Since the iPad came out, it’s become a must-have for hoteliers. Seduced by the wow-factor, they saw instantly how they could use it as a marquee item in their properties.
Sales teams and managers also saw how they could be used as tool for presentations: have you been to a conference recently and not seen lots of people armed with iPads? Thought not.
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As someone who has been building hotel websites for the last 10 years, i’ve seen my fair share of mistakes — i may even have made some of them in the past! Avoid these issues, and you’ll be on your way to an effective website that persuades visitors to become bookers.
Mistake 1: No Balance
Some sites are all images; other sites are all text with lousy images. Try to strike a balance — visitors have different drivers, needs, and motivations: some will be won over by great images; others may not care, they want the facts. A well balanced site should cater to both of these needs, and appeal to both user groups. Read the rest of this entry »
In Asia, we have a less developed online travel market than in Europe and the US. This means there are no dominant players like Expedia, Travelocity, Orbitz, and Priceline.
The nearest we get to that is Zuji, which is the Asian offshoot of Travelocity. However, this serves limited markets, and under different brands, which doesn’t give it the mindshare of the 4 dominant players in the US and Europe. Priceline has Agoda, but apparently, it contributes only 3% of Priceline’s turnover. (Interestingly, Priceline has Booking.com as well as Agoda, what’s the story with the branding there?) Ctrip is big in China, has a very innovative business model (users can book online but pay offline, which gets round low credit card penetration, and a historical reluctance about online payments), but it has very little reach outside China.
I’m fascinated by booking engines. A few years back i was involved in a large project to build a booking engine for Accor in Asia Pacific, and through all the pain of building a usable, profitable solution from this maze of rates and allocations, with availability stretching 700+ days into the future for 200+ hotels, i was captivated by the complexity and challenge of it. It’s also given me an insight into the crucial role of booking engines in an effective online presence for hotels. Read the rest of this entry »
Too often, setting up and maintaining email is a burden for hotels. Small and even large chains struggle to provide reliable email (it’s not unheard of even for large chains to have email problems that last several days). Even when email is available, spam filtering can be difficult to control — either too much spam (does the world really need so much Vi@gra?) — or too little (customers unable to contact you, agents forced to reach for the fax machine!).
This is a common one. I’ve been building hotel websites for clients for 10 years now, and a common request is to make them multilingual. However, there are 2 particular issues you need to look out for.
Firstly, have you thought about how much it costs to create the copy in a 2nd language? Were you thinking about freelancing it, or getting a member of staff who speaks the language to translate it? Think again. Consider how long you agonised over every single word in English, to get exactly the right copy, the right persuasive tone, that would bring you more bookings. Are you going to get the same perfect, persuasive text in a second language? It costs money to do the job right! Think copywriting in the 2nd language, not just translation. Read the rest of this entry »
Most hotels need to make a choice about a 3rd-party booking engine at some stage, unless they’re part of a medium to large chain: most users expect to be able to make a booking online in realtime, so having a contact form is often not enough. There is so much choice in 3rd-party booking engines, not just in functionality, but also in business model. Clients often ask for advice in this crucial area. Here are a few considerations.
Posted today on the Keen blog about the huge number of people using their mobile phones to read email newsletters. It’s crucial that your email newsletters are formatted so that they are readable on mobile devices, because on a hotel company’s list of over 60,000 users i looked at, over 20% were reading on their iPhones — only Hotmail was more popular, and Outlook was a distant third. Make sure you’re not missing out on this opportunity, and test your email newsletters on mobile devices whenever possible!
http://www.discoverkeen.com/idea/Emails-for-mobile-are-you-ignoring-20-of-your-users-.php
Anthony Green – August 2010
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