35 percent of leisure travelers engaged in travel-related video activities within the past six months. Online video has become one of the most important elements to marketing destinations, hotels, and travel. Travel is an immersive experience and video has always been a great medium to sell it. Thanks to advances in technology, today's video options are more affordable and marketable than traditional video. READ MORE

Although hotel marketers have not as a rule incorporated product placement or branded entertainment into their marketing mix, there are a few examples of hotels that have successfully employed these marketing tactics to gain exposure and attract guests through the mediums of film, television or the Internet. This article identifies the critical success factors necessary for effective communications of this nature, taking a closer look at the use of product placement and branded entertainment by hotels. The article presents several examples of hotels that have partnered with producers of television, film and digital content to present engaging stories that appeal to potential guests. READ MORE

The proliferation of China's outbound tourism, while something you should definitely take notice of, is serving to overshadow India's vast growth in this same area. The nation is expected to not only make incredible gains in GDP per capita, but also in the volume of outbound travelers. However, even though India represents a lucrative market for hoteliers to engage new groups of travelers, there are many exceptional factors which might inhibit these connections from properly forming. With an overview of pertinent information about the country for both the present and the future, several clear and simple actionable steps become apparent. READ MORE

A Forrester study found that today's travelers are not only using mobile devices to research lodging and travel options, but also as a transactional tool to book and communicate onsite preferences directly with the hotel. However, travelers are still having conversations with brands offline, which challenges hotel marketers to explore how to distribute their budget—how much should be spent offline and how much should support online initiatives. Gaining advanced attribution capabilities enables hotel marketers to measure both offline and online investments to confidently optimize their marketing strategies and annual budgets. This article dispels common myths about advanced attribution and provides practical advice on how hotel marketers can best leverage this advanced technique. READ MORE

The Millennial generation is a different breed. The way they live, work, and play is contrary to prior age groups, and in order to attract them you have to appeal to how they want to interact. Not only will it involve changing services and facilities within the hotel, but ways in which you market and sell. Keep in mind that Millennials never existed without computers and smart phones and therefore technology is their go-to resource for research and information. They look at everything on a smartphone not a computer, use social media and texts instead of 800 numbers and voicemail, and have a completely different mindset than the rest of us. As a result, how you position yourself going forward to appeal to this generation — which is on pace to outnumber the Baby Boomers — is now more important than ever. READ MORE