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Mr. Boni

Website / Online Mechandising / SEO

How to Meet Consumer Demands for Online Video

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

With so much information at consumers’ fingertips, the hotel selection process has become an involved journey, often spanning many days and many sites and devices. Online travel shoppers are looking for content that speaks to their needs and wants at every stage of this shopping journey. The stories they encounter for hotels along the way are undeniably powerful and often the last stand between the hotel shopper and the booking.

Consumer demand for a greater variety of content on a greater variety of channels and devices needs to be addressed by hoteliers. Travelers are more engaged with a hotel’s listing when photos are present than when they aren’t, but engagement increases even further when video is also available. Video is in demand.

In order to meet consumer demands for online video, the two most critical essentials are relevance and availability.

Relevance

Hoteliers that find the most success with video are the ones that tell an experiential story, which involves a number of elements beyond the room type – location, transportation, weather, local attractions, dining, history, staff and so on. They go beyond hotel amenities and show what your hotel experience is really like and how it’s different from others in its competitive set.

Before investing in video production, determining the story that will resonate with the target audience is important. The goal of the video should be to make the consumer say “this is the hotel I want to stay at.” The best videos are meaningful and engaging to those who view them. Reading your online reviews is good way to learn what story guests are already saying about your hotel… and hence what will resonate with them. At the brand level, Motel 6 has done a good job of both showing the individual hotel’s unique story and wrapping it in the brand personality.

But not all guests are created equal. How does a hotel that has primarily business travelers during the week and leisure travelers on weekends ensure their video is relevant to both groups? These are the situations where multiple videos may be in order.

One generic video may not resonate with everyone. Savvy hoteliers create multiple videos that target specific groups of guests (in addition to their general overview video). When faced with this exact scenario, the Best Western City Centre/Centre Ville created segmented videos, one targeting business travelers, one targeting families.

The Crowne Plaza Osaka which attracts guests from across Asia, to make sure their story is relevant, created multiple videos in English, Korean, Chinese and Japanese.

These three examples are all professionally produced videos. In some cases, shooting video in-house can also be effective, such as recording a live event like a Manager’s Reception or golf tournament, interviewing guests on their favorite pastime in the area, or filming the head bartender demonstrating how to make a signature cocktail. The BROADMOOR has some well-done videos that they shot in-house. A property that is looking to attract more wedding bookings may opt to create a video specifically about weddings. This is a situation where having people and real footage in the video pays off.

Video can resonate with all different types of travelers as long as the message is relevant to them. Looking beyond a professionally produced video tour, here are some additional topics for hotel videos:

  • Top ten things to do in the area
  • Special services at the hotel
  • Famous dishes served at your restaurant
  • Interviews with the staff
  • Concierge tour of the surrounding area

Planning and producing relevant video is step one. Step two is making sure the audience you're trying to reach is easily finding and consuming your story online.

Travel shoppers go on complex, non-linear journeys through multiple websites before making their hotel-booking decisions. These changes in consumer behavior are blurring the lines between sites that travelers use primarily for booking and sites that travelers use for research. They’re becoming one in the same as travelers hop from Travelocity, to brand.com, to TripAdvisor to Frommer’s to Facebook and then to the hotel’s website to book directly and they’re turning to online video every step of the way.

New technology and channels such as social media and mobile are creating opportunities to expand, reach and convert even more consumers with video. Based on our own data, hotel videos displayed using the VBrochure Ultra Premium Facebook App are receiving as many media views on Facebook as they are on traditional travel sites.

Having a quality video player is a requirement with the growth in consumption of video across multiple devices. This is where the video syndication part of a successful video strategy comes in. Online travel shoppers expect to find the video content they need, where they need it, when they need it. The onus is on hotel chains, hoteliers, channels and vendors to ensure this is possible.

In order to thrive, hoteliers need to make their video content available around the clock, on a variety of sites and devices. Luckily, there are affordable solutions for syndicating and displaying video on a growing number of channels and devices, including the most popular sites for viewing travel video - online travel agencies, tourism bureaus, and travel suppliers(1) - and beyond, to social media, review and specialt sites.

Although mobile marketing is still relatively new territory, some interesting trends are emerging:

  • The majority of mobile users engaging in travel-related activities use their devices to research purchases.
  • Users prefer mobile websites over mobile apps for viewing video, according to Adobe.
  • When it comes to booking travel, 78% still prefer using other means to purchase.

What are the benefits of online video? For hotels, the most significant benefit of online video is its potential to boost bookings. When relevant and available, it fulfills the needs of the online travel shopper during their research journey and converts shoppers to buyers, but there are many qualitative benefits of video as well.

  • Inspiration. Video can help inspire travelers that haven’t made a decision on which hotel to book, to add a hotel to its shortlist or trade up.
  • Validation. A hotel video can help reinforce a travel shopper’s decision to book.(2)
  • Differentiation. Video can help a traveler understand both the major differences between and small details within a product.(3)

When tracking video, the measurement of success should extend beyond increased bookings to include increases in video views, comments, shares, inquiries, positive reviews, and so on.

What it all boils down to is that video is an effective way to let online travel shoppers understand a hotel’s story – the experience that makes it unique and what guests can expect during a stay there. A meaningful video story that is available to consumers on both traditional and non-traditional travel channels helps increase the hotels success in terms of online engagement, visibility and of course, look-to-book conversions.

References:
(1) Henry H. Harteveldt, Trends 2011: Video Enters Travel eBusiness Prime Time, Forrester Research, 2011.
(2) Adobe, In-the-Know about On-the-Go: Adobe Captures What Mobile Users Want, 2011.
(3) Ibid.

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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