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Welcome to the first edition of concierge360 Focus Newsletter, dedicated to researching the latest online strategies to maximize both proprietary and branded hotel websites.
Charles Kulander, Director of Creative Services
concierge360.com

As traditional travel agency market share continues to shrink, experts agree: within the next two years, Internet bookings will surpass GDS reservations. Yet the Merchant Model (Expedia.com, Hotels.com, etc.) and the Opaque Channel (Priceline, Site59, etc.) erode hotel brand identity, and lower ADRs. (Average Daily Rate.) The alternative: the hotel’s proprietary website is the least-expensive, highest-return distribution channel available for selling inventory and increasing your ADR. Strategy: Reposition your first generation website from a static visual brochure into a proactive, rich-media portal that builds brand identity, generates databases, launches email campaigns, and engages the viewer with interactivity, all of which will contribute to a “multiplier effect” on your bookings.

STICKINESS IS BACK
The New York Times has announced that stickiness is back. Stickiness refers to the idea of gluing customers to your website through the use of rich media, interactive tours, and other editorial features. Stickiness was the buzzword during the dot-com boom, but languished during the bust. Its return is due to a convergence of consumer trends and the proliferation of broadband access, which allows users to click into sites they might have avoided during the slo-mo dial-up days. The New York Times states, “It is not surprising that travel sites are at the vanguard of the stickiness revival.” Application: you can add stickiness to your website by incorporating FAQs, Press Releases, privacy policies (important for inspiring trust), About Us or Biography sections. Warning: if there is too much text, people will spend their time reading rather than clicking through to your reservations page. Conclusion: Virtual Tours are perhaps the single best way to add stickiness to your site, as it combines viewer interactivity with clicking, a conditioning behavior that leads to online bookings. This is why Expedia has invested heavily in virtual tours for their preferred vendor hotels. “For a lot of people, the trip almost starts when they start to plan. To the extent we can make that easier and more fun, it’s good for business,” said Stuart Macdonald, a senior vice president at Expedia.

INFLUENCING WORD-OF-MOUTH MARKETING
Call it Word-of-Mouth, Viral Marketing, or Consumer-Generated Marketing, it all comes down to the same thing: the person-to-person spreading of ideas. Marketers are used to defining the message, but when it comes to word-of-mouth, there is no control over content, which is why WOM carries more credibility than what the usual media channels provide. (And when WOM is web-enabled, a single voice has global repercussions.) An example of this is the explosive popularity of TripAdvisor.com, where guests post feedback on their hotel stays. While you cannot control what is being said about your property, you should be monitoring these sites on a routine basis. Strategy: Sites like TripAdvisorallow for hotels to respond to negative comments. A personal response always spins the negative into a positive, offering you a way to influence WOM.

NOTE: When it comes to WOM, you can't manage the message, but you can control the medium, and thus influence the message. (Marshall McLuhan was right; the medium is the message.) Example: concierge360 enables all of its rich-media products with a "Send to a Friend" capability, along with a comment box. This way, the medium influences the message. As a bonus, the collected data -- email addresses as well as comments -- build your prospect database, and allows you to monitor what is being said about your property.

BUILDING BRAND
Every time a viewer arrives at your website, a brand identity is being forged. It's either a positive experience that builds brand awareness, or a negative one that erodes your brand. One way or the other, branding will impact greatly on your sales, yet this is something that cannot be measured by click-through rates. Instead, branding is experiential, and depends on the level of engagement your website provides the viewer. The more involved a viewer is with your website, the more this branding experience turns positive. Strategy: converting your website from passive mode to one that is more interactive. Reason: According to research by Dynamic Logic MarketNorms, the difference between non-interactive and interactive products is that the latter causes an exponential rise in both purchase intent and favorable brand awareness. Tip: when revamping your website, make sure that any interactivity is both purposeful and relevant. Irrelevant interactivity and purposeless rich media contribute to negative brand identity.

STATS TO PONDER
According to PhocusWright, 65 percent of online hotel buyers search more than three sites before making a purchase. What are you doing to make your website stand out from the competition?

An online survey by Harris Interactive shows that nearly half of consumers (49%) believe they can obtain lower hotel rates at websites like Orbitz, rather than by calling hotels directly (25%) or using hotel websites (22%). Have you instituted a lowest price guarantee on your website?

FINAL THOUGHT
Does your after-hours answer machine direct phone callers to your website?

This newsletter brought to you by concierge360, producers of rich media for hotel websites. Visit us at www.concierge360.com or call us at Tel. 435-260-2147

Please send any editorial comment to: ck@concierge360.com