TravHQ » hotel marketing

How hotels can use video to market themselves on Digital Platforms

admin — Mon, 18 Feb 2019 04:07:26 +0000

There’s no better way for hotels to tell stories than videos, the engagement is high and brand gets a huge upliftment if videos are made in a compelling format.

Featured here is a video done for Radisson Noida, an upscale boutique hotel to promote Ni Hao, an Asian Cuisine restaurant in Noida (India). Are you a boutique hotel? How are you using videos to convey the story of your hotel? We would love to hear your story.

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Stay On Skill launches India’s first marketing accelerator for homestays

Debarati Dasgupta — Sat, 25 Aug 2018 04:00:58 +0000

One organization that has been tirelessly working on bringing together the unorganised and fragmented homestay segment and increasing focus on this space, is Stay On Skill. The company that tries to find a way to let you travel more while minimising the hit on your credit card, is now launching India’s first marketing accelerator that will help homestays skyrocket their customer base, revenue and brand value in an intensive three-month programme.

Each month Stay On Skill will send three selected travel influencers to a homestay, where they will experience the offerings of the property and promote it on their respective social media channels. Additionally, every month there’ll be Masterclasses by experts on different topics to help them grow their business. From customized marketing strategies, to analysis of online presence, Stay on Skill will ensure that by the end of these three months, the properties would have not only increased their reach but also understood the nitty-gritty of marketing themselves better.

TravHQ spoke to Arjun Tuli, founder of Stay On Skill, about the programme and the company’s plans of giving homestays across India a much-needed social boost.

1. What was the trigger behind launching an accelerator programme?

Stay On Skill in the last one year has helped numerous commercial properties in different aspects. Duing all of this one thing that we have realised it – hotels and homestays in India are popping up like wild mushrooms. In the city of Ooty itself there are more than 2000 hotels (and these are just the ones that are listed online). Across India, more than 1,75,000 properties are taking online bookings. Amid all of this, the problem is – how do you make people know that you exist? Listing on platforms like Airbnb or Booking.com doesn’t ensure you visibility or bookings. If your property shows up on the second page of Airbnb, you might as well forget that prospective customers will get to know about you. One good way to stand out from the crowd is to create a brand for yourself digitally – through social media, blogging, and video creation. But unfortunately, most homestays or hotels are not much aware of to how to go about it. Our analysis show that many of them in the past have been cheated by fake bloggers and instagram influencers, who either don’t have authentic following or high traffic.

So, at Stay On Skill, we decided to make these things transparent for properties and provide them some real value. The idea behind the accelerator is to help the deserving properties get the visibility they deserve, and the complete three-month program is designed around that. We won’t only be sending curated travel influencers to their property, but also teaching them how to make more revenue through different digital marketing techniques, and how to perform well on booking portals.

2. What according to you are the benefits of having such accelerator programmes in place in the travel industry?

On a broader scale benefits would include –
1) Properties gain visibility.
2) They get access to star influencers who have the ability to make their property go viral.
3) They get access to Masterclasses on different aspects of Social Media, Digital Marketing, Web Booking, so that after the accelerator they can take forward the learnings and start executing it themselves.
4) Build a brand value – when some good influencers get associated with your property, it creates a great brand value for you. (Unfortunately, most properties don’t know how to capitalise on that)
5) Increased brand value and visibility leading to increase in revenue.

3. What are the long-term gains that you see arising from this programme?

In these three months, Stay On Skill will provide the properties a great exposure in terms of visibility and brand value. Although visibility is short lived, brand value is not. If the properties can cash in on this brand value, it will have a long term effect on the kind of customers they attract.

The properties also gain immense knowledge from the Masterclasses. Each Masterclass is designed to provide specific insights to the property owners, that they can use to enrich the experience of their customers, and thereby increase their revenue. The knowledge from these won’t run out with time. If you execute it, you are bound to gain and add a lasting value to your business.

4. Big brands like Expedia and Marriott have already conducted accelerator programmes for their listed hotels, or improving customer experience. Is yours the first-of-its-kind offering for homestays?

If you go through the accelerator program by Expedia, it was aimed at moving hotels higher up in ranking on their own portal by giving an additional 10% cut in the bookings.
There was no addition to the property in terms of brand value, digital exposure or knowledge.

Stay On Skill accelerator is built around a completely different value addition. We are highly selective in the properties that we chose for the accelerator. We have limited them to just 10. The idea is provide them the maximum benefit through exposure and sharing our learning of this industry.

The Stay On Skill accelerator is not just limited to homestays. It’s open to hotels as well, as long as they fulfill our acceptance criteria – there should be something unique about the property – which we analyse basis the different parameters of stay, lodging, food, culture and experience.

5. How is homestay marketing expanding and evolving, particularly in India?

The homestay market in India is expanding at a faster rate than it ever was, especially in the areas of Himachal, Uttarakhand – where the locals are now realising the potential that tourism holds. For locals, getting into the tourism industry also means that you are not investing your time in doing activities like drugs, and tourism has helped a lot in that perspective – giving employment to many.

6. Isn’t there a fear that if the properties don’t get conversions in terms of revenue, despite the huge reach that you are promising, they may come back to you disappointed?

Not really. What Stay On Skill is really good at is providing the properties with immense visibility at a very low cost of investment. Thereby, helping them build a brand and name for themselves in the industry. Along with this, we equip the properties with knowledge required to convert the leads into customers. But if after this conversion doesn’t happen, then it means there’s some other aspect of the property that is lacking, which we need to identify and help overcome – which we shall do.

And this particular batch of the Stay On Skill accelerator is Not For Profit . All that we’ll be receiving from the properties will go towards payment of the bloggers, influencers, graphic designers and social media experts – we won’t be making a profit of a single penny from it.

7. What are Stay On Skill’s future plans regarding this programme?

We started the Stay On Skill accelerator as medium to share our knowledge and expertise with the properties and help them benefit from it. If we are able to make it happen at a small scale of 10 properties, next time around we’ll try to make an effort to reach a wider audience and help more properties benefit from it.

The application for the first batch closes on August 31. If you are a homestay or a hotel looking to increase your digital presence, apply here – http://stayonskill.com/accelerator.html.

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In conversation with Christina Spykerman, Executive Vice President of Worldhotels Asia Pacific, on how they help hotels reach out to the world

Debarati Dasgupta — Wed, 13 Dec 2017 03:50:11 +0000

As digital technology conspicuously makes its way into the marketing and promotional strategies of the hospitality industry, more and more hotels are beginning to look at cost-efficient strategies to drive business. Amidst various avenues that offer greater product visibility and customer reach, Worldhotels, a global sales, marketing and distribution company, is taking the game one notch higher by not just providing hoteliers a sales platform, but also giving their marketing efforts a boost through their technology and long-standing expertise.

We spoke to Christina Spykerman, Executive Vice President at Worldhotels, about how they are helping independent hotels reach the world, without losing their unique flavour.

Tell us something about the company’s history.
We’ve been around for 47 years, essentially half a century. I think if you look at the basis of the birth of our company, it came from one man’s vision of wanting to maintain the unique flavour and the independence of a singular hotel, a small group hotel against the big brands. We were actually born out of necessity, and we head back to the days of Steigenberger. If you’ve heard of the famous German brand Steigenberger Hotels & Resorts, an international brand hotel opened directly across his landmark Steigenberger and in order to actually give himself a platform to compete, the Steigenberger family put together a number of independent hotels, to actually come together and formulate a strategy so that they could actually play in that same competitive field, and not lose their appeal and business.

We were recently acquired, in February this year, by Associated Luxury Hotels. They have also been in this business for a long time, more than 30 years, but their focus is on the MICE business. When they looked at us, they felt we were a perfect complement to what they offer because they didn’t have corporate sales, they didn’t have leisure sales.

What we offer for independent hotels costs a lot of money otherwise. You cannot afford to miss an opportunity just because you don’t have deep pockets like an international brand. That’s where we come in, for instance offering GDS codes, for what we feel would be an extremely competitive price offering. If you want to go into partnerships, not every partner wants to work with an individual hotel. Moreover, a grouping of hotels gives you economies of scale and it’s also much easier to have one central point of contact. So, with that, we offer a lot of benefits, not only from the sales front, but also from the marketing aspect. We’ve kept a booking engine for them, so it allows their inventory to be distributed right across and for them to be easily booked on the online platforms. At the same time we have a team of experienced, savvy sales professionals, who are also assisting them with the corporate business and a group of marketing professionals who help you ensure that your message is out there.

So, your marketing efforts supplement the independent hotelier’s marketing efforts?
Yes, sometimes, for independent hotels, their marketing efforts may be more restrictive because you don’t have that much money to put into so many things. Whereas on our part, we have different offices, we also have different PR companies in different regions – we are able to reach a wider audience. Our sales offices have their own touch points with their clients so, we know how to match you with the correct kind of client.

About two years ago, we embarked on a program called ‘Start with Why’. If you’ve ever read this book ‘Start with Why’ by Simon Sinek, it actually asked businesses to stop where they’re at, and stop doing what the norm is. He engineered the whole concept of reverse thinking where you should stop and focus on what is the guest experience you wish to deliver and then you work out all processes in line to ensure it is delivered. That’s what we’ve been doing and we have invested a lot in the one-day workshops. A lot of our hotels have attested to the fact that this has produced a lot of positive feedback. Many of them have seen a significant change in the way their staff approach the guests, and also approach any potential issues they may have. They find that their TripAdvisor ratings have gone up. The staff also take on a lot more personal responsibility in wanting to deliver that experience. We already have more than 120 hotels do this program with us and we are now moving into the second stage of this initiative.

Are these workshops single-focused workshops for all the hotels?
It is individual; each hotel derives their own blueprint. The team itself derives the basis of who they are, what they are all about and what is it that they want to deliver to clients. When it comes from them, they show more commitment to the whole strategy, compared to someone telling you what to do. This is something we’ve found has picked up momentum and we have requests for going into the next stage – training your WHY ambassador.

Do the independent hotels come directly to you? For instance, there has been a huge debate about whether to go directly to hotels or use an OTA. How do you tackle such kind of challenges?
First of all this is an issue that every hotel is facing. We do have partnerships with OTAs; I think that is unavoidable. But for all our hotels, every hotel actually has a dedicated account manager, helping them review their rate strategies, and what is performing in terms of your business segments, where can you actually drive better business and greater revenues. At the same time, for us, we look at all aspects of the business. If for example, a hotel is too heavily weighed on OTAs, we will review with the hotel – is there any other way that you can lower your dependency? You do not need to cut them out completely but is there a better balance where you can get a higher paying business segment coming in to you, while still maintaining sustainable levels of OTA business? If you put all your eggs in one basket, it’s very dangerous so we help you optimize your business and make sure you are able to maximize the revenue of every channel available to you.

We also realize that it’s not easy to go into the digital world and there are different levels for different markets. We have a strategy here called World Online and we have subject matter specialists, the digital account managers, who focus on your online business, reviewing it, and checking whether you are optimizing certain aspects of your website, where are you investing your dollars in the online space, where else can you actually look at doing your business that might get you better returns, and more.

Are the digital account managers from the representative hotels?
No, we appoint them on our own, and they work with the hotels and the e-commerce team at the hotel level, as well as the revenue people to ensure they are doing the correct analysis and audits.

The appointment of the digital manager would also be as per choice of the hotel?
No, the hotel does not choose who will be their digital account manager. We have one for Americas, one for EMEA and one for APAC, since we look at time differences. When people are doing things on digital, they are not going to wait because you are in a different time zone. You also need people who are savvy, not just on the technical front, but who are knowledgeable about the market. That is why we’ve got them within the regions in itself.

One Digital account manager will be working with multiple hotels?
Yes.

Is there a close collaboration between the representative from Worldhotels and independent hotel? A lot of hotels have people within their team or a digital agency to take care of this.
I think we enhance it even further because sometimes at the hotel level you may have someone who is very savvy, but because ours takes on a much wider scope from a regional, global kind of base, they also bring greater value to the whole proposition.
Is facilitation for booking a standard integration with your partner hotels or does it vary case to case? Because some of the hotels might have their own booking engines.
Yes, but almost all our hotels use our booking engines because our affiliation fees covers a number of aspects; not just the sales and the marketing aspects but also distribution. When a hotel actually comes on board with us, there is a whole entire process where we integrate everything. Even throughout the entire membership phase you are with us, you always have access to us. There are regular audits and webinars conducted as well.

We do constant and regular training in our ‘Academy’ and there are also updates and upgrades. We also assist the hotels in helping them retain staff because some staff are constantly looking for new learning. You need to invest in your people so this is where we offer those additional services which give a lot of value.

Do you also help independent hotels find unique partners?
We have a number of existing relationships, so we do have the consortium partnerships where there is American Express, Carlson Rezidor etc. We also have the frequent flyer partnerships. So all these are partnership deals that have been done by Worldhotels, which the affiliate hotels can take advantage of. We also work with a number of other partners so our hotels are able to benefit from a greater level of discount that we have negotiated as a partnership privilege. In our annual conference, we bring our hotels and partners together, so they have the opportunity to meet each other, network, or even work together.

How do hotels qualify for this program?
We have a dedicated department, hotel development, that looks into any request that we have, besides us actively looking for hotels to fulfill inventory in a particular city. We are quite strict about our criteria – to qualify for this, they have to meet a certain number of standards, we rate them on close to 1,000 points before we consider them. We are respectful of our hotels, so we ensure we don’t cannibalize business within a specific territory.

Do you have competing hotels on your portfolio?
I believe we don’t quite have that. Firstly, the hotel must be a good fit for our portfolio, and we must drive value to the hotels. We don’t want short-term relationships where we take you on but don’t deliver to you. At the end of the day, we want our hotels to be happy and we should be able to deliver on our promise.

Which is your biggest market in Asia?
If you look at groupings, the largest group would be in China, followed by Australia. Japan is there as well, but spread over different cities.

One burning problem that hotels would like to rectify and you can help them with?
They all want reach, the right target audience at the right price. That is where we come in. If you are on your own, you can’t be everywhere for everybody. But we have 30 sales offices. We are where you can’t be.

One trend that will potentially disrupt the hotel industry?
It has got to be digital. At the end of the day, people will move to what is the more efficient platform. Then how do you figure what is the right one for you? You talk about chat bot and AI and in some markets some people are open to it, but not everywhere. For us it is to help our hotels make sense of what is there in the market, focus on what potentially can deliver most to them at that point in time, and also prepare them for what is actually coming in the future, because it is our business.

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Join the best travel marketers at TravelNEXUS

Akshay Sharma — Mon, 23 Jan 2017 10:30:25 +0000

Travel is competitive. The number of travellers has grown significantly and proportionally has grown the number of resources available for them to better plan and experience their travel. Often, to cater to these travellers, interesting products come up. However, with so many brands, big and small, competing to reach the right set of travellers, it is often a steep climb for most.

Even with so many options available to the modern traveller and plethora of Facebook pages, there are always some brands that stand out. The ones which we can instantly connect with. Then there are bloggers who pluck the right strings with their stories. The ones who have an army of loyal followers eagerly waiting to read about the next adventure, not just to learn something new but to feel like a part with the stories. What is it that puts these people and brands where they are? What are they doing differently that you should take inspiration from?

We will try to find the answers to these questions and many others at our upcoming event TravelNEXUS. The TravelNEXUS summit will bring the best marketers, tourism boards, travel professionals and content creators from across the country together under one roof. The objective is to help them learn from the best in business and provide a platform to explore new synergies to grow together.

We have an array of discussions and keynotes lined up where domain experts will join us to share their learnings and insights. The day will start with panel discussions on travel blogging and how it is evolving globally. This will be followed by workshop that will put light on the best practices for destinations brands to leverage influencer marketing to their advantage and then for travel startups to get the word out in their early days.

Following the discussions, there will be keynote on how travel and hospitality companies can tailor well for the millions looking at Google to plan their trips. A keynote that will offer insights on unlocking the maximum potential of social channels will follow. We are also offering brands and destination marketers to use the event as an opportunity to showcase their work to masses. If your creative experiments with your brand can serve as inspiration for others, you should sign up here.

Full schedule

The event is supported by hospitality partner Ramada Gurgaon Central and travel partner Plush Escapes. Plush Escapes is a platform for travellers to go off the beaten path to discover unique experiences and getaways. Leading social media portal Social Samosa will also bring its expertise to the event.

The event was originally scheduled to be held on March 25, 2017 at Ramada Gurgaon Central however, we have to reschedule due to some unavoidable circumstances. New event date will be communicated soon. You can register yourself for the event here. Feel free to reach out to us through our social channels or write to tanu.arora@travhq.com for any queries you may have.

Registration link

Update March 17, 2017- Event date to be rescheduled.

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Hyatt celebrates business travellers who never settle with its new campaign

Akshay Sharma — Fri, 09 Sep 2016 08:00:26 +0000

Hyatt today launches its first-ever dual-branded marketing campaign, ‘You’ve Come Too Far to Settle Now,’ for the Hyatt Place and Hyatt House brands. The campaign is targeted at business travellers who, according to their research, have low expectations of select service hotels and want a hotel that allows them to be productive on the go.

With the message of ‘You’ve come too far to settle now’, the video campaign celebrates the travellers who are on the top of their game and don’t have to settle for average hotels with usual services. The campaign features people who actually represent that to be the voice.

This is a slightly different approach when compared to otherwise run of the mill business hotel ads that highlight the amenities like Wi-Fi and large lobbies that business travellers look for. Instead, it highlights the key audience of the brand to spark an emotional connect with them.

“We want to show our guests who travel tirelessly and passionately for business that we understand them and they shouldn’t have to settle when they’re on the road,” said Sandra Cordova Micek, senior vice president of global brands, Hyatt. “Today, business travelers are traveling with purpose – whether that’s making a sale, getting a promotion or building new relationships. They never settle and neither do we, which is why Hyatt Place and Hyatt House hotels are designed around business travelers to make their journey easier, more productive and successful.”

As another part of campaign, Hyatt is bringing in #WhySettle Spirit Awards. The Hyatt Place and Hyatt House brands will be honouring real people who fit the theme. Starting October 5, 2016, people will be able to nominate their colleagues, family and friends for the awards. More information will be available on their Facebook pages on October 5.

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Here is how individual hotels can stay competitive against hotel chains

Akshay Sharma — Sat, 28 May 2016 09:00:34 +0000

Hoteliers always keep exploring ways to give their business a boost and increase occupancy rates. However the industry is highly competitive and they often keep facing the heat from other segments like alternative accommodation. The challenge is even bigger for individual hotel properties which are in the same game without the kind of resources that hotel chains have. We look at how these individual hotels can leverage technology and digital to stay competitive against the chains.

1- Open up channels

Just having a phone number and email ID won’t cut it anymore. Weigh down all the options you can offer your customer to reach you and start with the best ones. Whatsapp or Facebook Messenger could be a good start point. People who are on the move might not prefer picking up the phone and making a call to place a request and will prefer chat as a medium in many cases.

2- Build a character

While it is true for almost anyone on social media platforms, it is easier for relatively smaller independent hotels to implement. They have got more freedom on how they present themselves offline as well as online as compared to the hotel chains which have to stay in sync with the brand character. Pick the key traits and start highlighting them on social media one at a time.

3- Invite reviews

Even after an excellent stay, most of the guests won’t go to review platforms like TripAdvisor to give you a positive review. Review platforms are your friends as an increased ranking there will significantly affect the number of incoming guests. You can explore different ways to remind your guests to review you on Trip Advisor. A QR Code to the listing page on the bill or a thank you text after the stay with the link could be good for start but it would pay to be more creative with how you ask for reviews.

4- Channelize the negatives

Some guests are more demanding than the others and might not be very happy with the experience. Sometimes guests are unhappy due to incorrect expectations. Whatever be the case, keep all your communication channels open for your guests and encourage them to share any problems they face immediately. This would allow you to avoid a potentially negative review and even turn it into a positive one. There are some tools that allow hotels to invite feedback through the Wi-Fi landing page however we are not certain about the effectiveness of such tools.

5- Tech up

Personalisation goes a long way in enriching the customer experience and while most good hotels ensure that for their frequent guests, IoT technologies can also aid in the process by providing more actionable data. Hotels can explore the option of keyless entry and mobile check-ins. This would not only boost the customer experience but also attract new tech savvy guests to the property. While the investment would be high, implementation would be easier and quicker than across hotel chains.

6- Make friends

Explore potential partnerships to expand the offerings beyond just accommodation. For instance, you can associate with some quality activity providers in the region and offer them as a part of stay packages at your property. You can also leverage each other’s marketing channels to reach different audience at times. This way, you will be able to reach new customers while being able to offer more than just hotel rooms to your guests.

How else do you think individual properties can compete with hotel chains? Do share with us.

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