Nieuws en Events: Reservations

Technology changes in the past three decades have been astonishing for both the meetings industry and for society in general. To see how far we have come, I felt it would be ...
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In 2012, a time focused on new distribution channels, social, local, mobile, and the ever-changing digital marketplace, hoteliers must still remember that the tried and trusted search engines are still the key ...
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Hospitality is an information intensive business. Hotel managers are exposed to numerous reports that touch upon practically every aspect of running a hotel. In addition to reports dealing with hotel operations, today’s ...
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Unfortunately, many hoteliers are content with simply having a web site as the sum-total of their Internet marketing effort. These same people wonder why their fair-share of reservation production is still eluding ...
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What will happen to traditional and online distribution channels in hospitality in the next few years? How will the direct web channel outpace competitors and third-party intermediaries? With online travel growing, how ...
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1. The Internet: The Ultimate Survival Tool for Hoteliers in 2009The Travel Industry Association’s (TIA) latest survey predicts a drop of at least 1.3% in overall leisure travel in 2009. Corporate ...
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There has been a torrent of articles and webinars extolling the virtues of social media for hotels. Social media is certainly applicable for hotel franchise brand-building, but this writer is still unconvinced ...
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Online, your competition set amounts to those hotels which appear, with yours, on search results. At this point, your hotel’s title and description tags are of critical importance, but more about this ...
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This Just InI have just heard through the industry grapevine that Expedia has cut off negotiations with Choice Hotels and has removed Choice properties from its sites, which include Expedia.com and ...
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Web 2.0 continues to generate much attention in the online travel industry. Inquiring hoteliers want to understand the status and future of search engine marketing and other Internet marketing formats in this ...
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Back in September 2001, HeBS presented an article titled “Wireless in Travel and Hospitality: Hype or Necessity?” Today, just as in 2001, the media hype on anything mobile has not eased ...
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In June 2008, HeBS presented an article titled Getting Back to the Basics: The Hotelier’s Internet Marketing Action Plan for a Difficult Economy. A year later, we would like ...
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Having a web site, and not promoting it, is like buying a flashy new car and leaving it in your garage; great web site, but few people will ever see it. Some ...
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As I review various hotel websites, I am constantly amazed by the number of poorly designed sites which are being developed by some hotel website design companies. To add insult to injury, ...
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Last year the economy remained in "recovery mode," allowing the industry to focus its efforts more on marketing to the travel consumer and less on scaling back budgets for the first time ...
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Today, more than ever before, hotels need the exposure and marketing power that only the Internet can provide from a cost-effectiveness standpoint. Your website may look great, but can Internet searchers find ...
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The recession has stimulated many hoteliers to use some creative ways to drive sales. Their focal point is to create ways to capture sales in the most cost-effective means possible, with the ...
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Well, it’s déjà vu all over again, the hotel industry is facing severe business challenges; how we react to those challenges will determine how quickly we can return to some semblance of ...
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The content on your proprietary website performs two separate, and extremely important, functions. The first is to attract visitors to your site through organic search; second, to generate interest and drive visitors ...
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In a stagnant economy, using the principles of revenue management can help hoteliers to maintain and build average rate and occupancy. Even in tough times, every hotel experiences periods of higher demand. ...
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Events commonly involve business travellers coming to unfamiliar cities with common questions: Where is my hotel? The convention centre? A particular restaurant? Or other sites of interest? What is that building in ...
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Look to industry partners beyond your borders for the finest spectrum of export-quality business practices.Consider this scenario: competent meeting planner makes perfectly good travel arrangements, airline bungles said travel arrangements, ...
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In 1989, Stephan Covey published a book entitled 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. If you haven’t read this book, I strongly suggest that you do. For me, it has made a ...
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I think it’s time to slow-down, sit-down, and evaluate the impact of the Internet on hotel sales. For the past several years, hotels have been scrambling to have a meaningful presence on ...
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For many independent hotels, electronically generated sales are the only viable tools to compete with franchised hotels. Yet, there are still many independent hoteliers who think that volume electronic sales are out ...
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Times are tough and, as a result, budgets tend to shrink. In times like this, more and more hoteliers are looking to the Internet and other electronic sales channels to generate new ...
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There’s only one way to know whether or not your website is doing its job and that is to check the number of reservations it’s generating. If you have an independent hotel, ...
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Electronic channels have changed hotel sales and marketing forever. Internet website marketing, social media, the Global Distribution System, and third-party aggregators have all presented new marketing opportunities to hotels around the world. ...
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Well, here we go again; the economy is in a state of flux. Downturn, slowed economy, recession; all the dreaded words come back to us once again. However, before you hit that ...
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Early this month, I had the privilege of speaking at the Travel Distribution Summit, sponsored by EyeforTravel Research in London. I was asked to present my thoughts on "Integrating Profit Optimization and ...
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If you are already a believer, your web site is now one of your hotel’s most robust revenue producers; in many cases, producing a third or more of total room revenue; with ...
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The Social Media, Web 2.0, is causing quite a stir in our industry; the articles keep flowing and many hoteliers are poised to capture their fair share of the millions of social ...
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After performing literally hundreds of website analyses, it amazes me how many hotel websites are either totally or partially dysfunctional. There are so many sites which are not in-step with even basic ...
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The Internet distribution channel has undoubtedly become the most important distribution channel in hospitality. Last year, 54.2% of overall CRS bookings for the top 30 hotel brands came from the Internet channel, ...
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To win in 2009, you will need your hotel’s website to contribute to your reservations production. So, here is a countdown of the Top Ten Tip-Offs that your hotel website needs attention. ...
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Limited service hotels have become indispensable to the hospitality industry, but they share a common dilemma when it comes to staying competitive on the Internet. They often have limited marketing funds and ...
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Today’s hotelier is faced with a big challenge: to capture and retain the attention of consumers who are constantly on-the-go and becoming increasingly aware of their control over the way they receive ...
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Writing articles, as often as I do, has opened up a completely new world of communication for me. I truly value the wonderful feedback and encouraging comments I have received from the ...
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This week, I read an article listing several suggested hotelier resolutions for 2009 but, like losing weight and quitting smoking, most resolutions lose steam after just a few days, as reality and ...
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I often wonder how many people truly understand the process of search engine optimization and what it means to have a search engine friendly web site. It seems to me, by the ...
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Hoteliers, we are already in that time of year again: marketing budget planning season. In this environment of uncertainty and mixed economic news, many hotel owners and operators are finding themselves in ...
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Imagine having the ability to change and update the content of your hotel's website on your own; change text, add information, that would be great. At the onset, it sounds terrific. No ...
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Carlson Wagonlit Travel (CWT), a global leader specializing in business travel management, and Tata Communications today announced they will team up to provide CWT Telepresence – an enhancement to the company’s broader ...
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Every now and then, I come across an article which is so self-serving and outrageous that I just can’t resist giving an alternative viewpoint. It was titled "Does your website have its ...
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I’ve read several articles lately which discuss rate building post recession. At least one of those articles provided suggestions which are completely opposite of acceptable revenue management principles. So, before you blindly ...
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Earlier this month I presented at EyeForTravel’s Online Marketing Strategies for Travel 2012 Conference in Miami. The session, titled "Best Practices for Mobile Strategies in 2012 and Beyond," focused on the expanding ...
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More than twenty years ago, I read a book about break-it marketing which, from that point on, influenced the way I view the hotel marketing process. Break-it marketing changes the way we ...
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In December 2010, TripAdvisor customer reviews disappeared from Google Places listings, causing a stir among hoteliers. Whereas a previous Google search for "hotels in West Hollywood" would have populated Google Places listings ...
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While 2010 was not quite the tough year the industry feared it would be, hoteliers still grappled with a number of challenging issues: a slowly recovering economy, the ever-changing world of social ...
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Back in December 2003, Smith Travel Research published a much discussed article titled, “The Billion Dollar Leak - The Impact of The Merchant Model on US Hotel Profits.” In this article the ...
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