This document discusses how hotels can better understand what drives guests to choose their property. It emphasizes tracking guests by season, source of booking, market, and company to understand what factors influenced their decision. Hotels should analyze this data along with competitive intelligence and market trends to optimize marketing. New technologies like mobile apps, social media, and CRM tools can provide insights into guests and help hotels tailor their offerings to attract more business.

1. What drives guests to your hotel?

2. ◦ Guest Tracking
 By Season, Source, Market or Company?
◦ Why/How guests heard about your hotel property?
 Referral, Advertising, Online
◦ How to find this information (besides asking them directly)
 Online Market Tools that can help!
◦ Competitive Intelligence
 How it helps your hotel stay up to date on trends & demand
◦ Understanding ‘Market Drivers’
 How people actually decided on your hotel may surprise you.

3. ◦ Guest Tracking: What brought them to your hotel & why?
◦ Was it something you did? A special package or event going on in the area? All
Key Factors when you forecast for the future.
◦ For hotel companies, social media has essentially become a sanctioned
form of eavesdropping. “Hotels have trained their staff to be intense
listeners and dig up information about their guests. This gives them a
whole new realm in which to listen.”
 Season: Understanding demand & pricing appropriately is CRUCIAL
 Source: How was the reservation made? Online, Mobile, Call-in?
 Libra On Demand software: Aids in “customer relationship management,” or CRM.
“Libra acts as a one-stop shop for searching guests on Google, LinkedIn, Facebook,
Twitter, and other channels.”
 Market: Group, Leisure, Tour, Government, Corporate
 Very Important that every guest is tracked accordingly to their length of stay, reason
for staying & their rate.
 Company: If a guest works for a company it‟s very important to get that
company information because there‟s opportunities for more biz!

4. ◦ Top 3 Keys to Hotel Distribution
1. MOBILE: This trend is number one for a reason
 Take advantage of this trend with an excellent mobile site designed to get your mobile visitors to
the answers they are looking for quickly and efficiently, with the ability to book on every page.
 Think of mobile as its own channel so you can offer special rates, promotions, product
descriptions as well as tracking specifically for this market.
 Correct information on the main booking sites: They all funnel information from each other.

Hotels.com, Booking.com, Orbitz, Travelocity, Expedia, Hotwire, Priceline
 Work with sites with geo-location services such as Foursquare, Facebook, TripAdvisor, and Yelp
to offer promotions.
 Participate in the free marketing programs that many of these sites offer, such as adding links to
your website and other social media accounts, uploading pictures or offering check-in deals and
specials.
 Optimize your location for mapping and mobile search. Consider running a mobile targeted
AdWords campaign with click to call and tailor your message to mobile users.

5. ◦ Top 3 Keys to Hotel Distribution
MOBILE: QR Codes are the newest thing that everyone is using to make life easier
 You can create a QR Code for any website you want
 Just go to http://www.qrstuff.com/ enter the link & it gives you a QR Code
 Helps „funnel‟ your guests to the right place & increases their chances of returning!

6. ◦ Top 3 Keys to Hotel Distribution
2. SOCIAL MEDIA: You can create a QR Code for any website you want
 By now, hopefully everyone has an active presence on at least Facebook or Twitter, if not other
channels.
 You use these to engage and retain fans of your brand.
 The next question is, are you using social media to convert?
 In the past year, social media channels such as Facebook have created more and more
opportunities for hotel marketers to use social media as an extension of their direct-to-consumer
strategy.
 Some areas to consider to help your business grow through your social media efforts:

7. ◦ Top 3 Keys to Hotel Distribution
3. CHANNEL MANAGEMENT:
 Even though hotels do not want to be dependent on third parties/OTAs, there is still a
value to these partnerships in the overall marketing and distribution landscape.
 The Billboard Effect tells us that 23% more bookings direct to brand websites when
associated with OTAs (online travel agents)
 The average online travel consumer
 Spends 10 searching sessions over an average of five weeks before a reservation is finally made
 Visiting at least 20 websites in total.
Your strategy:
 Embrace the research & execute
 Participate is as much as possible
 Require Results-Accountability -Performance
 Offer consistent rates across all channels

8. ◦ Why/How guests heard about your hotel property?
◦ Tracking: Make sure you‟re tracking how a guest stayed with you if it‟s
a special you‟ve been running. (GC‟s-Vouchers)
 Referrals: Special Notes in reservation, pay close attention to rate
 Advertising: Require a „code‟ to receive special rate (helps tracking)
 Online: Specials, Packages or Deals you may be running

9. ◦ Where’s the business coming from?
◦ Hotel Tools at your fingertips: Are you utilizing them 100%?

10. Examples of what to look for & how to break it down & understand it!
 E-Commerce Reports
 Marketing, Revenue, Performance Reports
 Overall CRS (Central Reservation System)
 MTD/YTD Performance Statistics
 E-brochures
 GDS Travel Agents – Voice Call Centers
 3rd Party Referral Websites:
 Hotels.com, Expedia, TravelWeb, Travelocity, Orbitz, Booking.com
 Referring Websites:
 Google, Room Key, Bing, Kayak

13.  Central Reservation System (CRS)

16. Biggest Hotel Concerns from Managers & Owners

Not only are we trying to figure out where the business is coming from & why on a daily
basis, but we‟re also being challenged to keep up with the new trends so we‟re not left
behind.
You’re NOT ALONE!


Today‟s hotel marketing landscape is changing rapidly
A recent survey of Sabre Hospitality customers revealed that understanding new
distribution and marketing trends presented one of the top challenges to their business.
◦ Other Concerns: Who is responsible for keeping track of all this information?
◦ Is it on file somewhere, is it organized & would your hotel be in trouble if that person left?

17. ◦ Competitive Intelligence
 How it helps your hotel stay up to date on trends & demand
 Shows You How To Differentiate
 Through competitive intelligence reporting, you can track and analyze the
marketing and communication strategy of your competitors. By staying current with
their messaging, press releases, and social strategy, you can capitalize on areas that
your competitors are executing poorly, and make your company stand out.
 Alerts You To New Trends
 Your competition can alert you to larger market trends that you may have missed
previously.
 It can also alert you to lack of demand signaling that it is time to make changes or
stop certain campaigns or specials completely
 Helps with Timing
 If you enter at the right time you can pummel the competition

18. ◦ Understanding ‘Market Drivers’
 How people actually decided on your hotel may surprise you.
 Could be as simple as a positive (or negative) online review
 Might come down to how well your FD Attendant ‘sells’ them.
 Visual Content Marketing: Some guests prefer ‘pictures’ over material
 Make your hotel as ‘attractive’ as possible!
 Run great specials, deals, promotions or ‘fun facts’ to keep interest high!

19. STR Reports:
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Market Forecasting
Trend Reports
Pipeline Reports