Hotel Business Review Archives

There is no doubt that electronic couponing, or e-couponing, has changed the face of how we buy and sell goods and services. As with social media before it, hoteliers are finding – often through trial and error – how to use this channel to meet occupancy goals, increase brand awareness and benefit the bottom line. On paper, the benefits seem to be endless – e-couponing can increase how many people come through your doors, gets your hotel’s name out in the population, provides a boost in low demand periods and engages a new community of guests with this targeted channel. However, it’s important to realize that the benefits being waved in the faces of hoteliers from e-coupon providers come with real risks and challenges.

In general, hotel managers are not comfortable making strategic decisions in times of rapid and uncertain changes. Most decision-makers have some feel about the occurrence of future events that range from a high degree of confidence to a vague and ill-defined level of discomfort. Change can actually be segmented into two components – anticipated and unanticipated. If change consisted only of anticipated components, then there would be little if any risk involved for the hotel. It is the unanticipated component that is the source of risk. Not knowing what the future will hold that strikes fear into managers. The challenge, then, is to make sure that any risk the hotel takes is a calculated risk. While this sounds easier said than done, there are several techniques you can use to minimize risk. In this article, you’ll learn the top three.

The thing that has changed most in the hotel business over the past decade is the amazing proliferation of product choices in virtually every segment imaginable - from design of the public spaces into "community" areas to the services available from the concierge. In this article, you'll read about how identifying your property's top attribute will help you set your hotel apart from its competition.

While travel and hospitality marketers can be highly innovative, most would readily concede that we don’t have a monopoly on good ideas. Once in a while, it is important to look beyond our current practices to learn from marketing innovators in other industries. After all, we’re all seeking to build customer satisfaction and engagement – and create revenue – whether the end-customer is a traveler, a banking customer, a donor, or an avid sports fan. Novel marketing approaches from the financial services, sports and entertainment, and non-profit sectors, respectively, can offer the hospitality marketer some good food for thought.

In all of the excitement of the ever-evolving social media platforms and tools, are owners and operators forgetting a critical source of business for their properties? Direct sales, in many cases, has become just another source of social media tactics and sales managers have virtually disappeared from the public. As business owners, can we be complacent with the loss of a discipline that is the most controllable and quantifiable part of a marketing plan?

Fukushima. Is it a non-issue for all but those living around the Fukushima Daiichi power plant, as governments and obliging media have been saying; or are the meltdowns spreading invisible tentacles of radioactive death around the world, as some are insisting and others are wondering, a sense of unease at our prospects for the future. How, then, would these tentacles impact hotels and tourist destinations as news radiated into the consumer consciousness and people changed their eating and travel habits?

There have been a lot of Aha moments in marketing. Positioning. Branding, The New Coke fiasco. The advent of Social Media. And even Flashmobs. One such moment occurred in 2004, when many believe the concept of Swarm Marketing was born. Basically, dictionaries define a swarm as a large number of things massed together and usually in motion. Think about a school of fish, a horde of bees, or a herd of wild horses. And think about consumers too. Connected by social media networks, consumers are sharing the swarming traits of these fish, bees, and wild horses that will change the way you think about marketing your hotel. In this article, you'll read about the three characteristics of swarms in nature and how they apply to your customers and potential customers.

With the earn-and-burn rate of loyalty programs slipping, hotels are looking for innovate ways to engage guests in their loyalty programs and drive point redemption. From incorporating corporate social responsibility, games, and more experiential awards into their strategies, several hotels are blazing new trails in guest loyalty.

What has happened to direct sales in the hospitality industry? Once a discipline of an enviable combination of great social skills, good business judgment, and powers of persuasion, direct sales was many times the starting point for learning the business of hotels. A knowledgeable sales person understood how each piece of business or account had an impact on revenues in all areas not just limited to rooms and not just for the short but the long term as well. How has the proliferation of technology impacted the way of doing business as well as enhancing the learning curve? Does the new generation of hotel sales people offer impersonal and cut and dry customer interactions and rely solely on technology to give a red light or a green light on a piece of business? Or are powers of persuasion and good judgment still critical in generating business? This article will reflect the insights and wisdoms of key industry leaders who were interviewed for this article on how direct sales has been impacted by technology and where they seen direct sales going in the future.

More than almost any other industry, travel and hospitality has the ability to create memories and instill joy that can last a lifetime. Just one experience can create a lifelong memory, with stories recounted again and again. Of course, the opposite can happen for the traveler who has a trip spoiled due to unforeseen circumstances or ineffectively managed problems. The opportunity for Travel and Hospitality marketers is to understand and influence these emotions in a way that maximizes the guest experience - from planning through departure. Tailoring customer communications based on these emotional insights can build stronger engagement.

To paraphrase an old advertising tagline, green has come a long way, baby! Today, green - and all its derivatives - has come to symbolize a movement. A movement of sustainability, of being eco-friendly, and of being environmentally aware. A movement that has grown out of our emergent realization that we have to take better care of Mother Earth if she is going to take care of us. A movement that, at its core, represents the capacity to endure. And a movement that impacts every hotel and every guest they serve. In this article, you'll learn that, in addition to the 3 traditional Rs of Greening efforts - reduce, reuse and recycle - Greening has a forth "R", reputation - of your hotel's property and, indirectly, of your guests.

Group business has historically represented a significant portion of revenues for hotels. Revenues encompass rooms, food and beverage, and all ancillary revenues, and a drop in this segment can have a tremendous impact on a property’s profitability. Group business began to plunge in January 2009, when this segment dropped 5.4 million roomnights from the previous year (per STR data). The group average rate for hotels in the United States hit its peak during 2008 at $105.37. Group average rates have dropped since, at an annual average of $103.93 during 2009 and below $100.00 through 2010, according to STR. This article will address some tips for your sales staff to penetrate this market regardless of market conditions to ensure that your property(s) is positioned for profitability.

Having spent over two decades immersed in hotel, travel and lifestyle brands, I've watched marketing trends come and go, and at times despaired at how much the hotel and travel industry has failed to embrace innovation and change. Fortunately, that's not been the case with the world of digital. Today a full 39% of U.S. travel brands engage in e-commerce. But taking reservations electronically doesn't mean that a brand has truly capitalized on the power of the digital marketplace, so I thought it would be interesting to see which brands are especially adept at engaging and serving their guests online, and to benchmark their performance by creating a Digital IQ

Our guests are no longer Baby Boomers or Gen Xers or Gen Yers. Those monikers defined them by the year in which we were born. They were described by age. But no longer. Now, thanks to a myriad of converging forces, they can all become members of the same generation - one that is defined by choice. They can choose to be members of Generation C. The Gen C nickname had its genesis around 2004 when trend watchers began noticing a new type of consumer emerging - one that crossed age boundaries and defied traditional segmentation strategies. In this article, you'll read about five trends that helped form Gen C and what your hotel can do to take advantage of the opportunities it offers.

How do you know if you are providing Value to your guests? There is a host of general accounting formulas that have been used to calculate the value of a loyal guest to your hotel's bottom line. But there is no such definitive formula to calculate the value of staying in your hotel to a gues.. Why? Simply because the value of being your guest is so individualized. What is valuable to this person may not be as valuable to that one. As difficult as it might be for you as an owner or manager, it is much easier for people to calculate the value to themselves of staying in your hotel because it can be summed up in one question: What's in it for me? It's simply a cost-benefit ratio - to your guest In this article, you'll learn two simple questions whose scores can be used to calculate your guest's Value Index Score (VIS).