In today's tempestuous economy, with demand and hotel occupancies declining, hoteliers are looking for strategies to drive demand for their hotel. Many use discounting as their sole strategy for maintaining occupancy. What they find, however, is that cutting prices alone does not drive new demand; it only diminishes the return on existing demand. What they should be focused on is capturing more of the demand that is already there-that is, gaining market share from the competition. Price is part, but not all, of a winning strategy. READ MORE

There has been an increasing level of interest over the past several years in virtual tours as a way to generate the interest of prospective hospitality guests. Virtual tours are a specialty type of photography that allows the viewer to experience everything surrounding the camera. Virtual tours provide a great tool for online or offline marketing to prospective private or business hotel guests who want to know exactly what features and amenities are offered at a particular property. While two-dimensional photos can simply highlight areas of your properties online, virtual tours bring your potential guests into the center of a scene where they can interactively scan entire areas within one image. Studies have shown that interactivity on websites increases satisfaction and keeps visitors on your site longer. Virtual tours have proven to facilitate property promotion and reflect a more professional and sophisticated brand. Once created, a virtual tour serves as an evergreen online presentation of the best your facilities have to offer. The atmosphere and style of travel accommodations are a major determining factor, in addition to price, location and availability. Further, a virtual tour can better communicate the value and feel of a property than a written description or a two-dimensional photography. READ MORE

After some consideration, it's now time for you to capture a virtual tour. Perhaps your competitors are marketing their properties using virtual tours, showing off their high-quality accommodations for business and leisure. Or perhaps you have had a professional virtual tour photographer call on you, pointing out the potential return on investment of virtual tour photography on your web site, in-lobby kiosk, or off-line CDROM marketing piece. Or perhaps you want your in-house marketing department to utilize new approaches to creating demand for your companies' hospitality services. No matter what the reason, once you have decided to capture a virtual tour, you will invariably wonder which type of virtual tour photography to use. Like many technical specialties, there are many options and "speeds and feeds" related to panoramic photography. Considerations go beyond the simple quantification of total cost. Yes, at the end of it, cost will be the most tangible consideration. But for approximately the same cost, you will have a wide range of options available. How do you decide which is best for your need? READ MORE

Some companies in the hospitality industry consider a simple online presence to be all they need in order to compete. For these companies, one or two pages with a company logo, a street address, contact information, and a couple of photographs is more than enough to represent the business to those searching online locally. As a requirement for doing business in the Internet age, it is often difficult to quantify the return on investment of this type of basic Web presence. Intuitively, it is easy to see the damage a lack of a simple Internet presence can have on even the smallest bed & breakfast. Conversely, the marginal cost of developing a one or two page website is comparable to a days' utility bill or less. Clearly, the vast majority of the hospitality industry has embraced the power of online content. The question is: have we all harnessed its full revenue-generating potential? READ MORE

Showcasing hotel property through photography is a complicated process in this modern digital age. Today, photography is no longer used simply for print materials such as brochures or other promotional pieces. The contemporary business and leisure traveler often expects to be able to experience a prospective property online. Increasingly, potential visitors also want to visually explore the full range of services offered at a facility including rooms, health club, pool, restaurants, conference rooms and concierge lounge. Virtual tour photography is a natural for this type of presentation. Although the idea of photographing a property or properties might seem like a no-brainer, the actual project from thought to product can be a daunting task. In any type of photography project, there needs to be a strong organizational aspect and numerous decisions should be made in advance to avoid excessive waste of time and money. READ MORE