Mr. Aurand

Website / Online Mechandising / SEO

They've Arrived, Online... Now What? What do potential Guests see when they visit your website?

By Douglas Aurand, President, Douglas Aurand & Associates

The Search Engine Optimization (SEO) of your website has pushed it to the first page of search results and the money you're paying with Google Adwords and Yahoo Marketing is delivering visitors to your site, too. Even your website URL on business cards, flyers, stationary, brochures and all your other printed materials is getting potential Guests to your website.

What do they see when they arrive? A lot of text?

Or will they get to "see" the hotel like they want to. If most vacation destinations depended on written descriptions, they just wouldn't be as popular as they are. Memories of Hawaii, the Grand Canyon and the Alps just don't include written words; they're mental images! Potential Guests want to see your rooms, (you know, the place they're going spend a lot of time in), your fine dining restaurant (where a couple can have a romantic dinner), recreation facilities like the pool (where their kids want to spend as much time as possible) and the ballroom (where the bride-to-be may be having her wedding reception). They want to see everything! Everything that might convince them to stay at your hotel instead of your competition.

You want them to see the hotel, too. Don't you? The new plasma-screen TVs and work desks in the rooms, even the small flat-screen on the wall in the suite bathrooms. The upgraded bedspreads, linen and furniture too? You want to show off after spending thousands, even millions of dollars, to upgrade and update your rooms, don't you? And the views too, like the mountains, the lake, a city skyline, the ocean, a desert sunset, etc. Again, you want them to see everything that might convince them to stay at your hotel instead of your competition, don't you?

What shows them better than a Virtual Tour on your hotel's or your franchise's website. Interactive Virtual Images let them pan around guest rooms, restaurants, ballrooms and pools, stop and zoom-in on details that interest the visitor to your website, your potential Guest. Spherical Virtual Images let your potential Guests see your hotel in a way as near to human vision as is currently possible on the Web. They can turn left and right, look up and down and zoom in and out.

I've always believed "Nothing sells a hotel, like the hotel." If your hotel is planning its own website or updating an existing one, consider designing it as a virtual representation of your property, a "virtual hotel". When a potential Guest arrives at your Home Page they could see the front of the hotel, just like they would pulling up in front of the main entrance. Once you've got them there don't make them think about what to click next, put a "Virtual Tour" button on the Home Page. The Wave Hotel in Miami Beach does this on www.WaveHotel.com and the Sir Francis Drake in San Francisco has one on www.SirFrancisDrake.com, it will get clicked a lot, and your potential Guests are off on a tour of your property. If navigation of the tour is from a floorplan or a drawing of the building the tour becomes even more virtual, making it a combined "left-brain/right-brain" experience. VRX Studio's virtual tours usually navigate from a rendering of the hotel. Click on Photo/Virtual Tour at www.SirFrancisDrake.com to see an example. On the Inn of the Mountain Gods Resort and Casino website, www.InnoftheMountainGods.com, the Virtual Tour button is a little harder to find, click ACCOMODATIONS and it drops down. Once on the Virtual Tour page, small Windows pop up when an iPIX icon on the floorplan is clicked. The Full 360^0x 360^0 Images play in these Windows. Close it and click another icon to continue the tour. Still photos can be used in the pop-up windows too, extending the virtual tour to locations that don't warrant a virtual image.

The idea is to create a familiarity with your hotel. You want potential Guests walk into your the lobby and already know where the dining room, nightclub, pool, tennis courts and meeting rooms are. I talked to a woman who saw the virtual tour I did of the Inn of the Mountain Gods on their website and then spent a weekend golfing with her husband at this southern New Mexico resort. She told me she kept thinking, "I remember this" when she walked into the lounge, dining room, indoor pool, etc. That's what you want your website to do; create an attachment to your hotel. After they're back, they'll tell their friends about their stay and they can show the hotel to them with the virtual tour. It's like having another sales person, one who pays you!

Of course your potential Guests are going to shop other hotels in the area. (The area may be bigger than you think. The woman who "remembered" also considered golf resorts in Scottsdale and Tucson) Because of the Virtual Tour, a potential Guest spends more time on your website looking around your hotel, and less time on your competition's site, after all there isn't as much to see on their site. The big benefit to your hotel is the letdown they'll have visiting other hotel websites; the ones without a virtual tour, just a few still photos, no layout of the hotel, not even meeting room diagrams. The disappointment will frustrate them. The reaction is often "They want me to spend over $200 a night and they're not showing me their rooms online, like the Your Hotel does?" That's a reaction YOU want; positive about your hotel, negative about your competition.

Above all, don't turn the design, or redesign, of your hotel's website over to your webmaster. They're not in the hotel business, you are! Look at dozens of other websites. Even a hundred! Print the pages you like and show them to the webmaster. The HTML code and Java script for navigating from a building layout with pop-up windows just isn't that difficult for a competent website designer. And don't let them convince you that marketing and advertising to people on the Web is different than in other media. Human Nature doesn't change; fans would still rather "see" a football game on television than read about it in Sports Illustrated. Good quality Virtual Images usually take up to 30 seconds to load, but don't let your website designer greet visitors to your home page with a demonstration of their skill at Flash animation that takes 30 seconds to download and play on broadband and longer on dial-up. The visitor is likely to click BACK when they lose patience. Once into the site, they will suffer the wait for something they decided they want to see like a virtual image of the suite they want to rent for their 10th anniversary.

The alternative to 360^0 Interactive Media is to hope a visitor to your website will read all that carefully considered text and the list of features you worked so hard on. On your franchise website your hotel will look like all the others that haven't added still photos or virtual images to their pages. There are a surprising number of hotels on one major franchise site that have the same doorknocker as their ONLY photo. Another major site has quite a few with the same parking valet tipping his hat. You might go one better than the doorknocker and valet with still photos of your property. But many hotels let the photographer make too many decisions about the scenes. They produce those "artfully-cropped" photos. You know the ones that show a corner of the bed, a pillow ruffle and part of the nightstand with a vase and a flower. If they can't "establish a mood" with a full view of the room, the view your potential Guest wants, find another photographer. Even with "full-view" still photos, you're still at a big disadvantage. Virtual Images "move", engaging the eyes. A big part of our vision is about motion, which is why we catch things in the "corner of our eye." Virtual Images are "interactive" so the person viewing can take control of the scene and look around, focusing their mind like driving a car. These are things still photos just can't do. Potential Guests spent a lot more time on hotel websites with Virtual Tours than they do on sites without them. Its that simple.

One big question is whether you have budget for developing your hotel's own website and the cost of a virtual tour. If your franchise has "friendly URLs", it may be better to use your hotel's pages on the franchise site. Hyatt provides its hotels with a URL shortcut to the Home Page of the property like Albuquerque.Hyatt.com. Or you can register a Domain Name for your hotel and simply Forward or Redirect it to the your hotel's Home Page on the franchise site. I did this as part of a proposal for the Hilton Hotel in Toledo, OH. The Domain Name www.ToledoHilton.com is set up to redirect to their first page on Hilton.com. The cost is between $15 and $35 a year for registering the Domain Name. With this approach your franchise site serves double duty as a "pseudo hotel website" as well as its franchise website purpose, You can but your own hotel's Domain on your advertising materials for less than the cost of a room in your hotel. Next year you can plan money for website development and you'll already have the Virtual Tour to use on it.

Typically, 10 Virtual Images covers most hotels; the lobby, coffee shop, dining room, lounge, ballroom, a small meeting room, a room with one king bed, a room with two double beds, a suite and the pool. Tens scene virtual tours cost an average of $2,000, the 100% Payback can be as little as 20 extra room/nights at a $100 average room rate or 10 Guests staying 2 nights. A $150 average room rate does it in 13 extra room/nights or 7 Guests staying those same 2 nights. A $200 room rate pays for the whole tour in just 10 extra room/nights or just 5 Guests for those 2 nights. Basicly, one small group sold by taking a Virtual Tour, would pay for the whole Tour. Limited Service properties with no F&B operations can usually get the job done with six Virtual Images. I did the Residence Inn North in Albuquerque, NM with Virtual Images of the Gatehouse (their lobby and where free breakfast is served), a one bedroom suite, a two bedroom suite, their Library and the Pool area. Take a look at www.marriott.com/ABQRN. There aren't many investments your hotel can make that have that fast a Payback? After the Payback, every extra room/night is bonus income.

Douglas Aurand has owned his multimedia business for 10 years. He produces virtual tours in real estate and hospitality. Mr. Aurand has imaged thousands of homes for sale and created many real estate virtual tours, posting them to Realtor.com and ColdwellBanker.com, among others. His website, VirtualAlbuquerque.com is a multimedia tour and a demonstration of how to use Virtual Tours as a showcase for his virtual golf course and ski tours. Mr. Aurand has produced media for Sheraton, Hilton, Marriott, Radisson, Wyndham, Residence Inn and several independent hotels and various B&Bs. Mr. Aurand can be contacted at (505) 857-2265 or DAurandAssoc@aol.com Extended Bio...

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