After the much ballyhooed success of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) in some of the other areas of the travel supply and value chains - including airlines, casinos and even credit card companies - it's been prophesized that CRM will be the panacea to cure many of the hotel industry's current ailments. And considering that our industry, while traditionally late to the game, does eventually play "follow the leader" on a wide variety of technologies and services, it's not surprising that so many pundits have expected us to jump on the CRM bandwagon. Unfortunately, CRM as it's being described (and in some instances being deployed) appears destined to be just yet another futile treasure hunt - the heir to TQM, ERP, Six Sigma and the rest of yesterday's magic cures. Not to say that CRM offers no value - quite the opposite. The issue, however, is that to be truly valuable to the hospitality industry, CRM needs to be dramatically altered from its traditional view as a transactional technology into a more beneficial operational service that has a meaningful impact not just on the marketing department, but on our guests themselves during their visit. READ MORE

Today's travelers are more tech savvy than ever. This means that when a consumer turns to your Web site he or she expects an engaging and rewarding experience, as sophisticated as any other online shopping experience. Advancements in Web technology are paving the way for the ultimate online customer experience. This creates a catch-22 for hotels, since it creates both a challenge and an opportunity. The Web gives travelers easy access to information not only about your hotel, but also your competitors' properties. The challenge here is to never give your guests a reason to abandon your Web site. The opportunity is that if you can keep them coming back for more visits, you can captivate new visitors and ensure their satisfaction so they become repeat and profitable customers. Below, I offer ten strategic secrets to help improve the customer experience for visitors to your Web site, and thus grow online bookings and increase your ability to strengthen longer term customer loyalty. READ MORE

Hotel managers and sales directors seem to forget that while they see their beautiful hotel or resort everyday, the rest of the world doesn't. The idea eludes them that before vacationers make reservations at an expensive resort, they want to see the property. And there's a "disconnect" between the website and their other advertising and marketing tools. Its always puzzled me why hotels keep their Virtual Tour a "secret." Some don't put a link to the tour on their website main navigation menu and don't guide callers to the tour over the phone. Using other advertising and marketing media to drive traffic to your website (hotel or franchise) just makes sense. READ MORE

The call to the Sales Department comes in, "Hello, I'd like some information about having a wedding reception for 200 people at your hotel." Now you have to convince the bride-to-be your hotel is "thee" place to hold her reception, before she asks you to mail her one of your banquet menu/info packages and moves on calling her list of your competitors for their banquet menu/info packages. There wouldn't be a problem if you could magically transport one of your brochures over the telephone or if they were visiting your property. Sales or Reservations would just take them on a Property Tour. The good news is, it is possible to send your brochure over phone lines and take a potential customer on a long distance property tour. All it takes is a well-planned website and a Virtual Tour. READ MORE

I plan to be in Crete for a conference this spring. My husband and I love Greece, so we are thinking of bringing our children along, and stopping in Athens for a couple of days on our way to Crete. Not knowing where to stay, I started with a Google search for "hotels Athens". Google returned 1,510,000 results. Gee, that narrows it down. So what will make me decide which results to click on? Obviously, results on the first page, or first couple of pages, are the most likely to get looked at, so search engine optimization of your site and/or search engine advertising are crucial. But let's assume for a moment that you've done that successfully, and landed on the first page of results. Here's what I had to choose from... READ MORE