A well thought out website will improve business for a hotel, guesthouse or bed and breakfast. Search for a hotel in any area of the UK on Google or Bing and chances are you will find many unprofessional looking websites with poor design, badly taken photographs and off putting colour schemes. There are 5 elements or web tools a good hotel website should have that will improve bookings and therefore increase revenue.
A good design
This goes without saying, the home page on a website is the shop window to your online business, a good design will catch and hold people’s attention and give them reason to navigate to other pages and content on the site. The design needs to be up-to-date with current trends including the use of a subtle and non-conflicting colour scheme, well taken clear images and image placement and a clean standard font. This website for example, it has a clean and modern design, large well shot photographs and a simple menu. This is the perfect example of a bad, out of date design. A recent survey found that 40% of traffic researching hotel accommodation ‘clicked away’ from a website due to its poor design and functionality.
Booking System
All hotel websites need a booking system 15% of all bookings are made online and is the number 1 purchased product/service on the internet. There are a number of 3rd party systems such as eviivo that will integrate into most existing websites. Some are free of charge and other will take a commission on the booking.
Links to review sites
87% of user researching hotel accommodation will use Trip Advisor to read reviews on a hotel or restaurant. Links to these reviews should be posted or embedded into your website. This would seem quite daunting as there could be a negative review about your establishment. Firstly use negative posts to improve your service, you may think that the rooms are a good temperature but if your guests think that it’s too hot them turn the heating down. Secondly users don’t trust reviews that are all positive, it looks fake. You can claim your listing on Trip Advisor, which is free and make sure that the information in correct, also communicate with the user who leave positive and negative reviews.
Photographs and Virtual Tours
A set of well shot images strategically placed or a gallery of photographs will help sell the hotel to visitors on the website. If a hotel is situated in an area with stunning views and beautiful scenery include images of the surrounding areas on the site. Virtual Tours will give the potential customer an immersive and interactive view of what the hotel has to offer. As part of a Social Media campaign you could allow customers to upload their own images to a page on Facebook.
Contact Details
Seems a simple idea but there are many hotel websites that don’t have the contact details in a prominent place. Make sure that they are easy to find, are correct and that there is always someone to answer the phone when it rings, do not allow it to go through to an answer machine, that is a lost sale as chances are they will not try again. Confirm any bookings made online by telephone or SMS and keep a data base of customers and people who have made enquiries for future marketing campaigns.
I have done some investigation here about Tripadvisor. I have worked with hotels for many years and this is what I can say for sure.
ReplyDeleteHotel owners, mostly independent hotels, have lost control of their industry. Third parties have taken over while having little or no investment. These third parties, i.e. Tripadvisor, Hotels.com, Expedia and Hotwire, all of which are owned by Barry Diller have turned the independent owner into a pawn by having the ability to manipulate the reviews in such a way that they can actually redirect customers without them even knowing it.
Now lets look at how Tripadvisor makes money. They make a % of every unit booked on Hotels.com, Expedia, Hotwire or an affiliate. No you say tripadvisor does not get a commission. Well kind of? They get a pay per click fee from most of their links. So the more they keep you going in circles the better. More clicks.
However Expedia, Hotwire and Hotels.com are owned by the same person that owns Tripadvisor. 25-35% of the hotel rate is what they get. Some hotels have contracts that are better for Expedia, etc. so you are now very cleverly directed to these hotels. How? By manipulating the reviews that is how. They remove negative reviews or hold back positive ones. Do they write them? No they just maneuver them. Which is the same thing in my book.
Also most of the time there is no discount at all. You just think you got one. Just check the room rate or call the hotel before booking and you will see that.
Now in the beginning these third parties were great for independent hotels because it got them in with the big boys on the web. Where can a small independent advertize. They could not take ads in every city in the world. So that was good in the start. However when Barry Diller saw the manipulation that was possible he began to purchase these companies and here we sit today all arguing with one another while he rakes in the cash.
The last thing that no one gets is this. Third parties have raised the price of rooms over the years. Hoteliers have adjusted prices to include their third parties commissions. Just a fact of doing business. As usual the angels become the devil and that what third party bookers have become.
Always call the hotel before booking. Because third party bookings get the worst rooms in a hotel because your booking is classified as a bargain hunter. If you book direct you get treated better and you have a direct relationship with the hotel not some third party that holds the hotel, less commission, funds for up to 30 days or more. Many times if there is a problem the hotel will tell Expedia to refund a guest payment. In that event what sometimes happens is the guest is told that the hotel would not refund the money. Then the hotel does not get the funds and Expedia keeps it all. No you say! They would not do that! Well let me show you how far they will go. Lets say you book a $100.00 + tax and the Hotel is paid $70.00 + tax. Where do you think the tax on $30.00 goes. Nowhere Expedia keeps it. Now if a company will cheat every city in the world out of sales taxes what do you think they will do to you. "BARRY DILLER" you are a piece of work!