Laffitte Conseil

Search and social media marketing services for hotels

Lodging Interactive, a provider of interactive marketing services to the hospitality industry, today announced the roll out of comprehensive Search Engine and Social Media integrated marketing services to help hotels drive online awareness and bookings.

Lodging Interactive is taking hospitality Internet Marketing to the next level by combining its proven search optimization techniques with services that allow its clients to manage their online reputation in the rapidly emerging social media web2.0 environment. “Social media web sites and specifically user generated content sites continue to evolve and are becoming increasingly important in the travel industry by having a direct affect on consumer buying decisions. It’s only natural for hotels to start leveraging the enormous reach of these sites,” said Mr. DJ Vallauri, Lodging Interactive’s President & Founder.

According to a recent Deloitte Consumer Product Group study, Deloitte found that 62% of Internet users read product reviews written by other consumers. In travel, 41% of US online leisure travelers use some form of social media tool in their travel research efforts.

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Affiliate marketing effective for online travel marketers

The travel industry is making the most successful use of affiliate marketing, according to research conducted by E-consultancy. The survey into how brands (merchants) use affiliate marketing found that travel marketers spend an average of 16 per cent of their online budget in the channel to drive 18 per cent of their online sales.

Sponsored by buy.at, the survey also reveals that 84 percent of marketers in the travel sector say that affiliate marketing drives a high or medium volume and 56 percent report it is very cost effective for customer acquisition compared with 35 percent saying paid search is very cost-effective and just eight percent for display advertising. None of the travel brands surveyed consider affiliate marketing to be not ‘cost-effective’ but over half thought online display advertising is not cost-effective and over two thirds think mobile advertising is not cost-effective.

This follows the news that 71 percent of travel companies have increased their spend on affiliate marketing over the past two years and around a quarter of travel firms, have at least doubled their investment in the channel. 63 percent intend to increase their spend in the channel over the next two years.

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Best Practices in Developing the 2008 Hotel Internet Marketing Budget

Hoteliers are in the height of the budget planning season for 2008. Understandably, there is a great level of anxiety in the industry. Are you allocating the right budget for hotel marketing? What are your peers doing with their budgets? What are the best practices for 2008? Web 2.0, social media, consumer generated media—what should I do about these new media formats? What are the latest trends in Internet marketing and how should I account for them in the new budget? For a second year in a row, Hospitality eBusiness Strategies  takes a closer look at some important aspects of Internet marketing in hospitality and what marketing activities and line items should comprise the 2008 Internet marketing budget.

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Asia Web Direct signs Starwood

Thailand-based Asia Web Direct (AWD), an online hotel reservation and travel services provider that operates more than 100 websites covering popular destinations all over Southeast Asia, has signed an agreement with Starwood Hotels & Resorts to promote and distribute its fast-growing number of properties in the Asia Pacific region.

The websites in the AWD stable attract a staggering three million visitors monthly, and include top-ranking travel portals like Phuket.com, Bangkok.com and the very popular last-minute hotel reservation site LateStays.com. The Starwood partnership follows a similar agreement AWD recently signed with Accor Hotels.

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Hyatt Place™ Introduces the Hotel Industry’s First Location-Based Webpage Using iGoogle™

Hyatt Place today announced the hotel industry’s first customized webpage populated with location-specific content using iGoogle1. This marks the first time a hotel brand is providing guests with the ability to immediately view relevant, local online content to assist them during their stay.

All guests taking advantage Hyatt Place’s complimentary Wi-Fi will now access Google’s services and view location-specific content immediately once they log in, including:

• Local weather, traffic conditions, date and time
• The hotel’s Google Maps™ location and driving directions service
• Widgets from FlightStats.com and Gmail™, Google’s email application
• Some of Google’s most popular RSS feeds, including CNN.com, USA Today’s travel section, People magazine and CBS Sportsline

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10 ways to optimize your hotel website through copy

Search engine optimization – or SEO – is a complex science, designed to increase the visibility of a website in the search engines’ natural results through the modification of certain key elements and site attributes. The most successful SEO campaigns for hotel and travel websites fully acknowledge and address the hundreds of different factors that the search engines use to determine the relevancy of a site to any given term – from its posted content and architectural structure, to the age of its primary URL and affiliation with other high-ranking sites.

Recognizing that copy is just one of many tools that should be engaged in a comprehensive SEO strategy, how can it be used to increase your hotel website’s natural search-engine rankings? The following list of tips provides an excellent starting point in the process of increasing your site’s visibility through effective SEO copywriting.

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Indirect route to customers works on Web

The sweeping success of online social networks like MySpace and Facebook has created new avenues for businesses - from New Balance to TripAdvisor - to market themselves.

Since Facebook opened up its platform to third-party users in May (allowing anyone to offer a free tool or game for Facebook users to download) Web traffic on the site has taken off at warp speed. Last month 33.7 million US Web users visited Facebook, up 46.5 percent from April, according to comScore Media Metrix, a firm that tracks Internet traffic.

One month after Facebook allowed outsiders in, TripAdvisor, the Needham-based online travel guide, launched an application called "Cities I've Visited," which the company's chief executive, Stephen Kaufer, likened to the maps children used to festoon with pins showing the different places they had visited. At last count, over 2 millions folks had installed the application on their profile page, Kaufer said.

"We certainly considered other social networks but what's particularly appealing about Facebook now is the viral nature of the news feed," said Kaufer. When someone installs an application, all of their friends are notified. And each time they update their profile friends are again notified which, Kaufer said, raises their curiosity. "Of all of their friends, some portion will check out and install the application, which in turn, causes more people to notice."

Facebook is currently the sixth-most-trafficked website in the United States, with members visiting the site an average of 2.3 times a day.

Two months after TripAdvisor launched "Cities I've Visited," it offered "Traveler I.Q. Challenge," a game that users can customize to ask geography-related questions, such as where events have taken place (from historic Olympic triumphs, to college pub crawls, for example) or where places are located according to topography, world capitals, or anything the imagination can conjure up. Depending upon how quickly players can find the correct location, or how close they are on the map, they receive a certain number of points. Players compete against their friends to see who has the highest traveler I.Q. Of course, the TripAdvisor icon is on the page, so with a click of the mouse, viewers can be transported to its site.

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Online travel videos, the next wave in social media sites

So are online travel videos the next wave in travel User Generated Content sites? All indications would appear to point in that direction.

In July, founders of igougo, who sold their business to Sabre in 2006, set up an online travel video website, www.tripfilms.com. With the tagline, "travel inspired", the site provides user generated videos of "authentic experiences" from around the world.

Last week, BBC World bought a 75% stake in Lonely Planet with its International Director of BBC Worldwide, Ian Watson, saying, "What we hope to be able to do very quickly is enrich, particularly in the online space, and increase the amount of video and audio content available to inspire travellers."

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Visa and Asiatravel.com join hands

Asiatravel.com and Visa International have signed a strategic partnership that will give Visa cardholders access to exclusive travel deals and discounts on the website.

Visa data shows that Asia Pacific Visa cardholders spent more than US$2.8 billion on travel via the internet to the year ended July 2007.

Meranda Chan, Country manager for Singapore and Brunei, Visa International said this highlights that consumers are looking to the internet to not only research their next trip but also to book and pay for it online.

Asiatravel.com deals available for Visa cardholders include:
• Pay two nights and get the third night free on the Thai island of Koh Yao, valid to 27 October
• 3D/2N golf packages at leading Thai hotels and resorts such as Northern Heritage Resort and Spa in Chiangmai, valid to 27 October

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Vietnam Golf Association formed at Ho Chi Minh Golf Trail stop

In a move that closely complements the July 2007 launch of the Ho Chi Minh Golf Trail, Vietnamese course owners and officials met at Kings’ Island Golf Club to discuss and celebrate the formation of a formal governing body for golf in  Vietnam.

The gathering took place a day after representatives from all seven Ho Chi Minh Golf Trail clubs, in addition to more than 150 Vietnamese golf officials, vendors and dignitaries, committed to the organization of a Vietnam Golf Association (VGA) — responsible for uniform course ratings, handicapping services and nationwide tournament administration — in 2008.

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