Digital Marketing Directions
The Key Trends Driving Your
Hotel Marketing Next Year
Tim Peter (@tcpeter)
President, Tim Peter & Associates

“We always
overestimate the
change that will
occur in the next
two years and
underestimate the
change that will
occur in the next
ten.”

These are “the good ol’ days”

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PKF-HR STR/Tourism Economics PwC
2016 RevPAR Growth
RevPAR forecast strong through 2016

So why aren’t we all happier?

17
million

Mobile isn’t a trend
Trend #1:

It’s a way of life

2/3rds US population own smartphones

• Meet the “Net Set”
– Largest demographic… or
will be by end of this year
– Natively mobile: 86% of
consumers aged 25-32
own smartphones
– More smartphone-owning
Millennials expect brands
to have a mobile-friendly
website or app (55%)
than a social media
presence (39%)

• The “Net Set” travels
– 32% of US travelers
– Business travel, too: largest
share of workforce (34%)
– Approximately 20 million
(~45%) still to enter
workforce over next 3-4
years
– 49% “plan/book” on
mobile devices
– Half of Millennials travel
with children

50% of 65+ own smartphones

More people own mobile phones than own toothbrushes

You host more devices than guests

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"Price for iPhone 6 Plus" Relative Computing Power

5 year old phone worth around 1/10th its original price

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iPhone 6 Plus Price Relative Computing Power

Verizon testing 5G in 2016 (30-50x faster than 4G)

Makes instant gratification real

Driving huge shift in guest expectations

Who’s meeting those expecations?

Drowning in content
Trend #2:

2+ million search queries

204,000,000 e-mails sent

120+ reviews

28,000 photos

30 hours of video uploaded

100,000 tweets

208,000 photo uploads

Competing in the age of the selfie

We’re all publishers now

Disruptive distribution
Trend #3:

Predic've

“Much more importantly than a
source of transactions, mobile is a
chance to plumb the end-to-end
user experience… Say you are
looking for an accommodation
on an iPad but then you book on
a PC. But, then you show up at
the hotel with your iPhone. All of
that is plumbed to an account...” –
Darren Huston, Priceline CEO

“I think of mobile in the short
term as a positive to drive
some bookings, but really in
the longer term it is
increasing our value to the
customer that would be very
difficult for an independent
hotel to do.” – Darren Huston,
Priceline CEO

Priceline activity
• BookingSuite
– Buuteeq (hotel websites and booking
engines)
– HotelNinjas (PMS)
– Pricematch (RMS)
• Rocketmiles (Loyalty)
• OpenTable
• Kayak
• AS Digital (restaurant booking)
• Marriott white-label booking engine (ar, it,
pt-br, ru)

Amazon Local Offers to Prime members

• What
is
your
company
truly
be7er
at?
42

Google
has
rich
data
sets
about
guests
Who else has lots of data?

And
growing…
But, Google feeling pressure too

Happy yet?

“Your margin is my opportunity.”
– Jeff Bezos, CEO, Amazon

Your response

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PKF-HR STR/Tourism Economics PwC
2016 RevPAR Growth
Drive rate, control costs

Content is, was, and always shall be king

Context
is
Queen
Context is queen

Data is the crown jewels

• Two goals:
– Content
quality
– Content
velocity

Snackable
Sharp
Shareable
© 2015 Tim Peter & Associates, LLC

“Sights, sound and
motion get attention
and inspires. A product
manager for a
prominent OTA told me
that despite all the
conversion testing they
run, the one universal
truth is ‘pretty pictures
sell hotels.’” - Robert
Cole

Action Yes/No?
Media channels selected?
Media channels align with target customer?
Image? Is it shareable?
Headline? Is it shareable? Will it fit in a tweet?
Copy? Snackable? Sharp?
Hashtag? Shareable?
Can hashtag be turned against us? (“Bashtag”)
Mobile?
Which social channels are used by target customer?
Monitoring in-place?
Tracking in-place?
URL shortener?
Social integration scorecard

“Mobile-only” world: Learn from the leaders

• Why not put them to work for
you?
– 100 room hotel
– 60% occupancy
– 1.4 guests/room
– 31,000 annual “storytellers”
• “Treat each one like a VIP
travel writer…. because they
are” – Adele Gutman, Vice
President Sales, Marketing,&
Revenue at Library Hotel
Collection

Pricing Power
(ADR)
Demand
(Occupancy)
Performance
(RevPAR)
All +0.8% +0.2% +0.96%
Upscale +0.67% +0.19% +0.83%
Upper Midscale +0.74% +0.42% +1.13%
Midscale +0.89% +0.54% +1.42%
Measured change in pricing power, demand, and performance given a 1% change in online reputation
Source: Cornell Center for Hospitality Research
Review quality leads to increased RevPAR

• Real-world says so too
– Achieved top positions in
TripAdvisor, Yelp, social
channels for multiple hotel
clients
– Occupancy index improved to
95-105
– ADR index improved to
107-180
– RevPAR index improved to
109-169
– Growth above comp set
– Reduced or held OTA share
below 10%

Visual
Informa'on
Specialist
Jason
Johnston/U.S.
Army

• Key takeaways:
– Invest in content quality
and velocity: Snackable,
shareable, sharp
– Grow your reach beyond
Google and metasearch –
they’re the same thing
– Use data to learn and
grow
– Guest experience drives
rate and return

Make these truly “the good ol’ days”

Thank
You
Web: timpeter.com
Phone: 201-305-0055
Email: tim@timpeter.com
Twitter: twitter.com/tcpeter