Hospitality Marketing Blog.com

How is this for telling it like it is?

“Businesses today exist in an era in which it’s nearly impossible to escape the likelihood of being evaluated.” said Linda Shea, senior vice president at Opinion Research, in a statement, “There’s nowhere to hide.”

Like it or not consumers have taken over control of hotel comment cards. And where management use to keep results to themselves, today consumers are sharing results with the world. There is no where to hide!

• And guess what! Consumers are loving it. According to a Opinion Research Corporation June 2008 report 61% of people surveyed indicate they check online reviews, blogs and other online customer sources before buying a new product or service. That number is even higher for travel products at 82%.

• Wait - there’s more! People who shop online value the reviews of fellow consumers more than those provided by professionals in the field. That’s according to a 2008 study commissioned by InQuira.

The implications for small luxury hotels is clear - you have to be at the top of your game with everyone you talk to on the phone, send an email to or who enters your lobby.

You also need to have a clear strategy designed to monitor, manage and respond to comments made about your hotel online. It is just too damn important to ignore. Where is your TripAdvisor strategy?

What do you think? Safe travels - Madigan Pratt

Tags: hospitality marketing, online reviews, small luxury hotels, TripAdvisor

Advertising Age Magazine has a great article on the changing demographics of American households that every hospitality marketer should read - it titled “The Changing Face of the American Consumer.”

In addition to outlining how demographics are changing the article adds insights in marketing tactics and messages to use and to avoid when talking to different demographic segments.

Did you know the average U.S. head of household is now nearly 50 years old (49.5, to be precise)?   Did you know that using the trite expression “60 is the new 40″ is not an approach you should use when marketing older demos?

There is good news and there’s bad news for the small luxury hotel marketer as the demographics of Americans evolve.  Knowing how to exploit the good news to build occupancy and revenue will be key in the years ahead.

While not a definitive read on the subject the article provides valuable insights on what you should be doing (or at least planning for) now.  Well worth a read.

Let me know what you think.  Safe travels - Madigan Pratt

Tags: demographic insights, hospitality marketing, Marketing Strategies, small luxury hotel

New information published in April by Jupiter Research confirms that the ranking of your web site on Google is critical to being seen. Search Engine Optimization has never been so important!

Today nearly 30% of web searchers confine their searches to the first page - only. This is up from 15% in in 2002.

There are two possible explanations:

• People are more impatient than ever before
• Search is producing better results and people don’t have to look much beyond the first couple of pages

The truth most likely is a combination of the two.

As a small luxury hotelier make sure your site is being updated and optimized on a regular basis - the search engines are continuously adjusting their algorithms.

If your site does not come up on the first page for key words like “luxury hotel” in your destination, the chances are you’re at a severe disadvantage vis-a-vis your competition.

The Goal - Page #1 for keywords.

What do you think? Safe travels, Madigan Pratt

Tags: hospitality marketing, hotel web site, search engine optimization, SEO, small luxury hotel

It’s January 2008 and Hillary Clinton was ready for the coronation.  As the front runner for nomination as the Democratic Presidential candidate she looked invincible.

How times have changed.  As the media pundits start to dissect what went wrong a valuable marketing lesson for small luxury hotels is emerging.

To begin with, Hillary’s main message (experience) was off target.  It wasn’t what people wanted or were interested in hearing.  Later her message started to waffle from one topic to another and in the end what she really stood for became nebulous in voter’s minds.

In the meantime Barack Obama kept a single minded focus on delivering the same message - one people wanted to hear - change.

So what’s the lesson for small luxury hotels? 

• Make sure your marketing message is very clear and delivers a benefit people are looking for.
• Be consistent!  Drive your message home with every piece of communication your deliver.

There are marketing lessons just about everywhere you look these days.  Good ideas and important lessons can be gleaned from beyond the hospitality or travel industries.

What do you think?  Safe travels - Madigan Pratt

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Tags: hospitality marketing, hotel marketing, marketing benefits, marketing lessons, marketing small luxury hotels

A recent survey by Habeas, an online reputation management firm, reveals consumers prefer e-mail as a primary method of communications in their personal and business lives. 

In fact 67% preferred email and 65% believe this will continue to be true for at least the next five years vs. video conferencing (19%), instant messaging (17%), SMS text messages (12%) and Web meetings (12%).

Nearly 70% are concerned about being victimized by online fraud and 43% are concerned about spam and virus threat to mobile devices - both considerably higher than last year.

So what does this mean for hospitality marketing - especially for small luxury hotels?

• Email is vitally important in communicating to past and potential guests.
• Email is here for the long-term.
• If you are using email to foster loyalty, invest in making sure you are following industry best practices, are in compliance with the CAN-SPAM Act and are up front with privacy rules.
• While mobile messaging may seem sexy - your time (and $) might be better spent making sure your email program is the best it can be.

What do you think?  Safe travels - Madigan Pratt

Tags: CAN-SPAM, email research, hospitality marketing, small luxury hotels

Here’s some news that got me wondering about the future of hotel brochures - Bloomingdale’s is shutting down its catalog business in 2009 to concentrate its direct marketing efforts on the web where sales are growing faster. 

Higher paper, production and mailing costs are affecting every business that employes brochures, catalogs and direct mail.

A small luxury hotel can easily spend $50,000 to $60,000 to produce 20,000 brochures - maybe $75,000 once you factor in postage and handling to get them in the hands of agents and travelers.  $75,000 over the course of two years could go a long way toward enhancing a hotel’s web site, Search Engine Optimization and pay-per-click.

In today’s Internet focused world is the hotel brochure about to go the way of the buggy whip?  What do you think?

Safe travels - Madigan Pratt

PS - Bloomingdale’s is expected to generate in excess of $1 billion in web sales this year.

Tags: Bloomingdale's, catalog sales, hotel brochure, pay-per-click, PPC, search engine optimization, small luxury hotels

On a recent [very long] flight I had time for a thorough read through the HSMAI special report entitled, “The Travel Marketer’s Guide to Social Media and Social Networks: Sales and Marketing in a Web 2.0 World.”

If you have ever wondered about what was happening in Social Media, what the fuss is all about or how you will ever get up to speed, I would strongly recommend you get a copy.  The cost is $99 for HSMAI Members and $149 for the great unwashed.

The book is 170 pages long and provides a comprehensive review of the market as it stands today - well maybe yesterday.  The whole social media phenomenom is changing at an increasingly fast pace.  In one place the book mentions Trip Advisor as having 6 million hotel reviews.  Check the post below - TripAdvisor is now up to 15 million reviews!

So if you don’t want to slip even further (perhaps hopelessly) behind order a copy and read it.  Can’t imagine anyone responsible for marketing a small luxury property not wanting to get aux fait with Social Media.  Well maybe if you are on the verge of retirement…or maybe not interested in advancing…

If you’ve already read it, what do you think?  Safe Travels.  Madigan Pratt

Tags: luxury marketing, small kuxury hotels, social media, travel 2.0, TripAdvisor, web 2.0

If hospitality marketing wasn’t hard enough already!  TripAdvisor, the 1,000lb. gorilla is now a 1,500lb. baby.  In June, 2007 the site had 10 million reviews.  It just announced that figure is now over 15 million !  A 50% increase in less than a year.

What amazes me is many small luxury hoteliers I talked to don’t pay much attention to TripAdvisor other than read the reviews and post an occasional management response.  They have no proactive strategy to manage comments people make and post for the world to see. 

In today’s socially networked society, if you don’t have a strategy you are in deep trouble.  TripAdvisor-branded sites now attract over 25 million unique visitors every month - many of whom are your customers.

Without a strategy many more of them “could have been your customers” had you managed the conversation.

Call out the marketing department, the PR folks and the Internet gurus and start planning your TripAdvisor strategy.  Small luxury hoteliers need to be proactive in this area.  Develop a strategy and stick to it.

Do you have a TripAdvisor strategy yet?  Safe travels - Madigan Pratt

Tags: , hospitailty marketing, small luxury hotelier, Trip Advisor, TripAdvisor strategy

The Direct Marketing Association and AccuData have teamed up to offer a free webinar entitled Three Steps to Finding Your Model Customer: Defining, Segmenting and Scoring.

The webinar will take place Tuesday, April 29, 2008 at 2PM ET.  And did I mention it’s FREE?

Kate Webster, Ph.D. AccuData’s chief statistician will lead you through the three critical steps and show you how to:

• Define your customers and compare them with the overall universe.

• Segment your database to identify your platinum customers.

• Score your database or prospect list to predict those with the greatest likelihood of joining the platinum ranks.

For the luxury hotelier knowing who your customers are and which ones represent the greatest lifetime value is critical.

Hope you enjoy the seminar.  I’m not endorsing any particular suppliers, but I do enthusiatically support customer segmentation and modeling .  If you do attend, let me know what you think.

Safe Travels - Madigan Pratt

Tags: customer modeling, customer segmentation, database segmentation, luxury hotel marketing

A recent Email Research Study by Q Interactive and MarketingSherpa found consumers have a decidedly different definition of SPAM than the direct marketing industry. 

As a result consumers are sometimes too quick to hit the “Report Spam” button instead of “Unsubscribe” when they no longer wish to receive a company’s email.  This can have dire consequences for a small luxury hotel looking to stay use email to build relationships with guests and prospects.

The industry defines spam as unsolicited commercial email.  It seems consumers believe it is any email they now find annoying or no longer wish to receive.

The problem arises since ISPs and email ASPs monitor SPAM reports and can stop a company from sending email it too many are received.  Spam reports can effectively shut down a hotel’s email marketing effort.

What’s a small luxury hotelier to do? Here are a few ideas:

• First, your sign-up must be double opt-in
• Avoid using outside email lists
• Monitor Spam reports
• Provide readers with relevant information
• Don’t email too often
• Remind people they are receiving your email beacuse they requested it
• Offer an “unsubscribe” option at the top of your email

Anyone care to add to this list?  Safe Travels - Madigan Pratt

Tags: , email research, relationship marketing, spam reports, unsubscribe