Mr. Boni

Website / Online Mechandising / SEO

Want to Attract More Online Travel Shoppers? Tell Your Hotel's Story with Video

By Paolo Boni, President & Chief Executive Officer, VFM Leonardo, Inc.

It's a competitive market online for hotels these days. What can you do to attract online travel shoppers, set your property apart and produce more hotel bookings? The answer, as a growing number of hoteliers have found, is to tell your story in a unique and compelling way -- tell it with video and get that video in front of as many shoppers as possible.

At the outset, it's critical to understand how important the Internet has become to the hospitality industry. According to a 2010 TIA study, nearly 77% of the 122 million online travelers, equating to 93 million U.S. adults, used the Internet to plan their trips in the prior year.

But guess what's increasingly driving Internet traffic growth and engagement? That's right, video. In the same way the Internet has transformed travel shopping, video is transforming the Internet. In fact, the percentage of Internet users who watch all types of videos online at least monthly is expected to grow to 77% in 2014, up from 64% in 2009, eMarketer forecasts.

And it’s not just a U.S. phenomenon. ComScore tracked video viewing behavior in Europe in 2008 and found that 27 million people in the U.K. watched more than 3 billion videos in August that year. Similar results were found in France and Germany. Indeed, the research firm recently stated that nearly 100% of online bookers in the travel industry also are consumers of online video.

Unsurprisingly, hotel marketers are embracing video as a core element in their e-business strategies. My company, VFM Leonardo, recently conducted a study on hotel e-business. We found that 60% of respondents are planning to use videos for merchandising and advertising in the coming year.

Considering that hotel shoppers are clearly demanding video and your competitors are jumping in with both feet, it may be time to begin incorporating video and video syndication into your own marketing and e-business strategies. Such moves can generate impressive returns. As the experiences of our clients attest, you can increase online booking activity by 30% or more

What's Your Story?

Such opportunities, no doubt, raise several important questions:

• Where and how to start?
• What type or types of videos should be produced?
• How much money should be invested in production?
• How to get video in front of travel shoppers during each critical stage of the travel planning process?

These are certainly critical questions. But they should be preceded by one question that is even more central to your ultimate success:

What is your story? You are first challenged to explain what makes your hotel uniquely compelling to the travelers you wish to attract. Video is simply the medium through which you will show and tell this story. To begin developing your story, you may want to ask yourself and your team a few questions that can help get your ideas flowing:

• Who are your guests?
• What are guests saying about your hotel?
• What makes your hotel unique?
• What are your competitors differentiating on?
• What would excite and inspire you if you were a travel shopper?

Much of this information can found by reading online reviews about your hotel. Guests will tell you what makes your hotel unique and compelling and what doesn’t… so reviews are good place to start. By addressing these questions in a rigorous way, you can begin to develop a story that will attract more online travel shoppers -- and more guests in general. You'll know what sets your property apart and you'll become much more skilled at conveying this message. You'll then be in a position to tell your story through video. As we've discovered through experience, there are several winning practices that can help you ensure your online video efforts succeed:

1. Make it authentic. When everything is available at the click of a mouse, having a clean comfortable hotel product is no longer enough. Creating authentic video that captures the human element allows travel shoppers to connect on a personal level. This connection builds trust and drives action. Don’t be afraid to go on camera and welcome your guests in the same way you would welcome them when they arrive at your hotel. See how the Intercontinental Dubai's videos are introduced by Adam Keast, the hotel's chief concierge. He leads you on an exotic and attention-grabbing journey while bringing a human element to the videos.
2. Make it relevant. With customers in control, irrelevant video is at best ignored and at worst creates a negative impression when viewers feel their time is wasted. Video that works shares compelling stories that resonate with the audience. Respect viewers’ time and provide them with actionable content. If you cater to young families on leisure travel show them how their stay at your hotel will enhance their vacation. If you cater to business travelers, show them how their stay at your hotel will add to the success of their business trip. In one of its videos, the Orlando Marriott vividly shows how it can enhance the experience of business travelers. "Only one mile from the airport," it concludes. "But world's away from an airport hotel."
3. Make it engaging. Good information is no longer enough. With thousands of sites providing similar services, your online video has to stand out from the competition. Entertainment goes hand-in-hand with engagement. Video must deliver content in a format that interests and excites users. This is why a story is so important and why just walking around the hotel with a video camera is not enough. Crowne Plaza Tyson's Corner does an interesting job of contrasting its "Ideation Room" for business meetings with the typical hotel "Bored Room." Clever story telling gets the point across.
4. Make it short. Online shoppers have short attention spans. So you have to put considerable effort and thought into what story you want to tell and how. Short videos also force you to think creatively and distill your value proposition down to its very essence. The Casa Dorada Resort & Spa in Los Cabos needs just half a minute to convince travel shoppers that they are “The Perfect Place for The Perfect Moment.”
5. Make it available. Your ability to distribute and show your video through search engines, destination sites, online travel agencies, and thousands of other specialty sites will enable you to welcome the travel shopper through your digital front door in a way that differentiates your hotel. The most universally accepted way of making your video available to both traditional travel sites and social and video sharing sites is through a VBrochure subscription from VFM Leonardo. Atlanta's Georgian Terrace Hotel does a wonderful job of making its story accessible by relying on VBrochure and a VPowered multimedia viewer to present its video on thousands of websites – here is what they look like on Frommer's popular travel site.
6. Make it shareable. YouTube taught everyone that video is portable and starts conversations between friends. Videos that don’t meet this new expectation limit their own effectiveness. Sharing is an easy action that viewers can take to promote your business. By enabling conversations to spread, you’re giving yourself an easy opportunity to gain viewership. To promote sharing, make sure your video can be embedded, emailed and posted to the different social media sites. Just take a look at how the Broadmoor in Colorado Springs has distributed its videos on the social networking site Facebook.
7. Make it on your budget. As mentioned earlier in this article, questions about production costs always come up quickly when the issue is video. The good news is that you can produce persuasive video in a way that both matches your objectives and is matched to your budget. While the Renaissance Vancouver Harbourside Hotel produced its compelling video tour for just over $10,000, the Beverly Heritage Hotel produced an impressive video of its own for less than $1,000. Still other hotels have produced enticing photo slide shows for as low as one hundred dollars.

And what about the payoffs on such efforts? B.F. Saul , a hotel management company, saw its revenues climb 30% when it started using VBrochure to promote 18 properties. “We found our sites became better, more efficient and stickier and we experienced more revenue per site visit after we launched video,” says B.F. Saul’s Director of E-Commerce, David Attardi.

In a very short time, The BROADMOOR experienced great success with their VBrochure investment. “We have seen a 25% increase of online bookings this summer compared to last summer before we had VBrochure,” states Story Kirshman, Marketing Manager at The BROADMOOR Hotel.

The key point here is to recognize that there are no insurmountable barriers to putting video to work for you. The hotels mentioned here are already beginning to generate impressive returns on their own video investments.

Isn't it time you gave video a closer look?

Paolo Boni has lead VFM Leonardo’s vision and strategic direction since 2001. Under his leadership, the company has expanded globally and now has over 80,000 hotels, over 30,000 travel related website partners worldwide and the largest online visual content distribution network for the travel industry. As a recognized travel industry expert, Mr. Boni frequently speaks at major travel conferences on subjects relating to online travel marketing, online hotel merchandising and rich media. He holds an LL.B. from Osgoode Hall Law School and a B.A. Economics from McGill University. Mr. Boni can be contacted at 1-877-593-6634 or press@vfmleonardo.com Extended Bio...

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