Hotel Marketing Blog

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Posted on Jun 10th 2019 by Bryan Marsh
In recent months, you may have noticed that Google Maps on your website has been made unusable with a message reading "This page cannot load Google Maps correctly." If this has affected you, this is due to the mid-2018 introduction of Google's new Google...
Posted on May 30th 2019 by Bryan Marsh
At eTourism, we're committed to optimised hotel website design and powerful online marketing strategies that generate exposure and increase direct bookings. If you're as keen as we are about getting customers to book direct, take a look at our list of pre...
Posted on May 22nd 2019 by Bryan Marsh
While the OTAs will pull in your hotel's broader audience - yes, a worthwhile strategy if you want to maintain a busy occupancy - it's still no reason to put your feet up and ignore the greater benefits of convincing customers to book direct. Maximising r...
Posted on Apr 30th 2019 by Bryan Marsh
Social media is busier than ever and if you're not using it to market your hotel, you're missing out on a serious opportunity to build a close online relationship with customers that will boost your hotel's popularity, inspire trust and see an exponential...
Posted on Apr 23rd 2019 by Bryan Marsh
With recent studies showing that more than half of today's global website traffic is carried out on portable devices, it's more important than ever to make sure that your website offers the optimal customer experience across the board - not just on deskto...
Posted on Mar 14th 2019 by Bryan Marsh
How's your hotel's SEO campaign shaping up in 2019? As we move into the third month of the year (already!) it's time to recap the big search trends marketers are using to reach their audiences online and the new direction search is moving in. 1. Voice Sea...
Posted on Mar 1st 2019 by Bryan Marsh
In a travel market that's more competitive than ever, the way your hotel's brand makes guests feel can mean the difference between winning repeat bookings or losing out to a competitor. Every key marketing touch point in the booking journey is a chance to...
Posted on Jan 31st 2019 by Bryan Marsh
Where will travel take us in the coming 11 months? From the latest advances in digital payments to ongoing concerns about data security, here are 3 of the leading trends expected to make their mark on 2019. The Evolution Of Payment Cash payments are on th...
Posted on Jan 18th 2019 by Bryan Marsh
Every independent hotel wants to boost its retention rates. Loyal, repeat guests play a crucial role in driving direct bookings, increasing revenue and generating free word of mouth marketing in the form of reviews and referrals. So how can you retain mor...
Posted on Jan 16th 2019 by Bryan Marsh
As we ease into 2019, it's the perfect time to turn over a new leaf (or 3) and think about your hotel's marketing goals for the coming 12 months and the tactics, strategies and best practices you're going to use to achieve them. When it comes to deciding...
Posted on Dec 17th 2018 by iLaunch Support
Your eTourism team are warming up to Christmas, time to spend with family and friends, time to be grateful for what the year has brought, but also to look ahead to challenges and opportunities the New Year will bring. Each year again it's a wonderful expe...
Posted on Dec 14th 2018 by Bryan Marsh
Research conducted by the Spiegel Research Centre in 2017 reveals that incorporating reviews into marketing can boost brand conversions by as much as 270%. When it comes to the travel industry specifically, 93% of travellers will have a read through revie...
Posted on Dec 7th 2018 by Bryan Marsh
At the start of the year, Facebook switched up its news feed algorithm to give priority to content from users' friends and family over posts from brands and businesses. Frustratingly for marketers, this made it more difficult than ever to maximise organic...
Posted on Dec 1st 2018 by Bryan Marsh
As your guests start to plan their Christmas and New Year getaways, it's time to plan how your hotel can capitalise on the seasonal travel market and maximise revenue this holiday season. With competition as fierce as ever, your property needs to fight ag...
Posted on Nov 26th 2018 by Bryan Marsh
If there's one thing marketers love it's shortcuts or, as they've come to be known "hacks." Any trick that helps boost efficiency by speeding up or streamlining a time consuming and boring task is bound to win points, but while some of these shortcuts abs...
Posted on Nov 21st 2018 by Bryan Marsh
With just 6 weeks of 2018 remaining, it's definitely not too early to start looking ahead to the next year in marketing and the tactics you'll be using to rank highly in the search results pages and maximise traffic to your hotel's website in the coming m...
Posted on Nov 12th 2018 by Bryan Marsh
Are your email campaigns' click-through-rates underwhelming? If so, it's time for a rethink. Here are 7 simple but powerfully effective methods to improve your hotel's email CTR, so you can boost levels of engagement and drive more guests back to your hot...
Posted on Nov 2nd 2018 by Bryan Marsh
Despite the "content is king" mantra we're all sick of by now, SEO remains one of the most crucial factors when it comes to making sure your website ranks highly in the Google SERPs and gets clicked on by your guests. But with the digital landscape changi...
Posted on Oct 26th 2018 by Bryan Marsh
The evolution of the digital landscape is rapid and unstoppable. As a marketer you either adapt to emerging trends, technology and strategies or your brand gets lost in the noise. Now that 2018 is drawing to a close, it's a good time to look ahead to the...
Posted on Oct 19th 2018 by Bryan Marsh
Incorporating videos into your marketing mix is no longer an afterthought it's a necessity. But as with every other form of content marketing, it's not enough to simply create high quality videos, you've got to stick to a range of best practices to ensure...
Posted on Oct 12th 2018 by Bryan Marsh
The ultimate aim of any hotel's website is to wrestle traffic away from the OTA's and drive direct bookings. Unfortunately, many properties are driving a steady stream of travellers to their websites only to fall at the final hurdle. If you're seeing high...
Posted on Oct 9th 2018 by Bryan Marsh
What's even more important than creating interesting, engaging blog content which promotes your hotel? Making sure it gets seen. Because without a content promotion strategy built into your blogging campaigns, even the best, most carefully crafted and int...
Posted on Sep 28th 2018 by Bryan Marsh
Email marketing remains one of the most effective, measurable and affordable forms of marketing. When it comes to maximising the reach of your campaigns, it's simple: the bigger your email subscriber list, the more opportunities you have to engage guests...
Posted on Sep 20th 2018 by Bryan Marsh
Competing against Expedia, Booking.com and the other major online travel agents for travellers' attention and bookings is an ongoing battle for all hoteliers. These OTAs are masterfully designed to convert holiday browsers into room bookers within just a...
Posted on Sep 14th 2018 by Bryan Marsh
Content marketing is here to stay. In fact, it's an industry which is predicted to reach an estimated value of $300 billion by 2019. Since content is the king of both present and future digital marketing, it's no surprise that marketers are spending a siz...
Posted on Sep 6th 2018 by Bryan Marsh
Following a spate of concerns about privacy and data protection, it's safe to say Facebook has suffered a blow to public trust in recent months. In response to a string of bad headlines, the social network is once again marking their dedication to improvi...
Posted on Sep 1st 2018 by Bryan Marsh
Publishing new content to your hotel's website on a regular basis is one of the best ways to rank highly in the search results pages and attract a steady stream of traffic. In fact, as much as a third of hotel website traffic comes from blog posts, accord...
Posted on Aug 24th 2018 by Bryan Marsh
With the competition for organic traffic tougher than ever, what kind of risks are you willing to take to secure your hotel's website a better position in the SERPs? For marketers, the temptation to disregard search engine guidelines and draw on black or...
Posted on Aug 16th 2018 by Bryan Marsh
Social media is rapidly changing. Twitter is losing users, Instagram is trying out longer-form video content, and changes to the Facebook newsfeed have made it more difficult for brands to reach their audience organically on the platform. These changes in...
Posted on Aug 13th 2018 by Bryan Marsh
You don't need to hear it again: it's easier (and cheaper) to retain a previous guest than it is to obtain a new one. And one of the most important components of retention marketing is email. In today's blog we'll look at how you can leverage what you alr...
Posted on Aug 6th 2018 by Bryan Marsh
No matter how much the rest of the digital marketing landscape evolves, Google's domination over search remains constant. As of last month, the company accounted for a whopping 90.20% of all mobile searches and 72.21% of those made on desktop. Google's un...
Posted on Jul 27th 2018 by Bryan Marsh
Online shoppers are notoriously impatient, in fact, even a delay as small as one second can cause a sharp decline in page views, conversions and consumer satisfaction rates. And since Google includes site speed among one of the many factors its uses to de...
Posted on Jul 20th 2018 by Bryan Marsh
Every marketer out there has heard about the importance of publishing "quality" content by now. But the definition of quality is open to definition and varies wildly by brand and audience type. For instance, for a while now digital marketers have extolled...
Posted on Jul 10th 2018 by Bryan Marsh
No matter what stage of the holiday planning journey they're at, when guests land on your hotel's website, you want them to complete an action. Sign up for your property's email newsletter, make an enquiry, share your content or make a booking. When it co...
Posted on Jun 22nd 2018 by Bryan Marsh
What is your hotel's digital reputation? Online reputation management (ORM) is all about proactively influencing the information people find about your business online by using strategies to hide unflattering content further down the SERPs by ranking more...
Posted on Jun 14th 2018 by Bryan Marsh
No hotelier really needs to be reminded of the essential role reviews play in the holiday shopping process. But just in case you do, the latest stats show that a massive 95% of guests browse the opinions of other travellers before booking a trip, with Tri...
Posted on Jun 8th 2018 by Bryan Marsh
Most hotel marketers are aware by now that producing high quality content on a regular basis plays an integral role in getting noticed by the right people online. But without the right research to inform and shape that content, creating blog posts can fee...
Posted on May 28th 2018 by Bryan Marsh
Social media is constantly evolving, and it's crucial that your hotel's marketing campaigns keep up or else risk falling flat. No matter what kind of technology you have in place, if the content you create isn't resonating with your guests you're not goin...
Posted on May 19th 2018 by Bryan Marsh
What motivates travellers and inspires them to book? In the crucial early stages of travel planning it's not amenities, room sizes and air conditioning, but the prospect of exciting and enriching experiences; a break from the norm, an escape. During this...
Posted on May 14th 2018 by Bryan Marsh
Facebook custom audiences allow you to target groups of people who have visited your hotel's website and performed (or not performed) certain actions while browsing it. It's a great tool for reaching out to people who are interested in your property, but...
Posted on May 8th 2018 by Bryan Marsh
From news to YouTube tutorials, Snaps to Instagram Stories, Vine and endless cat clips, video is the most popular form of content on the internet. In fact, it's expected to account for as much as 82% of all internet traffic by 2021. For marketers, video...
Posted on Apr 30th 2018 by Bryan Marsh
As holiday browsing and booking increasingly takes place across multiple channels, offering travel shoppers a seamless experience across all devices has become absolutely essential. In the move towards mobile-friendliness, implementing responsive design t...
Posted on Apr 19th 2018 by Bryan Marsh
The seemingly unshakeable grip of the online travel agencies has long been a point of contention for hoteliers trying to maximise profits from online bookings. But how do they do it? Beside the obvious factor of low rates, one of the key reasons for the s...
Posted on Apr 16th 2018 by Bryan Marsh
With the continuing dominance of the OTAs and an ever more competitive online travel market, climbing to a prominent position in the search rankings is more challenging than ever. It takes an ongoing, committed SEO strategy to secure and maintain a high r...
Posted on Apr 6th 2018 by Bryan Marsh
Following a string of recent moves that amp up its presence in the travel sphere, Facebook has recently launched Trip Consideration, a new advertising tool designed to help hotel and travel brands reach consumers at the early stages of the holiday plannin...
Posted on Apr 3rd 2018 by Bryan Marsh
In an industry that's all about creating aspirational experiences, images sell better than words ever can. Investing time and resources to ensure your website features carefully selected, high quality photos of your hotel will pay dividends when it comes...
Posted on Mar 23rd 2018 by Bryan Marsh
Few can dispute the importance of social proof in the travel industry. When planning their breaks, almost all online holiday planners are influenced by the opinions of other travellers when it comes to choosing where to travel and stay. While review sites...
Posted on Mar 15th 2018 by Bryan Marsh
At a time when older generations are tightening their purse strings, adventure-hungry millennials are spending more on travel than ever. Unsurprisingly, it's OTAs that are seeing most of this increased spending, with data revealing that more than 50% of t...
Posted on Mar 9th 2018 by Bryan Marsh
It happens to anyone who produces content regularly. You spend time and effort crafting what you think is the perfect blog post, carefully optimised with the right keywords to rank highly in the SERPs. You post on social media to promote your blog and ale...
Posted on Mar 2nd 2018 by Bryan Marsh
Ever feel like you're reaching social media overload? You're not alone. More and more people are reporting dissatisfaction with the impact social platforms have on their lives. They're a great way to stay in the loop with family and friends sure, but let'...