One of the things that hospitality marketers got "right" before many other industries is the practice of maintaining wonderfully detailed customer records and databases. The problem, however, is many hospitality marketers still haven't learned to use email marketing to its full capacity and they continue to rely primarily on ad hoc email campaigns and direct mail to reach their audiences. By doing so, they completely fail to use the great data they have while it's still fresh, leading to disappointing results. To succeed in today's environment, hospitality companies must do better... READ MORE

The revolution in marketing and business affairs that has placed the customer at the epicenter of all strategic and tactical thinking has become so mainstream that the acronym CRM can be tossed around in television advertisements (see Microsoft's recent ads) without any need for further explanation. From top to bottom, sector to sector, it has become increasingly clear that everybody "gets it" and that the voice of the customer has its place at even the highest level of decision-making. This is particularly true of the hotel industry, where loyalty is king and customer feedback goes a long way towards the maintenance of competitive advantage. But even the most sophisticated combination of clickstream data, usability reports, and attitudinal information might not be enough to know your website visitor completely. READ MORE

It goes without saying that probably the most important people who visit your web site are those that are there to make a reservation. Satisfying their needs quickly and allowing them to get the information they need to complete the reservation process will translate into increased revenue, increased customer loyalty and a high probability that your visitors will refer friends and associates to your web site. One of the first things you must do to make your site "look to book" friendly is understand who is visiting your site and for what purpose. Put another way, what percentage of your total visitors are bookers as opposed to lookers? In a recent report we published with HSMAI and Cindy Estis Green, information from our own client database revealed 41% of all website visitors to hospitality websites come with the intention of making or changing a reservation. Think about that number. Four out of every ten visitors to your site are there to make or change a reservation. What is disturbing is that 21% of the people visiting your site to make or change a reservation abandon the site before completing their purpose of visit. READ MORE

It may seem like too simple a solution, but when you get right down to the basics, the best way to learn what your customers and web site users really want is to ask them. Off-the-shelf behavioral tracking solutions can help you watch what your customers and visitors are doing but to really understand what is going on in their hearts and minds, you have to communicate with them. You have to listen to them and one of the best ways is getting feedback from them - feedback from potential customers as well from your most valued visitors - the online bookers. On the net, the user is king and you should be using your site to engage them in a dialogue. You can't assume by simply watching what they do that you know what they are thinking. Even more important, every opportunity you give your customers and visitors to interact with you is another opportunity to extend your relationship with them and increase lifetime customer value. It builds goodwill and fosters a sense of community that is so critical if you want to increase visit frequency to your site. READ MORE

A recent research report from The Boston Consulting Group estimates that 65% of all online consumers bail out of a transaction and abandon a shopping cart before the transaction is completed. Since there is not that great a difference between making an online purchase and making an online reservation - both requiring the use of a credit card, it is probably a fair guess that the Boston Consulting Group estimate for shopping cart abandonment is not far off the mark for the hospitality sector. In fact, feedback from 34,000 visitors to hospitality web sites captured in The Rush Report on User Satisfaction & Hotel Web Site Performance published by Hospitality e-Business Strategies confirms that the overall "look to book" ratio in the sector is approximately 65/35 - For every ten people who visit your site only three actually make a reservation. Imagine how the numbers might look if you could move that look to book ratio to fifty/fifty. Do the math and I'm sure you will agree reservation abandonment is one of the most important issue facing hospitality web sites today. READ MORE