News Item
Lodging Magazine
July, 2004
With travelers returning to hotels in gratifying numbers, some hoteliers are sure to rebound faster than others, and technology may be the difference.
Specifically, the application of automation to hotel marketing will play the key role. As many industry experts advise, there’s very little for hoteliers to lose and much to gain by taking a hard, analytical look at how they market their properties on the Web. "Five years ago, nobody recognized that it was so important," says Felix Laboy, president of E-site marketing, a company specializing in search engine optimization. "People would look at me like I was strange. In the last year, interest has sky rocketed."
Hoteliers are now somewhat comfortable working working with third-party online marketers, such as Travelocity and Expedia. That’s become easier because of recession and the bursting technology bubble weeded out dubious vendors, leaving a more comprehensible playing field. It’s similar to how hoteliers adjusted to the advent of global distribution systems (GDS) in the 1980s. GDS—Sabre, Amadeus, Galileo, and others became a necessity, though some hoteliers never fully utilized their potential.
"The cruel reality is we have a tradition of inattention to electronic channels and that goes back to the GDS when they were really the only electronic channel," says John Burns, president of Hospitality Technology Consulting. "We weren’t looking at the content on a regular basis and we weren’t terribly concerned that it be utterly accurate. But that has changed, and awareness has improved steadily. The Internet has become a higher-visibility issue."
Burns underscored his point with a statistic from a study by travel research firm Yesawich, Pepperdine, Brown & Russell that indicates 65 percent of all leisure travel involves the Web. "We’re not getting that many bookings yet, but it’s having a profound impact on the decision-making process," Burns says. "I challenge individual hoteliers to look at their sites and say, ‘If this was the only piece of collateral about my property, would it be sufficiently rich to wing someone in favor of my property?’"
Burns believes many hoteliers back off of electronic marketing opportunities because they have a short-sighted view of what benefit it may have. They often see the Web as part of a mix of tactics: the brand name, ads in the Sunday papers or their directory. These may all come together as the hotelier would wish, but such thinking overlooks the emergence of a group of travelers who exclusively research and often book through the Internet. Therefore, the term "search engine optimization" has found its way into the hospitality lexicon.
Done inadequately, hotels, especially independent venues, are often buried under dozens, if not hundreds, of more competently placed competitors. Fred Malek, CEO of Thayer Interactive Group, believes "even the typical 250-room hotel potentially can add between $250,000 and $1 million to its annual revenue by developing an effective online presence."
How well properties maximize their Web efforts is influenced by several factors: whether they are part of a brand management, such as Hilton, Hyatt, Starwood, or Marriott; a franchisee; or an independent. Ironically, Laboy says, size and segment are less important because the required skills tend to be universal. The brands are fighting back at the inroads made by online third-party marketers, but the efforts are tempered by the high number of guests choosing to use the Internet as a research tool.
Malek emphasizes this point using Phoenix, Ariz. to show how consumers use search engines and online area guides to research lodging options prior to booking. His chart (below) shows a list of top search phrases entered by search engine visitors to find hotel accommodations in Phoenix during a recent month.
Malek stresses that these phrases are just eight of the most popular entries and represent a fraction of the terms used by to locate hotels in that market. "When other relevant keyword phrases are added, the total results provide close to 2 million opportunities to reach consumers actively searching for accommodations in this area," says.
The brand management companies and franchisors nevertheless do provide valuable consulting services for search engine optimization (SEO). However, SEO varies by company, which amplifies the need for the best possible property site. Independents have to pay the closest attention to the quality of their sites. And that’s where a growing number of specialty firms can help. Some are divisions of large companies, like VIP International (recent acquirer of Lexington Services), and others are considerably smaller, and specialize in different segments—E-site, Thayer Interactive, Blizzard Marketing, among others. Kelly Blake, president of VIP International, likens the process to a science. "It’s not glamorous. But the point is taking back the distribution."
Web sites are different than highway billboards, Blake says. The better a hotel can craft its image and message, the more successful it will be. His company goes by industry research, which indicates that 70 percent of search engines clicks come from the first page of results, and more than 95 percent come from the first three pages.
Getting a property to appear high on the list of search engines like Google ultimately come down to word choice. Google, for example, picks up the first 235 characters of a description on a web site, Burns says. "Meta tags," or hidden descriptors, such as "luxury," "five-star," or "Southern California resort" further influence how search engines accept web sites.
Thus, if a hotel at any given time wants to boost its wedding business, for example, it would be smart to make sure key words related to the topic weddings in that particular location appear early in the wording, Laboy says. He believes this element of search engine optimization is so crucial that he advises some of his clients to create sub-web sites to enrich its prospects.
Laboy says search engines favor sites with numerous links, such as links to parent companies, management companies, or conventions and visitors bureau, for example. "At the Montage resort in Laguna Beach (California), we created a main site and then sites for the spa, weddings, and other services. It helps the property get a higher ranking."
Burns urges hoteliers to examine their Web marketing programs thoroughly. "I suspect they are looking to third-party sites to check rates. But how often do they look at their own sites?"
Source: Philip Hayward, "Send Out the Search Party," Lodging, July 2004, 41.
