25 ways for a hotel to increase occupancy

25 WAYS FOR A HOTELTO
INCREASE OCCUPANCY
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 This is just information taken from different
websites combined to one presentation for
hotels to help increase their revenue
2By Joshua Miranda

 Mobile Presence
When a shopper conducts a search on their mobile device—often their
preferred channel—and finds your hotel‘s website, having a mobile ready
site can pay big dividends. A condensed site that is tailor fit for mobile
devices—with succinct copy, reduced image size and simpler navigation—
is a must. If a shopper lands on a non-mobile friendly site, the margins
will be off, they‘ll have to scroll sideways and the entire display will not be
user-friendly, leading to fast abandonment and business for your
competition. Mobile sites can also include the option to book on every
page, directions and maps and make it easier for travelers to ―check in‖ to
your property on social sites.
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 Faster LoadTime
With advances like HTML5 and CSS3, website designers now have
improved, yet subtle design capabilities. But more importantly, less reliance
on Flash and older technology means faster load time for websites. And
considering that travel shoppers conduct around a dozen different
searches and visit over 20 different websites before making a reservation
(according to Google), time is valuable.
Large, Layered Imagery and Elements
Standard rotating header imagery and photo galleries are not necessarily a
thing of the past, but they can appear dated today. Taking over, are large,
high-resolution professional images that are often layered. The images
catch the eye, and if done appropriately, portray the property well—
including rooms, amenities and area attractions. The depth looks upscale
and allows for better utilization of space.
Here‘s an example with large, dim background imagery, separate copy areas
and calls to action, all in a layered style: 5

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Large, Layered Imagery and Elements

 Emphasis on Scrolling
Also allowing for more efficient use of space is
scrolling. If properly implemented—with
separate, clearly defined content areas that draw
visitors down pages—scrolling can put more
information on one page and even reduce the
number of overall pages. This makes it easy for
website visitors to get more information without
having to constantly click from page to page
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 Social Media Hubs
Beyond simply adding static Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and
TripAdvisor logos in the headers or footers of hotel websites, ―social
hubs‖ are becoming increasingly popular. Social hubs basically
centralize all of your property‘s social media sites, many times, in the
form of a webpage. This way, when a visitor lands on the page, they‘re
exposed to your entire social media presence, further immersed in
your hotel‘s brand. Instead of simply becoming a fan on Facebook,
they can follow you on Twitter, watch a video or two on YouTube and
scan yourTripAdvisor reviews.
 Here‘s an example a hotel with all social media on their website
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http://www.sugarbayresortandspa.com
Social Media Hubs

 Improved Usability
After a visitor has landed on your page, scanned the homepage
and perhaps scrolled down, what do they do? Is it easy for
them to find the information they need via your
navigation? Does your site‘s architecture make for a positive
user experience?
Straightforward property information, local area and attraction
information, intuitive navigation and calls to action to the
booking engine from every page (with clear hover states) are
items that make it easier for travelers to find the information
they need to make informed purchase decisions. Overall, the
mindset of the travel shopper matters just as much, if not more,
than the mindset of the hotel when designing a website.
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Social Media
 Social Media continues to grow in importance. It has
not only become a critical tool to interact with
customers, but is also a key element that impacts
organic search rankings for your hotel.
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Facebook
 Hotel marketing managers need to look at Facebook as
a tool to engage consumers and creating brand
ambassadors, and their preferred metric was the
number of fans or ―likes‖.
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However, getting users that like your Facebook page is different from getting
true fans.True fans are brand ambassadors that will spread good will around
your brand
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One of the big changes with FacebookTimeline has been the ability for
businesses to create pages within Facebook that provide web-like
experiences.
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Twitter
 140 characters are worth 1000 words.‖ Is that true? Who can write
anything meaningful in 140 characters? It sounds impossible. It must be
true, though. With 750 million Tweets every second flying between 450
million Twitter users, something good must be happening. Twitter provides
quick blasts of information, which are primarily social and used mainly for
engagement.
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How to connect with Twitter followers and
convert them to guests
 Give your followers information that they care about, and keep
sales tweets to a minimum while you build trust. Soon your
followers come to know you and then you can tweet special deals,
create buzz about special events, and tweet information about your
property.
 For out-of-towners, tweet also about events in your
neighbourhood or city.
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Background
Create your own individual background using your company colours and design
– you can use a screen shot or a recent photo of your hotel. Keep it simple.
Background measures 2048 x 1900 pixels and has a maximum size of 2
megabytes.
Place your square logo about 291 pixels from the top and 100 pixels in
from the left.
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 Header
 Dimensions are 1252 by 626 pixels with
maximum file size of 5 megabytes.
 You can include more than one design element in
the header, such as your profile image, logo, or call
to action.
 Profile Image
 Change the size and position of the profile image
within the header to suit your taste
 Remember to keep any text concise and include
contact information and Call to Action!
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Case Study - How Four Seasons Hotel
Is UsingTwitter
Four Seasons Hotel has showed that businesses should use twitter
Make sure your guest know you are on twitter.
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 Engage
Reply to most of the questions or inquiries
people send you on twitter account or main
account depending on the question or tweet.
 Promotion
 Like all businesses, it is never going to complete
without the promotions.What @fourseasons
tweet are promotions of their
 Chef/Restaurant
 Bar
 Spa
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Welcome Customers
 This is why @fourseasons have 50 localized
twitter account. They use them to welcome their
customers who send a tweet to that account.
Below is an example.
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YouTube
 Every small hotel looking to generate more sales and
build their brand fast should never ignore the power of
YouTube, a video sharing site the doubles as the
2nd most used search engine.
 The simplest thing you can do is to create a video series
that features the various rooms and amenities in your
hotel. Set up an annotation on each video that is either
linked to one of the other videos in the series or in
your YouTube channel. This way if the viewers like what
they see, they just might click on that link. If possible,
include a link back to your hotel‘s official website
 Example: https://www.youtube.com/user/hilton
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Instagram
 This is a social network and mobile photo app that has
literally taken the whole online world by storm –
Facebook included, which acquired it for a billion big
ones, a couple months ago. Hotels should take
advantage of this online marketing tool as this not only
allows you to tap into a growing social network but will
also bring your hotel
 Hotel Indigo encourages guests to tag their stays with
#hotelindigo on Instagram. Hotel Indigo shares photos
taken by guests to increase engagement, tagging the
original photographers, like this photocelebrating a
special occasion, and this photo showcasing hotel treats.
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Searching #hotelindigo on Instagram turns up more than 5000 posts from the
hotel and its guests, including snaps celebrating birthdays, illustrating room
décor, and depicting surprises from the hotel. 25

Pinterest for Hoteliers
 Pinterest is basically like a giant digital tack-board /
notice-board / scrapbook. It is a social photo sharing
website that allows users to create collections
(essentially photos and videos) of the things they like.
The site‘s mission statement is to ―connect everyone in
the world through the ‗things‘ they find interesting.‖
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Why should hotels take notice
of Pinterest?
 Show off your design / style / brand
credentials: Pinterest is a great visual way to showcase
everything that makes your brand, hotel, resort,
restaurant, bar or architercture & design unique. If
you‘ve invested in great photography and video, this is a
great way to put it to use and showcase all the features,
design elements and spaces that make up your hotel or
brand personality.
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 Add a visual twist to your Food & Beverage
marketing efforts: Think recipes, chef profiles, healthy
eating tips, in-house / local sustainability efforts, amazing
signature drinks, wine recommendations and
more…Pinterest offers a great way to visually market
everything that‘s great about your restaurants, bars,
culinary talent and the food you serve
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 Special occasions and events: Pinterest is a natural fit to
showcase your facilities and especially tips, layouts and
experiential shots of your event, banqueting or wedding
facilities. Wedding planning related content is a specific niche
to explore if that is an important part of your business. A few
choice photos of special events, personalities or setups
you‘ve hosted won‘t hurt either…as long as you have
permission to use the photos / videos.
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Tips for Pinterest Search
Engine Optimization
 Choose an Optimized Company
Username
Pinterest finally launched Pinterest business accounts,
which make registering for a business account (or
converting a personal account into a business account)
easy and painless. Going the ―business‖ route also makes it
easier to verify your website, add links to your Twitter and
Facebook accounts, and add Pinterest buttons and widgets
to your company site
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 2) OptimizeYour Page's 'About'
Section
 The Pinterest 'About' section provides you with 200
characters of prime keyword real estate, so use this
space wisely. In addition to being descriptive and
keyword-sensitive, your 'About' section should also be
simple, succinct, and specific.
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 3) Include Links Back toYour
Website
 Always include a reference link back to
your website with your pins, and if you re-
pin a post that features your content or
products, edit the description to include a
full link
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 4) DifferentiateYour Pinboards
 For businesses, however, getting more specific and
unique in your board descriptions is critical to helping
you get found on Pinterest.
 Break through the pinboard name clutter and be
specific and keyword-conscious in the selection of your
board names.
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 6) UseYour Pins' Descriptions Wisely
 The biggest opportunity for text-based content on
Pinterest is the description area for each individual pin.
 Knowing that, don‘t be shy about describing your pins.
Include terms that your users will relate to and use on
their own, add links to the original product or content,
and consider adding instructions on product usage or
care.
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 7) Make Sure the ImagesYou Pin Have
Descriptive File Names & AltText
Given that Pinterest is a highly visual platform, using
interesting imagery that is formatted and named
correctly can have a significant impact on the
success of your boards -- and individual pins
themselves. Many companies make the mistake of
uploading photos using their default names. For
example, an image named 1.13.13ShootImage722.jpg
doesn‘t help you at all in search, while a clearly
named ―Boston-townhouse.jpg‖ can help a search
engine decipher what your image is about much
more easily.
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How to Promote your Social Media Efforts
Offline: Let Guests know you are Online
 Create a QR code
 Create a QR Code (Quick Response
Code) to connect to the hotel‘s Facebook
and Twitter pages and then prompt the
guest to become a fan or follow the page.
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Printed Material/Signage in
Guest Rooms
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Hotel HashtagsTo Engage Guests And
Promote Social Sharing
 If you‘re usingTwitter, Pinterest and
Instagram to promote your hotel
business, you‘re turning your guests into
brand ambassadors, and convert fans and
followers into direct bookings, it‘s high
time you got familiar with hashtags.
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Why Hashtag?
 Hashtags are a quick and simple way for users to
summarise what their post is about, tag a post as
belonging to a particular theme, and make it visible
among other posts on a similar subject.
 Using hashtags as part of your hotel‘s social media
strategy is a great way to engage your guests so you
can quickly search and comment on their posts to
create conversation. Hashtags are also incredibly
valuable in that they promote social sharing – which
essentially encourages your guests to act as brand
ambassadors, promoting your hotel out to their
follows and online networks.
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HashtagYour Hotel
 Hashtagging your brand name is one of
the simplest ways to promote
engagement and social sharing, and is
practically a must-do for all businesses.
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 Searching @europahotel onTwitter turns
up more than 1000 posts from the hotel
and its guests, including snaps celebrating
birthdays,illustrating room décor, and
depicting surprises from the hotel.
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PromoteYour Hotel with Hotel
Search Engines
 What are Hotel Search Engines?
Honest as how Google and Yahoo search engines are
obedient of searching for anything and everything on the
face of this earth, Hotel Search Engines are specifically
built for the Hotel Industry.
By listing your hotel website on any of the popular Hotel
Search Engines you can drive ‗qualified traffic‘ and not fair
‗traffic‘ to your website.
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 iXiGo launched a Hotel Search Engine,
covering 4500 hotels in 320 Indian cities.
 iXiGO‘s hotel search accesses more than 30
leading national and international hotel
booking websites, enabling comparisons of
room tariffs of the same hotel across
multiple sites within a few seconds. iXiGo
sorts accommodation by label, star ratings
and amenities and also allows detailed views
for maps and photos; all in a single web page.
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 Hotels Combined and its hotel search engine too covers the
world. The site says that its Verified Reviews (a trademarked
service) accepts and quantifies reviews from verified, paying
customers only. The hotel search engine compares prices
across a bunch of hotel pricing sites. You can view the list
when you search for the best hotel by destination.
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 The discount travel site negotiates the best hotel deals (along with other travel
related ones) and presents them to you as Hotwire Hot Rates.You can also use the
site‘s Tripwatcher tool to watch out for price drops.The results are compared with
other sites like Expedia, Kayak,Tripadvisor, and Orbitz. Check out the site‘s Planning
Tools section for a few more travel aids which help you plan your trip.
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 Six of the largest hotel companies in the world (Choice Hotels International, Hilton
Worldwide, Hyatt Hotels Corporation, InterContinental Hotels Group, Marriott International
and Wyndham Hotel Group) collaborated to start up Roomkey. The hotel search engine is
specifically tailored for their clientele and aims to – offer travelers direct access to a broad
network of hotels around the globe, provide accurate and comprehensive information, make it
easy for travelers to discover what‘s right for them.And in one word, the interface is superb.
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Optimize your Hotel Business
with Foursquare
 Foursquare, the
leading location-based
social network which,
with a game aspect,
encourages people to
explore their
neighborhoods via their
smartphones, share their
visits with local
attractions, events and
businesses and gives
them rewards or share
them on facebook or
Twitter when they do
so.
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 Foursquare allows a user to view where their friends
have been within several hours of a certain update. This
could have huge potential your Hotel if you encourage
Foursquare users to check in and put brief thoughts
about the service in their tip updated
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HowTo Be Number One on
TripAdvisor
It is all about exposing your property; the more people that see you and
read all the great reviews about your property the more likely you will
convert them into paying guests.
For instance:
• Break into the Top 30 hotels and your property will be on Page one
• Move into the Top 5 hotels and you will be exposed to all customers
looking at your city as a destination
• Crack the sacredTop 3 hotels and add a special offer and your hotel will be
included in a newsletter at no charge to you
• Become king of the hill at #1 and just watch the referral traffic and revenue
pour in
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Here are a few important factors that
determinesTA rankings-
 Frequency – of the reviews. This plays a very important
role telling how consistently the hotel is delivering a great
experience.
 Recency - If you got 30 reviews in one month and then
nothing for the next 2 months your ranking will drop. It
has to be consistent.
 Volume - There is no magic number but as the number of
reviews increase you will see your ranking improve as well.
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Important points
 Make sure you give FREE WIFI to your
guests in the hotel so you can encourage
guests to give Trip Advisor reviews from
their devices.
 Every time you visit a Trip Advisor website,
the site logs your IP address (the identity of
the computer that you are using at the time)
and places HTTP cookies on the computer
or other device you‘re using to access the
Internet so you cannot keep writing reviews
only from one computer.
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Ways to get reviews on Trip Advisor
 Email: As part of your post stay communication with
your guests ask them to review the hotel on Trip
Advisor. Make it easy; include a link to your property
review page. Take one more step; shorten the URL using
a service like Bit.ly, so it all becomes track-able.
 At the time of checkout or during their stay: Your
colleagues have numerous encounters with guests
during their stay; the most asked question during these
encounters ―How is your stay?‖ What better time to
ask for a review.
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 Having a widget on your website: This serves two
purposes, first, if someone wants to read reviews about the
hotel then it is right in front of them and if they want to leave
a review then the option is there. This is more effective
method when a guest is shopping and looking for feedback on
the hotel. If a guest makes a booking after reading Trip Advisor
review and they have a great experience, then the likely hood
of them writing increases when they are asked to leave a
review.
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 Integrating a link to the review page in your
Email signature: Whenever communicating with the
guest this gives a good spot to plug in the TripAdvisor
logo.
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Trip Connect onTrip Advisor
 TripConnect is a new program that allows hotels
to drive direct traffic to their own websites and
capture more direct bookings. Hoteliers have
always preferred direct bookings to business
generated via third-party intermediaries that
charge high commissions.TripAdvisor already
offers hotels Business Listings subscriptions.
Note: Recommended Channel manager for this: STAAH
www.staah.com 55
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Ensure that your listing has
 A wide-selection of engaging photos. TripAdvisor reported
earlier this year that properties with 30 or more photos have over
45% more traveler engagement than those with 10 or less. There‘s
no limit to the number of photos you can add to your TripAdvisor
property page. Build your listing‘s photo gallery by adding five
photos each month.
 Management responses to reviews. 78% of TripAdvisor users
agree that seeing a hotel management response to reviews ―makes
me believe that it cares more about its guests.‖ Moreover, 84% of
users agree that an appropriate management response to a bad
review ―improves my impression of the hotel.
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 Lots of recent, positive reviews. The TripAdvisor
Popularity Index takes into account three primary
factors when measuring a property‘s score: the number
of reviews, rating of reviews and freshness of reviews.
 In summary, for hotels with stellar online reputations,
TripConnect can drive more direct bookings and allow
you to effectively compete against OTAs for that crucial
first booking.
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Trip Advisor Review Express
If you‘re working with a TripAdvisor-certified hospitality technology provider –
like an internet booking engine or property management system – it‘s now easier
than ever to collect more reviews. Opt in to automated Review Express and
your guests will receive email reminders to write reviews within 72 hours of
check out without any additional steps from you.
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What is Review Express?
 Review Express is a free, easy-to-use TripAdvisor tool
that helps hospitality businesses email past guests and
remind them to write reviews.
 Once you sign up, your hospitality technology provider
will begin providing TripAdvisor with the data to
automatically send guests a review request email on
your behalf. The email will be sent to guests within 72
hours of check out. A guest can then click the link in the
email to complete a review of your property.
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 What is sent to my guests?
A review collection email that includes your property name and
image will be sent to your guests within 48 to 72 hours of
checkout. If they don‘t click the ―Write a review‖ link in the
email within a week, a follow-up email will be sent to them. You
can configure the message sent to your guests
at tripadvisor.com/ReviewExpress.
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TripAdvisorWatch
 TripAdvisor slaps Red Badge on hotel for
writing own reviews
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Ways to Collect Guest Email
Addresses
A good way to encourage guests to write reviews is
to send follow up emails after a visit with tools like
TripAdvisor‘s Review Express. The first step is to
collect email addresses from guests – here are six tips
to get you started:
 Simply ask for the email address at check-in, and
again at check-out, if needed.Tell guests that you‘ll
be sending an email to get their feedback on their
stay.
 Contact your internet booking engine or online
travel agent partners to see if they can provide an
email address for each booking they make.
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 Provide a guest of 10-20% discount for the guests
next stay (which can be transferable) and say you
require an email address to send the details.
 Offer to email a copy of the final bill for their
records or deliver an expedited check-out
process via email (e-delivery of bills and e-
authorization of charges) to get them on their
way faster.
 Business travelers: Create a monthly contest
where guests are encouraged to drop their
business cards in a bowl. Offer a free weekend
stay to the owner of the card that‘s selected.
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SEO For Hotels:What
Hoteliers Really NeedTo Know
SEO is not a
trick
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 The first and most important thing that hotels need to
realize is that despite what they may have heard, SEO is
not about ―tricking‖ search engines. Rather, it is a series
of practices by which websites tell the search
engines who they are, what they do, and why they
are relevant to searchers.
 Performing SEO for hotels, the most important tactics
for convincing search engines that a hotel‗s website
should be ranked at the top of searches – Optimized
local listings and unique, relevant links.
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 Optimized Local Listings
 You need to establish your location on their terms
by claiming, optimizing, andmanaging your Google
+Local Page, Bing Local Listing, andYahoo Local listing.
 Work on getting your site found in search engines such
as Google and include your hotel‘s keywords into your
website‘s content.
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 A social media presence is also
increasingly important for your website‘s
SEO so don‘t be shy and get social on
Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus and other
social platforms. The hard work will pay
off.
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Rate Parity
 Rate parity can be defined as maintaining consistent rates for the
same product in all online distribution channels—Expedia, Orbitz,
Hotwire, etc.—regardless of what commission the OTA makes.
 Rate parity can ensure an even playing field among all channels and
protects a hotel‘s relationships with its partners, as no channel is
being favored over another one.
 A hotels ranking on OTA‘s totally depends on rate parity, Reviews
and number of bookings
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Channel manager for Hotels
 Channel Manager
 A single platform for hotels to manage inventory and pricing with
all online travel portals. The Channel Manager for hotels ensures
properties of all sizes can maximize their online exposure. The
hotel channel management system also increases revenue and
reduces the time and cost it takes to update rooms.
 Preferable Channel Manager: STAAH for more details log on to
staah.com
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Global Distribution System
(GDS)
 Global Distribution System consists of both the original GDS
technology (travel agent data suppliers) and travel websites such as
Expedia, Travelocity, and Orbitz, etc. There are also many smaller
regional GDS providers and travel website portals in the Global
Distribution System makeup.
 Preferable GDS : Reconline
 Benefits of participating in the GDS network
The main benefit of the GDS is that it provides a perfect virtual
marketplace for travel inventory sellers such as hotels, airlines, and car
rental systems to showcase their wares to a global Internet travel
audience.
 The GDS is a natural outlet for hotels, resorts, and even smaller
inns that want to increase revenue and online marketing exposure.
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 The GDS also allows independent properties a chance to offer
special ―dynamic packages‖ (bundled services that include hotel,
airfare, special events, etc.) to their customers. With more and
more consumers making travel reservations online, dynamic
packaging is a growing trend.
 Who is the Global Distribution System best suited for?
The GDS is ideally suited for larger hotels and resorts located in
desirable areas that have standard room types such as single rooms,
queen rooms, king rooms, etc.
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 Conclusion
The GDS network offers properties valuable
marketing exposure on the various popular online
travel websites and to over 600,000 travel agents
worldwide. However, the GDS is only the ―icing on
the cake.‖ Most properties will still get many more
online reservations through their own website than
they will from the GDS network. Therefore, make
sure you have a well designed website, easy to use
navigation, allow potential customers to book online,
and that you hire a professional company to market
your website. The practice of making travel
arrangements online continues to grow. Make sure
your property combines GDS exposure with its own
website booking engine to maximize online revenue.
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Google Hotel Finder
 First of all, let‘s make one thing clear: with the introduction of the
Google Hotel Finder Google is not entering the OTA space and is
not becoming an online travel agency. All bookings originating from
the Google Hotel Finder take place on the hotel website or OTA
website.
 Google is displaying Hotel Finder results aggressively in SERPs
(search engine result pages), making it important to list your hotel.
Google designed GHF to be a one-stop-shop for accommodation
planning. It displays information from many hotels that fit your
search criteria, and then give you reservation options.
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Creating your page on Hotel
Finder
 Google takes data for displayed results
from Google+ Local and from databases of
big OTAs like booking.com or expedia.com.
 Logically, it is always better to have
information that is being displayed about
your facility on the internet in your own
hands and for that you need to create your
personal profile on Google+ Local.You can
do so
here:https://plus.google.com/pages/create
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 Remember, its just for hotels, not for
restaurants and cafe. In order to improve
your presence on hotel finder, you need
to sign for Google Places listings
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Now that you have your
Google Local listing set
up and you‘re
connected to an OTA
or GDS, you need to
keep your hotel‘s
information updated. If
you use a CRS
connected to GDSs and
OTAs to manage your
daily hotel inventory,
then GHF will keep
your listing‘s availability
and rates up-to-date
automatically. If not, log
into each service‘s
extranet to update
room listings and
rates, which Hotel
Finder will eventually
display.
To edit your listing‘s marketing content, such as hotel
descriptions, photos, addresses and so on, log-in to your
Google Local page and make any changes you wish.
Google hasn‘t released information on how long it takes
them to update GHF. It can take a few hours to a few
weeks. 76

HotelWebsite Links
If the hotel has a website
added to Google Local,
then GHF may give a link
to the website, allowing
guests to book directly
from the hotel website.
For an independent hotel
to take over the red
booking button and sell
rooms directly, the hotel
must hire a service to run
Hotel Price Ads on their
behalf, and win a bidding
war
between the competing
OTAs.
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The benefits of using OTAs
 Many properties think signing up with
OTA‘s are more of a burden which is not
true.
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 Increasing revenue is but one benefit of using OTAs. Following are
five other ways that OTAs positively influence the hotel industry:
 Occupancy boost. Obviously, driving occupancy is one key
benefit of OTAs.
 Introducing new guests. And speaking of guests, OTAs can help
diversify a hotel‘s client base by delivering new customers who
otherwise might not have considered staying at a particular hotel.
 Dynamic packaging.
The reason OTAs came about was to present meaningful packages
to undecided consumers.
When they combine a hotel with air with car rental with some
entertainment, that‘s the only benefit that the OTAs bring to the table.
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 Personal attention
 OTA‘s can be of great consultants who understand each
local hotel market and can use that knowledge to help
hotels efficiently drive bookings.
 Direct bookings. There is some evidence that a
majority of consumers end up booking on brand
websites after comparison shopping with the OTAs.
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Tips to boost Hotel OTA
Bookings and Rankings
 Online travel agencies or OTA‘s is the second most-
used channel in terms of hotel and resort hotel
bookings, accounting for almost 20% of all bookings
done online.
1. Respond to Reviews in aTimely Fashion
Traveler reviews – both in terms of quantity and quality – are extremely
important if you want to increase bookings for your hotel via OTA‘s.
As a hotel manager, you should be vigilant in monitoring reviews posted on
OTA‘s and respond to them in a timely manner, preferably within 24-48
hours after a review is posted. In cases of negative reviews, responding
promptly can lessen any damaging effect a negative review might have. For
positive reviews, responding within this ideal time frame will give the
impression that you indeed value your guests.
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 Use Great-Looking, High-Resolution
Photos
send High resolution photos to ensure that
travellers see your property photos at their
best on every device.
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 Improve and UpdateYour Property
and Room Descriptions
Providing a full room description and a full property
description as opposed to just partial ones can boost your
hotel‘s take-up rate by 5% and increase your average daily rate
by $5. Your property and room descriptions should be up-to-
date, compelling and comprehensive. This is because many
OTA‘s apply tags on your property based on these
descriptions.
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 For example, if someone is looking for
properties offering free wireless Internet access,
OTA‘s will show all properties that have this on
their property description. If you did not
included this feature in your descriptions, you
won‘t show up for this search even if you do
offer free Wi-Fi access.
 List of OTA‘s a hotel can sign up with
http://www.staah.com/channel-
manager/staah_channel_partners.htm
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Competitor Price Monitoring
 Competitor price monitoring is very important in the hotel
and travel industry. This is because the hotel industry is a highly
competitive one and proper pricing is of utmost importance. You
need to keep a track of your competitors on regular basis.
 Give your guests a reason to choose your hotel over a hotel
two blocks or two miles away. You can differentiate your hotel
from your competitors on the basis of price, policy and service.
 While you do not want to get into a losing battle by dropping
your room rates 25 percent below your competitor‘s rates, you
can have a policy where you are always at or near the lowest
rate in town.
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 When you have satisfied guests, they can be a
great source for new customers. Encourage them
to refer friends and family to stay at your hotel by
giving them various incentives like a room
discount on a future stay, free dinner, or perhaps,
a gift card.
 Some people are flexible with their travel
schedule and might want to stay an extra night. If
you offer them 50 percent off on the third night
when they pay the regular rate for the first two
nights, many will take the offer and you will
generate incremental revenue.
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Types of promotions on OTA‘s
 Basic Deal
Basic deals are easy to create; just decide on the
discount and the dates for the rooms you want to
create a promotion for and that's it!
 Early booker deals
Early booker deals are for people booking very early.
You can tell us how long in advance they must
book - days, weeks, or months!
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 Last minute deals are only available to
people booking very late. Restrict it
to the last few days or hours before
arrival!
 24-hour promotions are limited-time
offers that can only be booked on
one particular day.
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Types of promotions on OTA‘s

Keeping an eye on your hotel website stats
through Google Analytics
 Google analytics
It records information about the people interacting with
your website and how they‘re interacting with it. It will tell
you things like number of visitors, demographic
information, the type of device they use when visiting your
site, how long they stay on your site, etc.
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By understanding
and utilizing this
information, you
can greatly
improve your
website and
double your
marketing efforts. 90

 At the core, Google Analytics provides statistical information on:
 Site visits – How many visitors came to your site in a specific
period of time (defaults to one month).
 Page views – How many pages of your site those visitors viewed
(also within that time period you specify).
 Pages per visit - An average of how many pages were viewed per
visit.
 Bounce rate –This indicates the percentage of people who
comes to your site only to leave again, close the window, etc. In
general, you want this number to be lower, but as it relates to hotel
websites, a high bounce rate may indicate they‘re going straight to
the booking engine. *fingers crossed*
 Average time on site – Average amount of time spent on your
site by all visitors in a specific period of time.
 New visits – Amount of visitors to your site who have never been
there before.
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 Standard Reports are broken into these categories:
 Real-time – This shows you how many visitors are on your
website in real time, where they are geographically, page
views, referral sources (how they came to your site), and
percentage of new versus returning visitors.
 Audience – This gives you granular stats on your website
visitors, such as demographic, interests, behavior, technology
used, etc.
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 Acquisition – This shows you behaviors and conversions across Organic
search (coming to your site by typing in a keyword and not clicking on a
paid ad), Direct (typing in your website URL), Referral (clicking on a link to
your website from another website or ad), Email (clicking on a link to your
site from an email sent to them), Social (clicking on a link to your website
from a social media platform such as TripAdvisor, Facebook, Twitter, etc.)
and Other (a bucket for clicks that can‘t be categorized for many reasons
not worth discussing here).
 Behavior – The basics that I mentioned above: who is on your site, how
long they stayed, what they looked at, and if they are a returning visitor or
brand new to you.
 Conversions – Perhaps the most fun of all the Standard Reporting
features, Conversions tracks your goals, eCommerce (with a simple
tracking code set up on your site. More on that later.), multi-channel
funnels, and attribution (which channel your website conversions were
attributed to, be it organic, direct, social media, etc. Also where you would
see feedback on AdWords).
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 Flickr is a great way to organize and distribute
images across the Internet. Don‘t forget to take
advantage of this useful tool for promoting your
hotel!
Flickr offers a few wonderful things:
 Photo Storage: It allows you to store a huge
amount of photos for FREE.
 Photo Sharing: After your images are stored
on Flickr you can opt to share the photos with
others ( or not ) to use for their blogs and
websites.
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 Take advantage of this chance to do some creative marketing, and
use your Flickr account to connect with your customers (or
potential customers) through imagery.
 Social Media Optimization: If you use your Flickr images for
your blog posts add the URL to that image in the description field.
This allows those that view and or use your images to check out
your blog posts as well. Also remember to tag your images properly
for effective optimization.
 The importance of images are often overlooked when we think
about Social Media but think about how many times we search for
images then you will realize how important Flickr and photo
sharing sites are.
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How FLICKR can help hotels

Hotel on Flickr
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https://www.flickr.com/photos/lemeridienhotels

 Tweet your Flickr photostream. As with Facebook, you can
automatically Tweet the URL to your new image (in addition to any
comment you wish to make) at the same time that you post it on
Flickr.
 Share your Flickr photostream on Facebook. You can trigger
any images that you post on Flickr to simultaneously post onto
Facebook.You‘ll reach a new, expansive audience.
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 Link your Flickr photo stream to your website by creating
a badge. You can choose to make an HTML badge or a Flash
badge; both show a selection of your photo stream images. In an
HTML badge, your images remain static. In a Flash badge, your
images continuously fade in and out of the background.
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Link your Flickr photo stream to your
mainWebsite.
One way you can do this is by creating a
slideshow of your images in Flickr and then
uploading the slideshow onto your Website.
You‘ll be catching visitors‘ attention and
immediately showcasing your work.

25 ways for a hotel to increase occupancy

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